Terri Schiavo has passed on, God rest her soul.

And now that this has happened, let us remember that Terri Schiavo was not an issue. She was not a front in the culture war. She was a woman - one who once had hopes, interests, and good times. This article does her that service.

Who was Terri Schiavo?: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Let her be remembered as she was, when she had a say in who she got to be: a person, not a cause.

You know...

Spring is definitely in the air. It is very hot here indoors, until they decide to flip on the air conditioning. I always try and make a mental marker as to how early in the year, how soon after the snow, slush, and mud, I began to complain of the heat. This has to be a record. :-)

Yesterday, I learned that a friend of mine who needs an organ transplant is still in need. The first potential donor probably does not qualify. There are other donors this person can turn to for the immediate future, but the thought came to me, should I do it? I am stunned by the fact that my visceral and first response was, No. How far it is that I have not traveled. Even now, my thought on the matter is still, well I better wait and see what happens with all the immediate family before stepping forward. Many excuses run through my head - what if my family needs that organ at some indeterminate date? What if I need that organ?

I am surprised at how strong my self-preservation response is, even when it only represents an inconvenience. And I am surprised at how weak my generosity has turned out to be, when a problem that cannot be solved by money presents itself. I am surprised by how much self-improvement in this area I still have to do. If the time comes, I must do the right thing, I must. I cannot just leave someone to the next Samaritan to pass by.

Possessed Onion Ring

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. What is an eBay auction item worth? :-)

Evil onion ring

Easter, seven days a week

Easter is an octave - it is not a single day. Traditionally, today is Sunday, yesterday was Sunday, and tomorrow will be Sunday until the second Sunday of Easter.

So I post this Easter sermon by an Episcopal priest on a Sunday - even if it is a Tuesday. :-)

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_frjakestopstheworld_archive.html

(It is called 'But Where is He?' I could not find a direct link.)

Bracing for the worst

Hopefully, measures taken to improve communications between seismologists and governments/emergency workers can head off an awful repeat. It would be a colossal waste of the world's efforts if no lessons were learned from what happened in December.

MSNBC - Quake follows scientists’ predictions

Song

This song came spilling out of me on Saturday, when I was just horsing around with the guitar. My folk group played it at Mass yesterday.

Love Itself

Here I am Lord, here to start my vigil with the day
But somebody has rolled the stone away
The gardener is asking why I cry
This man is saying, "Mary, it is I!"

CHORUS:
Now I know without you I am wrong
Now I know that with you I am strong
Without you, I can do nothing
Alleluia is my cry
Alleluia 'til I die
Now I know it's my life was saved
Love itself is risen from the grave (x 2)

Here we are Lord, trying to understand what you have done
This woman here has said that you are gone
Now we have you standing in our room
Showing us your bruises and your wounds.

Here I am Lord, listening to what the others say
But I can't let all my hope run away
Now you're asking me to touch and see
Blessed are the ones who can believe.

MSNBC - Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue

All I ask is that when they clone her, they choose somewhere far away to build her pen. :-)

MSNBC - Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue

Good Friday

Here it is Good Friday, already. I'm tired, awake early, and probably grumpy. But since nobody else is awake, I haven't yet had any human interaction to test that theory. :-)

Irina tagged me to answer a quiz regarding books and fictional characters. I already pretty much know how to answer it, but I'm too lazy to do that today. Perhaps tomorrow. I am a committed procrastinator, you know.

Yesterday was an adventure that I want to get down in writing, if for no other reason than that I want to remember it. I arrived at work an hour early yesterday so that I could leave an hour early. Although I've been involved as a singer for a few years, is the first year I've been a more or less full participant as a musician in the Maundy Thursday "band." I've augmented the group with a Stratocaster sound on the guitar.

This year our practice schedule was next to nill; we had only had a single practice. I hastened to our downtown church to so I could be there to go through the rehearsal material with the musicians and singers. Someone I shall call C is the piano player who oversees all of the big musical events (where the choirs combine.) He is married to my younger daughter's old grade four teacher. When I arrived he was playing merrily away on the piano, making some ditty up using the kind of Rhodes piano sound you might hear on old Stevie Wonder albums. It occured to me, this is the only time for the next three hours C is going to have any fun!

Before I had time to get my guitar out and turn all my equipment on, one of the volunteers pressed me into service helping to move a statue to the back of the sanctuary. Over the course of the evening, I ended up doing little odd jobs like this a few times, anxious each time that I would tear my suit pants on something sharp (which happens to me more often than you know!)

A fellow I shall call M, who plays guitar in the band, was unpacking his instrument when I returned. He always seems so glad to see me. M is a model train enthusiast, and to say he is a model enthusiast is an understatement. In truth, he is a recreator of worlds; he builds entire small towns, with small people, vehicles, foliage, buildings and homes. He takes incredible care with the houses and buildings. He makes them the way you would make a real home - putting up scaffolding, framing, and then bricks and roofing. I imagine the electrical work is the only portion he leaves out! These recreations are so incredible (even to the point of incorporating natural lighting), that when he takes photographs of his miniature railroad lines and towns, you cannot tell - I mean it - that the picture is not one of a real town.

As we began tuning and testing, some of the singers began to arrive for the scheduled 6 PM meet-up. Beside us, on the altar, our pastor and the young men he had recruited were rehearsing one of the acts of their play, a recreation of the last supper. Even though we were making lots of noise, as were they, each team was completely oblivious to the other. I smiled to myself upon noticing this, since, in this play, the music and actors are completely interwoven, each taking cues from the other. (This interplay is challenging, I should note, as the musicians perform behind a curtain: we cannot see the actors and they cannot see us.)

We spent about a half hour sorting out our sound. We do not have a sound guy, which makes this insanely difficult. For a half hour, we played a small segment of song, while one of us would go out into the pews and tell us what to turn up or turn down. What made this difficult is that the different people who went out to check how we sounded had different opinions on what to do. "The instruments are too loud," D (the leader of my 8 PM folk group) said. A few minutes later, our oboe player told us that it was all vocal, and she could not hear the musicians. I thought poor C was going to have a stroke!

The last song we tested was a number from Andrew Lloyd-Weber's Jesus Christ Superstar, "I don't Know How to Love Him." As the notes of the last chord faded away, C2, the woman who sings it, turned to me and frowned with worry, unssatisfied with her performance. "I haven't sung in months," She said. "Not true," I teased her, "I just heard you singing!"

"No, I'm serious," she said, with a melancholy look you only see on musicians who aren't playing anymore. I know the feeling. You kind of die inside.

It was about 6:30 PM, and the congregation began to arrive, so C, M, and all the singers marched towards the stairs to the basement, so we could rehearse the newer songs. As I passed by my wife, who had not seen me and was talking to someone, I tapped her on the shoulder and walked past, non-chalantly.

