Ridiculously Late
But I don't like to leave stories half-finished. My cryptic remarks concerning food in my last Chicago-related post related to the gargantuan meal we ate at a place called Gibson's Steak House. We spent the day in the southern stretch of downtown, in an area known as "the Loop". Our afternoon included a trip up to the top of the Sears Tower for a view of... well, not a heck of alot thanks to the cloudy conditions, and a walk along the banks of the Chicago River. Nesrine also managed to find a pair of shoes in an outlet store for ten bucks --pretty fantastic, when you consider her intro to the Chicago shopping experience on our first day.
That night, we caught a show at the famed Second City. that's the place that has been spewing comedians onto the cultural landscape of America for decades, and I have no doubt that some of the young talent we saw that night will go on to big careers in TV and movies. It really is a remarkable institution; almost like Grad school for people with a comedy vocation. After that, we ended up at a Restaurant called Gibson's Steakhouse. Apparently, alot of big stars visit the place --a legion of photos featuring smiling celeb faces greet the visitor on the staircase to the second floor. Although we were famished after a long day of walking everywhere, neither of us was prepared for the Gibson's experience. The smallest steak on the menu would have fed both of us easily, with enough left over for lunch the next day. Nevertheless, we did our best. It might not have been so bad, had we not foolishly ordered the potato side dish: Evidently the result of some genetic research into breeding spuds that will feed entire neighbourhoods in one sitting-- Served on a full size dinner plate, it looked like a mutant football oozing with cheese.
We had just barely made it through the meal and I was in the process of unbuttoning my pants when our server, a really cool fast-talking cat who bore a passing resemblance to Don Cheadle, brought us a slice of apple pie a la mode on the house. We had told him we had just gotten married, and this was his way of punishing us for our happiness, I guess. In all seriousness, the pie was delicious, but it only came in one size: "Chicago" --meaning a single one-piece serving was basically the size of your standard hubcap. To make matters worse, the table next to us sent a piece of cake over with their congratulations. Even though it was only a sliver off of the piece they had ordered to share, I couldn't have finished it in a million years. 6 inches high, It towered over us, looming threateningly. After a few bites, we surrendered, paid our bill, and waddled out of the restaurant.
The next morning, we hit the jazz festival in Grant Park, and got to check out some live jazz, as well as of the marching bands from a number of Chicagoland high schools. This was possibly the coolest experience of the whole trip. Like nothing I have ever seen. I'll try to post some pictures when I get a chance. We left Chicago late on Saturday afternoon after 3 hectic fun-filled days. Definitely a destination I can see myself visiting again some day.
So that's our trip to Chicago... and it only took me a month to get it up on my blog... Timely! Next week, maybe I'll write about my high school graduation, or the time I fell off my bike when I was eleven.
Sheesh!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
It's The End Of The World As We Know It And I Feel Fine
Attention Leftists: I drug this here out of some dustbin out back marked "history"! This guy had it all wrong. And, as you'll eventually realize, you have it wrong too.
In March of this year of 1919, an international congress of Communists was held in Moscow. This congress founded the Third, Communist International, an association of the workers of the whole world who are striving to establish Soviet power in all countries. The First International, founded by Marx, existed from 1864 to 1872. The defeat of the heroic workers of Paris-of the celebrated Paris Commune-marked the end of this International. It is unforgettable, it will remain for ever in the history
of the workers' struggle for their emancipation. It laid the foundation of that
edifice of the world socialist republic which it is now our good fortune to be
building. The Second International existed from 1889 to 1914, up to the war. This was the period of the most calm and peaceful development of capitalism, a period without great revolutions. During this period the working-class movement gained strength and matured in a number of countries. But the workers' leaders in most of the parties had become accustomed to peaceful conditions and had lost the ability to wage a revolutionary struggle. When, in 1914, there began the war, that drenched the earth with blood for four years, the war between the capitalists over the division of profits, the war for supremacy over small arid weak nations, these leaders deserted to the side of their respective governments. They betrayed the workers, they helped to prolong the slaughter, they became enemies of socialism, they went over to the side of the capitalists. The masses of workers turned their backs on these traitors to socialism. All over the world there was a turn towards the revolutionary struggle. The war proved that capitalism was doomed. A new system is coming to take its place. The old word socialism had been desecrated by the traitors to socialism. Today, the workers who have remained loyal to the cause of throwing off the yoke of capital call themselves Communists. All over the world the association of Communists is growing. In a number of countries Soviet power has already triumphed. Soon we shall see the victory of communism throughout the world; we shall see the foundation of the World Federative Republic of Soviets.
Lenin
*****
One of the scariest pieces of fiction I've read
*****
Anyone who has spent any amount of time around Newfoundlanders... particularly Newfoundlanders who are feeling at ease after a couple of beers should dig This Ad. God love the Newfies.
*****
Here's an idea... why doesn't the CBC start acting like a real public TV channel? I for one, can't to see Evan Solomon hosting a monthly pledge drive!
*****
A little context, please. What he actually said: Benedict at Regensburg
Bunting is getting a scourging from Guardian readers
Money quote from the Guardian message boards:
Islam is such a peaceable religion, why can?t I find the Byzantine Empire on a
map any more?
I thought it was funny... silly, but funny.
I found an interesting tidbit on a wikipedia article on the Byzantine Empire:
Why Western Civilization owes the Shiites:
During Constans' reign the Byzantines completely withdrew from Egypt, and the Arabs launched numerous attacks on the islands of the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea. Constans sent a fleet to attack the Arabs at Finike in 655, but was defeated: 500 Byzantine ships were destroyed in the battle, and the emperor himself came close to being killed. Only a civil war with the Shiites prevented an Arab plan to attack Constantinople.
As a result, the Empire was saved, and it would take another 800 years for the muslims to conquer the City of Constantine.
*****
Take a Trip Through Hell!
*****
Like, just breathe, man!
Attention Leftists: I drug this here out of some dustbin out back marked "history"! This guy had it all wrong. And, as you'll eventually realize, you have it wrong too.
In March of this year of 1919, an international congress of Communists was held in Moscow. This congress founded the Third, Communist International, an association of the workers of the whole world who are striving to establish Soviet power in all countries. The First International, founded by Marx, existed from 1864 to 1872. The defeat of the heroic workers of Paris-of the celebrated Paris Commune-marked the end of this International. It is unforgettable, it will remain for ever in the history
of the workers' struggle for their emancipation. It laid the foundation of that
edifice of the world socialist republic which it is now our good fortune to be
building. The Second International existed from 1889 to 1914, up to the war. This was the period of the most calm and peaceful development of capitalism, a period without great revolutions. During this period the working-class movement gained strength and matured in a number of countries. But the workers' leaders in most of the parties had become accustomed to peaceful conditions and had lost the ability to wage a revolutionary struggle. When, in 1914, there began the war, that drenched the earth with blood for four years, the war between the capitalists over the division of profits, the war for supremacy over small arid weak nations, these leaders deserted to the side of their respective governments. They betrayed the workers, they helped to prolong the slaughter, they became enemies of socialism, they went over to the side of the capitalists. The masses of workers turned their backs on these traitors to socialism. All over the world there was a turn towards the revolutionary struggle. The war proved that capitalism was doomed. A new system is coming to take its place. The old word socialism had been desecrated by the traitors to socialism. Today, the workers who have remained loyal to the cause of throwing off the yoke of capital call themselves Communists. All over the world the association of Communists is growing. In a number of countries Soviet power has already triumphed. Soon we shall see the victory of communism throughout the world; we shall see the foundation of the World Federative Republic of Soviets.
Lenin
*****
One of the scariest pieces of fiction I've read
*****
Anyone who has spent any amount of time around Newfoundlanders... particularly Newfoundlanders who are feeling at ease after a couple of beers should dig This Ad. God love the Newfies.
*****
Here's an idea... why doesn't the CBC start acting like a real public TV channel? I for one, can't to see Evan Solomon hosting a monthly pledge drive!
*****
A little context, please. What he actually said: Benedict at Regensburg
Bunting is getting a scourging from Guardian readers
Money quote from the Guardian message boards:
Islam is such a peaceable religion, why can?t I find the Byzantine Empire on a
map any more?
I thought it was funny... silly, but funny.
I found an interesting tidbit on a wikipedia article on the Byzantine Empire:
Why Western Civilization owes the Shiites:
During Constans' reign the Byzantines completely withdrew from Egypt, and the Arabs launched numerous attacks on the islands of the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea. Constans sent a fleet to attack the Arabs at Finike in 655, but was defeated: 500 Byzantine ships were destroyed in the battle, and the emperor himself came close to being killed. Only a civil war with the Shiites prevented an Arab plan to attack Constantinople.
As a result, the Empire was saved, and it would take another 800 years for the muslims to conquer the City of Constantine.
*****
Take a Trip Through Hell!
*****
Like, just breathe, man!
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Ellard, you foooool!
I guess I ain't quite got the hang of this here internet-machine...
I enabled "moderate comments" a while back and have never bothered to check my comments since then.
For anyone who suspected that I'm a fascist that is trying to stifle opinions that do not reflect my own on my little piece of blog real state... well, your suspicions have been confirmed!
Nevertheless, I'll check the comments from now on, and post everything but spam.
I guess I ain't quite got the hang of this here internet-machine...
I enabled "moderate comments" a while back and have never bothered to check my comments since then.
For anyone who suspected that I'm a fascist that is trying to stifle opinions that do not reflect my own on my little piece of blog real state... well, your suspicions have been confirmed!
Nevertheless, I'll check the comments from now on, and post everything but spam.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Chicago: Post numero quatre
On Thursday morning, I got up early and took a walk down to Navy Pier. Although it looked like a fun place to spend a bit of time, I didn't linger there long. I hadn't come all the way to Chicago to visit amusement parks, but rather, to accompany my new bride on her shopping trip (he wrote sarcastically). We spent that afternoon walking up the Magnificent Mile, which is the stretch of Michigan Ave. north of the Chicago river where one finds Saks 5th Ave, Ralph Lauren, Bloomingdales, and all the other big American chain stores that Nesrine and I could not afford. In spite of not being able to purchase anything, we still had a blast checking out the sites:
The Chicago Tribune
Looking for Bloomingdale's
Eventually we ended up stopping for lunch at a great Italian Restaurant on Rush Street.
Finally, after an exhausting afternoon of walking all over downtown, we headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before heading out for supper. One of the "must do" things on my list was to try the city's famous deep dish pizza and I had scouted out a restaurant on our way into the city for that very purpose. It was a pretty garish looking place on Ohio street, but I was encouraged by it's bold claim of being the "birthplace" of Chicago-style pizza. Our server advised us to get the small, but looking at the puny diameter of the pieplate that the staff had helpfully traced onto a poster and measuring my now considerable appetite, I scoffed at the very idea. We ordered a medium, and because we were told the pizza would take up to an hour to prepare, we got some cheezesticks to tide us over. Big mistake.
Forty minutes later, the pie arrived. I immediately understood why they called it a "pizza-pie" in those parts. More quiche-on steroids that pizza, it was three-inch deep concoction of mounds of cheeze, sauce and toppings in a real honest-to-goodness pie crust (yup, the kind made with shortening that Mom uses for apple and rhubarb pie). On top of that the crust was extra-thick. I balked, considering the irreparable damage I was about to do to my arteries. Nesrine looked revolted. Nevertheless, we tucked in, and an hour later, we staggered out of that restaurant/gastrointestinal-torture-chamber with aching bellies, having demolished barely half a piece each. We were anxious to put the ordeal behind us. My left arm began to ache on the way back to the hotel. In it, I cradled the remains of our pizza, approximately two-thirds of which was in pristine condition. The greasy cardboard box containing the leftovers of our meal weighed approximately twenty pounds. Nesrine eyed me curiously. "Wait til the old man tries a piece of this!" I said sadistically.
As it turned out, that was only a prelude to Friday's culinary adventures...
On Thursday morning, I got up early and took a walk down to Navy Pier. Although it looked like a fun place to spend a bit of time, I didn't linger there long. I hadn't come all the way to Chicago to visit amusement parks, but rather, to accompany my new bride on her shopping trip (he wrote sarcastically). We spent that afternoon walking up the Magnificent Mile, which is the stretch of Michigan Ave. north of the Chicago river where one finds Saks 5th Ave, Ralph Lauren, Bloomingdales, and all the other big American chain stores that Nesrine and I could not afford. In spite of not being able to purchase anything, we still had a blast checking out the sites:
The Chicago Tribune
Looking for Bloomingdale'sEventually we ended up stopping for lunch at a great Italian Restaurant on Rush Street.
Finally, after an exhausting afternoon of walking all over downtown, we headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before heading out for supper. One of the "must do" things on my list was to try the city's famous deep dish pizza and I had scouted out a restaurant on our way into the city for that very purpose. It was a pretty garish looking place on Ohio street, but I was encouraged by it's bold claim of being the "birthplace" of Chicago-style pizza. Our server advised us to get the small, but looking at the puny diameter of the pieplate that the staff had helpfully traced onto a poster and measuring my now considerable appetite, I scoffed at the very idea. We ordered a medium, and because we were told the pizza would take up to an hour to prepare, we got some cheezesticks to tide us over. Big mistake.
Forty minutes later, the pie arrived. I immediately understood why they called it a "pizza-pie" in those parts. More quiche-on steroids that pizza, it was three-inch deep concoction of mounds of cheeze, sauce and toppings in a real honest-to-goodness pie crust (yup, the kind made with shortening that Mom uses for apple and rhubarb pie). On top of that the crust was extra-thick. I balked, considering the irreparable damage I was about to do to my arteries. Nesrine looked revolted. Nevertheless, we tucked in, and an hour later, we staggered out of that restaurant/gastrointestinal-torture-chamber with aching bellies, having demolished barely half a piece each. We were anxious to put the ordeal behind us. My left arm began to ache on the way back to the hotel. In it, I cradled the remains of our pizza, approximately two-thirds of which was in pristine condition. The greasy cardboard box containing the leftovers of our meal weighed approximately twenty pounds. Nesrine eyed me curiously. "Wait til the old man tries a piece of this!" I said sadistically.
