I have ranted too much

I know I get angry about politics. And I should not. It is not in our power.

Oh, it is important to vote, of course. Too many have sacrificed too much for us not to exercise this freedom. But one vote in millions is a small voice in a big sea.

We do not, however, rate so insignificantly with God. He takes an interest in us that is intimate and personal. He knows us one by one, not as a huge mass of voters. God does not run for elections. He already knows what we need. He is like a Father, which is why we call Him that. And we are small children, whom He loves dearly.

And it is as small children we should come to Him. We have no power in this world. We are like willow leaves that fall on the waves - we are tossed around, with no way to control where we go.

But God scoops us up from the water, loves us, and gives us the narrow gate; the way home. When the Christians say, "There is no other name in Heaven by which we are saved" (paraphrase of Acts 4:12) it is a simple recognition of the fact that we are frail shadows on creation's doorstep: God takes what little we are, nourishes it, and makes us fully alive.

We have no hope without Him. That great God who created everything - the stars, the distant worlds, the beautiful nebula we see only in telescopes, the swirling clouds of hydrogen - that same God looks on us lowly small humans with love and pity, and makes all that we hope for, and all that we dare not hope for... he makes it all come to be.

That is why God deserves our love. Not our ranting. Sorry, God. :-)

The West wants in

Given the results of the Canadian election, we will no doubt here this petulant plea that the rest of Canada obey Alberta's wishes.

And make no mistake - I mean Alberta. When people in Alberta say "the West", they of course mean themselves. They are the only western province to be completely sold over to neo-conservatism. The other provinces may not be fond of the Liberals by and large (although BC elected more than a few, and Winnipeg sent Paul Martin a new star), but the Conservatives are considered only one of many alternatives.

No, when you hear "westerners" demand a Reform... er I mean Conservative government, those "westerners" are invariably Albertans, making demands that speak only for Alberta.

I was born in Saskatchewan. They do hate Liberals, and bemoan Ottawa. And while Conservatives are not few out there, they aren't any stronger than the NDP as a regional force (Saskatchewan birthed the NDP's predecessor, the CCF.)

So next time you hear a "Westerner" demanding a Reform (Conservative) Government, understand that it is quite possibly an Albertan, speaking only for Alberta.

Iraq "sovereignty" handed over today

Sovereignty (such as it is) was turned over today. But it was far, far from what Karl Rove wanted when he set the June 30, 2004 date.

I know what he imagined. George Bush would visit Iraq, and a ceremonial event replete with symbolic meaning would take place, as he personally handed on power to beaming Iraq Arabs, would would throw flowers in tribute to their "liberators."

Instead, with Iraq nearly ungovernable, they had to sneak the swearing in of the new "sovereign" government two days early, so that the terrorists would not be able to attack the swearing in ceremony and kill the new leaders. Iraq is far too unsafe to let the US Commander in Chief to come to the big ceremony of Rove's imagination. Nor is it even safe for Bush to sneak into one of Saddam's palaces and do it in some hidden undocumented location. The terrorists appear to be able to strike at will, even in the green zone, with the synchronous multiple attack signature of Al Qaeda.

The handover today should be interpreted as what it truly is - an act of utter desperation by a President who knows he is unlikely to be re-elected.

Who to vote for...

In my Ottawa South riding, we have a lot of choice as to who to vote for. I believe I even saw a sign advertising a "PC Party" candidate; did they not merge with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative party?

At any rate, after a whole lot of hemming and hawing, I think I have decided to support Monia Mazigh. Like a good little Catholic, I would normally go through the bishops' electoral guidelines, evaluate the candidates' positions, and vote accordingly. But this is one of those times when I have to let primacy of conscience step in.

Lets face it - the social issue battles are lost to us. I can only hope that as a Muslim, Ms. Mazigh shares some of my religious conservatism with me.

On the other hand, one think that still seems to be true is this: a solid member of parliament will go to bat for you. Their office takes up the red tape and cuts through it like butter. Can you think of anybody - anybody - who would work harder and more effectively at cutting through red tape than would Monia Mazigh? She'd be like a super-MP!! Leaping tall Parliament buildings in a single bound!

So that is how I am voting. But whoever you support, vote!

Campfires

Campfires are bred in the bone. There is something ancient in our attraction to them.

I visited my brother at his cabin on Saturday. I was very reluctant to go, because normally he operates a mosquito colony. But the wind was up, and the weather was cooler than the bugs like, so it was quite a pleasant visit.

My father and I had built a huge firepit beside my brother's cabin, and my brother had a huge fire going in it Saturday night. I did not want to leave, once he got that going. Like I said, fire is bred in the bone.

I remember one time I was out ice fishing with some guys on a lake that was thirty kilometres from the nearest road. I had frozen my hands baiting the lines, so we started up a big fire in the middle of the lake. Sitting by that fire as the moon came up in the crystal clear sky, listening to the wolves howling - it was an incredible experience, like a memory of a long ago time that we all instinctively share.

How at peace we are, the closer we get to who we were meant to be.

Swimming

I am going to a cottage tonight, and I expect one of the first things I will do is swim. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am a polar bear, and it runs in the family. My younger daughter can swim in frigid water with the best of them.

When I look at how swimming has run in my family, I can't help but think of the aquatic ape theory of human evolution. Humans are differentiated from gorillas, orangs, bonobos, and chimps in several ways that give us a unique (hominoidae) ability to swim.

These characteristics seem to be especially pronounced in my family. When I was a kid, I rarely spent any time above water - I came up for air, and back down I would go. My brother was the same, and so was my father. My parents live beside the beach year round, now (we had a pool when they were in their working years.) My daughter could swim underwater at six. At one point I could hold my breath for two minutes, and get down thirty feet without a tank (and only fear kept me from going deeper - it is very dark when you are down that far.)

This has not been a great swimming year, though. The cooler summer and spring we are having has not warmed up the water the way it normally would. Even the lakes and rivers are cool, and the great lakes are intolerably cold (we went in, but it was a bone chilling 55 degrees fahrenheit.) And I like warmer water, even though I can get used to the current temperatures.