The two new songs for this year could not have been more different. One is an upbeat and rocking gospel song. The other is an ancient Latin chant. Fortunately, we have an incredibly skilled group of musicians and singers, who can switch genres (and even centuries) with ease. :-)

It went spectacularly well. At one point, a baby started crying, and our pastor (who played Jesus) rather cleverly worked it into his lines. We all had to be super-quiet, as the microphones were on us. The hour and a half was all sign language, desperate gestures, and lip reading. After the last strains of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" faded, and the lights came back on, I hugged C2, saying, "You still have it. That was beautiful."

"Thank you. I haven't sung in months," She repeated, but a little less glumly this time. :-)

A few parishioners and friends crowded back behind our already crowded curtain, to say their hellos or seek out the ones they were driving home. I overheard one woman telling C that this year was the best we've ever done. That is no small compliment; before I joined up a few years ago, I attended Holy Thursday. I've heard what it sounds like out in the sanctuary, and it is gorgeous. But the credit is not due us, of that I am sure.

Downstairs, a buffet table is laid out with the kinds of foods that would have been present at the Last Supper - essentially a first century Sedar meal. Three hours of stress takes it's toll. As I stood there eating all the grapes and matzoh, one of the parishioners was complimenting our pastor on how wonderful everything was, and he said, "Well, we made a CD of our christmas music. I think we have to make a CD of our Easter music!"

Turning to me he said, "Right Richard?"

"Uh huh," I said with a mouthful of food, nodding. Uh huh, I thought, remembering how unwelcome that notion would be with poor C, whom I had discussed a similar idea with. He gave up almost a month of evenings to do the first one. And as a schoolteacher, that had been no easy task.

I meant to go at 3 AM this morning to the Liturgy of the Hours at the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. They couldn't wake me; I was worn out, but I wish now that I had gone.

CTV.ca | U.S. army deserter to learn refugee status

This is an interesting case. An army deserter named Jeremy Hinzman has applied for refugee status in Canada. Refugee from where, you ask? The United States.

CTV.ca | U.S. army deserter to learn refugee status

If Canada were to rule in favour of this fellow (unlikely I think), there would be serious repercussions for the relationship between the two countries.

St. Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God.


Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of you.

First glimpses of 2 distant planets

As a boy I used to imagine the day when humanity could venture out into space, and explore the vast reaches of space beyond the solar system, seeing new worlds orbiting stars, worlds where the night sky might include our own star as merely one distant orb burning among many.

First glimpses of 2 distant planets

For the first time, we have seen the shimmer of another solar system's world. Of course, these are probably Jupiter sized planets or bigger; but this is a first step. Perhaps someday we will have telescopes powerful enough to see the clouds, lands, and seas of a far away somewhere we can never go.

Can a Catholic parish church be exciting, envigorating?

Many people who are not Catholic, and many who are, think that Catholics are earnest people, full of faith, who go to very boring churches, where an octogenarian celibate lectures them about gay marriage while an octogenarian old lady deafens everyone with the Pipe organ. :-)

I say this, because yesterday I teased A and Philip that I'd drag them to my church, if they were disenchanted with their own.

Sometimes I forget that Catholic parishes have a reputation for grand decor and boring liturgies. Many protestant churches realize at a profound level that church has to be engaging and interesting. We Catholics sometimes mistake this legitimate facet of church life as "entertainment," where in our case, the point of Church is the Mass itself.

The words that are said in church, liturgy, have great importance for us. The Anglicans and Lutherans are the western denominations that would have some sense of what I mean, but people from non-denominational churches could find it stiff and formal. But the liturgy does serve some purpose for us - for starters, it guarantees that every three years, the entire Bible is read in church. The liturgy also takes the focus off the person celebrating Mass (the Priest) and puts it back onto the seasonal themes, the readings in the liturgy.

What one or two Catholic parishes I've been to sometimes forget, however, is that while the Mass is Holy, there's no particular sanctity in being boring. Mass can be interesting: the homily or sermon can afford to be topical, touching, funny, or sad. Lecters who read the passages from the Bible can choose to make them sound like the interesting stories they are, and not funereal readings from incomprehensible scrolls. The music can be interesting, inspiring, if you want, giving full voice to St. Augustine's wisdom that singing is praying twice.

I'm thankful that the pastor of my parish not only realizes this, but made a point of it when describing how our parish does things to the newspaper last year. An alternative weekly in Ottawa (the X-Press) has an annual "What's hot" issue that talks about who does the best what in town. Last year, it gave our pastor props for "Best minister/priest/rabbi/imam" topping even the popular Rabbi Reuven Bulka, who has had a radio show for years and is much loved.

Tomorrow, we do the Maundy Thursday reenactment of the Last Supper. But our congregation does not have to endure the dull fare where some octogenarian washes another octogenarian's feet while they go to sleep. The night is filled with moving and inspiring music, while the young folks on the Altar playing the disciples take a queue or two from the Godspell musical.

So when I talk about my parish, don't you mind if I don't act like I have a staid and dull church. Because I don't!

Lache mes images!

Now I don't know whether there are legal questions involved in Google running a news search and parsing news content. But why on Earth would anyone not want to be searched by Google?

Google falls to the French - vnunet.com

That's kind of like suing the lottery company for awarding you the prize.

Peace with Israel?

More signs of promising developments on the Israel/Palestinian territories front. Several Arab leaders have signed off on a proposed peace plan with Israel.

Channelnewsasia.com

Of course, it is not as significant a progress as it sounds. The demand is for a complete handover of all pre-1967 territory, including Jerusalem. And while they haven't mentioned that demographic-swamping technique, the "right of return," they do talk about the "rights of Palestinian refugees." In my view, it is a crime that these Arab countries still regard people who have been in their countries for three and four generations as refugees. But the change in language may signal that the Arab countries might, for a price, finally agree to settle these poor people permanently, and even give them citizenship in the places they've lived so long.

It seems like Arafat's departure from the scene is really starting to make a difference!

Another Easter tradition - the magazine feature

Every year around this time, the news magazines nod at Easter by running some story on Jesus, Mary, or other figure who relates to Easter. Some pieces, like the Brokaw one, are skeptical and dispassionate. This particular piece, from Newsweek, is quite sympathetic:

MSNBC - From Jesus to Christ

TheStar.com - Schiavo: `Not much time'

TheStar.com - Schiavo: `Not much time'

I'm always leery of wading into an issue that gets the "culture war" label stamped on it. I hate politics. Although I do take an abstract interest in ethics issues, and I do not think of ethics as relative when it comes to human behaviour, I also recognize that to a great extent, ethics issues are used by many politicians and public figures to distract the public from big matters of public policy and focus them on easier-to-understand stories that are smaller in scale and scope.

But I suppose life and death are not so small in scope are they? But despite their weightiness, we understand these issues better since they are closer to us than social security and oil-for-food scandals at world bureaucracies.

Why I feel can write about the Schiavo fight is because I can feel an aching sympathy with both Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers. Terri Schiavo is in a kind of limbo. She is not really dead in any sense. She is viable, and she is not on life support, but she cannot move, feed herself, or interact with the world in any meaningful way. In some very rare circumstances, patients that far out can recover at least temporarily, as Oliver Sacks documented in "Awakenings." But it is almost impossible in her case to think that could happen.