As it turned out, that was only a prelude to Friday's culinary adventures...
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Chicago, Part III
The city of Chicago leaves the first-time visitor with a peculiar impression, if they enter the city by car. The closer one gets to Michigan Avenue and the Chicago river, the more one gets the impression that the city is set up on a vertical plane, rather than a horizontal one. The tall spires of the Chicago's famous skyscrapers disappear as you enter the downtown area and are funelled down into the bowels of the city, where streets stack up one on top of the other in parallel arteries. Then you have the L-train, which runs a good twenty feet above street level --the city does not have a subway... something to do with the water table, or perhaps soil conditions? Above the tracks, you also may catch a glimpse of skywalks between buildings, sometimes 5 or even 6 stories above ground. So basically, there may be 4 or 5 levels of trafic at some locations in the city, not counting the river-borne traffic, each moving independently one on top of the other.
We sped through the downtown, emerging from one of the subterranean streets to crossed the river and arrived at our destination, the Chicago Sheraton, just before 8 pm. We were delighted with the hotel's location, a stone's throw from the Magnificent Mile, which promised easy access on foot to most of the sights we wanted to get to in the three days we would spend in the city. We knew it advertised itself as a "downtown hotel", but past experience in booking on the web suggested that particular description may sometimes leave some room for interpretation (my favourite qualifier is "adjacent", as in downtown-adjacent --which usually means "be prepared to walk a bit or take a cab to get downtown"). When the lady at the front desk found out that we were newlyweds, she bumped our reservation up to "club level" and put is in a room on the 34th floor, suggesting that we go to the club lounge to enjoy some complimentary hors d'oeuvres and relax. Being quite exhausted, we were more than happy to oblige, and after dropping off our luggage and taking in the incomparable view from our room, we headed to the lounge, which was deserted.
As we sat and sipped glasses of wine and munched on some finger food, we tried to think of what we should do that night. We were both knackered, and we both seemed content to just relax and take in the panorama of downtown Chicago at night. Before we knew it, it was after 9 pm, and we found ourselves staggering back to our room. Unsure of our next move. Well, as it turned out, we didn't even go out that night. We had had enough for one day, and besides, the spectacular view from our room was all the entertainment we needed.
The city of Chicago leaves the first-time visitor with a peculiar impression, if they enter the city by car. The closer one gets to Michigan Avenue and the Chicago river, the more one gets the impression that the city is set up on a vertical plane, rather than a horizontal one. The tall spires of the Chicago's famous skyscrapers disappear as you enter the downtown area and are funelled down into the bowels of the city, where streets stack up one on top of the other in parallel arteries. Then you have the L-train, which runs a good twenty feet above street level --the city does not have a subway... something to do with the water table, or perhaps soil conditions? Above the tracks, you also may catch a glimpse of skywalks between buildings, sometimes 5 or even 6 stories above ground. So basically, there may be 4 or 5 levels of trafic at some locations in the city, not counting the river-borne traffic, each moving independently one on top of the other.
We sped through the downtown, emerging from one of the subterranean streets to crossed the river and arrived at our destination, the Chicago Sheraton, just before 8 pm. We were delighted with the hotel's location, a stone's throw from the Magnificent Mile, which promised easy access on foot to most of the sights we wanted to get to in the three days we would spend in the city. We knew it advertised itself as a "downtown hotel", but past experience in booking on the web suggested that particular description may sometimes leave some room for interpretation (my favourite qualifier is "adjacent", as in downtown-adjacent --which usually means "be prepared to walk a bit or take a cab to get downtown"). When the lady at the front desk found out that we were newlyweds, she bumped our reservation up to "club level" and put is in a room on the 34th floor, suggesting that we go to the club lounge to enjoy some complimentary hors d'oeuvres and relax. Being quite exhausted, we were more than happy to oblige, and after dropping off our luggage and taking in the incomparable view from our room, we headed to the lounge, which was deserted.
As we sat and sipped glasses of wine and munched on some finger food, we tried to think of what we should do that night. We were both knackered, and we both seemed content to just relax and take in the panorama of downtown Chicago at night. Before we knew it, it was after 9 pm, and we found ourselves staggering back to our room. Unsure of our next move. Well, as it turned out, we didn't even go out that night. We had had enough for one day, and besides, the spectacular view from our room was all the entertainment we needed.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Chicago cont'd
So last week, Nesrine and I were debating possible getaway destinations when almost out of the blue she says "Why don't we go to Chicago?". From the time I moved to T-Bay I had often considered a roadtrip to the big city by Lake Michigan with some high school chums. After all, it looked pretty close to Mineapolis on the map --probably 5 hours on the interstate, and the Twin Cities were only 7 hours from the Lakehead by car, so we couldn't be talking more than 13 hours on the road, right? Well somehow, inspite on a ringing endorsement of the idea by a classmate who had done the trip... actually, this guy here Kevin, who is now a pretty successful actor, incidentally-- the trip never materialized.
Fast forward a decade-and-a-half, the Ellard newlyweds find themselves on the far side of the Windsor-Detroit tunnel being scrutinized by a border guard, who fixes us with his blank gaze and asks where we are going. "To Chicago, on our honeymoon", I reply enthusiastically, to which he retorts "have fun", without seeming to mean it terribly. We are now free to head to Chicago, by way of the interstate south to Toledo --my old man insists that is the long way. The trip had already seen us make quick stops in Montreal to return some wedding stuff, and Mississauga, to visit Joe and Michelle's new place--nice digs, incidentally, and probably a future license to print money, if current GTA housing demand is any indication. By early afternoon Wednesday, we hit Windsor to grab lunch with Grandma and Mila before pushing on to the Motor City, just across the Detroit river.
So after an hour of rutted and filthy blown-tire-strewn highways that can only be described as disgraceful (shame on the state of Michigan), we get to the Toledo area and hop on one of those curiosities of the American landscape, the toll highway. "This is what they get for having low taxes!" I jokingly tell Nesrine as I grab a ticket from the dispenser. It seems to me that it must be an incredible nuissance to have to drive around with handfuls of change in your car for the tollbooths... but then isn't that what drivers have to do anytime they need to park downtown? I estimate that we spend about $10 total on the trip that takes us through 3 states (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) --not too steep. The toll roads are excellent. Superior to what we have in Ontario even. The talk-radio that I inexplicably listen to all the way through the trip, however, is almost migraine-inducing. By 8 O'clock, we are in the Chicagoland area, and as we spy the mythical skyline of Chi-town in the distance, we begin to get even more excited about our visit. Soon, we will be in the big city!
To be continued
So last week, Nesrine and I were debating possible getaway destinations when almost out of the blue she says "Why don't we go to Chicago?". From the time I moved to T-Bay I had often considered a roadtrip to the big city by Lake Michigan with some high school chums. After all, it looked pretty close to Mineapolis on the map --probably 5 hours on the interstate, and the Twin Cities were only 7 hours from the Lakehead by car, so we couldn't be talking more than 13 hours on the road, right? Well somehow, inspite on a ringing endorsement of the idea by a classmate who had done the trip... actually, this guy here Kevin, who is now a pretty successful actor, incidentally-- the trip never materialized.
Fast forward a decade-and-a-half, the Ellard newlyweds find themselves on the far side of the Windsor-Detroit tunnel being scrutinized by a border guard, who fixes us with his blank gaze and asks where we are going. "To Chicago, on our honeymoon", I reply enthusiastically, to which he retorts "have fun", without seeming to mean it terribly. We are now free to head to Chicago, by way of the interstate south to Toledo --my old man insists that is the long way. The trip had already seen us make quick stops in Montreal to return some wedding stuff, and Mississauga, to visit Joe and Michelle's new place--nice digs, incidentally, and probably a future license to print money, if current GTA housing demand is any indication. By early afternoon Wednesday, we hit Windsor to grab lunch with Grandma and Mila before pushing on to the Motor City, just across the Detroit river.
So after an hour of rutted and filthy blown-tire-strewn highways that can only be described as disgraceful (shame on the state of Michigan), we get to the Toledo area and hop on one of those curiosities of the American landscape, the toll highway. "This is what they get for having low taxes!" I jokingly tell Nesrine as I grab a ticket from the dispenser. It seems to me that it must be an incredible nuissance to have to drive around with handfuls of change in your car for the tollbooths... but then isn't that what drivers have to do anytime they need to park downtown? I estimate that we spend about $10 total on the trip that takes us through 3 states (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) --not too steep. The toll roads are excellent. Superior to what we have in Ontario even. The talk-radio that I inexplicably listen to all the way through the trip, however, is almost migraine-inducing. By 8 O'clock, we are in the Chicagoland area, and as we spy the mythical skyline of Chi-town in the distance, we begin to get even more excited about our visit. Soon, we will be in the big city!
To be continued
Monday, September 04, 2006
Chicago
After a week of prevaricating, my new wife and I decided to head to the Windy City for a post-wedding getaway --we figure the real honeymoon will be the next trip we take, when we are less broke.
What can I say about Chicago? It exceeded all expectations. Detroit, my only point of reference for a Northern U.S. industrial city, had left me wholly unprepared for the experience of visiting the "City with Big Shoulders". Detroit and Chicago are as different as night and day. Of course, I must admit that I had done very little pre-trip research on Chi-town, so aside from the usual cliches about gangsters, sports teams, and deep-dish pizza, I really had no idea what to expect.
Nesrine's first impression was that being in Chicago was like being on a movie set. I agree entirely. Chicago feels like the prototypical American metropolis, the one we conjure up in our mind when we are asked to picture a big American city. From the gleaming skyscrapers to the L-train to the port and river teeming with watercraft of every shape and description, it is the very image of a vigourous urban centre. Whereas Detroit's decrepit downtown is sometimes nearly deserted, Chicago feels alive 24-7. With crowds on every street and traffic that speeds beneath its skyscrapers at all hours of the day, it pulsates and throbs with life.
Here are some photos from our little trip:
The view from our room at the Sheraton, on the 34th floor:
Another view:
The Magnificent Mile
More to come!
After a week of prevaricating, my new wife and I decided to head to the Windy City for a post-wedding getaway --we figure the real honeymoon will be the next trip we take, when we are less broke.
What can I say about Chicago? It exceeded all expectations. Detroit, my only point of reference for a Northern U.S. industrial city, had left me wholly unprepared for the experience of visiting the "City with Big Shoulders". Detroit and Chicago are as different as night and day. Of course, I must admit that I had done very little pre-trip research on Chi-town, so aside from the usual cliches about gangsters, sports teams, and deep-dish pizza, I really had no idea what to expect.
Nesrine's first impression was that being in Chicago was like being on a movie set. I agree entirely. Chicago feels like the prototypical American metropolis, the one we conjure up in our mind when we are asked to picture a big American city. From the gleaming skyscrapers to the L-train to the port and river teeming with watercraft of every shape and description, it is the very image of a vigourous urban centre. Whereas Detroit's decrepit downtown is sometimes nearly deserted, Chicago feels alive 24-7. With crowds on every street and traffic that speeds beneath its skyscrapers at all hours of the day, it pulsates and throbs with life.
Here are some photos from our little trip:
The view from our room at the Sheraton, on the 34th floor:
Another view:
The Magnificent Mile
More to come!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
First Pics of the Wedding
Courtesy of Paul, the Best Man.
Backstage: T-minus two minutes
Awaiting the Bride
Stunned After the Ceremony
Groom and His Boys
With Best Man's Family
(What was I doing with my mouth?)
More to come, folks!
Courtesy of Paul, the Best Man.
Backstage: T-minus two minutes
Awaiting the Bride
Stunned After the Ceremony
Groom and His Boys
With Best Man's Family(What was I doing with my mouth?)
More to come, folks!
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Wedding Day
Nesrine, I love you.
Then Almitra spoke again and said...
"And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together
when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together
even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other's shadow.
Khalil Gibran
From the Book: The Prophet
Nesrine, I love you.
Then Almitra spoke again and said...
"And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together
when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together
even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other's shadow.
Khalil Gibran
From the Book: The Prophet
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Two Weeks to go...
The wedding is fast approaching, and planning continues apace. We have not reached the "frantic" stage, but we are getting there in leaps and bounds. There are so many details that must be attended to. The cake, the photographer, the hall, the seating arrangements, and so on. Mom will be coming down next Sunday to help us with the last sprint to the finish line, and thank the Lord, because Nesrine and I have noticed we are flagging. It is not that we aren't receiving plenty of offers of assistance from family and friends, far from it. I would say it has to do with our respective personalities: we are both quite independent, and hopelessly particular about certain things. For me, it's the photos. We went all out and splurged on this studio because, I reasoned, if the photos of the day aren't up to snuff, years from now, we'll regret that our abiding memories of the day are not really captured on film. I'm big on nice photography, particularly the photojournalistic style that Photolux uses. I have seen too many banal pictures featuring contrived poses and questionable composition to put my faith in some well-meaning dilletante.
For her part, Nesrine is rightfully focusing on her dress, the decorations, and of course, family. The Harbs are legion in these parts, so the guest list is rapidly approaching the 130 mark, a scant three dozen of which will be guests from my side. Make no mistake, this will be a Lebanese-Canadian wedding, and I couldn't be happier... have you tasted Lebanese cuisine before?
Although I have not been exploring the uplands of the internet much lately, I have happened across a few tasty morsels for your enjoyment:
I wonder if Bruno, will make a Cameo in the upcoming Borat movie.... God, I hope so.
The Internet is a Series of Tubes and Senator Ted Stevens is douche
I'm gonna go ahead and refer you this soundboard, MMMM-KAY?