So here's hoping for a heatwave of decent length!

Confronting terror on the 9th hole

"I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive."

I love this scene with Bush playing golf in the trailer for Fahrenheit 9/11. Talk about a man with no sense of the apropos! :-)

Moon is not the Messiah

• Jesus never started right wing newspapers. He proclaimed the good news.
• He never presided over flashy weddings of thousands of people. He instead taught the thousands about love, and then fed them all with a handful of fish and five loaves of bread.
• Jesus did not come saying, "I am he." He asked, "Who do you say that I am?"
• Jesus never demanded to be called "true father." He said, "You have only one Father, your Father in Heaven."
• Jesus did not fail while claiming to succeed. He succeeded when others were convinced he failed. Jesus was born poor, lived poor, and saved the world.


• Come Lord Jesus! Renew the face of the Earth!

Graduation Day

My daughter graduates from high school today - high school! And in fact, she could have graduated last year. She decided to try and avoid the double cohort logjam, and so she took extra Grade 12 courses this year.

I really cannot fully comprehend this incredible milestone. The little girl I used to chase around McNabb Park on all fours (she was the banana, I was the gorilla) is not a kid any more. Those endless summer evenings leaping off the swings, and hurling ourselves off the Jungle Gym are gone forever. She's not even an adolescent. She is an adult, albeit a young one going off to college next year.

I am not ready for an empty nest. Already, she spends most of her time hanging around with her boyfriend. She shows up to be fed, and to sleep. :-)

I am not given to sentimentality, generally. But when I do give in to it, I turn into a blubbering mess. (Did I just admit that?)I hope I can keep it together today.

Murderers

It takes a particularly hardened heart to kill a man who begs for his life. And yet the cruel captors of Kim Sun-Il did exactly this.

Kim Sun-Il embraced life. He wanted to live, and begged passionately for the chance. The death-enthralled terrorists, who embrace Mars the god of war (and not Allah "the merciful" of Islamic prayer) showed no mercy, no kindness.

In this, they emulated not the merciful God, but the all-too human instinct we call rage. In some ways, I pity these terrorists as much as Kim Sun-Il. He, at least, understood the value of life enough to cherish it and ask to keep it. His tormentors obviously have never known life - only death. They have lived by the sword, and no doubt will die by it. And no paradise awaits them, as long as they continue in thrall to death.

Since death appears to be their god, they can expect to be sent to its altar.

How important is it to be articulate?

I submit to you, not very.

Human beings do distinguish themselves from other animals with language. But are those possessed of soaring rhetoric any better off? I know there are many people history commends for their ability to speak well; but in fact, a close examination of these people usually demonstrates that their actions, backed up by their words, are what really make them.

Take Churchill: an orator of such superb skill that even Dubya Bush tries to hearken to him. Sir Winston certainly knew what to say and when to say it, but his actions in sending the British army to fight Mussolini after barely surviving the Battle of Britain showed that what raged inside his chest was the heart of a lion.

I know so many people who distinguish themselves by volunteering, by being engaged parents, or by being good listeners. (My wife is an excellent listener!) I would even be so bold as to suggest that those who can listen possess a rarer skill than those who can speak!

Went to Mooney's Bay last night

Mooney's Bay is advertized on the Ottawa city site as a ski area. Most people know it as a beach.

That was what my daughter and I had in mind - we were there to go swimming. Now, because it has been a cool spring so far, with cool nights and daytimes highs well off the norm, the water was quite cold. But this is where my daughter and I come in: we're practically polar bears.

She and I went swimming at the Sandbanks last weekend. The water there is only 55 degrees Fahrenheit. So the 65 degree or so water at Mooney's bay was not exactly a problem for us! As usual, there were all kinds of people playing Volleyball. But this time, they were mostly at the other end of the beach, so we practically had the swimming area to ourselves.

The water at Mooney's bay is kind of a murky brown when you are underwater. But because nobody had been running in the water, it was clear for my daughter and I. So we got to chase each other underwater, and generally have an awful lot of fun. :-)

Beheadings and panties on the head

Uber-right wing apologists have taken to pointing at the beheadings of Al Qaeda-captured prisoners, and saying that the equivalent act is the prisoner who had to wear panties on his head.

This is disingenuous to say the least. They've taken the most offensive behaviours of the terrorists, matched them up against the least offensive behaviours of the Abu Ghraib dominatrixes, and then used the obvious gap that there would be between these disparate ranges of behaviour to imply that Arabs are bad and Americans are good. (They don't come out and say that, but given that the most recent beheading was two countries away from Iraq, I don't know what other conclusion I can draw.)

But these are not the appropriate comparisons. If Abu Ghraib is what these right wingers think bears comparison, then lets look at Abu Grhaib's real savagery: several of the Abu Ghraib photos show guards hamming it up beside the cadaver of a badly beaten man who is being kept on ice. Now that - that is the comparable act. Not any business about panties on the head.

And then how can you help but look at the disproportionateness of American responses to killings in Iraq? Their most recent response to Al Zarqawi, the beheader of Nick Berg, was to blow up houses full of people in Fallujah - including several women and children (how many heads did they lose?)

You see, the problem with war is that it is all savagery. We can dress it up in uniforms and talk about Geneva conventions, but war is a visceral and emotional response to problems that generally results in people being unfairly deprived of their lives.

This is one of the reasons for the Just War doctrine of Augustine and Aquinas - when a nation goes to war needs to be strictly limited to situations that are either purely defensive, or where a legitimate and competent authority is able to bring about, as a last step when all peaceful means have been exhausted, a good in response to an imminent threat that is on balance greater than the harm that would be otherwise brought.

War must not be a tool of foreign policy. It can and must only be used as an emergency response to a grave and vital threat. War is always a defeat - because it means that we were not able to solve our problems in mature and reasonable fashion.