But she's not dead. And as a fellow parent, my heart aches with the Schindlers. They may only be able to have a limited interaction with their daughter, but she is dear to them, and every fibre of a parent's being instinctively seeks to protect a child. Belonging to a religion that generally gives human life a primacy in most circumstances has no doubt only added to their resolve. It is not too hard to find sympathy for Michael Schiavo either. Although he did win a lawsuit that provided funds for his wife's care, he's seen her linger in the world in a way that hardly seems human. I imagine it is only natural to look at the state of her life, and for him to look at the state of his own life, and wonder what purpose a feeding tube serves.

The Catholic church (which the Schindlers and the Schiavos both belonged to) does not require people to have their lives prolonged artificially. When Terri first had her heart attack, there might have been an opportunity to "not resuscitate." But a feeding tube is not life support. That's the religious dilemna.

But more than a public or faith debate, this is a personal tragedy. Despite angry accusations from Schiavo that the Schindlers wanted the money, and accusations from the Schindlers that Schiavo is an adulterer, I really think both sides are struggling to do what they feel is right. And the only way I know how to approach it is to step back and ask the question, "What if it happened to us?"

My wife and I had this conversation for the first time the other day. I imagine it is time for us to write a living will.

Something George Bush and I share...

... is an affection for the gospel singer Michael W Smith. Apparently Dubya really likes "Above all" (as do I.) We're singing that on Maundy Thursday.

I'm really pleased by the bone our choir director threw my way for Holy Thursday - Smith's "Open the Eyes of My Heart" is the song I'm getting to do the lead on. I really like simple and repetitive hymns, like the kind they sing at Taize. This song is like Taize, but with a bit more gospel kick to it. :-)

Reconciliation

Tonight our church has the reconciliation service. This used to be an affair where there was a "general absolution" (that is to say the service itself was meant to provide minor forgiveness of sin.) But the Pope abolished such things a few years ago. Now, everyone who goes has to go one on one into the confessional, so to speak. :-)

It is a beautiful service, the dimly lit sanctuary filled with gorgeous music, but it also happens to be the caretaker's birthday. She's my wife's best friend, and we joked yesterday that we we were going to put up a big sign saying "Happy Birthday," and that her birthday present would be a hidden microphone beside every priest. :-)

Last Lenten Reflection

Normally, Easter and Passover fall right next to each other. In theory, Easter is supposed to be the Sunday after Passover. But instead of simply deciding that Easter would be the Sunday after 14 Nisan, they came up with a convoluted way of figuring out the vernal equinox in such a way that there are actually two different Easters - one for the Orthodox in the East, and the other for Christians in the West.

I've touched on it before, but why I like the usual confluence of these holidays is that there is a familiar undercurrent in the underlying meaning of each.

In order to get to Passover - which begins the deliverance of the Israelites from pharaoh when death passes over their households, the people of Israel had to pass through a tremendous period of trial. In the time of Abraham, God had repeatedly asserted he would make of him a great nation - but Abraham and Sarah seemed to scratch out a difficult life until getting to Canaan, and even after. At one point, God tests Abraham, asking him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice.

Although things eventually seemed to go well in the family (after a difficult time in which Jacob thought he'd lost a son), they ended up in Egypt, and ended up as slaves with a heavier and heavier burden. Just gazing at the opulence of the ancient architecture of Bronze age Egypt should convince just about anyone that Egyptian slavery was a hard life.

To get to the Exodus, and the road back to Canaan, you have to pass through the slavery. Similarly, to get to the resurrection on Easter Sunday (I go to the vigil), you've got to pass through the Passion on Friday. The glory of the stone rolled away is only as apparent as it is because of its contrast with centurions wailing on rusty nails through the hands of Jesus.

I think... I hope, the joy of Heaven is a lot like that. The Buddha said, "Life is suffering," and while I might choose less gloomy words to describe the journey, there is no question the signposts along the roadway, the ones we notice, mark off the times of either great pain or blessed happiness.

My wife faces Easter this year for the first time with the loss of her sister. My brother in law faces his wedding anniversary for the first time without a bride to celebrate it with. These two challenges are different in some ways; Easter, after all is our celebration of the possibilities of new life, even after death. A wedding anniversary is a time to take stock of the life a couple are having in this life.

But perhaps the hope in both these looming bittersweet commemorations is not so far apart. My brother in law has two grown children, who are beginning to take their place in the world and live out their dreams. Against all odds, life flourishes after life, even in this world. My brother in law has changed his world all around, learning a new trade that fits him like a glove, learning to make fine furniture and do cabinetry.

And Easter brings the hope of life after life, too. There's no Earthly reason to believe in it, of course. Every thread of our being appears to be connected to a biological reality. We can talk because our vocal chords, connected to our brains, cause sound vibrations we are conditioned to understand. Our fingers type out written representations of these sounds. Our eyes collect photons from these written representations, and our trained minds interpret the arrangement of colours and shapes in meanings we are also conditioned to understand.

If we are that physical, what reason do we have to believe there's any kind of unseen permanence that goes along with it? The reason is insane hope, hope that the many layers and mysteries of reason still hide the wonderful, the implausible... the miracle!

When Jesus tells Martha in John 11 that Lazarus will rise again, she recites, as if reciting a rote formula, that yes, she knows her brother will rise again on the last day. He has to say to her, No! That's not what I mean! I am the resurrection. I am the life. This will happen right here. Right now!

You don't need to look solely to the New Testament to see this miracle straining to burst forth. In the second book of Kings, the prophet Elisha meets a woman whom he wants to see blessed. He tells her she will be blessed with a son. Sometime later, the son dies, and she bitterly says in her anguish, "Did I ask my lord for a son?" he tells her to bring his staff back to the boy and lay it on him. She insists he come personally.

Elisha does indeed restore the boy's life. But the woman missed the point - this miracle was meant for her. That is why Elisha offered only his staff at first. It was God's intent to restore this boy. Elisha wasn't the miracle worker. God was - and he was going to grant this miracle no matter what this woman did.

Miracles are meant for us. We haven't earned them. We aren't racking up brownie points that are going to get them for us. These and even the many everyday little miracles come to us because God loves us, and God wishes them for us.

This morning, when I woke up, there was an angel standing beside me. Sounds strange to say, but that is what I saw. I shook my head in disbelief, tried to focus my eyes, but the silent tall figure stayed there. This image only lasted for a couple of seconds as wakefulness, rationality bathed me. But for a couple of seconds it was real for me, and then it faded away. It was still a quiet comfort.

At Mass this morning, I thought to myself, well, I've been doing fairly well in Lent, fighting off gluttony. Maybe I'm starting to get into the good books! But then I realized that I've still mostly not reshaped my behaviour. I'm still lazy, I still get cranky - the small improvements are nothing that would impress God.