The wedding is fast approaching, and planning continues apace. We have not reached the "frantic" stage, but we are getting there in leaps and bounds. There are so many details that must be attended to. The cake, the photographer, the hall, the seating arrangements, and so on. Mom will be coming down next Sunday to help us with the last sprint to the finish line, and thank the Lord, because Nesrine and I have noticed we are flagging. It is not that we aren't receiving plenty of offers of assistance from family and friends, far from it. I would say it has to do with our respective personalities: we are both quite independent, and hopelessly particular about certain things. For me, it's the photos. We went all out and splurged on this studio because, I reasoned, if the photos of the day aren't up to snuff, years from now, we'll regret that our abiding memories of the day are not really captured on film. I'm big on nice photography, particularly the photojournalistic style that Photolux uses. I have seen too many banal pictures featuring contrived poses and questionable composition to put my faith in some well-meaning dilletante.
For her part, Nesrine is rightfully focusing on her dress, the decorations, and of course, family. The Harbs are legion in these parts, so the guest list is rapidly approaching the 130 mark, a scant three dozen of which will be guests from my side. Make no mistake, this will be a Lebanese-Canadian wedding, and I couldn't be happier... have you tasted Lebanese cuisine before?
Although I have not been exploring the uplands of the internet much lately, I have happened across a few tasty morsels for your enjoyment:
I wonder if Bruno, will make a Cameo in the upcoming Borat movie.... God, I hope so.
The Internet is a Series of Tubes and Senator Ted Stevens is douche
I'm gonna go ahead and refer you this soundboard, MMMM-KAY?
Friday, August 04, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Guess who is destined to be spit out of the bottom of the entertainment industry a few short years from now?
You gotta see it coming, no? So, instead of making excuses, the least a mother can do is give her child some discipline.. or at least keep her kid on a tighter leash while she is riding high and milk every moment of stardom for what it is worth.. cuz it won't last... at least not if history teaches us anything.
Ask these folks
You gotta see it coming, no? So, instead of making excuses, the least a mother can do is give her child some discipline.. or at least keep her kid on a tighter leash while she is riding high and milk every moment of stardom for what it is worth.. cuz it won't last... at least not if history teaches us anything.
Ask these folks
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Wa Wa Wee Wah!
Get ready for Borat hand pleasure sexy time explosion!
Movie of title Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 2006 in Autumn!
Trailer Watch!
Saturday, July 22, 2006
The Levant in Flames
If Belgium was historically the Cockpit of Europe, then Lebanon must be the cockpit of the Middle East.
While some bitch and moan about how the Canadian Government has not done enough to extricate them from a country that they chose to travel to of their own accord, other resourceful folks are doing whatever it takes to hightail it out of the Lebanon: Greasing palms in Syria
A prayer, not just for peace, but for resolution, and lasting peace.
If Belgium was historically the Cockpit of Europe, then Lebanon must be the cockpit of the Middle East.
While some bitch and moan about how the Canadian Government has not done enough to extricate them from a country that they chose to travel to of their own accord, other resourceful folks are doing whatever it takes to hightail it out of the Lebanon: Greasing palms in Syria
A prayer, not just for peace, but for resolution, and lasting peace.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Bush and Blair: Caught on Tape!
They didn't know they were being recorded at the G-8... so this is how it is!
Bush: What about Kofi Annan? I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically cease-fire and everything else happens.
Blair: I think the thing that is really difficult is you cant stop this unless you get this international presence agreed.
Bush: She's going. I think Condi's going to go pretty soon.
Blair: Well that's all that matters. If you see, it will take some time to get out of there. But at least it gives people ...
Bush: It's a process I agree. I told her your offer too.
Blair: Well it's only or if she's gonna or if she needs the ground prepared as it were. See, if she goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk.
Bush: See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.
Blair: Cause I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if he gets a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he's done it. That's what this whole things about. It's the same with Iran.
Bush: I feel like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government.
Blair: How you enjoying your lunch?
Bush: It's fine. Now, let's go destroy Lebanon to give Israel the land!
Blair: Great idea! I feel like doing something evil today.
Bush: Cuz you're my poodle, Blair
Blair: Yes
Bush: I mean, I own your British Ass
Blair: Right!
Bush: eheheeehhehehehe (Chimpy McHitlerburton does his shaky-shoulder monkey-laugh)
They didn't know they were being recorded at the G-8... so this is how it is!
Bush: What about Kofi Annan? I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically cease-fire and everything else happens.
Blair: I think the thing that is really difficult is you cant stop this unless you get this international presence agreed.
Bush: She's going. I think Condi's going to go pretty soon.
Blair: Well that's all that matters. If you see, it will take some time to get out of there. But at least it gives people ...
Bush: It's a process I agree. I told her your offer too.
Blair: Well it's only or if she's gonna or if she needs the ground prepared as it were. See, if she goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk.
Bush: See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.
Blair: Cause I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if he gets a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he's done it. That's what this whole things about. It's the same with Iran.
Bush: I feel like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government.
Blair: How you enjoying your lunch?
Bush: It's fine. Now, let's go destroy Lebanon to give Israel the land!
Blair: Great idea! I feel like doing something evil today.
Bush: Cuz you're my poodle, Blair
Blair: Yes
Bush: I mean, I own your British Ass
Blair: Right!
Bush: eheheeehhehehehe (Chimpy McHitlerburton does his shaky-shoulder monkey-laugh)
Sunday, July 16, 2006
August 20 may be Wedding Day...
but August 18 is Snakes On A Plane Day
I read this comment on a movie geek message board:
..."the movie that Jesus himself would come back for. God, I can't wait until
Aug 18th"
That just says it all, doesn't it?
but August 18 is Snakes On A Plane Day
I read this comment on a movie geek message board:
..."the movie that Jesus himself would come back for. God, I can't wait until
Aug 18th"
That just says it all, doesn't it?
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Grief, Part II
Christie Blatchford gets to the crux of the matter in today's despatch from Afghanistan:
The truth is that civilian Canada, increasingly disengaged from its military over decades of base closing, budget cuts and feel-good peacekeeping missions, was not prepared for either this place or this task.
It has been a very long time indeed since the CF have been involved at a battalion level in such ferocious combat, and the last time it happened, it was not in an instant-messaging, blogging world with TV cameras on the front lines capturing the heat and brutality and terrible power of war.
Christie Blatchford gets to the crux of the matter in today's despatch from Afghanistan:
The truth is that civilian Canada, increasingly disengaged from its military over decades of base closing, budget cuts and feel-good peacekeeping missions, was not prepared for either this place or this task.
It has been a very long time indeed since the CF have been involved at a battalion level in such ferocious combat, and the last time it happened, it was not in an instant-messaging, blogging world with TV cameras on the front lines capturing the heat and brutality and terrible power of war.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Grief Can Be An Ugly Thing
I feel sick. I feel sick with sorrow over the death of a young soldier, a promising life cut short; but I am also feeling a bit sickened by what I have seen in the media today.
The repulsive media vultures have descended upon the distraught family and friends of the young Corporal and created an almost pornographic spectacle of their pain. In interview after interview, these well-meaning but clearly grief-stricken people have laid bare the young man's most intimate thoughts and feelings on what he may or may not have felt about what he was doing in Afghanistan. Surely, the private doubts and gripes in the phonecalls and letters home were meant for their consumption alone, and not designed to be unfolded before the eyes of a nation.
We are told that Corporal Boneca hated going out on combat patrol. He was haggard, lean, burnt out and worn out. He was also disillusioned with the mission, aparently. What infantry soldier currently deployed in Afghanistan relishes the prospect of life-threatening danger? What infanteer would not be exhausted from days of combat? Who among the over two thousand CF members there has not unburdened themselves to friends and family, trusting that these private thoughts and fears would be kept in some secret, sacred place? Who among them has not even felt some frustration over what must be a long and tortured process of fighting medieval zealots and bringing stability to a basket-case of a country. This is NEWS?
I turn with dismay to the Globe and Mail and see that a comment thread is hijacked by vicious assholes wielding conspiracy theories, revisionist history, and fifth-rate intellects
It is left to Sheldon Maerz --a PPCLI Captain currently stationed in Kandahar with whom I had the honour to serve while he was posted to the LLSR -- to set the record straight:
Sheldon Maerz from Kandahar City, Canada writes: To post number 39 - Bill, you were bang on until you attacked the memory of Lestor B Pearson, himself a veteran of the Great War, and someone who worked tirelessly in the years following for the betterment of Canada. But, given you are one of the view voices of logic on here, I can forgive your attack on a Great Canadian for the most part (as if it is my place to forgive you, but I trust you will know what I mean).To all you who know next to nothing of our past, Bill is completely correct - we are a nation forged in the fires of war, and when called up by world events, Canadians have fought valiantly on the fields of battle like no others. Perhaps if more Canadians knew something of their own history, there would be fewer spewing the dual false sentiments that we are only a 'peacekeeping nation' and that we are currently fighting someone else's war. Canada has every reason to be here, it is in our own self interest as a nation to assist the Afghan people secure a more stable, more peaceful future. No one here believes Afghanistan will ever resemble Canada or any other western Democracy but we must do our part to attempt to ensure it never again becomes a incubator of hatred of things Western. The biggest falsehood being perpetuated by those against our role here is that the Afghan people don't want us here. The truth is the vast majority of them see us as their best chance in the last thirty years for something other than repression, insecurity and death. Finally, please stop all the parallels to the Soviet Occupation - we are not an Occupation Force and we are not seen as such by anyone except the forces of the Taliban, the foreign fighters, and those who are against our presence for their own self interest (narco warlords,etc). Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but pls stop the shallow name calling and before sounding off, try becoming informed.
Capt Sheldon Maerz
Try not to take it personal, Sheldon.
In our grief, let us consider the facts, and honour this brave young man as he deserves. Tony was an infantryman. He harboured no illusions of his role, notwithstanding what some may now be claiming. From minute-one that you enter the Infantry school, you are taught that your role is to close with and destroy the enemy. Period. Full stop. Yes, he was a reservist --a reservist who had undergone rigourous "work-up training" in the months preceeding his deployment. He had been screened psychologically and physically, he had been counseled, he had been warned and admonished. He was no stranger to Afghanistan, having served there on a previous tour. He went in with both eyes open. To say otherwise is to hold that he was incabable of understanding what he was getting into, to in effect infantilize the man (not boy, but man --He was twenty-one).
In their zealous quest for an "angle", some journalists are pissing all over this young guy's memory. They would paint a false picture of a frightened and disillusioned reservist, unable to cope: What a story, chief! Government sending untrained child-conscripts to a warzone and keeping them there against their will!
For my part, all things being equal and taking Sheldon at his word (who is there ON THE GROUND, mind you) I'm inclined to believe the words of the young man's father:
OTTAWA (CP) - The father of the soldier killed in Afghanistan earlier this week denies his son was ill-prepared for his dangerous tour-of-duty, contradicting claims from some of the soldier's friends. Cpl. Anthony Boneca's father Antonio said his son "loved being in the army" and was aware of the situation he was facing. "In all my conversations with my son, there was never any mention of him not being well enough or fit enough to carry out his military duties," Boneca's father said.
"He said it was difficult to cope with the weather, the sand, and the situation the young children endured (but) he was proud to make a difference in their lives and said he wished these children could live like we do in Canada." Boneca's father disputed reports that suggested his son felt he was poorly prepared for his second stint in Afghanistan.
Shame on the media for this spectacle. Keep them the fuck away from the repatriation. They would dishonour its solemnity it by their presence.
****
I exclude from my scorn one journalist in particular. Christie Blatchford. She really is something else. Like Sheldon Maerz, she is currently on the ground in Afghanistan, "embedded", as they say, and reportign for the G&M. Check out her reporting on their Web site --it is worth a read. She did a little Q&A today from Kandaharand I loved the way she puts this pompous prick in his place:
Liam Dynes, Toronto/Thunder Bay, Ont.: To embed or not to embed reporters in a war zone is no longer the issue - as some previous commenters have put forth. It is a given at this point. My observation comes from what is done by a reporter put in that position. I ask you whether you truly see more value in your method of[reporting on what you see as an embed] than in a clear reporting of the facts at hand. We see cursory mentions of these soldiers in deteriorating physical condition and of questionable morale, but we see no examination of actual situation versus government spin - Minister O'Connor yesterday, for example. You mention in your first [answer today to Mr. Sheppard's question]that "most" of the men are in good spirits. What about the rest? Are those in good spirits regular army? Is there any correlation between morale and reserve status? We hear nothing about Cpl. Boneca's apparent disillusionment with his situation from those who would be there to hear it and see it firsthand, get no reporting of the conditions that led to it (an injured ankle that took more than a week to be treated, patrols extending themselves more than two weeks beyond their scheduled length and capacity for food and water). But we get plenty of literary examination of the pathetic fallacy of the Afghan countryside and its leporidaeic inhabitants (bunnies). Suffice to say, I'm a little perplexed. What is the reality over there?
Christie Blatchford: Thank you for explaining leporidaeic for me. Clearly you're very smart.
Look, I don't pretend to know the morale or state of mind of all our soldiers here, but I've met and spent time and watched in close quarters now hundreds of them, and interviewed dozens at length. You've heard nothing about Cpl. Boneca's apparent disillusionment from me, or anyone else here, because, in my case, I was in the middle of a firefight, and because the story came from The Toronto Star, which does not have a reporter here, but who interviewed the father of the young man's girlfriend.
And what government spin? I spend as little time as I can here at the safe big base, where the spin originates, when it does. Even here, I talk to actual soldiers, not the brass. I'm not writing spin, unless you consider spin to include what I see with my own eyes, from ordinary soldiers.
Thanks, Christie.
I feel sick. I feel sick with sorrow over the death of a young soldier, a promising life cut short; but I am also feeling a bit sickened by what I have seen in the media today.