That is not to say that all wars that have ever been fought are unjustifiable. Most people would agree that the Western countries were right to defend their nations against the Third Reich of Germany, and right to force the Axis into unconditional surrender.

But even a Just War is still a defeat. And it is a defeat be it by blowback from events set in motion decades earlier, or by a madman who built up arms that could be used to take much of the world (and no, Saddam is no Hitler as the dearth of any evidence shows.)

It is time to turn away from violence as a solution to problems, and truly embrace not just talking or hearing, but dialoguing and listening as the way to collaborate on cutting out the terrorists, once and for all.

Reunion epilogue

If there is one thing I can learn from a high school reunion, now that I have been to one, is how few people I actually knew in high school. Let me qualify that – I knew few people in my graduating class. I was acquainted with a few people who were there, but only one person who was there is someone I could rightly call a friend.

I suppose this is in part because I am a hermit. And in part because this whole thing confirmed for me that your friends are the association you make for yourself. It is not necessarily high school, or university, or anything that stands as the defining time in your life: it is whatever you want to define your life that actually defines it.

For me that is mostly family. I have not generally been able to sustain lots of friendships outside that. Is that bad? I honestly don’t know, but that is how it is.

Where is the outrage?

A day after Paul Johnson's brutal murder by terrorists, which was widely condemned in the Muslim world, Coalition forces bombed a few houses flat in Fallujah. Among the victims were three women and five children. The two events are not connected, and it is not fair to Johnson if my letter makes it seem as though they are. What happened to Johnson is profoundly unfair - how will his family ever get through this? There are things in this world worse than death, and knowing that someone you love was a victim of such evil may be one of them. I pray for comfort for his wife and son, and get them through this.

Turning to Fallujah, I notice that the indignation which these events should cause never seems to surface. "Where's the Muslim outrage!" Right-wing pundits scream whenever even a single American dies at the hands of terrorists (as if to imply there is no outrage, which there often is.)

Well, where is the American outrage, when these things happen? OK - that is not fair. In fact, many good and decent Americans are very outraged by what is being done in their name. But among the neocons, Bush apologists, and Bible Belt supporters you hear nothing but excuses, or less. They will try and tell you that they were all terrorists (the children, too?) or even more disgracefully, tell you something like "You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette" (I've heard that offensive saying in Usenet newsgroups, although people seem to have enough shame to use it less frequently now that Iraq is so clearly off the rails.)

Why is it only Muslims are supposed to feel outrage at American deaths? When will the neocons feel the sting of shame when their plans bring unfair suffering and misery!

Well, as a Christian, I feel outrage: outrage that my God's name is invoked to justify all the death that my fellow Christians have wrought, playing "SimCity" across the Iraqi landscape. I apologize to the Iraqi people for what Christians do in the name of God, and I hope God will unharden the hearts of my fellow believers in the American Bible belt, and listen to what Jesus has to say. Let them cease all idolatry and abandon Mars, the Roman god of war, for the Lord, our Blessed Prince of Peace!

I am such a loser

I have gmail now. No thanks to blogger, which rejected my overtures. But a blogger was kind enough to give me an invite.

Gmail has a nice simple interface, and it it runs fast, just like
Google. But I can't believe that I allowed myself to get in on the "I gotta have gmail or I'm a loser" hype. If anything, I'm a loser for swallowing that codswallop. :-)

Terrorists have beheaded another American

According to ABC News.

How can these people think that the loving God who created this beautiful universe with all of its colours and wonders, and gave life to all things (including their victims) wants them to exact such brutal "revenge" for whatever grievance they think they have?

God is light and life. He does not accept the deaths caused by terrorists as a sacrifice.

I was reading on another blog...

That High School reunions are something a person sees as a chance to prove you are not a loser, which in fact demonstrates that you are indeed a loser. :-)

I think that would indeed be true if this were an elementary school reunion (I was definitely a loser), but I had long embraced the inner geek by Grade 13. So I'm not in need of salutory redemption, at least where high school is concerned.

The Canadian Federal election

It is hard to figure out why Canadians have convinced themselves they need a change in government. First of all, they have already had one. Paul Martin gutted Chretien's cabinet, keeping only about half the ministers that had been in it.

But what is also hard to figure out is what it is Canadians are dissatisfied with. We've come off of eleven years of absolutely unprecedented prosperity, after nearly being bankrupted by the Progressive Conservative party during the time Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister.

And that prosperity is not coincidence. Our current Prime Minister, Paul Martin, is the most competent Finance Minister we have had since C.D. Howe. He killed a deficit conservatives only talked about getting rid of (while making it worse.)

Now don't get me wrong - there have been some minor league scandals, and the gun registry has been a money pit. But an objective performance evaluation would have to objectively consider Martin's demonstrable skill at fiscal responsibility overall.

Then there is the fact that Ontario voters are upset about Dalton McGuinty's lies upon taking the Ontario premiership. But there is only one riding in which McGuinty could possibly find punishment - Ottawa South, which he represents and where his brother David is running.

It is difficult to understand why Canadians are trading in a man accomplished in the business world and as a politician, for Stephen Harper, a man whose resume is very thin in either area.

At least the Conservative predecessor, Brian Mulroney, had a resume to show for in private business when he got hired. Stephen Harper? An ideologue who has not had extensive experience outside of politics and advocacy organizations.

Why are we doing this? Don't you hire the best candidate for the job, when there's an opening?

Dick Cheney is a curious creature

There is a saying that if you repeat a lie often enough, eventually it becomes true. Obviously the Vice President of the United States is an adherent to this view.

Despite the fact that the 9/11 Commission, who have exhaustively studied the intelligence failures that enabled the attacks to take place, has conclusively demonstrated there to be no linkage between the attacks and Saddam Hussein, Cheney continues to assert just such a linkage. He appears to be pretending that the 9/11 Commission simply does not exist, from what I can tell.

I know that politicians and dissembling go hand in hand, but is this not brazen and ridiculous?

