Blog Revolution
Pajamas Media
founded by Charles Johnson and Roger Simon (the bloggers who broke and disseminated the fake National Guard memo story and brought Dan Rather's Career to an ugly end) is relaunching.
The National Review Online has more here.
Open Source Media will now be one stop-shopping for people who like to get their news from the guys sitting in their living rooms in their pajamas writing -- to paraphrase Jonathan Klein's now-famous description -- and not just from ideologically-driven politically-connected elitist twits from the Mainstream Media. One of the most trenchant satirical takes on the media elite is, of course, this guy.
Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -"conquered", if you will - by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Sleep deprivization
My main squeeze and I went to the Remembrance Day Ceremonies at the National War Memorial last Friday. I was quite pleased to see how many people had shown up. This year being the Year of the Veteran, I suppose people were more inclined to take a little time to honour the sacrifice of those who fought and died for Canada.
What started off as a spontaneous, completely unscripted show of respect in 2000, the year the tomb of the unknown soldier was unveiled, has now become something of a tradition: Again this year, at the conclusion of the ceremony, once the barriers came down and the VIPs had left the cenotaph, crowds of people paraded by the large bronze tomb to deposit their poppies on the bronze lid. In minutes, the tomb was completely carpeted with the bright red flowers. I found that strangely touching.
Later on, I bumped into one of my old militia buddies from my days with the
Lake Sups, now a Sergeant in an intelligence unit. The encounter made me a bit nostalgic and got me to thinking about the good times I had with that unit. They weren't all good times, of course. I remember times on summer course in Wainwright, Alberta or Gagetown, New Brunswick, when things got really tough.
One of my abiding memories is the torment of sleep deprivation. Every soldier who has experienced this misery could tell you stories of the games your mind can play on you when you are five days into a week-long exercise and you are trying to function on a hour's sleep a night. Field exercises on leadership courses, in particular, are deliberately structured so that it is impossible for candidates to get more than one or two hours of sleep in any twenty-four hour period. This is meant to simulate the reality of living under combat conditions and test your ability to cope with physical hardship in a high-pressure environment.
One exercise in Gagetown sticks out in my mind. My platoon was in a defensive position, and we had been attacked and gassed repeatedly over two days, so everyone was in Top-High, meaning we were wearing full Nuclear/Chemical/Biological Warfare (NBCW) gear and gas masks. It was the phantom hour of four-thirty in the a.m., the time when attacks usually occur, and I was in a bad way. My fireteam partner was grabbing some shut-eye in the bottom of the trench and aside from the sound of his shallow breathing through his gasmask, there was complete silence.
Suddenly, as I felt myself drifting into a dozy state, I heard a distinctive metallic thump, very close by. I tensed, cocking an ear a peering into the darkness to try to discern some movement in the killing zone to my front. There was nothing. I relaxed a tiny bit, and gripped my C-7 rifle. Then, a couple of seconds later, I heard the sound again. I was sure that I had heard something, but once again, I couldn't see anything moving to my front. I looked through the optical sight, scanning my surroundings. Nothing. In the minutes that followed, I heard this sound several more times, and each time, I got a little more nervous. I began thinking that maybe one of the psychotic directing staff was nearby, and had decided to fuck with my head.
There was a story, circulating around that time, that a few weeks back, one of the candidates from another platoon had spotted a pink bunny rabbit and a giant yellow duck frolicking in the field in front of his defensive position, and had reported this to his section commander over the radio. At first, this was written off as the twisted hallucinations of a sleep-deprived idiot, and the exhausted troops overhearing this situation report over the company frequency had shared a good laugh. An hour or two later, another candidate reported the same thing. By the time the third report came in of an identical phenomenon, there was no longer any laughter, and some candidates began speculating on the onset of some form of mass hysteria, a madness brought about by sleep deprivation. The story goes that the Regimental Sergeant Major and Commanding Officer of the Infantry school had rented some costumes and gone out into the field as a lark, just to throw a mind-fuck into the poor buggers who were on the exercise.
Now this story is probably apocryphal, and in subsequent years, I'm certain that I heard a couple of variations on that little tale, but at the time, it sounded plausible, and as I stood in my trench, listening for more metallic bangs, I began to convince myself that I too, might soon be visited by pink bunnies and yellow duckies. Finally, after several more minutes of anxiety, I discovered the answer to the mystery. As I rested my face against the coolness of the rifle propped on a sandbag at the lip of the trench, I heard an even louder bang, and immediately felt a sharp pain in my knees. Shaking my head to clear out the cobwebs, I noticed that I seemed to be hunkered in the trench a bit lower than I had been a few seconds before.
It turns out that I had been passing out from exhaustion every few minutes, and as I drifted off, my knees would crumple, and hit the front of the corrugated iron of my trench. This was the metallic banging sound I had been hearing. The sound would then jolt me out of my daze momentarily and I would spring up and scan the training area for a few minutes until I began to fade out again, at which point my knees would hit the front of the trench again, startling me awake. Did I feel stupid? What do you think?
A few days ago, I came across this exchange on some web board, and it made me laugh:
Want to practice sleep deprivation?
It's called college dude...
Do what I did- take a full course load at college(at least 16 units), juggle intramural sports (I did crew), and pledge a fraternity (preferably one that hazes) and you'll come closer to the FUN of sleep deprevation =)
-Bro
Been both places (college/work/fraternity/IM sports life versus BN) and can compare. They don't.
While I am sure you may feel sleep deprived with your collegiate/life pursuits, you "only know what you know". The next time you are going to crew practice or enroute to your next class and are so tired that you have to sprinkle Copenhagen speckles in your eyes to stay awake as you pause to borrow a couple quarters from a talking cheeseburger so you can stick them into the nearest tree to get an icy cold Coke to come out the bottom of it, come back here and tell us about it. We'll be able to relate.
Unless you have gone through sleep-deprivation, military-style, don't talk to me about how tough those grad-school all-nighters were!
Saturday, November 12, 2005
A meeting of the minds
Funny anecdote about British philosopher A. J. Ayer I stumbled across:
At a party in 1987 Ayer, then 77, encountered Mike Tyson harassing Naomi Campbell and demanded Tyson stop. Tyson said "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world." Ayer replied "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic! We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men."
Funny anecdote about British philosopher A. J. Ayer I stumbled across:
At a party in 1987 Ayer, then 77, encountered Mike Tyson harassing Naomi Campbell and demanded Tyson stop. Tyson said "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world." Ayer replied "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic! We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men."
A few remarks before we proceed
To those of you who may have noticed how sloppy my blog is getting, what with the idiosyncratic line spacing and odd paragraph structure: duly noted.
I only just realized that when I import text into blogger, I have to re-do the sentence and paragraph breaks, or it comes out looking all cock-eyed.
I promise to be more diligent in the future.
To those of you who may have noticed how sloppy my blog is getting, what with the idiosyncratic line spacing and odd paragraph structure: duly noted.
I only just realized that when I import text into blogger, I have to re-do the sentence and paragraph breaks, or it comes out looking all cock-eyed.
I promise to be more diligent in the future.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Quebec Dehors!
The veil has been lifted from my eyes and like the song says, was blind,
but now, I see...
