Category Archives: Human Accomplishment

Best Headbanger Ever: Simone Simons Sings ‘The Haunting’ By Kamelot

Culture, Europe, Human Accomplishment, Music

Any prog rockers in the house? Two? Better than none. Good progressive rock is as popular as H. L. Mencken these days.

No wonder Kamelot did not keep the marvelous, classically trained mezzo-soprano Simone Simons. Too much competition (and jealous wives). Best headbanger ever. Superb singer, too.

“The Haunting,” a song on Kamelot’s “The Black Halo” CD, sports a strong melody and fine arrangements, to say nothing of solid playing and stunning vocals from the backup singer, Ms. Simons mentioned. Then again, the instrumentals make it clear these lads listen to symphonies—from Mozart to Mahler.

Not that lyrics matter much, but for inspiration, the band draws on imagery evoked by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. How tellingly Western.

Heroic, epic, grand themes serve as a contrast to the self—and inner-injury—obsessed themes that animate today’s musical illiterati.

“The Haunting”
Merely the sound of your voice
Made me believe that, that you were her
Just like the river disturbs
My inner peace
Once I believed I could find
Just a trace of her beloved soul
Once I believed she was all
Then she smothered my believes
One cold winter’s night
I may follow her voice to the river
Somewhere in time I will find you and haunt you again
Like the wind sweeps the earth
Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend
You’ve fallen deep
How could that first time recur
When memories linger on and on
What made me think you were her
Helena is dead to all
Dead to all
Nothing can bring her to life
Don’t pretend that I’ll be loving you
Once I believed she was gone
I corrupted from within
Leave me for now and forever
Leave what you can
Somewhere in time I will find you and haunt you again
Like the wind sweeps the earth
Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend
You’ve fallen deep
I was a liar in every debate
I rule the forces that fueled your hate
When the cold in my heart leaves, it comes to an end
Quietly now go to sleep
Follow me into the light
Like ice on a lake of tears
I’ll take you through
Or leave me tonight
I’ve gone too far to begin all anew
With someone like you
Somewhere in time I will find you and love you again
Like the wind sweeps the earth
Somewhere in time when no virtues are left to defend
You’ve fallen deep
I was a liar in every debate
I rule the forces that fueled you hate
When the cold in my heart leaves, it comes to and end
Quietly I’ll go to sleep

RELATED: “March Of Mephisto By Kamelot.”

UPDATED (7/2/019): About Those ‘Brilliant’ Imported Workers: Americans Are SIGNIFICANTLY Better. Proven.

Business, Donald Trump, Family, Human Accomplishment, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Outsourcing

Doff of the hat to reader JM, who sent this, after reading “Visas for ‘The Brilliant’ Is Kushner Code For Replacing You“:

Here is a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

Abstract

“We assess and compare computer science skills among final-year computer science undergraduates (seniors) in four major economic and political powers that produce approximately half of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates in the world. We find that seniors in the United States substantially outperform seniors in China, India, and Russia by 0.76–0.88 SDs and score comparably with seniors in elite institutions in these countries. Seniors in elite institutions in the United States further outperform seniors in elite institutions in China, India, and Russia by 0.85 SDs. The skills advantage of the United States is not because it has a large proportion of high-scoring international students. Finally, males score consistently but only moderately higher (0.16–0.41 SDs) than females within all four countries.”

As JM distills it,

This study found that American computer science student greatly outperform those from India and China (the biggest source of H-1B). It also found that the average American student outperforms students in elite school in those countries. The talent is in the United States; in in India or China.
The very purpose of the H-1B program is to replace American workers with cheap, foreign labor. No other description of the program fits what Congress has enacted.
The line that H-1B is for high-skilled workers to fill jobs that Americans cannot fill is entirely spin that has no basis in the H-1B statutes. In 1998, Congress explicitly made it legal to replace Americans with H-1B workers.

UPDATED (7/2/019):

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NEW COLUMN: The Trump ‘Shithole Countries’ Bygone Era

Business, Crime, Donald Trump, Family, Globalism, Human Accomplishment, IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Populism, Race, The West

NEW COLUMN is “The Trump ‘Shithole Countries’ Bygone Era.” It’s now on WND.COM and The Unz Review.

Essentially, “once a country transitions to “shithole” status, it is well-nigh impossible to make it great again. … And once a populist president takes dictation from his globalist daughter … well, you know the rest.”

MORE:

“Donald Trump went into a gathering of special interests, on March 6. It was comprised of Goldman-Sachs Democrat Ivanka Trump, American multinational CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook and assorted Chamber of Commerce lobbyists.

The president of the United States (POTUS) then emerged with assurances to all those lowly American workers sick of rising wages and growing employment opportunists. He was now fully committed to the importation of still more foreign workers to “give … to large companies.” Yes! He listened! Deplorables were getting sick of winning.

Ivanka, who clearly calls the shots on the un-American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, sermonized blithely about retraining American workers (who don’t have daddies to hire them).

Last year, when the same kind of cabal tried to make Trump dance to its drums, POTUS responded with his notorious “shithole countries” epithet. He was not bringing in people from, well, you know the rest.

All this made me long for the time Gen. John Kelly, formerly White House chief of staff, was present to stop first daughter Ivanka from, as the general put it, “playing government.”

Nostalgically, I traveled back in time to survey the Trump “shithole countries” designation—and destinations. Was he proven right in his aversion to accelerating the tipping point in our own country?

Haiti is located in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba. The country is forever convulsed by political or natural disasters. In January of 2010, this, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere—where four out of five people live in poverty and more than half in abject poverty (NYT)—was struck by a massive, magnitude-7.0 earthquake.

The rescuers, spokespersons, geological surveyors and geophysicists; the missionaries, medicine and military men and women; the aid-deliverers—most all were Westerners. Without the West, Haitians would no longer be hobbling along in their post-apocalyptic zombie land.” ….

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN, “The Trump ‘Shithole Countries’ Bygone Era,” is now on WND.COM and The Unz Review.

Chile

 

UPDATED (10/16/018): Christine Blasey Ford Is A Hero, Says Professor Ho From University Of North Carolina

Cultural Marxism, Culture, English, Feminism, Gender, Human Accomplishment

Jennifer Ho is a professor of English (not the English I love and know, but a thing called “Critical Theory”) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s Department of English and Comparative Literature. Yes, the appropriately named Ho teaches your kids (and you, alas, allow her to have at them).

Ho instructs young people about literature—but also about who they should and should not hold up as heroes.

And a hero, to Prof. Ho, is an individual like Christine Blasey Ford, “the college professor who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school in the early 1980s.”

Ho implored on Twitter:

PLEASE CONSIDER SIGNING AND RE-TWEETING IF YOU ARE UNC AFFILIATED (alums/students/faculty/staff): Signatures supporting the nomination of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for a Distinguished Alumna Award at UNC Chapel Hill.”

Do these females even understand the meaning of heroism? Clearly not.

A self-styled victim who makes claims against others with little proof is no hero.

UPDATE (10/16/018):

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