St. Augustine rejected Manicheism

St. Augustine puzzled over the question of evil, as we all do. How could a perfect God create a universe in such a way that implies He created evil as well?

He wrote, “Where then does evil come from? Can it be that there was something evil in the matter from which he made the universe? When he shaped this matter and fixed it to His purpose, did he leave in it some part which he did not convert to good?”

St. Augustine was one of the Manichees at first, but when their leader Faustus was unable to make any persuasive arguments that could reconcile Manichean belief with science nad mathematics, Augustine began his journey to Christianity. He would eventually draw the conclusion that evil is “nothing but the removal of good until finally no good remains,” an idea perfectly reconcilable with a benevolent creator when free will is factored in.

Unfortunately, Augustine’s beautiful and profound meditations on evil that helped form the Christian conscience for millennia seem to be lost to our age. Instead, politicians eager to exploit Holy Scriptures for sound-bites have resurrected the Manichean belief in good and evil as personalized and equal forces, at war for the soul of the universe.

Nationalist politicians use the saying of Jesus, “He who is not with us is against us” to their partisan service. But Jesus was far subtler than this. He also told his disciples not to oppose another man they had seen casting out demons in Jesus’ name. To them he said, “He who is not against us is with us.” In short, Jesus recognized that those who take the side of good are always aligned, even when they do not at first seem totally compatible.

In short, we are called to find common ground, not enmity. And we have obvious enmities – who could imagine a Samaritan taking a Jew to an inn and binding up his wounds? But in Jesus parable, this is exactly what happens – good is found in exactly the kind of person where you do not expect to find it.

So beware politicians using the language of faith to rally you against an enemy. Jesus says, “Blessed is he who takes no offense at me.” That is a far wider and a far less exclusive club than the ones most nationalist rally leaders want to create.

After all a politician just wants to get elected. It is you, the voter, who truly can take the principled stand. Use your conscience, and listen to the words of God when you vote.

For with God, all things are possible.

My church the election issue

I found this funny - my church, Blessed Sacrament Church, has become an election issue. This article in Sunday Magazine talks about the role it claims my church played in shaping Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada.

The Lincoln Squirrel has been shot!

Apparently forensic experts spent hours combing Wasaga Beach, looking for human remains after someone reported finding a small baby hand according to this Toronto Star report.

What the report doesn't tell you is that the coroner determined the hand was from a doll, and not an actual human being.

Forbes says Blogger users get gmail. They obviously don't blog.

This Forbes article claims that Blogger users will eventually be asked to test Gmail. Maybe I'm just the Ranger Gord of Blogger users but I can confirm that no such thing takes place.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

In the words of Ron Weasley, "Bloody brilliant!" This film is by far the best of the lot. I like the way they changed the environs of the castle so that it seems less cut-off from the real world. This was the best of the books, and it is fitting that the film is the best of the films.

My high school 20th anniversary looms...

From the letters flying around between classmates, I can tell that many, if not most, of my classmates have been spectacularly successful.

So what does that spell for me? Nothing. I am not insecure about it in the least. In part, this is because I have not been unsuccessful in life. I have done many things personally and professionally that look good even on paper. But the older I get, the more I realize how unimportant that is.

The well-lived life is an ideal that I picked up for myself from funerals, of all things. In the last few years I've been to the funerals of my grandmother and both my in-laws. And you know what? Nobody mourns the mechanic, or the homemaker, or the saleslady; nor even the scientist or lawyer. At funerals, it is the dear grandfather who played silly games with the grandkids who is missed; the grandmother's loving patience; or her funny sayings.

It is not what we do that makes us memorable. Aside from the gilded few, our professional work will be surpassed, probably by coworkers right in front of our eyes. There is no personal saintliness we can achieve that will dim the humanitarian accomplishments of Mother Theresa or Bono. :-)

No, what people remember is who we are. That is our accomplishment, each one of us. Nobody will ever surpass you at being you, for better or ill.

So be the best "you" you can be. That is what I hope to do this weekend. Of what purpose would it be to boast of anything I have? I can only count myself fortunate to have it. Rather I would do well to listen, learn, and admire. I will try not to envy those who have done better than I, and I will try not to be smug concerning those who have not.

Dear Lord, I ask that I may see you at work in the lives of my old friends. May I take joy in their journeys, laugh at our shared memories, make happy new ones, and reacquaint myself with some of the people of my youth.

Screw gmail

Yahoo has already upped their email to 100 MB. My existing account just turned up with the new limits. Why wait eternally to join Google's snooty elite? You can get a high powered email account today.

I don't sleep anymore

I have been going to bed late this summer, and yet still getting up early. Perhaps it is because the sun sets so late and rises so early. But it has been a long time since I spent so much wakeful time.

I like sleeping. It is like existing in a slightly different world, where things that should not make sense find a way to make sense. All your inner fears manifest themselves in dreams. All your hopes find expression.

I have had one strange reocurring dream - I dream that I am seeing the next Star Wars movie (as my daughter says, "You're such a nerd!")

If I remember enough of the details, I'll share them as spoilers. Providing George Lucas doesn't sue me, of course.

Tigers are dangerous

Here's a story about a man who took a tiger out of his cage to be photographed by a young boy. The several hundred pound Siberian tiger got off his leash, and began to maul the boy. Thank God this kid's injuries are not life threatening!

Read here in the London Free Press.

If you own a tiger, do not let children play with him. Do not open the cage. Do not go into the cage. Do not train him to do circus tricks. Tigers are even less suitable than lions for this sort of thing, as lions are social animals that might possibly be able to consider a human part of the pride.

But tigers cannot be convinced of this. They want to eat you. Or they feel threatened by you. There is no safe way to play with a tiger.

I got to hear a Taize choir yesterday

Well, actually I got to do more than that; I got to sing with them. They needed me to do the parts of the Mass.

What wonderful contemplative music. One of the things I often have with Church music is that you spend too long trying to catch up with the meaning of a song. You'll be puzzling on a verse when you're already singing the refrain.