Quebecers have it too damn good in Canada to ever willingly leave! A net benefitter of Federal Transfer payments, the province will continue to hold the sword of Damocles over Canada's head as long as it can. The minority, those hardcore sovereignists who favour outright independence --Parizeau comes to mind --can at least be admired for their willingness to cross the Rubicon. I think most soft-sovereignists, who are in the majority, secretly dread the prospect of going it alone. That doesn't stop them from leaving that tantalizing possibility on the table. And every once in a while they make the right noises and rattle the cages in what has become a particularly clever democratic con. Separatism is a chimera, a bluff that has somehow lasted 40 years.
As the only "viable Federalist alternative" the Liberals (both the provincial and federal varieties) also benefit from this shell-game, vowing to defend Quebec's interests in the Federation (read: allow Quebec to continue to take out more than they put into the Federation) even as they raise the specter of the unholy alliance of separatists and those scary Western Conservative-Reform-Alliance freaks who don't represent mainstream Canada. They are right about the Conservatives being freaks, but so what... At this point, I'd vote for the freaks over the crooks.
I think the secret of the separatists' success is to just keep coming up with clever ways of making us believe their impotent little threat is real, while reassuring Quebecers that a vote for sovereignist candidate is really a vote for a voice for Quebec --seemingly contradictory messages.
Every 15 years or so they have taken to holding a referendum (preferably immediately adjacent to another constitutional humiliation), just to remind us they have us by the short-and-curlies. The referendum question is just ambiguous enough that people don't really understand what they are voting for.... Theirs is a policy of uncertaintly, and their domain is a land of bright futures, emotional appeals, and promises never realized.
Ultimately, the separatists devour their leaders as eagerly as they acclaim each successive saviour as they arrive on the scene. We've gone through two supposedly separatist premiers who were too milquetoast to bite the bullet and re-referendum since Parizeau went down in flames a decade ago.
Now, no matter how badly Federalists cock things up in the coming months and years, I predict that Quebecers will not go all in on a clear question in the next Referendum, tentatively scheduled for October 2010. When all the smoke clears, everything will be the same as it ever was, and the litany of grievances can continue.
The man that Ghazi Algosaibi, the Saudi cabinet minister, described as "the dismantler of sovereign nations and destabilizer of whole regions" wrote about the bizarre little polity right across the Ottawa river in a recent issue of The Western Standard.
You oughtta read it, there are some very juicy bits!
At this point, I'm starting to wonder how soon it will be before someone outside Quebec decides to start an expulsionist movement.
Andre Boisclair should be treated humanely by Quebecers -- as in put down like the Humane Society puts down stray dogs.
The veil has been lifted from my eyes and like the song says, was blind,
but now, I see...
Quebecers have it too damn good in Canada to ever willingly leave! A net benefitter of Federal Transfer payments, the province will continue to hold the sword of Damocles over Canada's head as long as it can. The minority, those hardcore sovereignists who favour outright independence --Parizeau comes to mind --can at least be admired for their willingness to cross the Rubicon. I think most soft-sovereignists, who are in the majority, secretly dread the prospect of going it alone. That doesn't stop them from leaving that tantalizing possibility on the table. And every once in a while they make the right noises and rattle the cages in what has become a particularly clever democratic con. Separatism is a chimera, a bluff that has somehow lasted 40 years.
As the only "viable Federalist alternative" the Liberals (both the provincial and federal varieties) also benefit from this shell-game, vowing to defend Quebec's interests in the Federation (read: allow Quebec to continue to take out more than they put into the Federation) even as they raise the specter of the unholy alliance of separatists and those scary Western Conservative-Reform-Alliance freaks who don't represent mainstream Canada. They are right about the Conservatives being freaks, but so what... At this point, I'd vote for the freaks over the crooks.
I think the secret of the separatists' success is to just keep coming up with clever ways of making us believe their impotent little threat is real, while reassuring Quebecers that a vote for sovereignist candidate is really a vote for a voice for Quebec --seemingly contradictory messages.
Every 15 years or so they have taken to holding a referendum (preferably immediately adjacent to another constitutional humiliation), just to remind us they have us by the short-and-curlies. The referendum question is just ambiguous enough that people don't really understand what they are voting for.... Theirs is a policy of uncertaintly, and their domain is a land of bright futures, emotional appeals, and promises never realized.
Ultimately, the separatists devour their leaders as eagerly as they acclaim each successive saviour as they arrive on the scene. We've gone through two supposedly separatist premiers who were too milquetoast to bite the bullet and re-referendum since Parizeau went down in flames a decade ago.
Now, no matter how badly Federalists cock things up in the coming months and years, I predict that Quebecers will not go all in on a clear question in the next Referendum, tentatively scheduled for October 2010. When all the smoke clears, everything will be the same as it ever was, and the litany of grievances can continue.
The man that Ghazi Algosaibi, the Saudi cabinet minister, described as "the dismantler of sovereign nations and destabilizer of whole regions" wrote about the bizarre little polity right across the Ottawa river in a recent issue of The Western Standard.
You oughtta read it, there are some very juicy bits!
At this point, I'm starting to wonder how soon it will be before someone outside Quebec decides to start an expulsionist movement.
Andre Boisclair should be treated humanely by Quebecers -- as in put down like the Humane Society puts down stray dogs.
Two Things:
ONE
John Ivison makes a good point in last Wednesday's column:
One suspects that Gomery's relatively measured language was in part dictated by
his desire not to give the sovereigntists too much ammunition. Regardless, in
the short term, his report should help the Bloc sweep away many of the remaining
Liberal seats outside the federalist salient of Montreal at the next election.
Martin may have escaped censure yesterday, but a near wipeout in Quebec could
leave his hopes of a majority government in tatters. He could still eke out a minority government but, in that event, his life
expectancy as leader would be similar to that of a fruit fly.
For the rest of the country, Gomery has presented a challenge: Are you prepared
to hold your politicians accountable when a judge finds members of the ruling
party were running an elaborate kickback scheme in order to fund that party?
If we are not, we can hardly blame Quebecers if they decide they want no part of
it.
TWO
Maybe we should not want any part of a Province that seems to so maliciously predisposed to take offence at
anything.
Memo to Quebecers outraged by the conduct of the GG: One of your two major political parties wants to elect a guy who, by his own admission, liked to snort the occasional line of coke into his head while he was a Minister of the crown,both commiting a crime and indirectly supporting the activities of Les Hells. The GG made some jokes about it. Deal with it.
The real joke here is a party that would actually consider having this piece of crap for a leader. Pathetic
ONE
John Ivison makes a good point in last Wednesday's column:
One suspects that Gomery's relatively measured language was in part dictated by
his desire not to give the sovereigntists too much ammunition. Regardless, in
the short term, his report should help the Bloc sweep away many of the remaining
Liberal seats outside the federalist salient of Montreal at the next election.
Martin may have escaped censure yesterday, but a near wipeout in Quebec could
leave his hopes of a majority government in tatters. He could still eke out a minority government but, in that event, his life
expectancy as leader would be similar to that of a fruit fly.
For the rest of the country, Gomery has presented a challenge: Are you prepared
to hold your politicians accountable when a judge finds members of the ruling
party were running an elaborate kickback scheme in order to fund that party?
If we are not, we can hardly blame Quebecers if they decide they want no part of
it.
TWO
Maybe we should not want any part of a Province that seems to so maliciously predisposed to take offence at
anything.