That is when I realized it. Miracles are just love, given freely, a gift for which there is no payment, no brownie points. God gives us those precious moments, not just the supernatural ones but the everyday happinesses of life, because he loves us. Not because we're his favourites. Not because we're out of the doghouse. But because God loves us. Loves us like we love our own children, parents, and family.

My sister in law is fine. She is far closer to this goodness than we are here. The little signs, the small hints that she looks over us still, those have started to fade. But I think it may be because now, so immersed in God's love, she has little time to do anything but sing for joy, bathed in a light unlike any we can now know.

Knowing or believing?

Does a person ever fully know? Words like Faith and Hope I think, are more tangible and more honest words than knowing.

I came closest to "knowing", if you will, the day I received the sacrament of confirmation, as my intellect joined with both my heart and my hope and narrowed my trajectory to the one I continue on today.

But I still don't call it knowing - knowing is looking at a half full glass and seeing water and emptiness. Believing is looking at a half full glass of water, and seeing the liquid portion that is visible, and trusting in the gaseous portion that is invisible.

Well, of course oil was involved

I know people who supported the Iraq war are annoyed to hear the words, "It was about oil," because those are very simple words. They sound more like a slogan than a theory.

However, there's no doubt oil played a role in the political calculation, and the planning, of the war on Iraq. I think everybody knew that. What we did not perhaps know is that there were two conflicting views on the question - an idealistic view, held by the neo-conservatives, that saw the end of state monopolies as an ideological principle, and the pragmatic view, held by the oil companies, that an invaded Iraq should retain state control over oil.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Secret US plans for Iraq's oil

Wonder Woman

This guy, Larry Carroll, writes an open letter to Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, writer of X-Men comics, staff writer on Roseanne. Joss Whedon has been recently hired to bring the tale of Wonder Woman to the big screen, an inspired choice if ever.

MTV.com - Movies - News - An Open Letter To 'Wonder Woman' Director Joss Whedon

Does this guy know who the heck he is writing too? He advises Joss not to repeat the errors "Catwoman" and "Elektra" made. That would be good advice to, say, Jerry Bruckheimer. It is rather useless advice to Joss Whedon, who created the most believable female superhero since, well, ever.

I read in some blog....

A quote by an author that the worst writers are the ones that self-censor. The blog doesn't seem to have unique article URLs, so I can't provide a convenient link.

But I am intrigued by the idea. I've always held back here, but I think I do that more now than in the past. My blog is less interesting than it used to be, because I'm not throwing myself splat on the page, so to speak. In August, 2004, I did that. What gets in the way of me posting more openly, honestly?

• I am afraid to. In part, for my own sake, but also because a person's life necessarily involves other peoples' lives. What right do I have to write or speak about people who have not necessarily consented to be discussed in such a public way?
• I'm afraid of offending people. I know I don't exactly have Glenn Reynold's entire readership watching everything I say, but a few intemperate remarks, and I could alienate people. I've got all kinds of strong opinions, but I agonize over coming to believe anything. I've often come from the other side of the fence, in what I believe.
• I change my mind. I'm careful about what I write, because when I go back and read things I've written in the past, it does not even seem like the person I'm reading is or was me. It is frightening to read what I've written on usenet, but even in the short time I've been in this blog, I've said things in a way that seems alien to me.
• I worry that there is no profounder depth, no richer context I can give to what I experience. Maybe I have run out of things to say.

That tremendous honesty is why I've got some of the blogs on my reading list on the side. There are bloggers who pour themselves on the page with a level of self-reflection that I deeply admire. I wish I could do that.

Quest for prom dress

My sister in law and her daughter are coming to spend a day here tomorrow and Saturday. It seems like we never have the house to ourselves anymore. Our older daughter constantly has friends over, my wife's friends are always dropping by, and every once in a while, relatives descend on us.

I've always been a person who craves a great deal of solitude; I feel like I need to spend a certain amount of time just daydreaming without distractions. I find it hard to relax if I cannot do this at least some of the time. Instead, I am having to mimic having social skills all the time now, with very little time to think. Of course carefully navigating the treacherous waters of human interaction does require a fair bit of thinking, but it gets tiring after a while. I feel like swelling waters in spring, straining to burst the beaver dams.

The niece is coming to Ottawa to buy her prom dress. There's a goth store here in Ottawa that is just to her tastes. What Mom, I think, did not realize is that this store needs to carry a large supply of wide price tags, if you know what I mean. Between that and the cost of traveling here, this will be one expensive prom dress!

I never went to a prom. I was barely aware our school was even having one. I think this particular rite of passage is a far bigger deal for girls. I don't think it would even occur to a boy without a date to go to one. When my daughter had hers last year, I was astounded by the amount of ritual and planning that goes into this particular rite of passage. That's the fascinating thing about having daughters - entire windows open on a completely different way of growing into adult life.

Azariah is easier to say

I got cornered at Ultreya last night, asked to read the first reading and Psalm. And of course it had to be the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednegah in the furnace at the command of Nebuchadnezzar. Why couldn't the Babylonians just use names like Bob, Fred, and Joe? :-)

I found my elder daughter's blog...

Not that it was really that hard. I knew her email address, and I knew where she hosted. Slap the one onto the other, and there's your URL!

What is hard is knowing her loneliness. To be honest, I already knew about it, but hearing it in her own words is heartbreaking. It cannot really be helped; at nineteen, it can be very difficult when there is no boyfriend. Where do you go when you feel like you need to share your heart, and there is nobody around who has deemed you worthy of letting you do that?

Alas, it is not a situation that is likely to get much easier. I don't know what is wrong with a lot of guys these days, but they seem to have switched off the emotion chip. I've even heard guys bandy about the phrases "romantic marketplace" and "market value" when they talk about what they want, as though relationships meant transacting business. I remember how many guys I knew, when I was that age, used women - and were clever enough to hone their sales pitch so that they never knew what hit them.

I don't entirely know how to help, really. I have to be encouraging, I know, but there has to be some limits there, too. The parents cannot always be the pal, and I know I've got to stay on the case about, you know, look for a job, do your homework, pay your loans. :-)

I just try and take the whole parenthood thing one day at a time. it will all turn out fine. I've tried not to fret about the usual parent things (picturing your kid getting the nobel prize vs. sniping from the clock tower) and just focus on what can be done today. And then I just hope that inspiration hits me. ;-)

Purpose driven surrender

When I first heard of the Atlanta courtroom shooting, and the OJ-like getaway, I wondered how this guy could just get away, and I remember thinking how his life would surely end in death.

It didn't.

A woman he held hostage, one Ashley Smith, somehow managed to connect to Brian Nichols on a human level, and he finally surrendered peacefully to authorities. She used her one chance at survival to give Nichols one chance at retrieving his humanity. One often-talked about detail is that she read a chapter from a devotional book, The Purpose Driven Life, to calm him down.

I've never read this book, but what the stories asserts about it is something I've long felt to be true - it is more important to do Christianity than to believe Christianity, or as St. James would say, "Faith without works is dead."

