Civilization goes back a LONG way in Europe
I am going to risk being labelled a white supremacist by my interest in pre-history. What I have found is that Europe seems to be where civilization as we know it first evolved. Egypt and Mesopotamia eat your hearts out!
I am talking about what archaeologists call the Vinca culture. It has left thousands of artifacts so it is in no way obscure. From what we have found of their artifacts, we can deduce quite a lot about them.
The big surprise is how old the objects are. They had been assumed to be more recent than the artifacts from Egypt and Mesopotamia but radiocarbon dating has thrown that into a cocked hat. Vinca predates Egypt by at least a thousand years.
The artifact that tells me most is the one below. It is clearly a type of chariot with very clearly defined and quite modern-looking wheels. It is drawn by birds so is symbolic. The chariot of the Gods is a familiar concept in antiquity (e.g. Psalm 68:17) and it looks like it was thought of in our most ancient European past. See below.
Does it mean that the wheel was invented in EUROPE? It seems likely. Below is another article about Vinca. The original includes images of many Vinca artifacts
There was once a mysterious European culture, which left a legacy in the form of valuable artifacts covered with an unknown, never successfully deciphered script. These artifacts have been excavated from sites in south-east Europe.
Ancient Vinca Culture
The culture that flourished from about 6000 BC to 3000 BC, was named Vinca-Tordos Culture of Yugoslavia and western Romania and derived its name from the village of Vinca located on the banks of the Danube river, only 14 km downstream from Belgrade.
A century ago, a great discovery was made at the Danube riverbank. Panta, an old man from Vinča accidentally found a strange clay figurine: This mysterious figurine was puzzling to him so he took it to the National Museum in Belgrade in order to find the explanation. The figurine was soon recognized as an artifact that dated back to the late Stone Age.
Since then, a number of archaeological excavations have revealed numerous cultural layers of a civilization and its largest Neolithic settlement in Europe, dating back more than 7,000 years BC.
The Vinca legacy includes among others, curious masks and the most informative costumed figurines depicting women in extremely modern clothes like narrow skirts, and sleeveless upper-body panels, complimented with hip belts, aprons, jewelry, shoes, caps, hairstyles, bracelets, necklaces, and medallions.
There have also been unearthed different kinds of tools and weapons and the remains of prehistoric houses with the furniture and many other objects created in the Vinca region or brought from remote areas.
Since the language of the Vinca still remains undeciphered, unearthed artifacts constitute the only source of knowledge about this culture. Vinca's living style reminds us of our own. They lived in houses that had very complex architectural layouts and several rooms.
The houses faced northeast-southwest and were separated by streets. Vinca people had stoves in their houses, preceding the Romans in using these devices. They used special holes only for rubbish, and had the same tradition as we have, to bury people in cemeteries.
The development of copper metallurgy is evident during the latter part of the Vinca culture's evolution.
Among unearthed artifacts, there have been found a large number of figurines made of clay and other artifacts depicting worshipped deities and women in miniskirts, short tops, wearing jewelry.
It is hard to believe that women that lived several millennia ago wore miniskirts, unless, the cult of Mother Goddess was very widespread and reached both the south-east parts of Europe and ancient India.
Similar, made of ceramic clay, figurines of Mother Goddess, were found in excavations in Mohenjo-Daro, located along the Indus River in ancient India (present-day Pakistan).
Was this kind of clothes popular 7,500 years ago?
The Vinca Culture - Europe's biggest prehistoric civilization - point to a metropolis with a great degree of sophistication and a taste for art and fashion.
Numerous figurines related to the Vinca Culture bear 'markings that clearly indicate clothing, bequeathing a wealth of costume detail. The Vinca culture in the Danube River basin, from the end of the sixth through the fifth millennia B.C., left the most informative costumed figurines.
