A complex relationship between two countries

This is an interesting essay. And unfortunately, it has a grain of truth to it. There have certainly been times in our history when the zeitgeist has been a smug superiority complex that is wholely unwarranted.

Macleans.ca | Canada Switchboard | Essay | Un-Happy Birthday, Canada

Even in the most recent edition of Dose, which asked people what they liked about living in Canada, one of the ten people made a snidely superior remark that didn't address America directly, but you could tell that this was where it was directed.

Still, one need only look at the byline to know that when I say "grain of truth" I really do mean "grain of truth." Despite our unfortunate affection for the "Joe Canadian" commercial of a few years ago, most Canadians don't spend their days thinking about America - at least not in a way that is compatible with the way Americans might think about it. As an outsider, I suspect that America, to Americans, is more of an ideal than a place in a lot of ways - a melange of principles regarding the way a society ought to be mixed in with good feelings about heart and home. I know I'm oversimplifying things somewhat, because the song "This Land is Your Land" is clearly a celebration of American geography.

But what is called the "American dream" does not have a direct analogue in Canada. Canada is still too new and unsettled I think to have such a national success mythology. People coming to Canada are simply glad to get away from wars, poverty, or persecution. Later, as they add their richness to our culture, Canada changes with them. America's sense of who it is is too settled to have the same thing happen, so a fixed idea like the American Dream can be a permanent part of the landscape.

We're still becoming who we are. If we dream about anything, we dream about open spaces - bursting forth from our (ironically) crowded cities into the vast barren land. As a result, the idea that Canada is part of an "axis of envy" misses the mark I think. In poll after poll, Canadians tend to be quite confident that they have the best standard of living in the world, so I really can't imagine envy entering into the equation. Adventure perhaps? I know that's what probably leads Americans to live here (between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Americans live here, one of our largest ethnic groups.)

No American I've ever met lives in Canada because they hate George Bush, John Kerry, or whomever. You hear that about some of the famous migrants (like the one Gibson quotes, or that fellow from "Law and Order" who moved to Canada because he hated Janet Reno.) But most Americans I've met living in Canada did it for love, for adventure or both. I mean really - who moves because of politics? I'm sure not going to sell my house and move to Vermont if the Conservative party is elected, and I cannot imagine any American, no matter how Democratic, giving up the land they love over Dubya. He's not worth it! (And he'll be gone in three years.)

As for me? My relationship with the United States has been far too complex to ever characterize it as "anti-American" or "envy. It has always been a combination of

- fascination: there are so many different people, many of the varying States feel like different countries, with their own culture (and your politics are far more interesting than ours - our Parliamentary races only last 60 days!)

- annoyance (when particular presidents whom I won't name are elected. But this isn't anti-Americanism - I felt the same way when Brian Mulroney was elected here!)

- wanderlust: I love exploring America. From the mountains and valleys of Tennessee to the glades of Florida, I wish I could see it all!

- admiration: When Americans do great things, they are truly great things. Putting a man on the moon is the pinnacle of human achievement. When they dream, they dream big!

As you can see, my positive feelings far outweigh any negative ones. And even the negative ones are not 'envy' - they are the natural result of the close proximity in family. You know how it is when cousin Fred leaves the cap off the toothpaste? That's how it is for me when my American cousins elect Dubya. That ain't anti-Americanism. Just the natural result of living very near a somewhat poor decision. ;-)

Canada Day

Canada Day is coming in two days. On July 1^st, 1867, the British North America act took effect. There had been prior incarnations and political reorganizations of Canada, of course. For forty years, discontent had rumbled through Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) as the citizenry called for “responsible government.” And even after 1867, much reorganizing of what Canada was would take place.

But when July 1 comes and I think about what I like about my home country, politics rarely comes into it, even though I live in Ottawa. What do I love about Canada?

• The wide open prairie – I was born there. I can't tell you how cool it is to watch a thunderstorm punishing the ground seventy kilometers away, while you stand in total sunshine. Or to watch a blood red moon rise over the grain.

• Growing up in Orleans ...but I grew up here, in a small town (now part of Ottawa) that was then still very francophone. Learning to make taffee on the snow, skiing down the straight drop behind our house (my brother and I made ski jumps)... all things that contribute to who I am, even though they are long past.