The Taize singers repeat a chorus, often in different languages, over and over again, slowly building it to a peak. This allows you to pour over the words and meditate a little on them as you sing them.

Words have many nuances. They mean more than they say so often, and it is often why religious people (of any religion) pour over scriptures they have already read so many times. It is as if they ask, "What else can these same words teach me?"

I feel sometimes like I spend my life in a fog. I will be busy contemplating what I've heard and what people have said, and in the meantime, they have already moved on to discussing something else. It can feel like you are in a time machine, trapped five seconds before the events you are observing.

This Taize singing helped me reach the feeling that what I was contemplating, what I was thinking about was the now. Now is always an instant, as St. Augusine observed. The past is a memory (a long one), and the future an expectation. But now is a fleeting instant.

Their songs help make now last a little longer. :-)

Here's that letter to the editor (Globe and Mail) I wrote:

Cure thyself
Saturday, May 29, 2004 - Page A20

Ottawa-Laurie Mylroie (Hard-To-Swallow Cure-May 28) claims that "the Iraq war was necessary," that 9/11 is the "primary reason the U.S. went to war with Iraq" and that "Mr. Bush and several top advisers believed Baghdad was involved." As Richard Clarke writes in his book Against All Enemies, this mistaken fixation with Iraq embroiled the United States in a war unrelated to the events of 9/11 and misdirected resources needed in the fight against al-Qaeda.

Mr. Clarke recounts how, at one pre-9/11 meeting, deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz tried to change the subject from al-Qaeda to Iraq by insisting that Iraq was a state sponsor of al-Qaeda. About this, Mr. Clarke wrote, "I could hardly believe it, but Wolfowitz was actually spouting the totally discredited Laurie Mylroie theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 truck bomb at the World Trade Center, a theory that had been investigated for years and found to be totally untrue."

If Mr. Clarke's assertions are correct, then Ms. Mylroie would appear to have helped in some small measure to inspire the rush to war. And if that is so, then she may be a contributor to the illness and not in a position to recommend a cure.

Stupid google

Bleh - maybe I was too enthusiastic about blogging. I seem to have got knocked off the Ottawa profile search. And I got rebuffed on begging for gmail - it is for "active users."

I'd sure like to know what 65 posts in a month represents! >grumble<

Red Sails in the Sunset

Ray Charles has died.
How sad. All the great R&B stars are getting older.

Yes I know Ray Charles did not do "Red Sails in the Sunset." But when I was a kid, I thought he did, and somehow it seems a fitting title.

Faith and lack of belief are two peas in a pod.

Faith and lack of belief are two peas in a pod.

I wrote earlier about how Yann Martel's Pi (in “Life of Pi”) recognizes in an atheist a fellow believer, but of a different sort. He saves his scorn for agnostics who cannot decide.

An interesting thought occurs to me. I have noted before that modern cosmology was presaged by St. Augustine who writes that people trying to ask “what came before God” are asking the wrong question, since time itself is a created thing, and does not exist outside its aspect as a dimension of the known universe.

Atheist apologetics frequently catch onto this. When they don't use the more primitive argument (“what came before God”) they take to task that if theists suppose that God exists in an extra-dimensional state, that this is unfalsifiable. We cannot observe that which is not within the universe, so they cannot test for the existence of a God we believe to be in such a state.

However, the Big Bang cosmology, combined with the anthropic principle, has always been deeply troubling to those physicists who are not at least Deists (as both Einstein and Hawking are reputed to be.)

One approach in response to this has been to come up with a theory of a multiverse on which our universe is stretched in almost a two dimensional fashion in subspace (a brane.) In this infinitely larger (but unverifiable) multiverse, a nearby universe is stretched out just above us. When these two universes do the Hubble expansion thing such that they are nearly empty and depleted, they are drawn close to one another and touch, setting off a catastrophic reaction, blasting each universe into a big bang like recreation (but with matter much more widely dispersed than would result from a big bang explosion.)

Voila – steady state ressurected, God can take a vacation, as Nietsche's prophesied vanquishing has been reclaimed. One problem – it relies on the same unfalsifiable premise as the non-temporal God of St. Augustine's conception. We can't prove or even observe this nearby universe whose brane collides with ours, only pick up on some of the after-effects of this “collision” (just like with the big bang.)

So the result? We have two completely unverifiable, but plausible premises. One suggests a God. The other suggests an endlessly repopulating universe that doesn't need one.

I may have chosen the half full glass. But my reasoning is objectively no less sound for having done so. :-)

Blogging so far

It is a lot of fun, even if I have an audience of only
one (myself. :-) Writing out your thoughts helps you
organize them better. Having to find something to
write about requires you to spend time thinking about
what I ought to write about. This means I have to
think about more important things.

I have gripes. Emailed-in posts don't turn up a lot,
but do turn up when I go to file them on the
dashboard. And I appear low in the list of Ottawa
bloggers, even though I am far more active than most
(but then, they may not use activity as a criteria,
who knows?)

But they are minor gripes. I often fancied that I'd
write me a novel someday, like my father did. But I
don't have the discipline. Instead, I'll probably
accumulate a novel's worth of letters here.

Not that I imagine I'll ever be able to assemble it
and edit it down to a masterpiece like the Screwtape
Letters. But what I can't emit in quality, I can at
least produce in quantity. ;-)

We are stardust

And it is not just hippies singing that. :-)

Our bodies and our world are all made up of ingredients that did not exist in the original universe. Instead the first massive superstars that formed out of the hydrogen clouds that made up the early universe exploded these elements into existence.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/stars.html

Terrorism on the upswing - surprised?

Apparently the War on Iraq has not reduced terror - it has increased it.