These images bear deep incisions encrusted with white paste or red ocher emulating fringe, hip belts, aprons, narrow skirts, and sleeveless upper-body panels. The Vinca artisans sans also modeled a variety of shoes, caps, hairstyles, bracelets, necklaces, and medallions...
Figurines with clothing and ornaments appear either bare-breasted or fully clad. Several dress combinations recur persistently on bare-breasted images. Some wear only a hip belt or a hip belt supporting either an apron or an entire fringed skirt. Others wear a tight skirt and nothing else...'
An important question is: Is the legacy of the Vinca culture evidence of the ever known earliest manifestation of the Divine Power and well-evolved and widespread Mother Goddess worship cult?
Many terracotta figurines of the Mother Goddess were recovered in excavations at various archaeological sites of Indus Valley. Naturally, orthodox science proposes a classical explanation to this phenomenon and say that the proto Mother, the symbol of female fertility, is depicted on prehistoric figurines.
Mysterious Vinca Culture Is Among The Most Advanced Prehistoric Societies In Europe
On many of the artifacts excavated from sites in south-east Europe, there have been found the Vinca symbols. Here are common symbols used throughout the Vinca period:
Since the inscriptions are all short and appear on objects found in burial sites, and the language represented is not known, it is highly unlikely they will ever be deciphered.
In some way, Vinca's past is both forgotten and lost.
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An alternative to affirmative action
By Steve QJ, who is black
If I hated myself enough to live with the people advertising this apartment, I’d get a $50 a month discount based solely on the colour of my skin. No forms to fill out. No income declaration. No proof of historical oppression. A paper bag means test, if you will.
In Portland, Oregon, I’d qualify for a lifelong 15% discount at a spa called Luna Wellness. Why? Because “BIPOC people have been denied basic needs [like organic facials and Luna’s signature herbal massages] for far too long.“
At Blue Iris Mystery School, I’m eligible for a hefty 50% off their “Magic Self & Spirit Program,” for no better reason than that the selves and spirits of my ancestors came from sub-Saharan Africa.
And while I resent the implication that only white people can afford to pay their rent, while I’m insulted by the suggestion that my ancestry is something to be pitied, while it’s exhausting to be endlessly viewed through a lens of racial oppression, what really annoys me is how crappy these offerings are.
I mean, come on. If you’re going to pity me, at least give me something I can use.
On August 28th, 1963, the same day Martin Luther King shared his iconic dream, nine other civil rights leaders gave speeches focused primarily on ending employment discrimination. In fact, the march where King delivered his famous speech was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
A year later, in Why We Can’t Wait, King laid out the case for what would eventually be known as affirmative action:
…the nation must not only radically readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present but must incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the handicaps he has inherited from the past.
It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special for him now?
But the cruel irony of the civil rights movement is that as soon as it succeeded, as soon as it became illegal to discriminate against African Americans, it also became illegal to discriminate in favour of African Americans in order to provide that “compensatory consideration.”
And so, for almost as long as it’s existed, affirmative action has been under legal attack.
It’s hard to imagine two people better placed to present the opposing sides of this debate than Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor and Thomas, both of whom were beneficiaries of affirmative action at Yale.
Thomas, who grew up in Georgia during Jim Crow, considers black people to be the “main victims” of race-conscious admissions:
Not only are they subjected to white paternalism, but it stigmatizes black people’s achievements as less than that of white people. […] As much as it stung to be told that I’d done well in the seminary despite my race, it was far worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it.
But Sotomayor, who grew up in a housing project in the Bronx, would never have been able to go to Yale if not for affirmative action:
I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. […] The question is not, how did I get in? It’s, what did I do when I got there? And with pride, I can say I graduated at the top of my class.
Thomas thinks affirmative action encourages the belief that people of colour need preferential treatment to succeed. And he’s right. Sotomayor thinks affirmative action gives candidates who don’t fit Yale’s typical mould the opportunity to succeed. She’s right too.