The repulsive media vultures have descended upon the distraught family and friends of the young Corporal and created an almost pornographic spectacle of their pain. In interview after interview, these well-meaning but clearly grief-stricken people have laid bare the young man's most intimate thoughts and feelings on what he may or may not have felt about what he was doing in Afghanistan. Surely, the private doubts and gripes in the phonecalls and letters home were meant for their consumption alone, and not designed to be unfolded before the eyes of a nation.
We are told that Corporal Boneca hated going out on combat patrol. He was haggard, lean, burnt out and worn out. He was also disillusioned with the mission, aparently. What infantry soldier currently deployed in Afghanistan relishes the prospect of life-threatening danger? What infanteer would not be exhausted from days of combat? Who among the over two thousand CF members there has not unburdened themselves to friends and family, trusting that these private thoughts and fears would be kept in some secret, sacred place? Who among them has not even felt some frustration over what must be a long and tortured process of fighting medieval zealots and bringing stability to a basket-case of a country. This is NEWS?
I turn with dismay to the Globe and Mail and see that a comment thread is hijacked by vicious assholes wielding conspiracy theories, revisionist history, and fifth-rate intellects
It is left to Sheldon Maerz --a PPCLI Captain currently stationed in Kandahar with whom I had the honour to serve while he was posted to the LLSR -- to set the record straight:
Sheldon Maerz from Kandahar City, Canada writes: To post number 39 - Bill, you were bang on until you attacked the memory of Lestor B Pearson, himself a veteran of the Great War, and someone who worked tirelessly in the years following for the betterment of Canada. But, given you are one of the view voices of logic on here, I can forgive your attack on a Great Canadian for the most part (as if it is my place to forgive you, but I trust you will know what I mean).To all you who know next to nothing of our past, Bill is completely correct - we are a nation forged in the fires of war, and when called up by world events, Canadians have fought valiantly on the fields of battle like no others. Perhaps if more Canadians knew something of their own history, there would be fewer spewing the dual false sentiments that we are only a 'peacekeeping nation' and that we are currently fighting someone else's war. Canada has every reason to be here, it is in our own self interest as a nation to assist the Afghan people secure a more stable, more peaceful future. No one here believes Afghanistan will ever resemble Canada or any other western Democracy but we must do our part to attempt to ensure it never again becomes a incubator of hatred of things Western. The biggest falsehood being perpetuated by those against our role here is that the Afghan people don't want us here. The truth is the vast majority of them see us as their best chance in the last thirty years for something other than repression, insecurity and death. Finally, please stop all the parallels to the Soviet Occupation - we are not an Occupation Force and we are not seen as such by anyone except the forces of the Taliban, the foreign fighters, and those who are against our presence for their own self interest (narco warlords,etc). Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but pls stop the shallow name calling and before sounding off, try becoming informed.
Capt Sheldon Maerz
Try not to take it personal, Sheldon.
In our grief, let us consider the facts, and honour this brave young man as he deserves. Tony was an infantryman. He harboured no illusions of his role, notwithstanding what some may now be claiming. From minute-one that you enter the Infantry school, you are taught that your role is to close with and destroy the enemy. Period. Full stop. Yes, he was a reservist --a reservist who had undergone rigourous "work-up training" in the months preceeding his deployment. He had been screened psychologically and physically, he had been counseled, he had been warned and admonished. He was no stranger to Afghanistan, having served there on a previous tour. He went in with both eyes open. To say otherwise is to hold that he was incabable of understanding what he was getting into, to in effect infantilize the man (not boy, but man --He was twenty-one).
In their zealous quest for an "angle", some journalists are pissing all over this young guy's memory. They would paint a false picture of a frightened and disillusioned reservist, unable to cope: What a story, chief! Government sending untrained child-conscripts to a warzone and keeping them there against their will!
For my part, all things being equal and taking Sheldon at his word (who is there ON THE GROUND, mind you) I'm inclined to believe the words of the young man's father:
OTTAWA (CP) - The father of the soldier killed in Afghanistan earlier this week denies his son was ill-prepared for his dangerous tour-of-duty, contradicting claims from some of the soldier's friends. Cpl. Anthony Boneca's father Antonio said his son "loved being in the army" and was aware of the situation he was facing. "In all my conversations with my son, there was never any mention of him not being well enough or fit enough to carry out his military duties," Boneca's father said.
"He said it was difficult to cope with the weather, the sand, and the situation the young children endured (but) he was proud to make a difference in their lives and said he wished these children could live like we do in Canada." Boneca's father disputed reports that suggested his son felt he was poorly prepared for his second stint in Afghanistan.
Shame on the media for this spectacle. Keep them the fuck away from the repatriation. They would dishonour its solemnity it by their presence.
****
I exclude from my scorn one journalist in particular. Christie Blatchford. She really is something else. Like Sheldon Maerz, she is currently on the ground in Afghanistan, "embedded", as they say, and reportign for the G&M. Check out her reporting on their Web site --it is worth a read. She did a little Q&A today from Kandaharand I loved the way she puts this pompous prick in his place:
Liam Dynes, Toronto/Thunder Bay, Ont.: To embed or not to embed reporters in a war zone is no longer the issue - as some previous commenters have put forth. It is a given at this point. My observation comes from what is done by a reporter put in that position. I ask you whether you truly see more value in your method of[reporting on what you see as an embed] than in a clear reporting of the facts at hand. We see cursory mentions of these soldiers in deteriorating physical condition and of questionable morale, but we see no examination of actual situation versus government spin - Minister O'Connor yesterday, for example. You mention in your first [answer today to Mr. Sheppard's question]that "most" of the men are in good spirits. What about the rest? Are those in good spirits regular army? Is there any correlation between morale and reserve status? We hear nothing about Cpl. Boneca's apparent disillusionment with his situation from those who would be there to hear it and see it firsthand, get no reporting of the conditions that led to it (an injured ankle that took more than a week to be treated, patrols extending themselves more than two weeks beyond their scheduled length and capacity for food and water). But we get plenty of literary examination of the pathetic fallacy of the Afghan countryside and its leporidaeic inhabitants (bunnies). Suffice to say, I'm a little perplexed. What is the reality over there?
Christie Blatchford: Thank you for explaining leporidaeic for me. Clearly you're very smart.
Look, I don't pretend to know the morale or state of mind of all our soldiers here, but I've met and spent time and watched in close quarters now hundreds of them, and interviewed dozens at length. You've heard nothing about Cpl. Boneca's apparent disillusionment from me, or anyone else here, because, in my case, I was in the middle of a firefight, and because the story came from The Toronto Star, which does not have a reporter here, but who interviewed the father of the young man's girlfriend.
And what government spin? I spend as little time as I can here at the safe big base, where the spin originates, when it does. Even here, I talk to actual soldiers, not the brass. I'm not writing spin, unless you consider spin to include what I see with my own eyes, from ordinary soldiers.
Thanks, Christie.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Inter Pericula IntrepidiToday, I learned that the seventeeth Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan is a reservist from the LSSR
I never knew Corporal Boneca-- he joined after I left the unit-- but his family and the Lake Sups are in my thoughts and prayers.
In the piece on the CBC Web site, General Fraser is quoted:"I think the one thing we've got to understand is that he was doing outstanding work out there," Fraser said. "We really do have to admire his professionalism and his heroic efforts to help out people who are less fortunate."
OUTSTANDING was a term I remember hearing alot during the "lean years" when I was a Lake Sup (1993-1999). It's a common exclamation among soldiers. After a 2-day recce patrol, for instance, when the weather had alternated between driving rain and driving snow , and you hadn't caught a wink of sleep laid up in the patrol hide, the usual response the the OC's question "How did the patrol go, gents?" was a chipper "OUTSTANDING, sir!".
You see, Canadian soldiers take great pride in remaining cheerful in adversity. Maybe it is the strain of sang-froid and cool wit inherited through our brit heritage leavened with a bit of Canadian humility, but in the CF, it is always considered important to keep things light-hearted, even when the situation is grim.
Things seem grim in Afghanistan now, but we cannot forget that hundreds of young Canadians have willingly and in some cases eagerly signed up for this duty, knowing full well that this would not be a "peacekeeping" tour, and that some of them would not be coming home alive. Words cannot express the admiration I have for young guys like Corporal Boneca, a "weekend warrior" who was never "required" to go to Afghanistan and willingly put himself in danger for others --reservists volunteer for call-ups, they are not obligated to deploy overseas, as regular force soliders are. He went nonetheless, and he was doing outstanding work, doubtless because because he himself was an outstanding young man.
The motto of the LSSR is Inter Pericula Intrepidi -- Fearless in the midst of Danger. Corporal Boneca's sacrifice is the most profound demonstration of that ideal. God bless him.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Post-Mortem
Becks is done, and Rooney says there is no hard feelings. And about Ronaldo getting all up in his grill? He's willing to bury the hatchet.
Bury the hatchet... in his head
Reason 15,734 that some Grits make me puke:
Ethnic insta-Libs become pawns in sleazy leadership machinations.
From the G&M:
Mr. Karygiannis -- called Jimmy K in political circles -- has just given the go-ahead to all-out organizing in two ridings held by Liberal MPs -- although he won't say which ones.
There are ridings in which Mr. Volpe's campaign won't go all out, Mr. Karygiannis says. Sometimes it's a courtesy if the MP is another leadership candidate or someone who might back the campaign later. Sometimes the effort is just not worth it. There are ridings that have big numbers and signing up a few new ones won't help win new delegates. At a Tim Hortons in south Ottawa, he plays guess-the-nationality as a man walks through the parking lot. He shouts a greeting in Tamil, and discovers the man is from Guyana. Mr. Karygiannis tells him that he visited Guyana after floods there last year, when Canada provided aid, and the man, who identified himself only as Mr. Ali, starts to chat.
"Let me ask you something. Do you think it's time that Canada had an ethnic prime minister?" Mr. Karygiannis asks. Joe Volpe is ethnic, somebody who immigrated to Canada just like us, he tells him. He asks if Mr. Ali wants to join the Liberal Party, and Mr. Ali gives him a telephone number so that an organizer can call. "And I have a lot of family," Mr. Ali says. Later, Mr. Karygiannis remarks on his "killer closing line" -- "Is Canada ready for an ethnic prime minister?" -- and explains how it's done. "It takes 30 seconds to zero in on an individual and figure out if you can sign them up, if you've got something in common with them."
For him, it's where people come from. An MP since 1988, Mr. Karygiannis has assiduously courted ethnic communities, and has visited dozens of countries such as Somalia and Sri Lanka, often after natural disasters -- so often that his critics call him an international ambulance chaser. But he insists he is pressing the views of the communities he represents, helping push on immigration or trade matters. He helps them, and later, on campaigns like this, many help him, he says, even if he has to plead. "Put smoke signals out. Put lots of them out," he tells someone on the phone a few minutes later. "And you might want to tell them if they don't come out, my ass is grass."
Jimmy K, your ass is already grass.
Becks is done, and Rooney says there is no hard feelings. And about Ronaldo getting all up in his grill? He's willing to bury the hatchet.
Bury the hatchet... in his head
Reason 15,734 that some Grits make me puke:
Ethnic insta-Libs become pawns in sleazy leadership machinations.
From the G&M:
Mr. Karygiannis -- called Jimmy K in political circles -- has just given the go-ahead to all-out organizing in two ridings held by Liberal MPs -- although he won't say which ones.
There are ridings in which Mr. Volpe's campaign won't go all out, Mr. Karygiannis says. Sometimes it's a courtesy if the MP is another leadership candidate or someone who might back the campaign later. Sometimes the effort is just not worth it. There are ridings that have big numbers and signing up a few new ones won't help win new delegates. At a Tim Hortons in south Ottawa, he plays guess-the-nationality as a man walks through the parking lot. He shouts a greeting in Tamil, and discovers the man is from Guyana. Mr. Karygiannis tells him that he visited Guyana after floods there last year, when Canada provided aid, and the man, who identified himself only as Mr. Ali, starts to chat.
"Let me ask you something. Do you think it's time that Canada had an ethnic prime minister?" Mr. Karygiannis asks. Joe Volpe is ethnic, somebody who immigrated to Canada just like us, he tells him. He asks if Mr. Ali wants to join the Liberal Party, and Mr. Ali gives him a telephone number so that an organizer can call. "And I have a lot of family," Mr. Ali says. Later, Mr. Karygiannis remarks on his "killer closing line" -- "Is Canada ready for an ethnic prime minister?" -- and explains how it's done. "It takes 30 seconds to zero in on an individual and figure out if you can sign them up, if you've got something in common with them."
For him, it's where people come from. An MP since 1988, Mr. Karygiannis has assiduously courted ethnic communities, and has visited dozens of countries such as Somalia and Sri Lanka, often after natural disasters -- so often that his critics call him an international ambulance chaser. But he insists he is pressing the views of the communities he represents, helping push on immigration or trade matters. He helps them, and later, on campaigns like this, many help him, he says, even if he has to plead. "Put smoke signals out. Put lots of them out," he tells someone on the phone a few minutes later. "And you might want to tell them if they don't come out, my ass is grass."
Jimmy K, your ass is already grass.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Canada Day Weekend
I can't help but feel that I missed out on Canada Day this year. Somehow, I just wasn't feeling it. Perhaps I have been overdoing it with the running --50 K this week-- and that's why I was been unable to muster any enthusiasm for the holiday weekend.
But I don't think that's the real reason... in my heart of hearts, I believe my glum disposition was brought on by a dire premonition that things were not going to go as planned on Saturday. Sure enough, we all looked on in disbelief as first, Beckham made an early exit, and then Rooney was ushered off the field in ignominy on a questionable red card. After extra time, Lampard's missed penalty kick sealed the English side's fate, and brought an end to the quest to repeat as World Champions forty years later.
Sure it was Canada's birthday... but alot of people were holding a wake on the evening of July 1st.