I don't know about you, but as for me, I cannot say that I find myself surprised. Nor should Bush be particularly surprised, as he is an avowed Christian. On the night that guards came to capture Jesus, his disciple Peter took a sword and attacked one of them, a man named Malchus. Jesus rebuked Peter, saying "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

Jesus understood this: that is why the Christian salvation is such a pacifist act. People think of Mel Gibson's film as a particularly violent one, and there is no doubt it is. But paradoxically, it is one of the most anti-violence messages ever proclaimed. Jesus did not physically resist those who came for him. By willingly taking on all the hate the people around Him felt they had to pour out on Him, and using that very rage to make the greatest sacrifice ever and save the world, He took all things and made them new.

That is why I have been so disheartened at the response of Christians to the attacks of September 11, 2001. As Christians, we were called to walk two miles with the oppressor who demanded one mile. We are asked to give our shirt as well as our cloak - to love and pray for those who persecute us.

That does not mean we should rush out to Tora Bora to find and hug Osama Bin Laden. But it does mean to pray for him, and yes, even find a way to forgive him. Our response to the act itself should have been to deal with terrorism as a policing matter - find the terrorists and convict them. Then we should have turned to the communities from which these terrorists sprang and listened to their grievances, aided their poor, and opened schools and hospitals for their children.

Perhaps the support of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban was warranted as well. The Taliban were state sponsors of Al Qaeda. But rather than abandon their long ruined country, rebuilding Afghanistan should have been a top priority, and not tossed off at the first opportunity to invade Iraq.

I know that many people in Iraq are glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, and who can say they would want him to have remained in power? That said, the violent response to his posession of non-existent weapons of mass destruction has not made Iraqi lives better. Indeed, it has made more than ten thousand civilians quite dead. Those people will never know the "free" Iraq George Bush promised as outcome of this war.


Saddam Hussein would not have lived forever. And as long as he did survive as dictator, there were ways to undermine Saddam that did not involve bombing children. We need to trust in God more, and rely on military might less. Jesus words on the mount were not idle thoughts that caused Holy Lips to ramble - they were the very reasons he went to the cross making no attempt to oppose His Passion.

Amor vincit omnia. (Love conquers all.)

We know this, because at Golgotha, Love did conquer all.

King David never saw a pipe organ, let alone played one

I hear so many churchgoers in traditional western forms of worship decry the introduction of guitars and contemporary musical idiom into the liturgy.

I find this quite a peculiar kind of worrying. The most exalted form of music in the western liturgical tradition is Gregorian chant, and due to its antiquity, it deserves to keep its pride of place.

But you hear people insist that guitars must not be used, and pianos are blasphemous, because a saintly Pope of another era (Pius X) lumped pianos in with "noisy and frivolous" instruments. Bearing in mind that you can't easily ignore the opinion of a Pope, the opinions of Biblical prophets and ancestors of Jesus quoted in scripture probably trump any Papal decree of any sort.

The Psalms, whose use in sung liturgical worship predates Christianity, make frequent reference to stringed instruments such as the harp and lyre. The lyre in particular is very much an analog of and cousin to the modern guitar. If a guitar like instrument had King David's favour (the same David who is an ancestor of Jesus through Mary and His adoptive father Joseph), then I think the debate on that question is essentially over.

Nowhere in scripture can a Pipe organ be found. In fact, the Pipe organ (or the hydraulis, as it was then known) is a pagan instrument invented in ancient Greece. Now, I love organs, and I don't for a minute believe God frowns on these beautiful instruments. But I cannot swallow that they possess any particular exaltation either.

The expectation of sacred music is that it be "grave" (to also use Pope St. Pius X's words.) But again, we see in King David that no use of the word "grave" can be used to contradict righteous exuberance so clearly prescribed in scripture. In 2 Samuel, Chapter 6, we see David joyfully, raucously celebrate joy before the Lord. His wife Michal rebukes him for this, but David makes clear her rebuke cannot stand: he will continue to do this, and he will be honoured for it. And the chapter makes clear that Michal herself pays a price for her prim condescension.

Sacred music does not have to be funereal. Nor is any specific musical style prescribed - God invented music, and even the big bang has been turned into a WAV file out there. I'm not sure there is even a way to sing that does not in some way give glory to God, for He is found in it always (well, maybe not on Britney Spears or Nickelback corporate shlock records. ;-)

Now don't get me wrong - I've heard some awful "folk Mass" music. Some of it is written terribly ('And the Father will Dance' - yech) in my opinion, and at too many church events, somebody barely capable of strumming a guitar and/or singing is made the accompanist. But in the hands of capable and earnest musicians and singers, "Be Not Afraid" is just as moving as a choir-sung "Salutoris Hostia."

I sing in a Folk Group at my church, 8 PM every Sunday. We sing with great joy and exuberance. I like to think we take joy in it, and try and soar the way people were meant to, without having to build a tower like Nebuchadnezzar. Music was meant to stir the soul - and that is true when it is played on an organ as the glorious Cathedral choir at Notre Dame does. And it is also true when a great guitarist does it.

Christopher Hitchens - Christophe Hitchens

Noted Iraq war advocate, Mother Theresa basher, and Chalabi defender Christopher Hitchens apparently likes to make his speech sound, well, continental and refined. Listen to this gem:

"In 1968 - I of course like to think of myself as having been a "Sixty Eighter" or even soixante-huitard..."

"Soixante huitard" literally means "sixty eighter" - its the same expression, only in French.

Putz.

I Hate Reality TV

I hate reality shows. The only reason they make these C-grade attempts to manipulate non-union actor replacements into re-enacting "Lord of the Flies" is because it costs the producers a lot less money than making scripted drama with professionals.

If I wanted to watch reality, I'd sit on a bench and watch people walk by. Or I'd find a desert island with a lot of rocky shoals and wait for the first shipwreckees to wash up. At least you'd be watching something uncontrived, if not terribly realistic.

The reason we watch art, or drama, is to see it imitate life in the most meaningful way possible, not the most realistic. When you consider that the best television drama of the last ten years is that one about a high school girl with witch and demon friends who hunt vampires, it becomes apparent that reality itself is not at a premium.