Ron Reagan Jr. blogged about this. One of his correspondents wrote, "God is a myth believed in only by the irrational, and since both of these people believed in the myth, she got through to him."

Aside from the poor didactic reasoning (the unprovable assertion regarding God's non-existence), there's actually a point here - she got through to him. The most important thing to understand about empathy is that you only have it if you reach people where they already are. Lecturing this man from a distant place would have gotten Smith killed. Though I believe in natural selection, I had to laugh when I read some satire website jesting about how well Smith could have done with 'Origin of the Species.' Reaching Nichols where he already was saved his life, and hers.

There are worse crimes than spreading hope, and worse ills than offering a chance at redemption. I admire Ashley Smith for seeing that so clearly.

You know your daughter is getting older when...

...when the pictures on the fridge are no longer Mom, Dad, sister, the cat, but pictures that depict the fun activities all being done with friends. I've been through this once before. But it is no easier the second time.

CBC News: World leaders gather for opening of Holocaust museum

CBC News: World leaders gather for opening of Holocaust museum

How many people is six million? An enormous number. There are many entire countries that are smaller. There are vast cities with fewer people. Can the human mind even comprehend loss on that scale? Take the grief a family feels when they lose one person. Now take all that grief and multiply it and multiply it until you have a sea of grief that stretches to the horizon.

It is no wonder there are holocaust deniers. If you're going to try and make the argument that Jews control the world (one of the signature traits of anti-semitism) then you have to drain that sea of grief. Why? Because nobody could possibly believe that anyone who controlled the world could ever willingly endure that much pain.

Something like this museum is perhaps the best way to combat holocaust denial. It breaks down that impossibly large number and tells the stories one story at a time. And telling this tale one story at a time is the best way to restore dignity to people who had their dignity unrighteously taken from them by unspeakable evil. Telling stories like Hanna's Suitcase makes the tale about the innocent, for there really is no story concerning the evil people who did this; not one, we can understand, at any rate.

The dot bomb day of reckoning

Remember the dot bomb era, when all the new economy hype came crashing down? Many will take a grim satisfaction that prosecutors are taking down some of the perpetrators of one of the worst greed-inflated stock market bubbles ever.

Ex-WorldCom CEO Ebbers found guilty on all counts - Mar. 15, 2005

This fellow was a Canadian who started his telecom empire with a motel somewhere. Normally that would be a great success story, but it did not end there. His CFO tried to hold onto that empire so that the stock bubble would not collapse, by making losses seem smaller than they were. Of course, the rich, the insiders all got out when the getting was good, and the ordinary investors, the pension funds, they all got burned.

I suppose there is some satisfaction in knowing the law will not allow everyone to escape consequences for breaking the trust of investors. But there's no happiness to be found here. Just another life, laid waste.

Lenten blogging

I saw an article this morning about Lent turning the blogosphere into a decaffeinated, sugar, fat, and pretzel free zone.

You may have noticed, but I've deliberately stayed away from that. And it is not that I have not had a discipline during Lent - I have given something up, as always, and it has made me grumpy enough that the people around me cannot help but know what it is I'm not getting to... (have, do, eat? How's that for coy?)

But at least here I can abstain from boasting about my own piety. Because I really don't have anything to boast about. If relationships are about both giving and receiving, I certainly give far less to God than I get. In fact, there's nothing I can give to God that he does not already have - other than perhaps my praise, since every person is left with the decision as to who or what to worship (or not.)

So why give anything up? Perhaps in part, it is to see if we even can. I must admit to having a great fondness for certain things. I have a couple of guitars that I adore, not because they have great monetary worth, but because they have been with me through many adventures and eras of my life. I remember as a boy having certain toys I was terribly fond of, and I also remember my brother ruining them.

I'd be furious when it happened, I also remember. Last night, my youngest daughter got angry with my oldest, because a cute little fuzz and wire chicken she got at the craft store got ruined. It is just a little thing - not the "earthly treasure" we think of when we hear the saying about not laying up treasures on Earth.

But she was livid - she loved that little chicken. The reality is, however, that any physical thing can, and in the course of time will - be destroyed. That is why, when Lent began, we were told, "Remember, from ashes you came, to ashes you will return."

But there is another side to Solomon's dirge-like missive about ashes and vanities; we may be made from the ashes of what has come before, but if Genesis was right, we are made in God's image. Since I can fairly surmise that by this is not meant that the Father of Heaven is a six foot biped, what does it mean? If we are in God's image, and "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14), what characteristics of God does that include?

I'm not sure we can confidently answer that question, but at least in my faith, that notion includes the idea that some aspect of us is created with the eternal in mind - the body and the world it lives in may be destroyed, but our essence is meant for a return to God. We're made with that wonderful, quirky uniqueness and individuality, the immutable signature we call personality. Are we so unique, perhaps, because one day it will necessary for all to be distinguishable as one?

That is my Easter hope, even if Easter is not yet here.

Lenten reflection - Week four

In the newspaper today, a reader asked a number of Ottawa religious leaders, including Archbishop Gervais and Rabbi Bulka, why the leaders of the world’s religions did not convene and start a movement for peace. The archbishop pointed out (as did the muslim representative) that in fact the leaders of the world’s religions have been doing so since 1986, when the Pope, the chief Rabbi of Rome, and the Dalai Lama organized the first St. Francis of Assisi gathering.

As Bill Gates pointed out on Wednesday, although it never makes the newspapers, the state of the world is actually getting better. War is less prevalent than it used to be. Many diseases that used to ravage the world are gone or exist only in labs. The quality of human life is increasing in many parts of the world. However, good news arrives more slowly than bad news. And good news is difficult to package for news reporting media, and the bad news tends to be easier to report.

What drives these improvements? It is not simply luck – Darwin established some time ago that living species have to struggle desperately to hold their place in the world, improving or dying. Yet the improvements we’ve made in the quality of human life have raced far past the rate at which evolution works. Could it be that we are actually working hard to make the world better?

I think perhaps we are. For the imperative that runs through all religious thinking, and even the quasi-religious philosophies such as secular humanism that occupy the same mental meme, is the golden rule – treat others the way you want to be treated. It is a simple philosophy, but at the same time it reflects the incredible evolutionary leap that is the human being. No other creature possesses the ability to put him or herself in the shoes of another, and try to envisage how awful it can be to be the “other.”

The gospel reading tomorrow includes the shortest verse in the New Testament – the lines that says only, “Jesus wept.” Even though there to work a miracle, Jesus is not unmoved by death of his friend, and the grief of the man’s sisters. In fact, I’d suggest that this – grief – the ability to stand in the place of the other, is the primary source of any miracle a person works.

Much greatness will come in the years ahead. Someone may develop the AIDs vaccine. Perhaps the elusive cold fusion puzzle will be solved. But whatever happens, it will be done because one person has seen the “other”, and wants to make things better for that other.

I'm back

I started using w.bloggar so that I wouldn't lose posts, only to have w.bloggar eat my last post, and then crash my computer. Taking no chances, I am rewriting it this time in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, still one of the best Word Processors anyone has ever emitted. They don't make software like they used to.