I can't help but feel that I missed out on Canada Day this year. Somehow, I just wasn't feeling it. Perhaps I have been overdoing it with the running --50 K this week-- and that's why I was been unable to muster any enthusiasm for the holiday weekend.
But I don't think that's the real reason... in my heart of hearts, I believe my glum disposition was brought on by a dire premonition that things were not going to go as planned on Saturday. Sure enough, we all looked on in disbelief as first, Beckham made an early exit, and then Rooney was ushered off the field in ignominy on a questionable red card. After extra time, Lampard's missed penalty kick sealed the English side's fate, and brought an end to the quest to repeat as World Champions forty years later.
Sure it was Canada's birthday... but alot of people were holding a wake on the evening of July 1st.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Ain't you supposed to be separated by now?
Something I alluded to a few months ago. Quebec's "separatiste" movement is a sham. Dig the prophylactic metaphor Steyn uses at the end. And managing to work in Rue Ste Catherine.. brilliant
Something I alluded to a few months ago. Quebec's "separatiste" movement is a sham. Dig the prophylactic metaphor Steyn uses at the end. And managing to work in Rue Ste Catherine.. brilliant
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Ecce Oilers
Classical photo composition. I'm not trying to be blasphemous... but Smitty was looking a little Christ-like as Whitney embraced him, no? You be the judge:
Murillo
Corregio
Ribera
"The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done"
Jim Matheson, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 Article tools
Printer friendly
RALEIGH - Former Oilers stickboy Ray Whitney gave Ryan Smyth a hug in the handshake line and wasn't sure what to say.
"Normally when you shake hands after a series is over, you really don't care that much that you just beat them," said Whitney.
"But I looked into Ryan's eyes and I knew what it meant to him after all the years in Edmonton. I said on the broadcast after the game that if we weren't going to win the Cup this year ... being an Edmontonian, I wanted the Oilers to win, for sure. I tried to downplay it as much as I could, but the Oilers have been a part of my life as long as I can remember."
Classical photo composition. I'm not trying to be blasphemous... but Smitty was looking a little Christ-like as Whitney embraced him, no? You be the judge:
Murillo
Corregio
Ribera
"The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done"
Jim Matheson, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 Article tools
Printer friendly
RALEIGH - Former Oilers stickboy Ray Whitney gave Ryan Smyth a hug in the handshake line and wasn't sure what to say.
"Normally when you shake hands after a series is over, you really don't care that much that you just beat them," said Whitney.
"But I looked into Ryan's eyes and I knew what it meant to him after all the years in Edmonton. I said on the broadcast after the game that if we weren't going to win the Cup this year ... being an Edmontonian, I wanted the Oilers to win, for sure. I tried to downplay it as much as I could, but the Oilers have been a part of my life as long as I can remember."
They Died With Their Skates On
Colby Cosh, the sometime NP columnist and native Edmontonian has been blogging up a storm throughout the Oilers' improbably playoff run. Now that it's all over, it's worth revisiting some of his pieces, and reflecting on what might have been.
The Oilers, who played like lions --Christ, they didn't even know they were beaten last night with one minute left to play, they were still hustling-- became, for a brief moment in this country's hockey history, Canada's team. Lord knows I was rootin' for 'em.
Colby Cosh, the sometime NP columnist and native Edmontonian has been blogging up a storm throughout the Oilers' improbably playoff run. Now that it's all over, it's worth revisiting some of his pieces, and reflecting on what might have been.
The Oilers, who played like lions --Christ, they didn't even know they were beaten last night with one minute left to play, they were still hustling-- became, for a brief moment in this country's hockey history, Canada's team. Lord knows I was rootin' for 'em.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Spider-man 3 trailer?
Nope. But a damn impressive fake nonetheless.
And incidentally, does anyone remember THIS? Possibly the coolest teaser trailer that hardly anyone saw. I don't blame the studio for pulling it, but I marvel (no pun intended) and the grotesque coincidence that a major motion picture would use such an iconic image, only to have real life events re-write the script.
Guard against fakes! Equip yourself with A baloney detector kit
Nope. But a damn impressive fake nonetheless.
And incidentally, does anyone remember THIS? Possibly the coolest teaser trailer that hardly anyone saw. I don't blame the studio for pulling it, but I marvel (no pun intended) and the grotesque coincidence that a major motion picture would use such an iconic image, only to have real life events re-write the script.
Guard against fakes! Equip yourself with A baloney detector kit
Monday, June 12, 2006
It's World Cup 2006, and the old man has gone into seclusion
He needs to concentrate on willing the boys sporting the three lions on to victory...
Other matters:
A Letter from Jesus
The Democratic Party react to Zarq's demise
He needs to concentrate on willing the boys sporting the three lions on to victory...
Other matters:
A Letter from Jesus
The Democratic Party react to Zarq's demise
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Guest blogger feature: Charmsley Brayington's Carnival of Bile
Hey folks, ya know, alot of people say it's important to count your blessings.
I'm not one of them. I say it is more important to count other people's misfortunes. Lets face it, sometimes blessings are few and far between in this life. But darn it if schadenfreude don't feel good sometimes. Honestly... when somebody gets what's coming to 'em, how many of us can deny that we don't breath a sigh of relief and think "better them than me"?
So in that spirit, I give you today's list of unfortunates. Let us ponder the vagaries of fate that delivered them such powerful boots to the nutsack:
1. Joey Delissio
2. The Zarkman
3. Ambassador Mike "Why Now?" Wilson
4. Ralanis (or is it Alanyan?): The Canadian celebrity supercouple that never really took off
5. Senior Cabeza
and remember, if you and a friend are out for a walk in the woods and a bear suddenly appears and begins to chase you, you don't have to outrun the bear... you just have to outrun your friend. Sure there will be self-recrimination later, when you are perched in a tree, and Smokey is off somewhere groaning with indigestion while your pal works his way through his plumbing, but guess who'll be eating bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow at the ranger station, and who won't be a stool sample at the foot of a douglas fir? That's right sunshine! It's you.
Til next time, keep your chin up!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Shameless Plug for GeorgeThis is a picture from last year's wedding in Spain. The dude in the red shirt is my dashing young entrepreneur brother, who has been working on starting up a travel business with some friends. I know those first few months can be pretty challenging, so I figured I'd plug it here... even though I have no illusions about my site traffic. Ever little bit helps, right?
The name of the Company is
Exclusive X-cursions Travel, and they offer great discounts for vacations to Costa Rica. The buzz from some of my friends who have been there is that Costa Rica is on the verge of becoming a trendy tourist hot-spot (a la Thailand or Cancun), so now is definitely the right time to go before prices skyrocket.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Back to Blogulating!
I visited Saint John's for work a couple of weeks ago. What a charming town! Brightly painted houses like these are a common site there. If it wasn't for its isolation and the relatively high cost of getting to the Easternmost tip of Canada, I think it would be a real tourist gem!
Courtesy of my intrepid sister:The Park Avenue Plebe gets the legal pimp hand from Iraq vet
I showed this to a couple of so-called communications professionals, and they didn't get it! Scary:Safire's rules for writers
My blog twin EERIE...
I'm the Juggernaut...
I visited Saint John's for work a couple of weeks ago. What a charming town! Brightly painted houses like these are a common site there. If it wasn't for its isolation and the relatively high cost of getting to the Easternmost tip of Canada, I think it would be a real tourist gem!
Courtesy of my intrepid sister:The Park Avenue Plebe gets the legal pimp hand from Iraq vet
I showed this to a couple of so-called communications professionals, and they didn't get it! Scary:Safire's rules for writers
My blog twin EERIE...
I'm the Juggernaut...
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Slow Boat to China
If Monday's season finale to 24 didn't get your juices flowing, go out to the garage, open the hood, hook the cables up to the battery, and clamp those babies on your earlobes, because I think you need a jump! SPOILERS FOLLOW
For starters, we have Jack, in fine form, slipping onto the nerve-gassy sub, which, as you know if you watched last week, is laden with all sorts of ordinance now aimed at major urban targets. Then we have him coaching the sole survivor of the Bierko attack, a wet-behind-the-ears petty officer, in the fine art of terrorist-throat-slitting; then, when the poor slob actually has to do it, the whole thing degenerates into a gruesome neck-knifing, a nauseating wet butcher's block sound punctuating the desperate clumsy jabbing. Somebody give the sound-man an emmy, he just caused me to lose my lunch!
The submarine: it is the space that made Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot a masterpiece of cinematic claustrophobia, and caused famed nebbish Jared Fogel's dramatic weight loss, paving the way for his evil rise to power as dorkus superiorus. (Jared begat many a nerd immitator, it is true: Napoleon Dynamite, that little prick on the insipid Red Green Show, William Hung, but Jared is the original ) Now the interior of a submarine is once again put to good dramatic use as the location of the final three-way showdown between Bierko, Bauer, and Robocop.
I'll spare you the details, if you haven't seen the episode yet, but suffice it
to say that Jack pulls a variation of an oldie from the Season Two Closer out of
the bag to dispatch one of his nemeses. And all this in the first few minutes of the show!
Also, I seriously hope that Greg Itzin gets an Emmy for his performance this season. Weak and vacillating, and yet malevolent and mean-spirited all at once! His Logan was a truly repugnant character. I actually shuddered with discomfort and loathing during that scene that the First Lady had to pretend to seduce president Chuck to buy Bauer some time. Incidentally, Jean Smart was also fantastic as Martha Logan all season long. Give her a matching Emmy to go with her on-screen partner's!
In my book, Season Five was arguably the best season since Season Two.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Move weekend
On Friday, Joe came up from Toronto for a quick visit before heading up to Algonquin Park on a canoe trip.
On Saturday, we finished boxing everything up.
On Sunday, we picked up the rental truck and moved everything from the apartment to the new house.
Now it is Monday, and we find ourselves sore, dazed, and up to our elbows in "stuff" that needs to be organized and put away... Isn't it amazing how many possessions we seem to accumulate over time without consciously setting out to do so? I always considered myself a minimalist --I'm not one to pick up the latest gadget or status symbol just because everyone else has it; I have been steadfast in avoiding acquiring a cellphone, for example. And yet, the mask has now been pulled away, and I see myself, for the first time, as I truly am. I am a packrat, squirreling useless things away in the eternal hope that one day, I will find a use for them.
The reality is that ya gotta let go sometime, so now the long-deferred "day of the garbage bag" has arrived, and I must go forth and be ruthless with it.
Later
On Friday, Joe came up from Toronto for a quick visit before heading up to Algonquin Park on a canoe trip.
On Saturday, we finished boxing everything up.
On Sunday, we picked up the rental truck and moved everything from the apartment to the new house.
Now it is Monday, and we find ourselves sore, dazed, and up to our elbows in "stuff" that needs to be organized and put away... Isn't it amazing how many possessions we seem to accumulate over time without consciously setting out to do so? I always considered myself a minimalist --I'm not one to pick up the latest gadget or status symbol just because everyone else has it; I have been steadfast in avoiding acquiring a cellphone, for example. And yet, the mask has now been pulled away, and I see myself, for the first time, as I truly am. I am a packrat, squirreling useless things away in the eternal hope that one day, I will find a use for them.
The reality is that ya gotta let go sometime, so now the long-deferred "day of the garbage bag" has arrived, and I must go forth and be ruthless with it.
Later
Monday, May 15, 2006
I once read a Mad Magazine parody
where a fast food restaurant offered a mystery value meal that was basically "Here's what we scraped off the grill last night...we're not sure what it is, but we're putting it in a bag and selling it to you".
So, in that spirit, here are some leftovers -- items I had collecting dust for a while. May they tide you over til I get back to blogging:
I must believe that there is hope for the world, and that, in the end righteousness will prevail. But in order for this to happen, we must be re-learn the ability to make moral distinctions between right and wrong.
Basically, what I got from this article is thatCardinal Pell's lack of ignorance is an obstacle to dialogue on Islam. It is precisely because he understands it that as a believing Catholic, he is prepared to point out its shortcomings as it is currently practiced. Why has tolerance (I don't care) become so intermeshed with its dull distant cousin, ignorance (I don't know)? Because if you don't know anything about a reality, it is easy to tolerate it. I don't know, therefore, I don't care.
The opposite of course, is to learn about something, and in learning, come to understand it. But knowledge and understanding is not equivalent to acceptance. In fact, once you know a great deal about something, morality demands that you speak out if it is wrong. Yes, that is "judgmental", and "discriminatory" Once upon a time to discriminate meant To make a clear distinction; distinguish among the options available, or To make sensible decisions; judge wisely.
Like with so many other topics, the Catholic Church offers a refreshingly unambiguous and blunt assessment of its main competitor religion and its adherents: They are in error. the following passage on the ethics of islam is from the article "Mohammed and Mohammedanism" in the Catholic Encyclopaedia Online:
It is hardly necessary here to emphasize the fact that the ethics of Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New Testament. Furthermore, we cannot agree with Noldeke when he maintains that, although in many respects the ethics of Islam are not to be compared even with such Christianity as prevailed, and still prevails, in the East, nevertheless, in other points, the new faith — simple, robust, in the vigour of its youth — far surpassed the religion of the Syrian and Egyptian Christians, which was in a stagnating condition, and steadily sinking lower and lower into the depths of barbarism (op. cit., Wollaston, 71, 72). The history and the development, as well as the past and present religious, social, and ethical condition of all the Christian nations and countries, no matter of what sect or school they may be, as compared with these of the various Mohammedan countries, in all ages, is a sufficient refutation of Noldeke's assertion. That in the ethics of Islam there is a great deal to admire and to approve, is beyond dispute; but of originality or superiority, there is not. What is really good in Mohammedan ethics is either commonplace or borrowed from some other religions, whereas what is characteristic is nearly always imperfect or wicked.