Real drama is about that crucial fork in the road, when a lesson is painfully learned, or tragically ignored. I'm sorry, but what do you really learn about living watching some poor sap eat a cockroach for money, or get fired by Donald Trump? Whether real or not, there's far less than meets the eye with these shows. Frodo's struggle to resist the temptation of the symbolic evil around his neck resonates far more with the real people I know then people on an island playing at dysfunctional Swiss Family Robinson.

"All the world's a stage" Shakespeare famously said. No offense to the bard, but if he had seen reality shows, I am sure he would agree that some people ought to have a cane come out and yank them off that stage.

I can't wait for Reality TV's fifteen minutes to be up.

The transit of Venus is tomorrow

Yes, that rare event nobody living has ever seen happens tomorrow.
Of course, it is not safe to stare at the sun, so how do you look at it? Well, you can check it out on the web.

I have a new music site

At music.download.com - check it out!

The Paraclete

Today is Trinity Sunday. Easter is over and we are back in Ordinary Time.

Islam asserts that the Paraclete, the comforter that would be sent following Jesus was Mohammed, his prophethood predicted.

Without commenting on the merits of Mohammed's prophethood, the Christian interpretation of this prophecy is a much more wonderful one; for it promises that God's true comforter, the Holy Spirit, would come with us and dwell in us and be for us "the Spirit of Truth."

What a wonderful thing - how can life truly go wrong if God will really be so intimate with us as to come and live within us? While the idea that God lives within us is not unique - you hear it from new agers all the time - the Christian view of this is much more humble.

Christianity insists that humans are modest beings; we are not gods ourselves, or part of God (pantheism.) As the eighth psalm says, "What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him?" and yet for no reason that we deserve, God indeed takes great interest in our lives and has given us much to be happy about.

And when our lives get difficult, and our seas get stormy, he comes to us, walking on the water. He dwells within us, able to give us counsel, and move our lives, or at least our hearts, in His direction.

He gave life to us, indeed gave rise to everything we know. When we lost our way, He came once as man, to greet us as we are. And now that He has been here, and shown us the way, He sends us the Spirit of truth, to keep us on our way.

That is why the analogy of the Lord as a shepherd is so apt. He cares for us all of our lives, and greets us at the end of it to lead us home.

I Saw the Pope on TV this Morning

The Pope has become quite frail, and he does not speak well anymore. But he does not give up - he had a long speech to give, thanking the US soldiers of sixty years ago for saving the world, and he read that speech with the same determination an athlete completes an athletic event.

This Pope has become a living witness of the value of the elderly. For us, who hide the elderly, or treat them like doddering old fools, it is sobering to listen to this man who, despite his infirmities, still does his job every day, and brings a crystal clear mind to every speech he has trouble reading.

It was not always so - in 1979, this was the hiking, kayaking Pope. He came into his Roman bishopric with the kind of acclaim that always seems to herald someone of particularly youthful vigour.

But this Pope has been Pope for a lifetime, and we have all watched him age to an age where, if it were one of our relatives, we would have put him off in a home somewhere. Instead he still writes books, gives homilies, blesses the faithful, canonizes saints, and ordains bishops and priests.

In the Catechism is quoted this wisdom of Ben Sirach:

"O Son, Help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives; even if he is lacking in understanding, show forbearance; in all your strength do not despise him... Whoever forsakes his father is like a blasphemer, and whoever angers his mother is cursed by the Lord."

I have some guilt here. When my one grandmother had Alzheimers, I started calling her only infrequently. I was afraid that I would remember only this new reality, and not remember her more vigourous earlier self, I think.

I did better with my other grandmother. Shortly before she died, I had a long talk with her about life and death. She told me that nobody lives forever, and there comes a time when you are ready to move on. She thought she'd reached that time.

When she took a stroke a week or so later, I prayed, and begged that I might see her one last time (she lives very far away.) The day she died I was granted this prayer: a Christmas card was on my desk, which my wife had taken from the mail. Inside, my Nanny had sent me a picture of herself, from her 90th birthday party that summer. She had found a way, she herself, for my prayers to be answered, in such a poignant way - I did get to see her the one last time.

I miss her. She had a serene wisdom that does not come from books or education. Her wisdom was the kind you only get from living a long well-lived life. I dream about her now, sometimes.

But not nearly often enough.

Kobe Bryant accuser cannot be called 'victim'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5112436/

Understanding that there is a need not to prejudice juries, it boggles the mind the standard ways that defense attorneys manage their cases. The traditional technique of making it seem like the alleged victim is not a "victim" (and by inference I suppose is a tramp, or "wanted it", or is something other than a doe-eyed virgin) is reptilian and repulsive.

Can't defense attorneys come up with a more imaginative way of defending their clients than sleazily slyly suggesting the accuser deserved what they got?

George Tenet is quitting

Yep.

Even though the intelligence community was unwilling to trump up the evidence needed for the Iraq war (such that Rumsfeld had to open his own DoD intelligence office, to do an end run around the spooks), George Tenet has had to fall on his sword for "personal reasons." (Those being the reelection of Dubya?)

Seriously, I imagine being the head of the CIA is a hard job. How often do you see your kids, when you've got a 24/7 chess match with Bin Laden? You'd have to be insane to want to be the CIA chief.

Shh... don't tell anyone

But the most wonderful beaches in the world are here.

Imagine - you are on an island, on a beach that is miles and miles long, with the most wonderful natural white sand imaginable. You stare out at the horizon, and as far as the eye can see is that particular turquoise water you always see on vacation posters - clear water on clean limestone floor, where you can see thirty feet underwater. But when you go in for a swim - there is no taste of salt! No jellyfish to stumble on.

The bay is surrounded by limestone cliffs. The nearby towns are a quaint Americana of a long lost age, but with a lively artistic community.

Quinte's Isle is the most wonderful place in the world. I've never gotten why Avril Lavigne says there is nothing to do in her hometown. She is only twenty minutes from the best beaches in the world!