Memo to Quebecers outraged by the conduct of the GG: One of your two major political parties wants to elect a guy who, by his own admission, liked to snort the occasional line of coke into his head while he was a Minister of the crown,both commiting a crime and indirectly supporting the activities of Les Hells. The GG made some jokes about it. Deal with it.
The real joke here is a party that would actually consider having this piece of crap for a leader. Pathetic
Friday, November 04, 2005
PQ, please pick this guy as your leader!
November 2, 2005
Gov. Gen. blasted for coke joke
SAGUENAY, Que. (CP) - Andre Boisclair, the front-runner in the Parti Quebecois
leadership campaign, says he is upset by comments made about him by Gov. Gen.
Michaelle Jean.
Jean referred to Boisclair in a speech she gave at the annual Parliamentary
Press Gallery dinner on Oct. 22. In her speech, Jean cracked several jokes about
Boisclair, including one that played on the dual meaning of the word coke, and
saying that Boisclair always follows the party "line."
The event was broadcast on a cable television network.
In mid-September, Boisclair admitted to using cocaine in the 1990s while he was
a minister in the cabinet of the provincial government. But he has revealed few
details.
Speaking prior to a debate between PQ leadership hopefuls on Wednesday,
Boisclair said he was shocked at Jean's behaviour before the 600 invited guests,
including Prime Minister Paul Martin.
"The images speak for themselves and everyone who saw those images understand
that they're out of place," Boisclair said.
"Mrs. Jean was not participating in a private event. Mrs. Jean was participating
in a public event, televised, taped."
Jean's speech, in which she also joked the only reason she was appointed to her
vice-regal post is because she is "hot," has drawn the ire of other PQ members.
Interim party leader Louise Harel and the party's intergovernmental affair
critic Jonathan Valois both criticized Jean's comments as inappropriate earlier
this week.
Boisclair's past has been an issue in the leadership campaign and it was again
before and after Wednesday's debate.
Four of his rivals stated publicly before the debate that the former cabinet
minister should come clean about his past.
"I invite him to stop running away and to answer the questions. He answers or he
withdraws," Pierre Dubuc told reporters. "We can't continue like this."
Another candidate, Jean Ouimet, expressed concerns about what other revelations
about Boisclair's past might come out during an election campaign against the
Liberals.
Boisclair's main rivals, Pauline Marois and Richard Legendre, were not among the
group.
Following the debate Boisclair was confronted with the question yet again at a
news conference.
He told reporters he did cocaine "a few times."
When pressed for more details on the time frame of his use, he replied "seven or
eight years ago."
"Listen, I made a mistake and I regret it very much. But it's a mistake of the
past. A long time ago. I never had a dependence problem," he said.
Boisclair also declined to say who supplied him with the drug and became visibly
frustrated when a reporter asked him if that person had ties to organized crime.
"Honestly, do we ask Jean Charest where he bought his pot from? If the person
who sold him pot had links to criminals," Boisclair said before cutting the news
conference short.
Pure douchebaggery!
November 2, 2005
Gov. Gen. blasted for coke joke
SAGUENAY, Que. (CP) - Andre Boisclair, the front-runner in the Parti Quebecois
leadership campaign, says he is upset by comments made about him by Gov. Gen.
Michaelle Jean.
Jean referred to Boisclair in a speech she gave at the annual Parliamentary
Press Gallery dinner on Oct. 22. In her speech, Jean cracked several jokes about
Boisclair, including one that played on the dual meaning of the word coke, and
saying that Boisclair always follows the party "line."
The event was broadcast on a cable television network.
In mid-September, Boisclair admitted to using cocaine in the 1990s while he was
a minister in the cabinet of the provincial government. But he has revealed few
details.
Speaking prior to a debate between PQ leadership hopefuls on Wednesday,
Boisclair said he was shocked at Jean's behaviour before the 600 invited guests,
including Prime Minister Paul Martin.
"The images speak for themselves and everyone who saw those images understand
that they're out of place," Boisclair said.
"Mrs. Jean was not participating in a private event. Mrs. Jean was participating
in a public event, televised, taped."
Jean's speech, in which she also joked the only reason she was appointed to her
vice-regal post is because she is "hot," has drawn the ire of other PQ members.
Interim party leader Louise Harel and the party's intergovernmental affair
critic Jonathan Valois both criticized Jean's comments as inappropriate earlier
this week.
Boisclair's past has been an issue in the leadership campaign and it was again
before and after Wednesday's debate.
Four of his rivals stated publicly before the debate that the former cabinet
minister should come clean about his past.
"I invite him to stop running away and to answer the questions. He answers or he
withdraws," Pierre Dubuc told reporters. "We can't continue like this."
Another candidate, Jean Ouimet, expressed concerns about what other revelations
about Boisclair's past might come out during an election campaign against the
Liberals.
Boisclair's main rivals, Pauline Marois and Richard Legendre, were not among the
group.
Following the debate Boisclair was confronted with the question yet again at a
news conference.
He told reporters he did cocaine "a few times."
When pressed for more details on the time frame of his use, he replied "seven or
eight years ago."
"Listen, I made a mistake and I regret it very much. But it's a mistake of the
past. A long time ago. I never had a dependence problem," he said.
Boisclair also declined to say who supplied him with the drug and became visibly
frustrated when a reporter asked him if that person had ties to organized crime.
"Honestly, do we ask Jean Charest where he bought his pot from? If the person
who sold him pot had links to criminals," Boisclair said before cutting the news
conference short.
Pure douchebaggery!
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Gomery
Here is the comment I would have written on the Canada.com sound off board, if only I had not been at work....
Bravo Allan Cutler!
Remember folks, one honest man helped start the avalanche... More than ever,
Canadians should see the value of a strong public service, governed by ethics
and in the public interest, and politically neutral. The alternative is more
unethical scumbag bureaucrats like Chuck Guité. Guité facilitated the operation of a
parallel unaccountable bureaucracy run by PMO for the benefit of filthy bastards
like the sorry parade of Quebec operatives and politicos that we saw at the
Gomery inquiry.
Even after 13 years of uninterrupted Liberal Government, it is worth the effort
for public servants to remind themselves that they while may work for the
Government, but they don't work for the LIBERALS.
The Liberals are finished in Quebec for a while, I think.
Here is the comment I would have written on the Canada.com sound off board, if only I had not been at work....
Bravo Allan Cutler!
Remember folks, one honest man helped start the avalanche... More than ever,
Canadians should see the value of a strong public service, governed by ethics
and in the public interest, and politically neutral. The alternative is more
unethical scumbag bureaucrats like Chuck Guité. Guité facilitated the operation of a
parallel unaccountable bureaucracy run by PMO for the benefit of filthy bastards
like the sorry parade of Quebec operatives and politicos that we saw at the
Gomery inquiry.
Even after 13 years of uninterrupted Liberal Government, it is worth the effort
for public servants to remind themselves that they while may work for the
Government, but they don't work for the LIBERALS.
The Liberals are finished in Quebec for a while, I think.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
If people are looking for real reasons to fret about the Middle East, I submit for your consideration:
Exhibit A: The first stirrings of civil war in Iraq, and perhaps eventually, in the islamic world between Shia and Sunni
An increasingly Bellicose Iran
Iran has a long term strategic interest in supporting the Shia majority in Iraq, particularly once the yanks are gone, against the Sunni insurgency. However, just about every other neighbouring arab nation is Sunni. Will Iraq be the battleground for islam's version of the Thirty Years' War? With recent sectarian violence, are we witnessing a prelude to the start of a major war within islam?