OK - what did I say? Ah yes. I am back home, back in that icy, snowy city Ottawa. It always takes some adjusting coming back into the cold.

On our last full day in San Diego, we heard Bill Gates speak. of course, it is fascinating to listen to him talk about where he sees the business software industry right now. He emphasizes how a lot of companies keep a lot of their important information in unstructured data - loose Excel and Word docs, and even hand written post-it notes. Their vision right now is focused on this convergence of structured and unstructured data, and it is starting to show in some of their business products.

Bill Gates is anunimposing man. He is slight, he hunches over, and when he is sitting and talking, is surprisingly reminiscent of Kermit the frog. That said, when he talks, it was not too difficult to see that he does possess a certain greatness, and is not a historicalfigure by accident.

This became apparent in the question and answer session at the end, when one of his Vice Presidents got him off-topic and talked about random stuff. He described for us what his vision was when he first started Microsoft, and how even today, he's never really wavered from that vision. He also talked about why he's picked the philanthropic pursuits he has, which are two - high school education in the US and world health.

In both cases, he is very results oriented. He is quite critical of the state of High School education in the US, pointing out how in the early grades, the US has top-ranked students, but how by high school, American high school students are middle-of-the-pack mediocre. He didn't get political, but clearly he feels thatfunding is part, but not all, of the issue (he notes that many countries with better results spend less.) He is keenly aware of how difficult the problem will be to solve, since the solution has to be coordinated across state governments.

His focus on world health derives from two simple desires. Now that he has kids, he sees no reason why children in poor countries should not have the same opportunities for well-being as his own children. And he feels that health crises are the most significant inequity between the hemispheres, and the major obstacle in the way of prosperity in poor countries. He notes that the diseases ravaging the third world, such as Malaria and AIDs, are diseases that either don't exist for us (Malaria), or are at least carefully managed in the first world.

One of his foundation's priorities at the moment is helping to work to prevent the spread of AIDs in India. Although the disease is only beginning to penetrate that country, because of India's huge population, that's already more than ten million people. He says we cannot afford to let that potential time bomb explode.


After Gates' speech, we DID go to Tijuana. It is a remarkably easy thing to do. We hopped on a trolley (really more like Light Rail or a Subway), and took the blue line to the Mexican border.

The end of the United States is, quite fittingly, a mall. There is a McDonald's and other stores there, at the last stop of the trolley, and the mall's backwall, barricades the two countries, although a pedestrian bridge crosses them.

We boarded a bus that goes over to Mexico, and it cost us $1.75 a person. We could not even tell where one country ended and the next began - there was no real sign that I could see (other than colourful 'MEXICO' somewhere after the border) and ourfirst sight was a Costco.

We didn't pass through any customs. Instead, the bus let us out just shy of the huge arch where Tijuana begins. We walked up to Revoluccione Blvd and took our pictures under the arch - proof of our courage.

As we walked down Revoluccione, merchants on the rather well-appointed street hustled us hard, trying to get us into their stores. Since I actually planned to get some of my shopping done here, I relented at one place. I bought my wife an Aztec calendar. Two other guys in our party bought a gold chain and a fake Rolex, after spending a half hour talking the vendor down.

While they were doing this, the rest of us went into a Mexican restaurant. You can't go into Mexico and not eat Mexican food! I discovered I actually have a rudimentary facility in Spanish as I ordered. Spanish is a lot like French, and my time in the Cursillo movement gave me a few words and an idea of how to pronounce words I read. (Because of that similarity, I actually can read Spanish fairly easily.)

So I ordered a chicken (pollo) burrito, and ate some of the very spicy salsa, as I watched Mexico's soccer team take on Venezuela in a broadcast from Los Angeles on the TV.

After we left, some guys in the party... well... let their inner eighteen year old out. By this point the stores had closed. Now the hustlers trying to get us into their venues were hawking strip clubs. One of them offered a "Donkey show." As we wandered down the street, I couldn't help but notice how... North American the street seemed. Having only seen Mexico in movies, I must admit I pictured adobe clay buildings, peasant girls, and men in sombreros.

This was a street with KFCs, bustling nightclubs, Domino's pizza, and Subway subs. Some Mexican guy walked by me with a bucket of KFC under his arm.

After a ways, the inner eighteen year old overwhelmed some of the guys with us. They headed into a strip club (whose sign announced 'FAMILY RESTAURANT.') I resolutely declined to go in. As interesting as this trip had been, however lacking in spirituality, it was still Lent, and I had kept my disciplines. Not that there's ever really a Catholic time to enter a strip bar, a place that degrades women and makes desperate losers out of men. No way was I going into such a place.

A couple of guys, worried about leaving me outside on the street alone (which would have been fine by me), stayed out with me. We went across the street, and sat on a restaurant patio, sipping cokes. A few minutes later, after the novelty wore off, our companions stumbled out.

We went back shortly after this. We took a taxi back to the border, and as we got out, we had to walk over people sleeping there, with merchandise laid out all in front of them. I found a nice crucifix for a friend, and said to one of them, "Combieno?" She told me eight. Instinctively knowing how Mexicans bargain, I said, "cinquo?" She wouldn't budge, and I realized I was a wealthy westerner negotiating with someone who had nothing. Ashamed of myself, I gladly paid the full price.

As we walked back, it struck me how different this border was. Whereas the US guards on our border glare at us, as they try and see if we're secretly Arabs or something. Here they laughingly waved us through, smirking good naturedly at the trinkets we'd bought.

After the short tunnel, we emerged in the very different world of San Diego. I'm very happy to be home with my family. And quite humbled to have seen a little more of the world. it is a strange and beautiful place, from its venal to enlightened aspects.

Greetings from foggy San Diego

Hello!

Yes it is foggy today, but still warm and humid. I'll take that over
the arctic blast back home.

I think I am past the jet lag. Last night, we went from party to party
at the conference, and it was remarkable the variety of ways that the
various vendors throw festivities. I played mini-golf in one room, and
got the Hawaiian treatment (that ring of flowers - what is it called?)
in another. A blues band with a slide guitarist who sounded just like
Elmore James played in one room. Across the hall, a small brass
quartet played New Orleans style jazz.

After we left, the other guys went in search of another party. I just
walked back to the hotel, enjoying the quiet of the path beside the
San Diego trolley line. And I had this quiet for half the walk, until
a huge Santa Fe diesel engine with about a mile of cars passed by me.
But I spent my childhood fascinated with big trains, so I gladly
traded my enjoyment of the silence for the enjoyment of a big old
freight train.

Convergence, San Diego

Well I'm glad I haven't had any directional difficulties of the kind
Irina has had at her conference. I have been able to get where I am
supposed to be. But I am finding that, perhaps due to to Jet lag,
perhaps due to a short attention span, I have to fight off sleepiness
at every lecture. Even the interesting ones have me fighting my
eyelids. I am learning a lot about things that will be very useful,
professionally. I will have lots of ideas to take back with me, which
I will have to act quickly on, so as to not lose momentum.