God is Never Far

I listened to a courageous young woman last night tell how a terrible personal tragedy led her to a deep personal faith in God. I was reminded how my own conversion was rooted in a sad event.

I am convinced that God never asks us to bear more than we're capable of. At those times in life where overwhelming things threaten to swamp us, He is there, and despite our choices, able to seep into our lives, love us, and take care of us.

She said, "Let go and let God." And I remembered, thinking about her advice, that the Lord said, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Intercrap Exploder 6.0

Microsoft has not released a new version of Internet Explorer in years. They are taking users for granted. Mozilla on the other hand has made massive improvements on the old Netscape predecessor, and now can be used even on Intranets that use Windows challenge-response.

Come on Microsoft! Get off your duffs - your victory in the browser wars is not irreversible.

Is Bush finally getting it right on Iraq?

Is George Bush finally getting it right on Iraq? There are some encouraging signs that realism is taking hold at the White House.

It should be no secret (from my writings here at least) that I was a bitter opponent of the Iraq war. It was a dangerous stunt, unrelated to the events of 9/11, that George Bush let himself get talked into, by neocons intent on the same thrill kids get playing “SimCity” or “Age of Empires” (but who spend tens of billons fewer getting that thrill, and kill nowhere near as many innocents.)

But now that he is there, he is starting to see that the neocon “flatten them at all costs” rhetoric that wants to make Iraq a showcase example of American imperial power makes no strategic sense.

If the aim is to bring about a stable, moderately democratic government in Iraq, then the coalition has one job right now - ensure that the country and government stabilizes. Bush’s deals in Fallujah and Najaf may seem weak to neocons, but they make exquisite sense - if neither situation threatened the larger potential for Iraq to become a sovereign state, then why pursue it further? The insurgents are capable of little other than delivering bee stings, hoping to inflict a death by a thousand cuts.

If the US stays focused on the transfer of sovereignty, and worries a lot less about the outcome of that sovereignty (Bremer’s wasted year of rewriting all of Iraq’s laws on commerce, trade, and foreign investment, which will undoubtedly be swept aside by the Iraqis themselves at some future date), then its more modest aims of leaving a viable state will have a chance for success.

And many fewer lives will be lost. I still hate this war, but at least the brutal neocon fantasies of reshaping Iraq appear to be losing their influence on the President. Colin Powell's doctrine of overwhelming force, clear mission, and focused exit strategy may finally be getting a hearing.

Writing the words of a sermon that noone will hear

Why write a blog that nobody reads? I don't know. It is not that I have deliberately avoided becoming the Eleanor Rigby of blogs. I've been on the Internet for ten years now, so I am well aware that "build it and they will come" is the silliest thing you could say about any website.

So why leave a legacy of anonymous writing that nobody will ever read? Well... God hears it. At some point I will archive it to CD. Perhaps some day one of my kids will pick through my belongings, find a CD, and take some interest in who I really was, beyond grumpy taskmaster and general all around jungle gymn.

Perhaps I am simply writing to myself. It would not be so unusual. I have come across a few blogs by browsing, where I am quite sure the author has not expected anyone to ever read anything they have written. I feel at such times like I am Shelley, stumbling across Ozymandeas' ruins in the desert. Am I creating a terrible monument destined to be ashes and dust?

Why do conservatives spend like drunken sailors?

Apparently, Canada's Conservative Pary has made promises that will cost more than those of the governing Liberals.

Why is that? In the States, Clinton proposed balanced budgets after years of excess at the hands of Republican presidents. And when back into Republican hands, the Republican controled Presidency and legislatures began throwing cash out the window like it was going out of style, racking up deficits like crazy.

Here in Canada, the Conservatives' Mulroney outdid all of Trudeau's excesses with whopping deficits. So never assume that conservatives are actually any more truly conservative than anyone else!

Blogging for Love

I ache when I read a lot of peoples' blogs. Some people are in an incredible position of hurt. And usually the hurt in question is relationships.

Most of this comes from women. Men write like their blog is a newspaper or trade magazine. They'll review some new X-Box game, comment on international affairs, or discuss an upcoming software developers conference. If there is hurt going on in their world, it is kept below the surface; it is there, you just have to look hard to see it. You'll see flashes of real anger about politics for example, and that often is an avatar of what is really going on under the hood, so to speak.

In women's blogs, the hurt is right at the surface. I read about marriages coming apart. I read so often about men who come up with over-complex Freudian explanations of why it is they should have access to sex but not have to be involved in a committed relationship to obtain it. I know for a fact that men do not actually ponder their own minds deeply enough for these explanations to be genuine: it is an artifice designed to be pleasing enough to the women they peddle it to such that the sex will continue.

I often think that people can overthink relationships, and overanalyze them, and blogs have convinced me this is often true. Relationships are built primarily on feelings. Chief amongst those feelings is love, of course. Romantic relationships are unsustainable without love. But there are others as well. There must be a feeling of common cause. There must be empathy. There must be altruism – the willingness to give up something in or about onesself. You can't be altruism all the time, but no relationship can survive without the occasional flash of it.

Spirituality is an important part of marriage, too, I think. Most marriages are performed by a religious cleric of some sort, and for good reason. Nurturing your relationship under the watchful eye of a Deity, or at least allowing that it is a puzzle piece in the grand cosmic scheme of things, helps to convince you that your pairing is a part of the way the universe is meant to unfold. This aspect helps to bind you in a way that goes deeper than flesh – a pentecostal moment of sorts.

The relationship cannot be sorted out with the mind. A relationship is not a logical creature other than in its overarching purpose of propagating the species. When you take two human beings predisposed to irritable or grumpy moods, each with their own richly earned psychoses about toothpaste caps and toilet seats, and try to glue them together for life, you have gone to a place beyond logic.

It is love that binds us together, and takes us in unity past the raised toilet seats and squabbles about who pays the credit cards. Love takes the complex and makes it simple. It takes the incomplete and makes us whole. As St. Paul would say, and why so many include this in their wedding ceremony:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.