Exhibit A: The first stirrings of civil war in Iraq, and perhaps eventually, in the islamic world between Shia and Sunni
An increasingly Bellicose Iran
Iran has a long term strategic interest in supporting the Shia majority in Iraq, particularly once the yanks are gone, against the Sunni insurgency. However, just about every other neighbouring arab nation is Sunni. Will Iraq be the battleground for islam's version of the Thirty Years' War? With recent sectarian violence, are we witnessing a prelude to the start of a major war within islam?
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Duceppe calls for the creation of an army for Quebec. OK, to do what, exactly? In the last two centuries, Quebec Nationalists never saw a conflict they weren't ready to denounce as British or American imperialist aggression... and we all know how things turned out for them the last couple of times Quebecers took up arms...
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
W's brother cynically uses his skillful handling of Hurricane to crap all over whiny incompetent douchbags from nearby state
From Saint Petersburg times, by way of Cox and Forkum:
Gov. Jeb Bush praised Florida emergency management officials on Monday while
blasting the efforts of Louisiana officials during Hurricane Katrina.
Bush said Florida responded successfully in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma
because the state relied on the expertise of local emergency managers. He said
relying on federal emergency officials can be a fatal blunder.
"Our system is a bottoms-up system," Bush said. "In the case of Louisiana it was
left to the federal government to fill a void and the consequences are there for
the rest of the world to see."
"This is the model for how to respond to hurricanes," Bush said of Florida.
"Compare this to what happened a month and a half ago in other parts of the
country."
From Saint Petersburg times, by way of Cox and Forkum:
Gov. Jeb Bush praised Florida emergency management officials on Monday while
blasting the efforts of Louisiana officials during Hurricane Katrina.
Bush said Florida responded successfully in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma
because the state relied on the expertise of local emergency managers. He said
relying on federal emergency officials can be a fatal blunder.
"Our system is a bottoms-up system," Bush said. "In the case of Louisiana it was
left to the federal government to fill a void and the consequences are there for
the rest of the world to see."
"This is the model for how to respond to hurricanes," Bush said of Florida.
"Compare this to what happened a month and a half ago in other parts of the
country."
Happy Saint Crispin's day
On Today's date, 590 years ago, King Harry's English whipped some French monkey ass at the battle of Agincourt:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
William Shakespeare's Henry V
On Today's date, 590 years ago, King Harry's English whipped some French monkey ass at the battle of Agincourt:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
William Shakespeare's Henry V
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Randomosity
I watched the first part of CBC's Trudeau II, which has gotta be the cheesiest and nonsensical title for a this TV movie they could come up with. It's actually a prequel to the Trudeau movie they did with Colm Fiore a while back. That one covered his years in public life. This one covers the years he spent going to university, and his time as a lawyer and left-wing intellectual. From what I can gather from this movie, Trudeau spent most of the war acting petulant and supercilious with authority figures, whining about conscription, and being cold and distant to his girlfriend while Canadian boys were fighting the krauts across France, Belgium and Holland. I note he also spent some time growing a really stupid looking amish beard, traveling the world so that he could hang out in chinese opium dens getting high and learn some yoga. His time bouncing from university to university studying whatever caught his fancy is also mentioned in passing. A disconcerting picture of this Liberal icon emerges: that of a thoroughly unsympathetic provocateur and dilettante --a term he actually uses in conversation with another character when talking about himself.
I'm not sure where the creators of this telepic were going... Are we meant to grind our teeth over the injustice of Trudeau being denied a Rhode Scholarship, knowing as we do what the future had in store for the man? Are we meant to laugh along with the ineffectual "silk stocking socialists" of the Quebec intelligentsia (another term used in the movie) as they mock the hidebound establishment and ossified clergy that propped each other up in the Duplessis years? The main character in this biopic is nervy, restless, unfocussed, moving from one incident to the next without any sense of who he is or what he wants to accomplish
By the end of the first part of the miniseries, I felt pretty ambivalent about the Trudeau character as rather unsympathetically portrayed -- by two different actors, mind you -- and yet, I'm not sure that was the intent of the producers. While the film is far from a hagiography, the several messianic references are too blatant to miss. Not knowing much about Trudeau's life before his meteoric ascent to the pinacle of Federal politics, I can only assume that things will pick up for the guy in the next instalment, which covers the late fifties and sixties, and that the writer and director will get to the point.
Earlier, I watched the Parliamentary Press Gallery Gala on CPAC. That's the annual dinner where the GG, PM, and leaders of the other party give speeches poking fun at themselves and each other. A dorky Canadian roast, I guess is the best way to describe it. I think this kind of thing should be required viewing for voters. At times entertaining, even gratifying, but most importantly, illuminating. A PM normally bereft of eloquence sheds his nervous manner and aggravating stammer to crack a few funny and surprisingly self-depracating and self-aware jokes at his own expense. A stiff cold-fish of a Leader of the Opposition emerges as a witty and genial guy with a knack for mimickry. Even the NDP boss came across as a funny guy, singing a clever little medley of songs about his party's lamentable recent tendencies towards whoredom.
If people could see more of the lighter side of these three blowhards, and if each of them were just a little more natural and frank about their opinions with the electorate... if they could only be themselves a bit more, speak a little more plainly, and pay a little less heed to their handlers and spinners, we might start to have decent voter turnouts in this country.
I watched the first part of CBC's Trudeau II, which has gotta be the cheesiest and nonsensical title for a this TV movie they could come up with. It's actually a prequel to the Trudeau movie they did with Colm Fiore a while back. That one covered his years in public life. This one covers the years he spent going to university, and his time as a lawyer and left-wing intellectual. From what I can gather from this movie, Trudeau spent most of the war acting petulant and supercilious with authority figures, whining about conscription, and being cold and distant to his girlfriend while Canadian boys were fighting the krauts across France, Belgium and Holland. I note he also spent some time growing a really stupid looking amish beard, traveling the world so that he could hang out in chinese opium dens getting high and learn some yoga. His time bouncing from university to university studying whatever caught his fancy is also mentioned in passing. A disconcerting picture of this Liberal icon emerges: that of a thoroughly unsympathetic provocateur and dilettante --a term he actually uses in conversation with another character when talking about himself.
I'm not sure where the creators of this telepic were going... Are we meant to grind our teeth over the injustice of Trudeau being denied a Rhode Scholarship, knowing as we do what the future had in store for the man? Are we meant to laugh along with the ineffectual "silk stocking socialists" of the Quebec intelligentsia (another term used in the movie) as they mock the hidebound establishment and ossified clergy that propped each other up in the Duplessis years? The main character in this biopic is nervy, restless, unfocussed, moving from one incident to the next without any sense of who he is or what he wants to accomplish
By the end of the first part of the miniseries, I felt pretty ambivalent about the Trudeau character as rather unsympathetically portrayed -- by two different actors, mind you -- and yet, I'm not sure that was the intent of the producers. While the film is far from a hagiography, the several messianic references are too blatant to miss. Not knowing much about Trudeau's life before his meteoric ascent to the pinacle of Federal politics, I can only assume that things will pick up for the guy in the next instalment, which covers the late fifties and sixties, and that the writer and director will get to the point.