But here, we see the problem. Sotomayor’s circumstances, not her skin, made her deserving of support. Thomas’ ability and hard work, not his skin, brought him success. The problem with race-based affirmative action is that it treats skin colour and disadvantage as if they’re synonyms. And worse, this works against those who need help the most.
For example, according to Harvard’s figures, 71% of their minority students are socio-economically advantaged. The same is true at most other elite colleges. In other words, while these campuses might look superficially “diverse,” hardly any of their minority students come from underprivileged backgrounds. They’re just privileged kids with darker skin.
And yet, by eliminating practices like Z lists and legacy preferences (that overwhelmingly benefit wealthy white students), and by giving socioeconomic status even half the weight that they currently give athletes, the proportion of first-generation minority students at Harvard would increase from 7% to around 25%.
Under this system, even if you removed “race” as a factor completely, overall minority representation would increase from 28% to 30%. And crucially, that representation would be socioeconomic rather than superficial.
King makes a similar point in his “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged”:
It is a simple matter of justice that America, in dealing creatively with the task of raising the Negro from backwardness, should also be rescuing a large stratum of the forgotten white poor.
A Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged, applicable to white and Negro families alike with annual incomes of less than $3,000, could mark the rise of a new era, in which the full resources of the society would be used to attack the tenacious poverty which so paradoxically exists in the midst of plenty.
As King explains, discriminating by skin colour, even to fix past discrimination, misses the point. The goal is to help people, all people, who need help. To foster environments where individuals from genuinely diverse backgrounds interact with each other. To support people who, due to poverty or a lack of access to quality education, find themselves with more talent than opportunity.
Solutions aimed at helping these people will disproportionately benefit people of colour, which is as it should be. Because people of colour have spent hundreds of years being deliberately disadvantaged in these areas.
But these solutions will also benefit poor and underprivileged white people. And this is also as it should be. Because a world that discriminates by need is superior in every way to a world that continues to discriminate by skin colour.
Best of all, it’s perfectly legal to discriminate against trust fund babies.
America was founded on a fault line so deep it almost tore the country apart. “All men are created equal,” cannot live alongside “some men are born slaves.”
And affirmative action, while morally incomparable, struggles with a similar contradiction.
“No person in the United States shall be discriminated against on the ground of race, color, or national origin," cannot live indefinitely alongside diversity quotas and “race-conscious” admissions policies.
Race-based affirmative action makes the same mistake that all race-based thinking makes; it presumes that people whose skin is the same colour are all the same. Or that they all face the same socioeconomic hurdles. That their presence in a group automatically equals “diversity.” This was a reasonable assumption in 1964. But not in 2022.
So to the wellness centres and “mystery schools” and the terminally “woke” roommates of the world, if you want to help people, good for you. But do so based on their need. Not whether their visible membership of a minority earns you virtue-signalling points.
Because these people don’t need preferential treatment. They don’t need tokenism. They don’t need anything more than the opportunity to show what they can do. Don’t pity them, just give them something they can use.
https://steveqj.medium.com/affirmative-actions-race-problem-35fd606c38ff
********************************************************Faith Leaders Warn So-Called Respect for Marriage Act Will Hack Away at Religious Freedom
Leaders of faith-based institutions warned The Daily Signal on Tuesday that the Democrat-led Respect for Marriage Act, which is expected to be voted on by the Senate Wednesday, would hack away at the religious freedom of faith-based groups.
HR 8404 “provides statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages,” repealing provisions that define marriage as between a man and a woman.
The legislation, which was passed by the House in July, also “repeals and replaces provisions that do not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states with provisions that prohibit the denial of full faith and credit or any right or claim relating to out-of-state marriages on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin,” allows “the Department of Justice to bring a civil action,” and “establishes a private right of action for violations.”
Democratic advocates say the legislation promotes equality, but religious leaders warn that it explicitly targets people of faith.