*****
Sesame classics
Johnny Cash singing Don't Take Your Ones To Town? Amazing --If this does not bring a tear of nostalgia to your eye, you may not have a soul. One of my fave's is "Born to Add", featuring a leather-jacket wearing muppet doing a suprisingly good cover of one of the Boss's classics. There's alot of us adders on the Jersey shore -- a line good enough to have been in the original.
*****
Uh, is there any place cooler than Montreal? I lived there for a year, and as far as I know, there isn't. But what is the price of cool? It's pretty hefty, it turns out.
An editorial in the Gazette lays it out in stark terms:
We Montrealers have less disposable income than people with comparable jobs in other cities. Even those of us barely managing on an annual salary of less than $30,000 pay higher taxes than we would anywhere else in the country. So much for the tenacious myth that Quebec is kinder to its less well-to-do citizens. For too many years, Montrealers have clung to the fiction that we are better off than Torontonians or Vancouverites because housing is cheaper here. Fine - housing and living costs should be part of any comparison among cities. Taxes are not the whole story, it's true. The beauty of the recent study we're quoting is that it combined three elements - salaries, taxes and cost of living - to determine how well off residents of various cities are. It did the calculations for four family types - couples with and without children and single people earning high and low salaries - in order to take into account such social benefits as our $7-a-day daycare.
Once everything is thrown into the mix, the stark reality is impossible to avoid. Take for instance the Montreal couple with no kids. They earn $6,819 less a year than their counterparts in Vancouver - but pay $4,929 more in taxes! Incredible.
Guess that is what a statist political culture, and a patrician, pseudo-intellectual political elite educated abroad and dedicated to a completely impractical notion of quasi-independance will get you!
where a fast food restaurant offered a mystery value meal that was basically "Here's what we scraped off the grill last night...we're not sure what it is, but we're putting it in a bag and selling it to you".
So, in that spirit, here are some leftovers -- items I had collecting dust for a while. May they tide you over til I get back to blogging:
I must believe that there is hope for the world, and that, in the end righteousness will prevail. But in order for this to happen, we must be re-learn the ability to make moral distinctions between right and wrong.
Basically, what I got from this article is thatCardinal Pell's lack of ignorance is an obstacle to dialogue on Islam. It is precisely because he understands it that as a believing Catholic, he is prepared to point out its shortcomings as it is currently practiced. Why has tolerance (I don't care) become so intermeshed with its dull distant cousin, ignorance (I don't know)? Because if you don't know anything about a reality, it is easy to tolerate it. I don't know, therefore, I don't care.
The opposite of course, is to learn about something, and in learning, come to understand it. But knowledge and understanding is not equivalent to acceptance. In fact, once you know a great deal about something, morality demands that you speak out if it is wrong. Yes, that is "judgmental", and "discriminatory" Once upon a time to discriminate meant To make a clear distinction; distinguish among the options available, or To make sensible decisions; judge wisely.
Like with so many other topics, the Catholic Church offers a refreshingly unambiguous and blunt assessment of its main competitor religion and its adherents: They are in error. the following passage on the ethics of islam is from the article "Mohammed and Mohammedanism" in the Catholic Encyclopaedia Online:
It is hardly necessary here to emphasize the fact that the ethics of Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New Testament. Furthermore, we cannot agree with Noldeke when he maintains that, although in many respects the ethics of Islam are not to be compared even with such Christianity as prevailed, and still prevails, in the East, nevertheless, in other points, the new faith — simple, robust, in the vigour of its youth — far surpassed the religion of the Syrian and Egyptian Christians, which was in a stagnating condition, and steadily sinking lower and lower into the depths of barbarism (op. cit., Wollaston, 71, 72). The history and the development, as well as the past and present religious, social, and ethical condition of all the Christian nations and countries, no matter of what sect or school they may be, as compared with these of the various Mohammedan countries, in all ages, is a sufficient refutation of Noldeke's assertion. That in the ethics of Islam there is a great deal to admire and to approve, is beyond dispute; but of originality or superiority, there is not. What is really good in Mohammedan ethics is either commonplace or borrowed from some other religions, whereas what is characteristic is nearly always imperfect or wicked.
*****
Sesame classics
Johnny Cash singing Don't Take Your Ones To Town? Amazing --If this does not bring a tear of nostalgia to your eye, you may not have a soul. One of my fave's is "Born to Add", featuring a leather-jacket wearing muppet doing a suprisingly good cover of one of the Boss's classics. There's alot of us adders on the Jersey shore -- a line good enough to have been in the original.
*****
Uh, is there any place cooler than Montreal? I lived there for a year, and as far as I know, there isn't. But what is the price of cool? It's pretty hefty, it turns out.
An editorial in the Gazette lays it out in stark terms:
We Montrealers have less disposable income than people with comparable jobs in other cities. Even those of us barely managing on an annual salary of less than $30,000 pay higher taxes than we would anywhere else in the country. So much for the tenacious myth that Quebec is kinder to its less well-to-do citizens. For too many years, Montrealers have clung to the fiction that we are better off than Torontonians or Vancouverites because housing is cheaper here. Fine - housing and living costs should be part of any comparison among cities. Taxes are not the whole story, it's true. The beauty of the recent study we're quoting is that it combined three elements - salaries, taxes and cost of living - to determine how well off residents of various cities are. It did the calculations for four family types - couples with and without children and single people earning high and low salaries - in order to take into account such social benefits as our $7-a-day daycare.
Once everything is thrown into the mix, the stark reality is impossible to avoid. Take for instance the Montreal couple with no kids. They earn $6,819 less a year than their counterparts in Vancouver - but pay $4,929 more in taxes! Incredible.
Guess that is what a statist political culture, and a patrician, pseudo-intellectual political elite educated abroad and dedicated to a completely impractical notion of quasi-independance will get you!
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Let the hand wringing begin
So the Senators have been felled in five, and already the hounds, smelling blood, have begun their baying. In seeking a martyr to satiate their hunger, I trust they will look past Emery, who stood on his head during these playoffs and who wasn't even supposed to be between the posts-- don't kid yourself pal, one nod from the Dominator and they would have yanked poor Ray. Perhaps their gaze will fall on a more likely victim: the happless Alfie.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating firing the guy, but lets call a spade a shovel, and lay the blame where it belongs: Right between the wobbly ankles that allowed a snot-nosed punk who was on waivers at the beginning of the season to waltz around him like a young Wayne Gretzky, circa 1981, and score shorthanded in OT, for crissakes. I swore I saw Emery weeping.
From 2000 until the lockout, Daniel Alfredsson was racking up 70-80 points during the regular season, and he's a big part of the reason that the Senators have dominated of late. But then comes the playoffs, and a change seems to come over the guy. Alfredsson who plays like a norse hero for 82 games, suddenly becomes a mere mortal. You can see the bewilderment in his nordic blue eyes, as everyone around him seems to kick their game up a notch, and he is left, far too often, looking like he just can't do the same.
Now I know that fans will point to the Captain's goal last night, and his classy post-game interview. But as Luke writes in the Gospel, "of those to whom much is given, much is expected". Occasional moments of brilliance won't cut it. A player of Alfredsson's calibre who has the priviledge of wearing the C in arguably the league's best team should be consistently fantastic. It's the second round of the playoffs, and Ottawa is already out. That wasn't supposed to happen.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Long time no see!
I have so much to tell you...
First of all, I'm worried! No not about the reverse-reconquista going on as immigrants squatting in European churches casually throw up banners proclaiming that Mohammed rocks... nah! That's just par-for-the-course in today's strange world. no I'm worried about something much more troubling because I am a North American navel-gazer who doesn't worry about things that happen in faraway lands. I worry about far more pressing and urgent things like soldiers with guns in Canadian cities and climate change ! After all, I just bought a new home! Will I have to spend money on roof-mounted General-Purpose Machine Guns to keep out rampaging paramilitaries? Not only that, will I have to buy extra insulation for my new home, or will somebody save us from Global Cooling. Al Gore, Maude Barlow, George Clooney, David Suzuki, somebody do something! Imagine the global chaos that global cooling will bring. And Iran has nukes now --or so the Zionistneocons would have us believe. A light dusting of snow over Tehran might be all it takes to send the Ayatollahs over the edge... then next thing ya know, Chuck Heston is raving on a beach in front of the top third of the Statue of Liberty!
*****
So anyway, I've been reading a bit about
Tony Blair and his issue with Gordon Brown, and I gotta tell ya, it reminds me an awful lot of the Chretien/Martin mess that ultimately brought down the most successful political machine in the history of Western Democracies (for now--trust not the fickle Canadian electorate). Taking a page out of the book of another Tony, Blair needs to pole-axe this clown, pronto, for the good of "the family".
******
As promised, here is more on the movie United 93. Rather than write my own review, I figured I would link to one of the best descriptions of a film-viewing experience I have ever read... it speaks more eloquently than anything I might have written.
*****
On Monday, we close the deal on the new house, and I join the ranks of those whose home is owned by a bank. If you don't hear from me for a while, it's probably because I pawned my PC to pay the mortgage.
Hasta la proxima, amigos!
I have so much to tell you...
First of all, I'm worried! No not about the reverse-reconquista going on as immigrants squatting in European churches casually throw up banners proclaiming that Mohammed rocks... nah! That's just par-for-the-course in today's strange world. no I'm worried about something much more troubling because I am a North American navel-gazer who doesn't worry about things that happen in faraway lands. I worry about far more pressing and urgent things like soldiers with guns in Canadian cities and climate change ! After all, I just bought a new home! Will I have to spend money on roof-mounted General-Purpose Machine Guns to keep out rampaging paramilitaries? Not only that, will I have to buy extra insulation for my new home, or will somebody save us from Global Cooling. Al Gore, Maude Barlow, George Clooney, David Suzuki, somebody do something! Imagine the global chaos that global cooling will bring. And Iran has nukes now --or so the Zionistneocons would have us believe. A light dusting of snow over Tehran might be all it takes to send the Ayatollahs over the edge... then next thing ya know, Chuck Heston is raving on a beach in front of the top third of the Statue of Liberty!
*****
So anyway, I've been reading a bit about
Tony Blair and his issue with Gordon Brown, and I gotta tell ya, it reminds me an awful lot of the Chretien/Martin mess that ultimately brought down the most successful political machine in the history of Western Democracies (for now--trust not the fickle Canadian electorate). Taking a page out of the book of another Tony, Blair needs to pole-axe this clown, pronto, for the good of "the family".
******
As promised, here is more on the movie United 93. Rather than write my own review, I figured I would link to one of the best descriptions of a film-viewing experience I have ever read... it speaks more eloquently than anything I might have written.
*****
On Monday, we close the deal on the new house, and I join the ranks of those whose home is owned by a bank. If you don't hear from me for a while, it's probably because I pawned my PC to pay the mortgage.
Hasta la proxima, amigos!
Monday, May 01, 2006
In no particular order:
My refutation of The Gospel of Judas, and every other half baked conspiracy theory that Brown or Baigent (or Lee or Pagels or Brown, et. al) have ever come up with:
Apostolic Succession
*****
I went to see United 93 on Friday. Along the lines of what appears to be the general consensus, here is my five word review: IT IS NOT "TOO SOON"
I'll post more on this experience in a little while.
*****
Borat, the funniest member of the Sacha Baron Cohen triad, is getting his own movie, surely a cause for hand pleasure!
"That singer before me. Who was it? It was very courageous of MTV to start the show with a genuine transvestite, he was very convincing. It was only his hands and his testes satchels that gave it away."
Borat on Madonna, at the 2005 MTV Europe awards
My refutation of The Gospel of Judas, and every other half baked conspiracy theory that Brown or Baigent (or Lee or Pagels or Brown, et. al) have ever come up with:
Apostolic Succession
*****
I went to see United 93 on Friday. Along the lines of what appears to be the general consensus, here is my five word review: IT IS NOT "TOO SOON"
I'll post more on this experience in a little while.
*****
Borat, the funniest member of the Sacha Baron Cohen triad, is getting his own movie, surely a cause for hand pleasure!
"That singer before me. Who was it? It was very courageous of MTV to start the show with a genuine transvestite, he was very convincing. It was only his hands and his testes satchels that gave it away."
Borat on Madonna, at the 2005 MTV Europe awards
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Beware of Chimps
A few weeks ago I was watching the Kratt brothers' show "Be the Creature". If you didn't know, the Kratts are two quasi-interchangeable naturalist brothers who host children's wildlife programming on more than one network.
Anyway, this show is dedicated to developing a certain empathy through mimickry--immitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose. And this time, the subject of their flattery was the chimpanzee, which, we are told, is our nearest living relative in the animal kingdom. If so, much of human behaviour that I don't understand was explained for me during that half hour.
During the first half of the program, the brothers spent some time with some chimps in a sanctuary for orphans, roughousing and playing with the beasts. Then in the second half, they dragged a camera deep into the jungle to observe the creatures living in the wild, and the two clowns "aped" them-- if you pardon the expression -- climbing, scampering, rooting for food, calling out chimp-cries. Then, about 45 minutes into the broadcast, things got nasty... when the chimps went on a hunt, the young viewers were treated to the horrifying spectacle of the brutes leaping from tree to tree, seizing monkeys, and rending them limb from limb. The Kratts somberly informed us that as "omnivores", the chimps ate both meat and veggies. And how! These ones seemed to have a predilection for monkey tartar... or rather tear-tear, as that's what they did as they shared the bits of monkey between them, pulling limbs apart in a grotesque jungle tug-of-war.
This jarring image came rushing back into my head as I read this report of a Canadian being injured and his driver killed in a chimp attack in Sierra Leone. For all their cuteness, these are some dangerous and unpredictable beasts, which can turn nasty at a moment's notice. Is it any wonder we think of them as man's closest cousin?
A few weeks ago I was watching the Kratt brothers' show "Be the Creature". If you didn't know, the Kratts are two quasi-interchangeable naturalist brothers who host children's wildlife programming on more than one network.