Earlier, I watched the Parliamentary Press Gallery Gala on CPAC. That's the annual dinner where the GG, PM, and leaders of the other party give speeches poking fun at themselves and each other. A dorky Canadian roast, I guess is the best way to describe it. I think this kind of thing should be required viewing for voters. At times entertaining, even gratifying, but most importantly, illuminating. A PM normally bereft of eloquence sheds his nervous manner and aggravating stammer to crack a few funny and surprisingly self-depracating and self-aware jokes at his own expense. A stiff cold-fish of a Leader of the Opposition emerges as a witty and genial guy with a knack for mimickry. Even the NDP boss came across as a funny guy, singing a clever little medley of songs about his party's lamentable recent tendencies towards whoredom.
If people could see more of the lighter side of these three blowhards, and if each of them were just a little more natural and frank about their opinions with the electorate... if they could only be themselves a bit more, speak a little more plainly, and pay a little less heed to their handlers and spinners, we might start to have decent voter turnouts in this country.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
The Secret Past of Gil Grissom Uncovered
With Cronenberg's A History of Violence coming out in theatres, I found myself thinking about the idea of people re-inventing themselves.
Do many people realize that the bearded, somewhat heavyset, hard-of-hearing shift supervisor with the sardonic gaze on the CBS hit CSI is none other than the star of two of the coolest flicks of the 1980s?
A few years ago, a friend turned me onto Michael Mann's 1986 movie Manhunter, a stylish adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon", later to be re-adapted in 1992 by Brett Ratner as a "prequel" to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. William Petersen, who stars as Will Graham (a role played ably by Edward Norton in the Ratner version), blew me away with his intensity and the compact physicality he brought to the part of the deeply damaged FBI profiler investigating a series of grisly murders.
One year earlier, Petersen played the lead in William Friedkin's To Live And Die IN L.A., a gritty crime drama about a Secret Service agent's obsession with the counterfeiter who killed his partner. I just saw both movies again quite recently and, notwithstanding the dated 1980s soudtracks of each flick, I am amazed at how well both films have aged.
I'm equally amazed that after back-to-back star-making performances like that, Petersen simply disappeared. Here we had a charsmatic, athletic (Petersen went to Idaho State University on a football scholarship), and genuinely talented actor whose career seemed to have real "heat", as they say in the business. Indeed, a role that would have cemented his status as a Hollywood A-lister, a part in Oliver Stone's Platoon, was offered to him.... and he turned it down.
So what did Petersen take on instead? A part in that well known 1987 made-for-TV opus Long Gone. Never heard of it you say? Indeed. And from that point on, no one heard much about Petersen, either. At least until 2000, when he appeared in The Contender, and began playing Grissom on CSI. The rest, as they say, is history
This is an interesting case of someone forsaking stardom only to have it thrust upon him anyway - A man on the cusp of stardom gave it all up, it turns out, because he didn't want to spend too much time away from his family... and ended up getting a second shot.
Good for him!
With Cronenberg's A History of Violence coming out in theatres, I found myself thinking about the idea of people re-inventing themselves.
Do many people realize that the bearded, somewhat heavyset, hard-of-hearing shift supervisor with the sardonic gaze on the CBS hit CSI is none other than the star of two of the coolest flicks of the 1980s?
A few years ago, a friend turned me onto Michael Mann's 1986 movie Manhunter, a stylish adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon", later to be re-adapted in 1992 by Brett Ratner as a "prequel" to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. William Petersen, who stars as Will Graham (a role played ably by Edward Norton in the Ratner version), blew me away with his intensity and the compact physicality he brought to the part of the deeply damaged FBI profiler investigating a series of grisly murders.
One year earlier, Petersen played the lead in William Friedkin's To Live And Die IN L.A., a gritty crime drama about a Secret Service agent's obsession with the counterfeiter who killed his partner. I just saw both movies again quite recently and, notwithstanding the dated 1980s soudtracks of each flick, I am amazed at how well both films have aged.
I'm equally amazed that after back-to-back star-making performances like that, Petersen simply disappeared. Here we had a charsmatic, athletic (Petersen went to Idaho State University on a football scholarship), and genuinely talented actor whose career seemed to have real "heat", as they say in the business. Indeed, a role that would have cemented his status as a Hollywood A-lister, a part in Oliver Stone's Platoon, was offered to him.... and he turned it down.
So what did Petersen take on instead? A part in that well known 1987 made-for-TV opus Long Gone. Never heard of it you say? Indeed. And from that point on, no one heard much about Petersen, either. At least until 2000, when he appeared in The Contender, and began playing Grissom on CSI. The rest, as they say, is history
This is an interesting case of someone forsaking stardom only to have it thrust upon him anyway - A man on the cusp of stardom gave it all up, it turns out, because he didn't want to spend too much time away from his family... and ended up getting a second shot.
Good for him!
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Politique
My "priviledged" position as a someone "in the know" on certain policy trends currently making waves in the Government prevents me from commenting at length on what I have observed in the past couple of weeks.
But that don't mean I can't hop up on my soapbox to talk politics for a minute or two...
First off, the Dingwall thing. I gotta wonder why they can't just cut the guy loose sans severance. From what I gather, this guy is a second-rate Cape Breton political hack, grown fat through his abilities to exploit the patronage culture that pervades Atlantic Canada (yeah, I said it). A thoroughly unremarkable MP and mediocre cabinet minister under the Chretien regime, I doubt he is in tight with the Martinites. Why the kid glove treatment? Paul Martin didn't hesitate to sack several other Chretien appointees when it suited him, including another former bag-man, Alfonso Gagliano. Does this guy know where the bodies are buried?
Next, Pete McKay. I like the guy, don't get me wrong, but I wonder if he made the right decision in staying with the Federal Conservatives instead of jumping to the Nova Scotia Tories. Full disclosure: we lived on the same floor of one of those awful downtown Ottawa apartment buildings a couple of years ago --the kind that Edward Norton referred to as a filing cabinet for young professionals and old ladies in The Fight Club. Back then, when I asked the then-deputy-leader of the PCs what he thought of the Alliance, he scoffed "Regional Protest Party! No vision for the whole country." If he pulled a Jean Charest, he could be premier of Nova Scotia within weeks, if not months. Instead, he will continue to be second-banana in a perenial second-place party that has stalled out in the polls and appears to desperately need a shot in the arm. It's looking bad on the right side of the political spectrum in Canada right now, folks. Don't believe me? Ask THIS GUY. Maybe Elmer's boy, with visions of a Mulroney-style renaissance (OK, maybe not quite Mulroney style!), is taking the long view and biding his time as his party languishes in the political wilderness.
Finally, pizza. What is the deal with Liberals and controversial pizza? First we had Judy Sgro's problems with the pizzaman, and now, it is outrage over a certain Minister's famous $136 pizza. If this trend continues, stay tuned for a kinky panzerotti sex-scandal to complete the italian-food-scandal trifecta...
My "priviledged" position as a someone "in the know" on certain policy trends currently making waves in the Government prevents me from commenting at length on what I have observed in the past couple of weeks.
But that don't mean I can't hop up on my soapbox to talk politics for a minute or two...