Stephen Minnis, president of the Catholic Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, warned The Daily Signal that “Catholic institutions will have a tough time living our faith under this legislation.”
“In fact,” he said, “giving religious institutions a tough time seems to be the point of the legislation. But the U.S. Constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, not just expression of religion. Benedictine College is committed to those rights, following the U.S. bishops, who joined an amici brief to defend our position this summer.”
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the founder of Project Genesis and the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, said in a Tuesday phone interview that the so-called Respect for Marriage Act is the federal government “explicitly declaring the Bible is wrong,” noting that the legislation allows “any private actor to initiate a lawsuit if a religious school wishes to recognize only traditional marriages.”
The act “means exposing our community to a host of bad actors willing to engage in litigation,” Menken said. “The Jewish community is used to periodic efforts to misuse the law to abuse our rights to live according to our religion.”
“Here you have a piece of legislation that exposes every traditional Jewish practitioner of anything to potential litigation,” he warned.
Richard Callahan, a pastor at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in North Carolina, described the legislation as “an assault.”
“It is asking pastors and school administrators and parents to condone what God has condemned,” he told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday phone interview.
The government can “make same-sex marriage legal, but it will never be moral, and we will never be able to defend that, but it’s government reaching in and taking from us the free exercise of religion,” added Callahan, who is also president of the North Carolina branch of the American Association of Christian Schools.
Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation, condemned the legislation in a Tuesday statement that accused Democrats of “threatening to empower woke activists inside and outside of government to attack people of faith with this bill that will be used as a cudgel against those who believe in the reality of marriage as between a man and a woman.”
“This bill provides no benefit or protection that same-sex couples don’t already have,” he warned. “All this bill does is target people of faith who don’t support woke ideology.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation)
Severino praised a “robust religious liberty amendment” introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, saying that it would “provide real protection for religious liberty and could address some of this bill’s massive problems.”
“Americans were told that same-sex marriage was about live and let live, yet now liberals are going out of their way to undermine the religious freedom of millions of Americans,” said Severino. “No matter how the Left spins this, this legislation sets a national policy for same-sex marriage that would declare open season on people of faith. Americans deserve to have their First Amendment rights protected, not attacked.”
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UK: Suella Braverman tells police to focus on 'tackling crime, not debating gender on Twitter'
Home Secretary Suella Braverman today told police chiefs to ensure their officers are focused on 'common sense policing' and not 'debating gender on Twitter'.
In a forthright speech to a police chiefs' conference in London, Mrs Braverman took a swipe at 'politically correct distractions' as she urged a 'back to basics approach'.
The Home Secretary promised action to ensure police time was prioritised on dealing with 'threats to people and their property'.
Mrs Braverman - who was swiftly reappointed to her role by new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last month, despite having been forced to resign six days earlier over security breaches - outlined how she thought officers could ensure they retain public confidence.
'The way to ensure public confidence in the police is to focus on getting the basics right,' she told a joint summit of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, and National Police Chiefs' Council.
'What I call "common sense policing". The kind of policing the law-abiding, patriotic majority of British people deserves and expects.
'No politically correct distractions, just good old-fashioned policing – with a relentless focus on making our streets, homes and transport networks safer.
'Responding to all burglaries, tackling anti-social behaviour and the horrendous trade in illegal drugs, and supporting victims.'
'The Government wants to see reductions in homicide, other serious violence, and neighbourhood crime,' she added.
'I know it's possible. Our best police officers are, simply put, the finest in the world.'
The Home Secretary praised Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, for his 'superb leadership' in improving the performance of the force.
She said: 'How did he do it? He put more bobbies on the beat, pursued every crime, made excellent use of stop and search, and insisted that officers were smartly turned out with polished boots.
'A back to basics approach. For me, that is excellence in policing.'
In a promise of action on 'non-crime hate incidents' to free up police time, Mrs Braverman told delegates: 'Your police officers' time is precious.