Nonetheless, I am mostly winning the battle. We have one more full day
here. I think everyone is sworn off Tijuana. The idea of doing crazy
things is appealing in a "I wish I were more reckless" kind of way.
But none of us really are that reckless. :-)

The sunset was gorgeous tonight. I have a view on the bay, with the
sun setting directly in front of me. That's a cool thing - on the
coast I'm closest to, that doesn't happen.

Tijuana

A bunch of people want to go to Tijuana tomorrow. I'm debating this.
The waitress at the restaurant we went to last night said that, unless
we were eighteen years old, this was a very bad idea.

Sab Diego is a very beautiful city, but I've just seen a small section
of it. I've noticed the train crossing signs go down for the Light
Rail system, even when there is no train coming. I guess they run on a
schedule. We've spent a fair bit of time in Gastown when we have time
off, which despite the apparent clean-up and upscaling, still seems
kind of seedy to me at least.

I still begin my day with swimming, and the liturgy of the hours. It
seems like a good discipline to keep while away, since they try and
ply us with so much food, merriment, and activities that don't seem
like 40 days in the desert.

Interestingly, I am finding Californians have an accent that is
completely undistinguishable from the Canadian one. Everywhere else
I've been in the US, there is something different about certain vowel
sounds, even in upstate New York right next to Canada.

Not here. I would not be able to tell the people I've run into are not Canadian.

San Diego is a rather wild town

People are, um, far more tactile than I'm used to. Also, the events
they throw for us are, um, exuberant? Makes for a difficult Lenten
observance, but I have been staying focused and saying the liturgy of
the hours. I also start my day, every day, at 6 AM with swimming. That
helps me stay focused as well.

Do yourself no harm, for we are all here

"Do yourself no harm, for we are all here."

These are the words of St. Paul. St. Paul and other Christian missionaries of the early first century had been thrown in prison, and an earthquake had rattled their doors loose. In despair, and desperately afraid of what consequences he would face, their jailer was preparing to commit suicide.

Rather than seek escape, which would have been the expedient thing to do, the Christians stepped out of hiding, and St. Paul admonished the man - don't do this, relax; we didn't run off, you won't be punished! Their compassion for the jailer exceeded their desire for liberty, or their fear for themselves.

I once wrote an article in our parish newspaper about my conversion to Catholicism, and I quoted these words. "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here" is also a powerful statement of community, and I felt it was almost the mission statement of my church.

On Sunday, after Mass, as the choir was packing up, our choir leader spotted a man in the pews, crying. He went over to him, and sat with him, talking to him. When the rest of us locked all the doors of the church and left twenty minutes later, they were still talking.

What is funny about this, is I've seen the exact same scenario many times before. I think I even blogged about a nearly identical incident a few months ago, when my wife found a woman in the pews crying after Mass. She sat with her for two hours. The woman's crisis related to a number of deaths in the family, something we ourselves had just gone through. My wife was exactly what and who this woman needed.

Yesterday, someone was incredulous that a church with as large a congregation as mine could have a close sense of community. He thought churches of such size could only be Walmart churches.

And yet, last year, when one of those metro-style street papers published its annual "Ottawa's best" list, it listed our pastor as "Best priest/minister/imam/rabbi." And while he is a charismatic leader with great gifts, what truly makes our church stand out is community. This is a parish that lives it - they have fun together, at social functions. They live out their special moments together (you should see what happens any time one of our parishioners gets married - half the parish is there. :-) But particularly, this is a parish that reaches out - from an orphanage in Thailand, the support of a pilgrimmage a parish couple took on the Way of St. James, to a CD our music ministry produced, the entire proceeds of which went to the May Court Hospice.

It is the job of any Christian community to reach out to people who need help, and pledge solidarity - "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here." It does not matter whether the gathering that does this numbers less than ten, or rather ten thousand. You will always find a tight knit community when you hear those words. For we are all one body, united with one head. We are here to serve, to help, and to reassure every one that cares to know that "we are all here."

Winds of freedom, the smell of taking credit

There are a lot of good things happening in the Middle East - the the election of a Palestinian leader who actually appears to take seriously his obligation not to be a threat to his neighbours; the demands by the Lebanese people that Syria get out; and the way the Iraqi people were uncowed by terrorists and defiantly voted in the recent election.

Some conservative pundits are trying to hand George Bush the credit for all of this. More on what he does deserve credit for later. But some of this deserves debunking.

Lebanon has been chafing against Syrian occupation for a couple of years. Despite Syrian meddling, Lebanon's people have been managing to get anti-Syrian politicians onto the public stage with increasing ability. The former prime minister Hariri was quite open about it, which naturally was why he was assassinated. And we come to the real reason for the Lebanese protests - Syria overplayed its hand. Rather than working from the shadows, as they usually have, they did something that not even pan-Arabists could ignore, interfering blatantly for their own interests. Rather than seeing sentimentalism about "winds of change" blowing into multi-ethnic Lebanon from far-away Shiite Iraq, it should be plainly apparent we are seeing rather the now full blown symptoms of an always lingering unhappiness the Lebanese had about the results of the Lebanese civil war. This is the end game of something that started in the seventies. It is nothing the president has had any hand in, other than for rightly calling for an end to Syrian occupation (which the Saudis, French, and other Arabs have as well.)

The President deserves some praise for his work on the roadmap in the Palestinian situation, but arguably the real credit on this one goes to the grim reaper, for taking Arafat out of the picture. Just about any other head of state the Palestinians could elect was going to make a big improvement, but they elected someone who specifically intended to do business differently. Hopefully Abbas is a man of a certain will, and will not hesitate to weed out the evil in his people's midst, who have done their own people as much harm (in convincing them of the worth of their death cult) as they have the Israelis.

As to Iraq, this of course is where Bush has had a real hand in things. The war and occupation were botched badly. The war was launched on patently false premises, and the occupation was operated with too few soldiers under a viceroy (Bremer) who was far too imperial in rewriting Iraqi law. That said, when an election date came in view, Bush stuck to his guns and was resolute in seeing it through. So too were the Iraqis themselves, who deserve even more credit for risking life and limb to push past the terrorists and into the polling booths.

I suppose it is no surprise to see politicians (such as Mr. Bush) jostle to take credit for far more than they actually did. For years, we've seen Jimmy Carter take all the credit (at the expense of Begin and Sadat) for the Camp David accords, and depending on which spin you believe, Clinton, Bush Sr., or even Reagan for the prosperity of the 90s. But it is important to remember that just because a politician takes credit for something, does not mean he actually deserves that credit. :-)

Rampaging chimpanzees

People think of chimpanzees as cute monkeys that hang out with Tarzan and eat bananas. In fact, they are highly aggressive and intelligent warrior apes four times as strong as humans - not quite Planet of the Apes material, but closer to that stereotype than the other.

Why people pursue the idea of using these sentient (but dangerous) beings as pets, circus animals, and TV stars is beyond me.