First off, the Dingwall thing. I gotta wonder why they can't just cut the guy loose sans severance. From what I gather, this guy is a second-rate Cape Breton political hack, grown fat through his abilities to exploit the patronage culture that pervades Atlantic Canada (yeah, I said it). A thoroughly unremarkable MP and mediocre cabinet minister under the Chretien regime, I doubt he is in tight with the Martinites. Why the kid glove treatment? Paul Martin didn't hesitate to sack several other Chretien appointees when it suited him, including another former bag-man, Alfonso Gagliano. Does this guy know where the bodies are buried?
Next, Pete McKay. I like the guy, don't get me wrong, but I wonder if he made the right decision in staying with the Federal Conservatives instead of jumping to the Nova Scotia Tories. Full disclosure: we lived on the same floor of one of those awful downtown Ottawa apartment buildings a couple of years ago --the kind that Edward Norton referred to as a filing cabinet for young professionals and old ladies in The Fight Club. Back then, when I asked the then-deputy-leader of the PCs what he thought of the Alliance, he scoffed "Regional Protest Party! No vision for the whole country." If he pulled a Jean Charest, he could be premier of Nova Scotia within weeks, if not months. Instead, he will continue to be second-banana in a perenial second-place party that has stalled out in the polls and appears to desperately need a shot in the arm. It's looking bad on the right side of the political spectrum in Canada right now, folks. Don't believe me? Ask THIS GUY. Maybe Elmer's boy, with visions of a Mulroney-style renaissance (OK, maybe not quite Mulroney style!), is taking the long view and biding his time as his party languishes in the political wilderness.
Finally, pizza. What is the deal with Liberals and controversial pizza? First we had Judy Sgro's problems with the pizzaman, and now, it is outrage over a certain Minister's famous $136 pizza. If this trend continues, stay tuned for a kinky panzerotti sex-scandal to complete the italian-food-scandal trifecta...
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Cognitive dissonance
I'm increasingly blown away by human imaginativeness, creativitiy, and our odd ability to brainwash ourselves into holding contradictory viewpoints.
Take for example, these good folks at a recent peace rally in San Fran. You or I could never hope to convince them that the people they are making common cause with view them with disgust and contempt, and some would gladly butcher them like pigs given half a chance. Whereas the state they oppose actually accepts and tolerates their lifestyle choice.
Reminds me a bit of folks who trumpet a woman's right to choose and then lament the demographic timebomb that is ticking away right now, threatening our social safety net. Uh, anyone see the correlation? No babies now means no one to pay mom and pop's hefty medical and pension costs in two or three decades. Immigrants, you say? Ah, yes, lets go abroad and recruit an underclass of young labourers to support our aging baby-boomers and pay increasingly greater amounts into pension plans that will be depleted by the time they are old enough to use them. How very progressive of you!
I'm increasingly blown away by human imaginativeness, creativitiy, and our odd ability to brainwash ourselves into holding contradictory viewpoints.
Take for example, these good folks at a recent peace rally in San Fran. You or I could never hope to convince them that the people they are making common cause with view them with disgust and contempt, and some would gladly butcher them like pigs given half a chance. Whereas the state they oppose actually accepts and tolerates their lifestyle choice.
Reminds me a bit of folks who trumpet a woman's right to choose and then lament the demographic timebomb that is ticking away right now, threatening our social safety net. Uh, anyone see the correlation? No babies now means no one to pay mom and pop's hefty medical and pension costs in two or three decades. Immigrants, you say? Ah, yes, lets go abroad and recruit an underclass of young labourers to support our aging baby-boomers and pay increasingly greater amounts into pension plans that will be depleted by the time they are old enough to use them. How very progressive of you!
Monday, September 19, 2005
Sunday, September 18, 2005
SWEATLODGE
Just spent a week in St-Donat, in the wilds of northern Quebec, on a work-related retreat. It was actually the final course of the four-year management trainee program, designed to help with participants' transitions into permanent positions within the Public Service of Canada.
It was one of those-touchy feely courses, all about getting back to nature and getting in touch with your inner self. Normally, I don't go in for that kind of stuff, but I had an upbeat attitude going into the course, and was determined to get something useful out of it. If nothing else, it offered me a week away from work --just what the doctor ordered.
I knew that the course integrated elements of traditional first nations teachings, and having already taken an aboriginal awareness course three years ago, I was interested to see how the "native" angle was going to play out.
As it turned out, I had a truly amazing experience on the third day of the course, when I participated in a Algonquin sweatlodge, led by a local elder. I made an entry in my journal shortly after the "sweat", which I am transcribing here now:
I went for a run this morning. Needed a bit of a kickstart for the day and it felt good to breath some fresh mountain air into my lungs. After a hearty breakfast, we headed out to the site and split into several groups. While the women left to perform some traditional duties (gathering pine bows for the sacred area, and other stuff like that) the men broke into two units. The first group built the lodge out of birch poles and heavy tarps, the second group, the one I was in, built the sacred fire.
After gathering the "grandfathers", thirty-three football-sized stones, in a pile in the middle of the pit, we began piling the logs with care, building a sort of wood wall around them. I reflected on the fact that these stones represented our ancestors, and that their presence inside the lodge would symbolize the idea that our ancestors were in there with us. Denis, the Mohawk warrior and drug addict-turned spiritual guide, spoke to us as we worked, providing us with many fascinating teachings. I really enjoyed the morning we spent together, even though I was thinking about the coming ordeal the whole time.
After lunch, we made our final preparations for the sweat. My own preparation had begun two days before, as I had been thinking and writing alot leading up to moment I would enter the lodge's embrace. Having already gone through a sweatlodge ceremony three years before, I knew what to expect. Most of the others didn't, and it showed in the worried expressions on their faces. We stripped down to bathing suits and bandanas, which all men are required to wear for the ceremony, and walked down to the lodge, towels in hand. After purification with burnt sage, I made an offering of tobacco to the fire next to the lodge that we had built that morning, and that was now a roaring blaze heating the stones until they glowed. I also consigned a roll of birch bark upon which I had written some personal things to the flames. Then, I said a short prayer, crossed myself, and crawled through the small opening.
The heat of that small space is almost unbearable when you first enter. I greeted the ancestors ("Mushums") and crawled over my colleagues to get to my spot near the pit in the centre. A sweatlodge is not very roomy --maybe five feet high and 10 feet in diameter. I was one of the last to come in, and the enclosed space was packed with over twenty people, and pitch black.
To my dismay, I realized that I would be sitting nearest to the stones, so I wrapped my towel around my bare legs and tried to stay as far from the pit in the middle of the lodge as I could. Dominque, the Algonquin elder, spoke a few words, some of which none of us understood because they were in Algonquin, and handed us his medecine pouch, and a couple of other sacred objects. I myself held my own medicine pouch clenched tightly in my left hand. Then, one by one, ten stones, glowing red-hot, were handled into the lodge using a metal shovel and placed in the centre of the pit. With each stone, the temperature rose, and already, some people were gasping and chuckling nervously as we greeted them with the cry of "Kwe Mushum!" or "hello Grandfather!". Then, the flap of the door came down, and the dark, hot space was plunged into darkness.