Anyway, this show is dedicated to developing a certain empathy through mimickry--immitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose. And this time, the subject of their flattery was the chimpanzee, which, we are told, is our nearest living relative in the animal kingdom. If so, much of human behaviour that I don't understand was explained for me during that half hour.
During the first half of the program, the brothers spent some time with some chimps in a sanctuary for orphans, roughousing and playing with the beasts. Then in the second half, they dragged a camera deep into the jungle to observe the creatures living in the wild, and the two clowns "aped" them-- if you pardon the expression -- climbing, scampering, rooting for food, calling out chimp-cries. Then, about 45 minutes into the broadcast, things got nasty... when the chimps went on a hunt, the young viewers were treated to the horrifying spectacle of the brutes leaping from tree to tree, seizing monkeys, and rending them limb from limb. The Kratts somberly informed us that as "omnivores", the chimps ate both meat and veggies. And how! These ones seemed to have a predilection for monkey tartar... or rather tear-tear, as that's what they did as they shared the bits of monkey between them, pulling limbs apart in a grotesque jungle tug-of-war.
This jarring image came rushing back into my head as I read this report of a Canadian being injured and his driver killed in a chimp attack in Sierra Leone. For all their cuteness, these are some dangerous and unpredictable beasts, which can turn nasty at a moment's notice. Is it any wonder we think of them as man's closest cousin?
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Something for mean-spirited conspiracy-crazy bloggers to think about
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quire true, or not quite so bad as it turned out. Is one's first feeling, "Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that," or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemise as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quire true, or not quite so bad as it turned out. Is one's first feeling, "Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that," or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemise as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Friday, April 21, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
The Five Stages of 24
It Was the Best of Seasons and the Worst of Seasons...
by Julius Dithers April 10th, 2006
04:44:53 AM CST or How I Got Over Tony's Death and Can Still Watch This F*cking Manipulative Show:
Denial - "He can't be dead! It's a trick!"
Anger - "Those motherf*cking 24 showrunners authorized TONY'S DEATH!
F*ck Surnow,
f*ck Gordon,
f*ck Fury and f*ck Coto!"
Bargaining - "Why didn't they just kill that little
girl at the mall and spare Tony's life?!"
Depression - "If he's dead, nobody's safe! You, too, Sutherland! Ah, what's the point in watching this show anymore?"
Acceptance - "The President's the big bad?! Holy shit, what happens next?!"
It Was the Best of Seasons and the Worst of Seasons...
by Julius Dithers April 10th, 2006
04:44:53 AM CST or How I Got Over Tony's Death and Can Still Watch This F*cking Manipulative Show:
Denial - "He can't be dead! It's a trick!"
Anger - "Those motherf*cking 24 showrunners authorized TONY'S DEATH!
F*ck Surnow,
f*ck Gordon,
f*ck Fury and f*ck Coto!"
Bargaining - "Why didn't they just kill that little
girl at the mall and spare Tony's life?!"
Depression - "If he's dead, nobody's safe! You, too, Sutherland! Ah, what's the point in watching this show anymore?"
Acceptance - "The President's the big bad?! Holy shit, what happens next?!"
Monday, April 10, 2006
The Melkite Church
My fiance and I will be getting married in this Melkite church.
I've been learning quite a bit about the Greek Catholic Churches and other "particular" churches in communion with Rome. Inevitably, I stumbled across the topic of Orthodoxy, and the strange case of the "Uniat" Churches:
The Catholic Church considers the Eastern Orthodox to be in schism and therefore not in full communion with the Holy See. Some of Eastern Orthodox Christians in turn consider Roman Catholics to be heretics, while the majority consider them in schism. Confusingly, the term "Western Orthodox" refers to Uniat Catholic churches in communion with the Roman See, known also as Eastern Catholic Churches. Actually this is rarely the case in semantic terms. Today "western Orthodox" will probably refer to groups of real apostolic Orthodox Christians in the UK, USA,and perhaps smaller numbersin France, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, who wish to be Orthodox and yet want a western and Latin rite. In Ukraine and Romania there are Uniates called Greek Catholics who have Byzantine rite, but accept primacy of the Pope, and Papal infallibility, so they are Byzantine Catholics. Also in the Lebanon are groups called Maronites and Melkites in a smilar situation.
Confused yet?
How do you think I feel? Basically, it all comes down to which churches are "in communion" with Rome --e.g. those that recognize the primacy of the Pope and accept the authority of the Holy See are Catholic, regardless of the rite they use. The Melkites actually use the Eastern Rite which, to someone raised in the Latin rite, makes for an entirely different church experience than what one is accustomed to. I see it as a wonderful example of the amazing diversity that exists within the worldwide Catholic community.
My fiance and I will be getting married in this Melkite church.
I've been learning quite a bit about the Greek Catholic Churches and other "particular" churches in communion with Rome. Inevitably, I stumbled across the topic of Orthodoxy, and the strange case of the "Uniat" Churches:
The Catholic Church considers the Eastern Orthodox to be in schism and therefore not in full communion with the Holy See. Some of Eastern Orthodox Christians in turn consider Roman Catholics to be heretics, while the majority consider them in schism. Confusingly, the term "Western Orthodox" refers to Uniat Catholic churches in communion with the Roman See, known also as Eastern Catholic Churches. Actually this is rarely the case in semantic terms. Today "western Orthodox" will probably refer to groups of real apostolic Orthodox Christians in the UK, USA,and perhaps smaller numbersin France, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, who wish to be Orthodox and yet want a western and Latin rite. In Ukraine and Romania there are Uniates called Greek Catholics who have Byzantine rite, but accept primacy of the Pope, and Papal infallibility, so they are Byzantine Catholics. Also in the Lebanon are groups called Maronites and Melkites in a smilar situation.
Confused yet?
How do you think I feel? Basically, it all comes down to which churches are "in communion" with Rome --e.g. those that recognize the primacy of the Pope and accept the authority of the Holy See are Catholic, regardless of the rite they use. The Melkites actually use the Eastern Rite which, to someone raised in the Latin rite, makes for an entirely different church experience than what one is accustomed to. I see it as a wonderful example of the amazing diversity that exists within the worldwide Catholic community.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Sunday, April 02, 2006
The competition was fierce, but the results are finally in!
I'm delighted to announce the winner of the "Idiotic Statement of the Day" Award.
Congratulations, Linda McQuaig!
You take home the prize for this assinine little nugget:
Is it just me or does anyone else find it ominous that Harper says "God bless Canada" and vows not to "cut and run" — deliberately aping the most unsavoury president in U.S. history?
Ooh, scary Mr. Harper! Stop "aping" Mr. Bush --clever simian subtext there! I get it --Chimpy McBushitler, right? Clever, very clever! Stop your ominous references to God, you are scaring some people! Presumably the same people that shudder and cower in terror every time they hear the following line in our national anthem:
GOD keep our land glorious and free. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Reminds me of a classic Simpsons line
"God has no place in the public schools, just as facts have no place in organized religion!" Superintendant Chalmers
I'm delighted to announce the winner of the "Idiotic Statement of the Day" Award.
Congratulations, Linda McQuaig!
You take home the prize for this assinine little nugget:
Is it just me or does anyone else find it ominous that Harper says "God bless Canada" and vows not to "cut and run" — deliberately aping the most unsavoury president in U.S. history?
Ooh, scary Mr. Harper! Stop "aping" Mr. Bush --clever simian subtext there! I get it --Chimpy McBushitler, right? Clever, very clever! Stop your ominous references to God, you are scaring some people! Presumably the same people that shudder and cower in terror every time they hear the following line in our national anthem:
GOD keep our land glorious and free. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Reminds me of a classic Simpsons line
"God has no place in the public schools, just as facts have no place in organized religion!" Superintendant Chalmers
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Perplexing quote provided completely out of context
Pope Benedict XVI will bury you in an avalanche of righteousness and roast your heathen flesh in the purifying fires of the holy spirit.
I actually found this in an e-mail I wrote to an e-mail to a friend a few months ago. I must have been off my meds.
You could accuse me of hero worship... but you might get tortured for it
Another Baueristic link
Different Jack, but cool nonetheless
Michael Ware, the intrepid Time magazine correspondent, exposed
Pope Benedict XVI will bury you in an avalanche of righteousness and roast your heathen flesh in the purifying fires of the holy spirit.
I actually found this in an e-mail I wrote to an e-mail to a friend a few months ago. I must have been off my meds.
You could accuse me of hero worship... but you might get tortured for it
Another Baueristic link
Different Jack, but cool nonetheless
Michael Ware, the intrepid Time magazine correspondent, exposed
Thursday, March 30, 2006
The Dupes and the Defenders
Actual press release:
The Iraq embassy condemns the comment of "Christian Peacemaker Teams" and calls
on all democrats to rally to the cause of a democratic Iraq and to condemn all
such phony pacifists... One could hardly think of a more disgraceful response to
the efforts of the Iraqi, American and British soldiers that risked their necks
to save hostages... They are not pacifists, but stooges of the enemies of
democracy. The "Christian Peacemaker Teams" practice the kind of politics that
automatically nominate them as dupes for jihadism and fascism
Another actual press release:
Statement by the Prime Minister on the passing of Private Robert Costall
March 29, 2006
Ottawa, Ontario
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today issued the following statement on the passing of Private Robert Costall:
“It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Private Robert Costall, killed in a firefight in Afghanistan.
“Private Costall died while participating in our mission to bring democracy and stability to the war torn country of Afghanistan. His sacrifice, for which we are deeply grateful, will be remembered.
“On behalf of the people of Canada and our government, I extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and co-workers of Private Costall. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
“Our UN-mandated mission in Afghanistan is not without risk and we are so very proud of our brave men and women who daily face these dangers while carrying out their duties. They represent the best of our country and I am proud to honour them.”
So which of these makes you proud to be Canadian?
RIP Private Costall
Actual press release:
The Iraq embassy condemns the comment of "Christian Peacemaker Teams" and calls
on all democrats to rally to the cause of a democratic Iraq and to condemn all
such phony pacifists... One could hardly think of a more disgraceful response to
the efforts of the Iraqi, American and British soldiers that risked their necks
to save hostages... They are not pacifists, but stooges of the enemies of
democracy. The "Christian Peacemaker Teams" practice the kind of politics that
automatically nominate them as dupes for jihadism and fascism
Another actual press release:
Statement by the Prime Minister on the passing of Private Robert Costall
March 29, 2006
Ottawa, Ontario
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today issued the following statement on the passing of Private Robert Costall:
“It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Private Robert Costall, killed in a firefight in Afghanistan.
“Private Costall died while participating in our mission to bring democracy and stability to the war torn country of Afghanistan. His sacrifice, for which we are deeply grateful, will be remembered.
“On behalf of the people of Canada and our government, I extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and co-workers of Private Costall. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
“Our UN-mandated mission in Afghanistan is not without risk and we are so very proud of our brave men and women who daily face these dangers while carrying out their duties. They represent the best of our country and I am proud to honour them.”
So which of these makes you proud to be Canadian?
RIP Private Costall
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
From a Canada.com article
Earlier Monday, the Christian Peacemaker Teams admitted they purposefully kept the fact Loney is gay a secret over fears his sexual orientation could further endanger his life while he was held captive in Iraq. "There was concern for his safety in this violent world of gay-bashing," said administrative co-ordinator Rebecca Johnson.
(...)It was in Loney's "best interest" to keep that part of his personal life under wraps because gay people are still targets of "antagonistic" attacks.
Notice the artful evasion... The implication appears to be that in this day and age, Loney's sexual orientation puts him in danger of "antagonistic attacks" from, say, roving gangs of intolerant bigots in downtown Toronto. By obliquely and deliberately characterising the threat as "this violent world", Johnson evades the thorny issue of the prevailing attitude towards homosexuality in certain very specific parts of the world. Anyone who knows anything about urban Canada and our famed value of tolerance sees this for what it is: disingenuous obfuscation.
No, Ms. Johnson. As a homosexual, Mr. Loney was not in danger "in this violent world of gay-bashing". He was in danger from a very specific localized threat: in this world there are theocratic absolutists who would happily crush him under a wall for buggery, there are Baathist thugs who would relish his kidnapping and murder as a sign to other decadent westerners, and there are jihadists who would love to video tape the sawing off of his sodomizing infidel's head for propaganda purposes... and, in case you didn't know, none of these people are found on Jarvis Street in Toronto.
Earlier Monday, the Christian Peacemaker Teams admitted they purposefully kept the fact Loney is gay a secret over fears his sexual orientation could further endanger his life while he was held captive in Iraq. "There was concern for his safety in this violent world of gay-bashing," said administrative co-ordinator Rebecca Johnson.
(...)It was in Loney's "best interest" to keep that part of his personal life under wraps because gay people are still targets of "antagonistic" attacks.
Notice the artful evasion... The implication appears to be that in this day and age, Loney's sexual orientation puts him in danger of "antagonistic attacks" from, say, roving gangs of intolerant bigots in downtown Toronto. By obliquely and deliberately characterising the threat as "this violent world", Johnson evades the thorny issue of the prevailing attitude towards homosexuality in certain very specific parts of the world. Anyone who knows anything about urban Canada and our famed value of tolerance sees this for what it is: disingenuous obfuscation.
No, Ms. Johnson. As a homosexual, Mr. Loney was not in danger "in this violent world of gay-bashing". He was in danger from a very specific localized threat: in this world there are theocratic absolutists who would happily crush him under a wall for buggery, there are Baathist thugs who would relish his kidnapping and murder as a sign to other decadent westerners, and there are jihadists who would love to video tape the sawing off of his sodomizing infidel's head for propaganda purposes... and, in case you didn't know, none of these people are found on Jarvis Street in Toronto.
Monday, March 27, 2006
All Over The Place:
I'm impressed!