CNN.com - Chimps critically injure sanctuary visitor - Mar 4, 2005

My ring finger is about two and a half millimetres longer than my index finger

ScienceDirect - Biological Psychology : Finger length ratio (2D:4D) correlates with physical aggression in men but not in women

Who knew? There's a chance that if you're male, and have a really short index finger, you're the Clint Eastwood/Rambo type.

I'm not sure what my relative finger ratio is. By the look of it though, I should be a good candidate for singing "Give Peace a Chance" at rallies and Zen monkery. :-)

Getting it right

As a musician, I hear mistakes all the time. Not just the ones I make, but the ones that others make. Some of these mistakes are wrong notes hit with a voice or instrument, timing problems, or poor playing. Then there are weak musical arrangements and production. In vocal groups I hear poorly done harmonies, and it drives me crazy when I hear singing groups that have no harmonies on songs that could and should have them.

Isn't it funny with what detail we notice mistakes? But there is something people do even more often than flubbing it. Yes, even more frequently than erring, I see people getting it right. Think about it - day in and day out, how many people have you seen stop for a red light, land a plane without incident, prepare your Subway sub exactly the way you asked for it, or stoop and scoop for their dogs? People get it right all the time.

And I suppose the sad part of it all is how infrequently I tell them so.

Being human

Hobbit-Like Ancestor Had Sophisticated Brain (washingtonpost.com)

It is an increasingly convoluted question - when did we become human? The Ebu-Gogo of Flores seem to have been marching in the same direction as Homo Sapiens - increased intelligence and culture. And yet, they drifted off the family tree three quarters of a million years ago.

I've noted before that the islanders of Flores told tales of small people who chattered amongst themselves and ate everything in site. How fascinating it would be if we find these peoples' relatives somwhere in the Indonesian islands. Of course, perhaps it is better for them if we don't find them.

Darn!

And I so wanted to call him "Sir William of Microfordshire" next week. ;-)

The Australian: Gong for Gates but no 'Sir Bill' [March 04, 2005]

My finger hurts, I'm going away, and other uninmportant trivia.

The side of my finger is killing me - the saluting finger on my right hand. I can't think of any reason why this is so. It feels like a sliver, which would explain why I don't remember hurting it.

I went to a challenger send-off tonight (Challenge is a spin-off movement of Cursillo for young people.) I'm surprised I could swing the time, as I am flying to San Francisco next week, for most of the week. I have a lot to do in order to make this trip, especially at work. In fact, I am having a hard time imagining how I can spare myself for a week.

I'm looking forward to that trip. The only place I've been on the west coast is British Columbia, the land of Rocky mountains, grizzlies, and salmon; we're going there again this summer for my cousin's wedding. Last time we were there we saw all that - mountains everywhere, a grizzly bear on the island my sister in law was moored next to, and a couple of salmon pens (farmed salmon.) We also saw three male orcas swimming alongside Billy Procter's boat.

This will be a different sort of trip - San Diego is a different kind of West Coast I imagine, and I'll be seeing nerds, Bill Gates, and other geeks. No grizzlies I expect.

I do feel a little guilty I can't bring my wife with me. But she finds computers boring, and that's pretty much all I'll be doing. :-) But it is somewhere new, a place I have not been, with people I do not know. That makes it an adventure. I am far from an adventurous soul, but cities and places fascinate me.

I have the skyline of dozens of cities I've never been to etched in my mind, San Diego included. My wife and her friend laugh at me, because of once when this friend showed me pictures she had taken on a pleasure cruise. As I rifled through the pictures, I pointed one of them out and said, "This is Juneau right?"

"Yes it is. I didn't know you'd been to Juneau!"

"I haven't."

She kind of gaped at me, and said, "Then... how did you know?" My wife smirked.

"Oh... when I'm at the bookstore, or sometimes on the Internet, I look up pictures of cities, and places. I sort of remember them... like photographic memory."

They both smirked this time. And from time to time, now, they test me. I can usually identify the skyline of a North American city of any size and repute. :-)

The darkness within

Contemplating the premise that the darkness alleged to be in Dennis Rader is potentially in everyone is a disturbing thing to do.

Sometime in the early 1980s, I went out on the balcony of my parents' townhouse with a watering can to water the hanging baskets of flowers. As I looked off the balcony, I saw my cat laying on the woodchips in the garden below. A cruel thought struck me, and I tipped the watering can, bombing the cat with a half litre of water. Startled awake, he tore off.

I remember this incident, because I vividly remember delighting in an essentially vicious act. The poor cat was fourteen years old, the feline equivalent of a 70 year old. I know there is a certain darkness in me. There is in a lot of people, I see it all the time - the way people gawk at accidents, which incidentally is something I don't do. But at the same time, it is not something I'm keeping at bay, struggling to hold in check. Selfishness, schadenfreude, my years as the older brother bully - rather these things surface from time to time in new ways, and I try to learn from my self-examinations how these cynical and self-oriented feelings show themselves in me. And then I seek out yet new ways of improving and changing these characteristics.

In the Swami Uptown blog at Beliefnet, Jesse Kornbluth posits that perhaps Rader was harbouring some sort of kink. He seems to suggest that if Rader had been free to indulge this kink, and not constrained by the religion he had, well... "Fewer murders?" is an outcome Kornbluth speculates as being possible.

I can't say I accept this premise. For starters, Rader's kick, if he did this, seems to be power. With reports that his exploits in his professional life include measuring grass with a ruler and videotaping backyards in order to find petty bylaw violations, it is hard to imagine anything could have substituted for his thrill - if he had it in him to kill other people without remorse, playing leather dress-up with his wife probably was never going to do it for him.

We may all have a certain darkness. But some people have a lot more of it than most, and perhaps it is a pathology. Most of us can overcome the dark parts of our beings, even triumph over it, by integrating it into our understanding of the world around us, making us wiser, stronger, and better as we improve ourselves.

But then there are some who don't even want to overcome the darkness - they just fake it well enough to hide in our midst. It is frightening to contemplate, and a darkness of its own to do so, just like watching car wrecks. I certainly now wish I'd decided to linger on more pleasant things...

Queue the Invisible Man jokes

Some scientists have found a way to prevent objects from giving off photons, which could effectively make them invisible.

The guises of evil

Human beings are not telepaths. As such we rely on the impressions our senses make of the exterior of a person. We make unconscious and conscious judgements about people based on what we see in their eyes, their body language, and their manner of speaking. But sometimes our ability to detect the interior person from their fleshly vestments is fooled by the great skill of a person at concealing their inner self:

Source: BTK Suspect Confesses to Killings

Assuming the allegations are true, can you imagine how shocked, how hurt the people who know this man are? He appears to have carefully constructed the facade of a model citizen, with barely a hint of who he really was. An incident like this makes you wonder if you can trust anyone.

But it would be a true evil if we succumbed to that. I think it better to bear the scant risk that we will be betrayed in such a fashion than to risk becoming a cynic distrustful of everyone. For surely it is not everyone who has a heart of darkness.