Almost immediately, two individuals spoke up, asking to be let out of the lodge. Once the shaken participants had made their hasty exit, we settled in for a good sweat. I was actually quite surprised, but at least the sudden departures had made a bit of room for the rst of us, and I took the opportunity to slink to the back of the lodge, away from the glow of the mushums, where I rested my back against the warm canvas of the already-stuffy tent.
The first of the four "doors" was hard on me --a sweat is broken into four doors of varying lengths, between which the lodge is opened, aired out, and more stones are brought in. I felt, to my suprise, a fair bit of anxiety. It took me several minutes to get control of my breathing. From the sounds around me, I could tell, however, that other participants were going through the same struggle I was, and that gave me comfort. Gradually, I felt my chest begin to loosen as I grew accustomed to the suffocating heat. Dominique's words were a faint drone to me, but somehow, I felt like I was taking them in, and taking comfort in them, too. I gripped my medicine pouch ever more tightly as the sweat poured off my body. Water was poured onto the rocks, making them hiss, and causing a great cloud of steam that made the lodge even hotter. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, Dominique cried "DOOR!" and light flooded into the dark space as an opening appeared in the side of the lodge and some of the heat escaped. This was the end of the first door.
Then, the exodus. Alot of my colleagues had been shocked by the heat, and disconcerted by the darkness. I'm sure that more than a couple of them also had a bit of difficulty in dealing with what was happening inside that lodge and inside of them--something indescribeable that you could say was of a spiritual nature. Unlike my first lodge three years ago, those who elected to tough it out for the next door stayed inside the lodge... no smokebreaks on this job!
The second door, which brought ten more grandfathers into the lodge to join the ten that were already keeping us company, was also a terrible ordeal, and I realized at some point that I was weeping. I could also feel something raw inside me being scraped away, scoured away in that heat. I guess I was taking care of some stuff that needed to be taken care of... and that realization made me want to tough it out all the more. Dominique began chanting, and soon, many of us had joined him, singing in a language we didn't know, but feeling the meaning all the same. Others were moaning and a few cried out in anguish, probably suffering more, emotionally, if not physically and mentally, than they ever had before. Dominique spoke to us of his life, his beliefs, and the teachings of his fathers. He used a spruce branch to douse us with water, then he doused the grandfathers, and the dreaded steam engulfed us again. Then, just as before, at the moment I was ready to pack it in, the door flung open, and light flooded in.
By the beginning of the third door, when eight more mushums made their presence known, I felt as weak as a kitten. I drank a cedar potion between doors, and didn't mind the taste at all. If the natives say this stuff is good for ya, well... I needed all the help I could get! I was in pain, inside and out, but this was a good kind of pain, a cleansing pain. I though about the suffering of Jesus Christ, and the legion of martyrs who suffered in his name. I tried to imagine their torment, and all things considered, supposed that mine simply wasn't that bad after all. In the healing heat, I think I may just have seen my ancestors. For a minute, I felt like my grandfathers and other people I care about were in there with me, and the thought brought me comfort. I also took solace in the fact that I was with my colleagues, and that we had the support of people outside the lodge, who responded to our cries of "tabac!" by echoing the shout. Tabac was something we had been told to shout when we felt like we could not hold on anymore, and surprisingly enough, hearing the word shouted back to us outside the lodge was a real tonic.
The final five stones joined us in the lodge, which, after several more departures, was starting to get positively roomy. There were only about a dozen of us left when the fourth door began. I had annointed myself with bear grease, which felt great, between the third and fourth door, and I found that this stage, while difficult, was not nearly as hard as the first three had been. As I held hands with the persons to the left and right of me, I started to feel peaceful and even a bit euphoric. Sweat was now bubbling out of my skin and pouring to the floor of pine branches in audible drips as I listened to Dominique's teachings, and as he painted a vivid image of a vision, I saw it all.
To everyone's surprise, at the end of the fourth door, Dominique announced a "warrior" door, and as the flap came back down, he doused us and the thirty-three grandfathers with cedar water,which opened up my lungs and felt wonderful. I was now leaning unselfconsciously on Abder, who was sitting to my right, for support. We both grinned as the door came up a final time, and laughed with relief, bringing the ordeal to a satisfying conclusion. I had squeezed my medecine bag so tight that sweat had soaked it through, and was now pouring through the bottom. The palm of my hand was stained brown from the leather.
As I crawled out of the lodge, I embraced the elder and thanked him for being with us in the lodge. My feeling of euphoria was dampened a bit, when I saw the faces of some of my colleagues who had fled before the end, and now regretted their hasty decision. But, as we were told, we had all been there together, and those outside had allowed those within to stay there by their support and their presence, which had given us strength. I found out that at the very end, they had been physically embracing the outside of the lodge to give us their energy. Truly, a generous act.
After sitting by the sacred fire for a few minutes in quiet contemplation, I went down to the lake to bathe in the cool waters. My skin felt like that of a newborn. Water never felt so good to me. I was reinvigorated, revitalized, and content.
On the way back past the lodge, I thanked Dennis, who had tended the sacred fire throughout the afternoon, for all of his teachings. He smiled at me. I was calm, content, and serene. What an incredible gift we had shared.
Later, we discussed the length of the sweatlodge. No one was sure. According to one of my colleagues who had stayed outside and had their watch with them, the whole thing lasted three hours. I wouldn't have been surprised if someone had told me it had lasted 30 minutes --or 13 hours for that matter. Inside the lodge, time did not seem to exist. It was only when we emerged, like newborns out of mother earth's womb, that the strange wonderful dream ended, and we went back to being what we were: Ottawa bureaucrats on a retreat in the wilds of Northern Quebec
Just spent a week in St-Donat, in the wilds of northern Quebec, on a work-related retreat. It was actually the final course of the four-year management trainee program, designed to help with participants' transitions into permanent positions within the Public Service of Canada.
It was one of those-touchy feely courses, all about getting back to nature and getting in touch with your inner self. Normally, I don't go in for that kind of stuff, but I had an upbeat attitude going into the course, and was determined to get something useful out of it. If nothing else, it offered me a week away from work --just what the doctor ordered.
I knew that the course integrated elements of traditional first nations teachings, and having already taken an aboriginal awareness course three years ago, I was interested to see how the "native" angle was going to play out.
As it turned out, I had a truly amazing experience on the third day of the course, when I participated in a Algonquin sweatlodge, led by a local elder. I made an entry in my journal shortly after the "sweat", which I am transcribing here now:
I went for a run this morning. Needed a bit of a kickstart for the day and it felt good to breath some fresh mountain air into my lungs. After a hearty breakfast, we headed out to the site and split into several groups. While the women left to perform some traditional duties (gathering pine bows for the sacred area, and other stuff like that) the men broke into two units. The first group built the lodge out of birch poles and heavy tarps, the second group, the one I was in, built the sacred fire.
After gathering the "grandfathers", thirty-three football-sized stones, in a pile in the middle of the pit, we began piling the logs with care, building a sort of wood wall around them. I reflected on the fact that these stones represented our ancestors, and that their presence inside the lodge would symbolize the idea that our ancestors were in there with us. Denis, the Mohawk warrior and drug addict-turned spiritual guide, spoke to us as we worked, providing us with many fascinating teachings. I really enjoyed the morning we spent together, even though I was thinking about the coming ordeal the whole time.