'The public want the police to be tackling crime, not debating gender on Twitter.
'I have asked my officials to revisit the issue of non-crime hate incidents as a first step.
'As I want to be sure that we are allowing you to prioritise your time and your energy to deal with threats to people and their property.'
The College for Policing recently updated the guidance on 'non-crime hate incidents' in response to ex-police officer Harry Miller's successful legal challenge over alleged transphobic tweets.
Campaigners have expressed fears that 120,000 non-crime hate incidents being logged on police computers in Britain had impacted on people applying for jobs such as teachers or carers.
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Western Australia: democratic freedoms for religious schools under attack
On August 16, Western Australia’s Attorney General John Quigley tabled in Parliament the Law Reform Commission’s report into the Review of the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (Project 111). As stated on the website of the Western Australian government, the Commission, which authored the report and where I served for five years (2012-17), made 163 recommendations including anti-discrimination protections to those that identify as ‘trans, gender-diverse, or non-binary without the need for recognition from the Gender Reassignment Board’, as well as strengthening legal protections for ‘LGTQIA+ staff and students in religious schools’.
The understanding in this recommendation to portray religious schools as somehow different from other social institutions is unfortunate. When recruiting staff or appointing officeholders, a political party could be expected to display discrimination resembling that practised by religious bodies. It is reasonable, for example, that a politician from the Labor Party might discriminate against individuals with conservative views when recruiting staff for her office team. Likewise, environmental advocacy bodies such as Greenpeace or the Australian Conservation Foundation might reasonably be expected to discriminate against Climate Change sceptics when appointing scientists to their Scientific Advisory Committees.
Why then is it considered necessary, in some quarters, to curtail the ability of religious organisations to follow positive discrimination practices when seeking to develop their organisations according to their core values? This is why the general exception guaranteed under the present legislation in WA should continue to apply to all employment positions of religious schools, and include all attributes of employees except for race, age, and a person’s responsibilities as a career. Of course, some religious schools may only need protections for some employment positions, but the State should still provide these schools with the same right to make these decisions and protections that are often provided to other organisations whereby membership is strictly based on other relevant attributes such as gender, sexuality, political opinions, or race. As law professor Patrick Parkinson writes from a Christian perspective:
‘The issue of Christian issues is not the right to ‘discrimination’. That puts the issue in negative and pejorative terms. The core claim is a right of positive selection. Christian schools and organisations only ask to be treated equally with other employers that may have legitimate reasons for wanting to appoint only those with certain characteristic relevant to the identity of the organisation. It is quite understandable that gay bars might prefer to appoint only gay staff, that Thai restaurants might prefer to have Thai employees, and that government ministers would want to staff their officers with people sympathetic to the values of their political party. Recognition of minority group rights on an equal footing is another version of equality. A right of positive selection is rather different from discrimination. It is easy to see the problem if a restaurant advertised for staff of any nationality, so long as they were not Thai. That would be discriminatory. However, it is quite different if a Thai restaurant advertise for Thai staff. Selection based in part on the characteristic which is relevant to the employment is not discriminatory.’
This, of course, is very much about protecting freedom of association, which plays an important role in promoting democratic pluralism by supporting an authentic environment of social diversity. To show due respect for this important right of every true democratic society, the government in Western Australia must avoid interfering in the internal matters of religious schools and allow their adherents to retain the capacity to determine these issues for themselves. As noted by law professors Rex Ahdar and Ian Leigh in their insightful book Religious Freedom in the Liberal State (Oxford University Press, 2013):
‘Freedom to associate with others of like mind necessarily involves freedom to exclude people who do not share the beliefs in question. In a liberal society, those so excluded are free to join other religious groups (or to form their own group) and so this should not be seen as harmful. On the contrary: if the State were to prevent exclusivity through its non-discrimination laws, this would amount to denial of a basic aspect of religious liberty. Paradoxically, perhaps, exclusive societies add to the diversity of society.’