I'm kinda surprised they couldn't find an American-built car, but nevertheless,
THIS is pretty amazing!
24: We kill more major characters in one hour than most primetime dramas kill in several seasons
This morbid little hitcounter is brought to you by the good folks at Blogs4bauer
Allah's holodeck:
An intersting angle on the islamic worldview
Desmond Morton to the media:
Do your f*cking job
I'm impressed!
I'm kinda surprised they couldn't find an American-built car, but nevertheless,
THIS is pretty amazing!
24: We kill more major characters in one hour than most primetime dramas kill in several seasons
This morbid little hitcounter is brought to you by the good folks at Blogs4bauer
Allah's holodeck:
An intersting angle on the islamic worldview
Desmond Morton to the media:
Do your f*cking job
You Christian? You crazy!
Dudes keep insisting that Islam is a religion of peace , and some other dudes keep insisting on proving them wrong!
Now that is crazy.
Dudes keep insisting that Islam is a religion of peace , and some other dudes keep insisting on proving them wrong!
Now that is crazy.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Swompdonkey is two years old
Thanks for sticking with me, friend! Your patronage is encouraging. I do believe I will continue to post my disjointed rantings -- how does that grab you?
Twenty-Four update:
I've been chastized for not adding spoiler warnings to my 24 posts. It never occured to me that some people actually don't watch the show from week to week, but prefer to TIVO it and watch three or four episodes at once, or wait for the DVD boxed set to come out. I should have thought of that, of course, because I actually watched Seasons 1-3 on DVD after discovering the show last year. My apologies for spoiling anything... I promise to be more careful in the future... and with that:
***POTENTIAL SPOILER***
Jack now divides the sexes! 24-related post at jumptheshark.com in response to a girl's complaint over Tony's exit:
This show has never jumped. It is still one of the edgiest, most suspenseful rides out there on the small screen and this season is the best since Day 2. It is one of the few shows that has balls enough to kill off any major character. For those whining about Tony's death, get over it! What did you expect when the writers say that no one on the show is safe? I loved Tony too, but his time came and that's the way it goes. Oh, and to the above poster who's boyfriend quit watching...I can understand. He obviously was no longer able to identify with Jack Bauer; a man with his own set of testicles that remain under his own control. I hope your boyfriend enjoys Gilmore Girls and The O.C., or whatever it is that you make him watch when you're not playing solitaire. Meanwhile, the rest of us real men will continue to enjoy Jack and the ticking clock of doom.
***SPOILER ENDS***
Victor Davis Hanson runs a fantastic Web site. If you have never visited it, I encourage you to do so. It's chock-full of great articles containing some very sharp insights --like this one:
When Westerners die in Afghanistan, it is back-page news; but in Iraq, the deaths make the front page. Why? Because the "bad" war in Iraq was supposedly "unilateral," while the "good" war to dethrone the Taliban is now a multilateral enterprise. Yet to the jihadists, there is little difference between the two: a German soldier in Kabul looks every bit the crusader that the American in the Sunni Triangle does. We in the West make the distinction between the wars; the radical Islamists don't.
On the topic of Afghanistan: Lets not forget that, for all our rhetoric about democracy and the rule of law, Afghanistan is still a profoundly troubled land. Some things that go on there are incomprehensible to me. Like the ordeal of an Afghani apostate reported here in the Globe and Mail.
PS
I just found out that the creator of Ren and Stimpy has a blog. I was the hugest fan of that show when it first came out something like fifteen years ago.... Can I really be that old?
Thanks for sticking with me, friend! Your patronage is encouraging. I do believe I will continue to post my disjointed rantings -- how does that grab you?
Twenty-Four update:
I've been chastized for not adding spoiler warnings to my 24 posts. It never occured to me that some people actually don't watch the show from week to week, but prefer to TIVO it and watch three or four episodes at once, or wait for the DVD boxed set to come out. I should have thought of that, of course, because I actually watched Seasons 1-3 on DVD after discovering the show last year. My apologies for spoiling anything... I promise to be more careful in the future... and with that:
***POTENTIAL SPOILER***
Jack now divides the sexes! 24-related post at jumptheshark.com in response to a girl's complaint over Tony's exit:
This show has never jumped. It is still one of the edgiest, most suspenseful rides out there on the small screen and this season is the best since Day 2. It is one of the few shows that has balls enough to kill off any major character. For those whining about Tony's death, get over it! What did you expect when the writers say that no one on the show is safe? I loved Tony too, but his time came and that's the way it goes. Oh, and to the above poster who's boyfriend quit watching...I can understand. He obviously was no longer able to identify with Jack Bauer; a man with his own set of testicles that remain under his own control. I hope your boyfriend enjoys Gilmore Girls and The O.C., or whatever it is that you make him watch when you're not playing solitaire. Meanwhile, the rest of us real men will continue to enjoy Jack and the ticking clock of doom.
***SPOILER ENDS***
Victor Davis Hanson runs a fantastic Web site. If you have never visited it, I encourage you to do so. It's chock-full of great articles containing some very sharp insights --like this one:
When Westerners die in Afghanistan, it is back-page news; but in Iraq, the deaths make the front page. Why? Because the "bad" war in Iraq was supposedly "unilateral," while the "good" war to dethrone the Taliban is now a multilateral enterprise. Yet to the jihadists, there is little difference between the two: a German soldier in Kabul looks every bit the crusader that the American in the Sunni Triangle does. We in the West make the distinction between the wars; the radical Islamists don't.
On the topic of Afghanistan: Lets not forget that, for all our rhetoric about democracy and the rule of law, Afghanistan is still a profoundly troubled land. Some things that go on there are incomprehensible to me. Like the ordeal of an Afghani apostate reported here in the Globe and Mail.
PS
I just found out that the creator of Ren and Stimpy has a blog. I was the hugest fan of that show when it first came out something like fifteen years ago.... Can I really be that old?
With Tony deceased, Jack calls upon the Lord for help?
...or so it would appear. I thought I recognized that Theo Stoller! Sure he may say he he's from German intelligence, but that's only an alias. A search of Government databases uncovered several aliases:
Salvator Mundi
Joshua Emmanuel Nazarenus
Iesu Christos
That's right! It's Jesus!
And now, Jack's gone and pissed him off. Great, not like Bauer didn't have enough on his plate already. He would do well to remember John Turturro's character's words from the Big Lebowski. You know what I'm talking about.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
TWENTY-FOUR
(a.k.a. The Jack Bauer Power Hour)
Edgar's death a Mistake?
Maybe.... but Tony's? Definitely.
I know that this show is admired for its daring and willingness to dispatch major characters without remorse.... Jack Bauer may be the sweatsoaked fist of vengeance, but the fact remains, Agent SOULPATCH, a CTU fixture since Season One, was the heart of the show.
If he really is dead --and I still have my doubts, mostly because of the absent silent counter at the end of the episode with which the deceased Ryan Chapelle, George Mason, and Edgar Styles were previously honoured--
If he really is dead, expect switch Retribution from Agent GRAVITAS
There's a man going around taking names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down
When the Man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup?
Or disappear into the potter's ground
When the Man comes around
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling, voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise man will bow down before the thrown
And at His feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the Man comes around
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the Man comes around
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling and voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
In measured hundred weight and penny pound
When the Man comes around.
Johnny Cash
The Man Comes Around
(a.k.a. The Jack Bauer Power Hour)
Edgar's death a Mistake?
Maybe.... but Tony's? Definitely.
I know that this show is admired for its daring and willingness to dispatch major characters without remorse.... Jack Bauer may be the sweatsoaked fist of vengeance, but the fact remains, Agent SOULPATCH, a CTU fixture since Season One, was the heart of the show.
If he really is dead --and I still have my doubts, mostly because of the absent silent counter at the end of the episode with which the deceased Ryan Chapelle, George Mason, and Edgar Styles were previously honoured--
If he really is dead, expect switch Retribution from Agent GRAVITAS
There's a man going around taking names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down
When the Man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup?
Or disappear into the potter's ground
When the Man comes around
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling, voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise man will bow down before the thrown
And at His feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the Man comes around
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the Man comes around
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling and voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
In measured hundred weight and penny pound
When the Man comes around.
Johnny Cash
The Man Comes Around
Sunday, March 12, 2006
From an Ottawa Sun Column:
Oddly, when we were on our fuzzier peacekeeping missions no one cared when we died. There was rarely any publicity, and little sympathy. I don't quite understand that. In the end, I guess some people just don't get it. Some friends and family don't understand why I want to go, and why I don't make an effort to get out of serving in Afghanistan. I don't hear anyone asking a cop why he answers 911 calls, or why a firefighter runs into a burning building. In fact, I was just accepted for an occupational transfer to Search and Rescue Technician that brings a significant pay raise, but I've turned it down to go to the new Special Operations Regiment.
Why? How can I back away when all my friends are going? I believe in the mission, and in my heart I'm a soldier. This is what I do.
This gentleman displays the mindset of the warrior. John Keegan wrote in his introduction to A History of Warfare:Warriors are not as other men. I really believe that most Canadians cannot fathom this mentality, and perhaps the idea that idealistic dupes like this poor fellow actually want to go put what they have spent years training for to good use is almost repellent to some -- so disconnected have we become from our own past. They believe that we are a nation of peacekeepers, and that our benevolent blue helmets are basically a Canadian peacecorps trained in negotiation and multilateral relations --Canadian Forces members should not talk like gung-ho "american style" warriors. And yet, there are still warriors among us; honourable warriors who believe that the military profession is not one where the primary role of its practicants must be obfuscated or cloaked in the jargon of the pacifist.
No, Canada is not a militaristic society, but it is nevertheless a society in which the military has always played a role, a society where warriors still dwell --something that the myths, pieties and social engineering of the last thirty years can never truly erase. If you don't believe me, walk into any old militia armoury in any city in Canada --there are dozens across the land --and ask to speak to the resident historian or curator of the military museum.
Warriors have been a part of Canadian society since the first outposts were founded by Champlain in the seventeenth century. The history of some of Canada's present-day militia units can be traced back to the Niagara and Lower Canada campaigns in the War of 1812. Throughout the imperial years of the nineteenth century, both before and after Confederation, Canadian men --often more British in outlook than Canadian, went around the globe to fight in Queen Victoria's Wars and many gained reknown. This is that particular breed I refer to as a warrior --a breed of man quite unlike the citizen-soldier, who enlists in time of war, as millions did during the twentieth century.
These warriors are now the ones who now eagerly volunteer for dangerous operations like the one in Afghanistan, where, in the "three block war", humanitarian relief, peacekeeping and warfighting all go hand-in-hand. They fight for those who cannot fight for themselves in the most wretched corners of the world, risking life and limb to ply their trade and bring help to the oppressed. Most strongly believe in what they are doing, and some are even eager to go. George Orwell was speaking of these men when he wrote: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf". The warriors are part of a warrior tribe, quite apart from the rest of us, that hews to those old-fashioned values of duty, honour, and loyalty, and their function is to protect the rest of us.
We should not prevent them from doing what any society expects of its warriors.
Oddly, when we were on our fuzzier peacekeeping missions no one cared when we died. There was rarely any publicity, and little sympathy. I don't quite understand that. In the end, I guess some people just don't get it. Some friends and family don't understand why I want to go, and why I don't make an effort to get out of serving in Afghanistan. I don't hear anyone asking a cop why he answers 911 calls, or why a firefighter runs into a burning building. In fact, I was just accepted for an occupational transfer to Search and Rescue Technician that brings a significant pay raise, but I've turned it down to go to the new Special Operations Regiment.
Why? How can I back away when all my friends are going? I believe in the mission, and in my heart I'm a soldier. This is what I do.
This gentleman displays the mindset of the warrior. John Keegan wrote in his introduction to A History of Warfare:Warriors are not as other men. I really believe that most Canadians cannot fathom this mentality, and perhaps the idea that idealistic dupes like this poor fellow actually want to go put what they have spent years training for to good use is almost repellent to some -- so disconnected have we become from our own past. They believe that we are a nation of peacekeepers, and that our benevolent blue helmets are basically a Canadian peacecorps trained in negotiation and multilateral relations --Canadian Forces members should not talk like gung-ho "american style" warriors. And yet, there are still warriors among us; honourable warriors who believe that the military profession is not one where the primary role of its practicants must be obfuscated or cloaked in the jargon of the pacifist.
No, Canada is not a militaristic society, but it is nevertheless a society in which the military has always played a role, a society where warriors still dwell --something that the myths, pieties and social engineering of the last thirty years can never truly erase. If you don't believe me, walk into any old militia armoury in any city in Canada --there are dozens across the land --and ask to speak to the resident historian or curator of the military museum.
Warriors have been a part of Canadian society since the first outposts were founded by Champlain in the seventeenth century. The history of some of Canada's present-day militia units can be traced back to the Niagara and Lower Canada campaigns in the War of 1812. Throughout the imperial years of the nineteenth century, both before and after Confederation, Canadian men --often more British in outlook than Canadian, went around the globe to fight in Queen Victoria's Wars and many gained reknown. This is that particular breed I refer to as a warrior --a breed of man quite unlike the citizen-soldier, who enlists in time of war, as millions did during the twentieth century.
These warriors are now the ones who now eagerly volunteer for dangerous operations like the one in Afghanistan, where, in the "three block war", humanitarian relief, peacekeeping and warfighting all go hand-in-hand. They fight for those who cannot fight for themselves in the most wretched corners of the world, risking life and limb to ply their trade and bring help to the oppressed. Most strongly believe in what they are doing, and some are even eager to go. George Orwell was speaking of these men when he wrote: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf". The warriors are part of a warrior tribe, quite apart from the rest of us, that hews to those old-fashioned values of duty, honour, and loyalty, and their function is to protect the rest of us.
We should not prevent them from doing what any society expects of its warriors.
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