After lunch, we made our final preparations for the sweat. My own preparation had begun two days before, as I had been thinking and writing alot leading up to moment I would enter the lodge's embrace. Having already gone through a sweatlodge ceremony three years before, I knew what to expect. Most of the others didn't, and it showed in the worried expressions on their faces. We stripped down to bathing suits and bandanas, which all men are required to wear for the ceremony, and walked down to the lodge, towels in hand. After purification with burnt sage, I made an offering of tobacco to the fire next to the lodge that we had built that morning, and that was now a roaring blaze heating the stones until they glowed. I also consigned a roll of birch bark upon which I had written some personal things to the flames. Then, I said a short prayer, crossed myself, and crawled through the small opening.
The heat of that small space is almost unbearable when you first enter. I greeted the ancestors ("Mushums") and crawled over my colleagues to get to my spot near the pit in the centre. A sweatlodge is not very roomy --maybe five feet high and 10 feet in diameter. I was one of the last to come in, and the enclosed space was packed with over twenty people, and pitch black.
To my dismay, I realized that I would be sitting nearest to the stones, so I wrapped my towel around my bare legs and tried to stay as far from the pit in the middle of the lodge as I could. Dominque, the Algonquin elder, spoke a few words, some of which none of us understood because they were in Algonquin, and handed us his medecine pouch, and a couple of other sacred objects. I myself held my own medicine pouch clenched tightly in my left hand. Then, one by one, ten stones, glowing red-hot, were handled into the lodge using a metal shovel and placed in the centre of the pit. With each stone, the temperature rose, and already, some people were gasping and chuckling nervously as we greeted them with the cry of "Kwe Mushum!" or "hello Grandfather!". Then, the flap of the door came down, and the dark, hot space was plunged into darkness.
Almost immediately, two individuals spoke up, asking to be let out of the lodge. Once the shaken participants had made their hasty exit, we settled in for a good sweat. I was actually quite surprised, but at least the sudden departures had made a bit of room for the rst of us, and I took the opportunity to slink to the back of the lodge, away from the glow of the mushums, where I rested my back against the warm canvas of the already-stuffy tent.
The first of the four "doors" was hard on me --a sweat is broken into four doors of varying lengths, between which the lodge is opened, aired out, and more stones are brought in. I felt, to my suprise, a fair bit of anxiety. It took me several minutes to get control of my breathing. From the sounds around me, I could tell, however, that other participants were going through the same struggle I was, and that gave me comfort. Gradually, I felt my chest begin to loosen as I grew accustomed to the suffocating heat. Dominique's words were a faint drone to me, but somehow, I felt like I was taking them in, and taking comfort in them, too. I gripped my medicine pouch ever more tightly as the sweat poured off my body. Water was poured onto the rocks, making them hiss, and causing a great cloud of steam that made the lodge even hotter. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, Dominique cried "DOOR!" and light flooded into the dark space as an opening appeared in the side of the lodge and some of the heat escaped. This was the end of the first door.
Then, the exodus. Alot of my colleagues had been shocked by the heat, and disconcerted by the darkness. I'm sure that more than a couple of them also had a bit of difficulty in dealing with what was happening inside that lodge and inside of them--something indescribeable that you could say was of a spiritual nature. Unlike my first lodge three years ago, those who elected to tough it out for the next door stayed inside the lodge... no smokebreaks on this job!
The second door, which brought ten more grandfathers into the lodge to join the ten that were already keeping us company, was also a terrible ordeal, and I realized at some point that I was weeping. I could also feel something raw inside me being scraped away, scoured away in that heat. I guess I was taking care of some stuff that needed to be taken care of... and that realization made me want to tough it out all the more. Dominique began chanting, and soon, many of us had joined him, singing in a language we didn't know, but feeling the meaning all the same. Others were moaning and a few cried out in anguish, probably suffering more, emotionally, if not physically and mentally, than they ever had before. Dominique spoke to us of his life, his beliefs, and the teachings of his fathers. He used a spruce branch to douse us with water, then he doused the grandfathers, and the dreaded steam engulfed us again. Then, just as before, at the moment I was ready to pack it in, the door flung open, and light flooded in.
By the beginning of the third door, when eight more mushums made their presence known, I felt as weak as a kitten. I drank a cedar potion between doors, and didn't mind the taste at all. If the natives say this stuff is good for ya, well... I needed all the help I could get! I was in pain, inside and out, but this was a good kind of pain, a cleansing pain. I though about the suffering of Jesus Christ, and the legion of martyrs who suffered in his name. I tried to imagine their torment, and all things considered, supposed that mine simply wasn't that bad after all. In the healing heat, I think I may just have seen my ancestors. For a minute, I felt like my grandfathers and other people I care about were in there with me, and the thought brought me comfort. I also took solace in the fact that I was with my colleagues, and that we had the support of people outside the lodge, who responded to our cries of "tabac!" by echoing the shout. Tabac was something we had been told to shout when we felt like we could not hold on anymore, and surprisingly enough, hearing the word shouted back to us outside the lodge was a real tonic.
The final five stones joined us in the lodge, which, after several more departures, was starting to get positively roomy. There were only about a dozen of us left when the fourth door began. I had annointed myself with bear grease, which felt great, between the third and fourth door, and I found that this stage, while difficult, was not nearly as hard as the first three had been. As I held hands with the persons to the left and right of me, I started to feel peaceful and even a bit euphoric. Sweat was now bubbling out of my skin and pouring to the floor of pine branches in audible drips as I listened to Dominique's teachings, and as he painted a vivid image of a vision, I saw it all.
To everyone's surprise, at the end of the fourth door, Dominique announced a "warrior" door, and as the flap came back down, he doused us and the thirty-three grandfathers with cedar water,which opened up my lungs and felt wonderful. I was now leaning unselfconsciously on Abder, who was sitting to my right, for support. We both grinned as the door came up a final time, and laughed with relief, bringing the ordeal to a satisfying conclusion. I had squeezed my medecine bag so tight that sweat had soaked it through, and was now pouring through the bottom. The palm of my hand was stained brown from the leather.
As I crawled out of the lodge, I embraced the elder and thanked him for being with us in the lodge. My feeling of euphoria was dampened a bit, when I saw the faces of some of my colleagues who had fled before the end, and now regretted their hasty decision. But, as we were told, we had all been there together, and those outside had allowed those within to stay there by their support and their presence, which had given us strength. I found out that at the very end, they had been physically embracing the outside of the lodge to give us their energy. Truly, a generous act.
After sitting by the sacred fire for a few minutes in quiet contemplation, I went down to the lake to bathe in the cool waters. My skin felt like that of a newborn. Water never felt so good to me. I was reinvigorated, revitalized, and content.
On the way back past the lodge, I thanked Dennis, who had tended the sacred fire throughout the afternoon, for all of his teachings. He smiled at me. I was calm, content, and serene. What an incredible gift we had shared.
Later, we discussed the length of the sweatlodge. No one was sure. According to one of my colleagues who had stayed outside and had their watch with them, the whole thing lasted three hours. I wouldn't have been surprised if someone had told me it had lasted 30 minutes --or 13 hours for that matter. Inside the lodge, time did not seem to exist. It was only when we emerged, like newborns out of mother earth's womb, that the strange wonderful dream ended, and we went back to being what we were: Ottawa bureaucrats on a retreat in the wilds of Northern Quebec
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