In this sense, it would be deeply regrettable if these LRCWA recommendations were accepted by the WA government and incorporated in the relevant legislation. These recommendations reveal an illiberal mindset which is uncomfortable with the existence of religious diversity within Western Australia, and favours a dominant public system in which young Australians are educated according to a particular, state-sanctioned perspective. After all, the establishment of religious schools is an effective way that people of faith can freely educate their children (and other members of the community) of the merits of their religion.
Rather than fostering diversity in the educational sector, the recommendations made by WA Law Reform Commission will produce an educational system where people of faith are forced to have their children educated in light of the secularising hegemony of the State. Of course, this would be inconsistent with Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which declares, ‘The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.’ And also Article 19 which states that the right to freedom of expression ‘shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart ideas of all kinds’.
William Wagner, who is an emeritus professor of US constitutional law and retired US federal judge, explains that the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children ‘rests upon deeply rooted common law foundations’. This right, according to him, aims to ensure that parents maintain the primary role in educating their children, whilst being able to delegate part of that role to other bodies of their personal choice. Accordingly, a significant way in which governments can protect this right is by providing religious diversity by providing religious schools with sufficient freedom, so that they can employ persons compatible with the school’s worldview.
Demonstrating a genuine respect to equality in our culturally diverse community necessitates a protection for the choices of people of faith, and affirming their expressions of religiosity. Of course, a key way that the WA government could achieve this important goal is through allowing religious people to create supportive educational institutions, and permitting them to manage group membership so that they remain committed to the values and principles of their founders. As noted by law professor Ian Benson:
‘Religion is an equality right itself and religious people are entitled to non-discriminatory treatment in terms of their religion as well, so placing equality and non-discrimination over against religion or placing some forms of non-discrimination (say, sexual orientation) as things more important than the religious person’s freedom against non-discrimination is an error – though an all too common one.’
Of course, educational institutions that are committed to the preservation of their religious identities may eventually decide to employ persons with poor mission fit due to operational necessity, or because some diversity in the staff body may not have a significant adverse impact on the religious environment of the school. However, these decisions do not constitute evidence that mission fit is not important for teaching and non-teaching employment positions at these schools. On the contrary, a person’s mission fit is often quite crucial for a religious school as it allows the school to promote its own religious identity as an authentic religious institution. The Rev Dr Mark Durie, an academic who writes on relations between human rights and religious freedom, explains as follows:
‘For a secular person, teaching mathematics has nothing to do with religion. However, for a religious person – and indeed for a religious organisation – all actions can be considered to be worship. What distinguishes many religious organisations is that they see their whole actively as a corporate act of worship, done in devotion and service to God, in accordance with the doctrines and principles of their faith. One reason they want to employ people of faith is that they want the whole organisation to corporately serve God through its activities. The secular judges regard faith as an essentially personal and individual affair, and cannot understand this perspective because their religious worldview cannot comprehend it.’
This goes without saying that religious schools also play an important role in protecting the rights of minorities. They assist minority groups with the enjoyment of their religious culture, acting as positive measures of protection, and for allowing the participation of these minorities in decisions that affect their own communities. This is why the general exception guaranteed under the presently legislation should continue. Of course, some religious schools may only need these protections for some employment positions, but the WA government still must provide these schools with the same democratic freedoms to make decisions and protections that are often provided to secular organisations whereby membership is often strictly based on other relevant attributes such as political opinions.
Above all, it is essential for these religious schools that they can freely choose people of likewise persuasions during the appointment of non-teaching officeholders and recruitment of teachers. And since no government should have a right to disrespect not only religious freedom but also freedom association and the right to equality, the WA government should reject, and not endorse as it has done, these recommendations of the WA Law Reform Commission about strengthening protections for LGTQIA+ staff and students in religious schools.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/11/wa-democratic-freedoms-for-religious-schools-under-attack/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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