• The Great Lakes – probably Canada's longest coastline. I have so many memories of driving the great lakes' shores to Saskatchewan as a boy, and finding cool rocks for my rock collection. They aren't really lakes at all, truth to tell, but freshwater seas. They look like the ocean, with pounding waves and water to the horizon. My parents live on Lake Ontario, and I thrill at every chance we get to visit them.

• The Gatineau Hills in the fall – there are the Stonehenge-like ruins on the McKenzie King Estates, there is the steam-train to Wakefield, the bike-paths, but above all the red and orange fire of the turning oaks and maples, up, down, all around you.

• The mountains of Vancouver Island – big stone peaks rising high into the sky, taller than any office tower (and far more impressive.)

• The highlands of Cape Breton Island – up and down the Cabot trail, the highlands afford you every varied Ocean vista you can imagine, and a few you can't. I remember staring down, waaaay down at a tiny, tiny whale watching boat surrounded by even tinier Pilot whales. The sea dwarfs everything.

• Hopewell rocks – in the Bay of Fundy are the world's biggest tides, rising and falling up to sixty feet. At low tide, you can walk between the mushroom rocks on the ocean floor and count the hermit crabs and urchins.

• The St. Lawrence River – a mighty, mighty river, so wide east of Quebec city that it might as well be one of the Great Lakes – you cannot see the other side. A river with Islands so big (in the Thousand Islands) that there are towns and farming communities on them. A river where the Belugas swim and whale watching boats go out.

• Flying over the rocky mountains – there aren't words for it, other than maybe 'Wow!'

• Endless wilderness – I remember flying over Britain on a trip home years ago, and seeing how every shred of land was parceled up into squares. We passed over the whole country in about a half hour. Then when we hit our shores, there was forest.... and more forest, and more forest. There were a few logged patches and a few roads carved through the trees, but these were tiny compared to the endless miles of unspoilt green.

People speak of national pride when they talk of their countries. I can only think of humility, for to be blessed with living in a land of such abundant beauty there can only be great gratitude to God for allowing me to be born and live in such a place. Pride would only apply if I had something to do with it!

Summer movie season

I've heard this has been the slowest summer movie season in a while. The box office receipts are way down. I wonder if the rise of the DVD has something do with it - you don't get all those documentaries and featurettes in the cinema, do you?

That said, I am not ready to abandon theater going just yet. For until I install a proper popcorn machine at home, I am far too addicted to theater popcorn to stop going to the movies....

My daughter graduated from Grade Six yesterday

On the weekend, during my time alone at the beach, I saw a father playing with his daughter. I realized that I have passed that point three times now. I am no longer the boy who played endlessly in the water with his father. I am no longer the father of a red-head girl who played in the McNabb wading pool with her Dad. And I am in the waning days of that time with a blond girl who has crested five feet in height.

Yesterday my youngest graduated from grade school. I remember thinking grumpily weeks ago that they seem to graduate from just about everything now – even graduation from kindergarten seems to require a prom dress, I thought to myself cynically.

But as my daughter walked down the aisle between the seats dressed in her Sunday finest, leaving this school she has been at for so long, my eyes watered, and my heart stirred with sudden feeling. I have felt these movements of the heart at every threshold, every doorway, from the time she was a blue baby, newly arrived. And for every door that closes, even this one, a new one opens. I am losing my little girl, but the years in which this young woman comes into her own have not even really begun.

As they showed the PowerPoint slide that showed the children as they looked on their first day of school and how they look now, I was grateful it was dark. As they played Sarah McLachlan's “I will Remember You,” and my daughter's then and now picture displayed, tears streamed down my face. Nothing ends without a beginning.

Still, the loss of anything is a sadness nonetheless. I think of the words of St. Augustine, who said, “Of all this I found myself suddenly deprived, and it was a comfort to me to weep...”

Flag burning

This post isn't actually about the politics of flag burning, but rather an amusing incident concerning a flag burning. Back at about the time that Canada began to expand civil liberties for gays, the church that runs the "God hates fags" website sent members of its congregation northward, to demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court building in Ottawa.

One angry protester tried to burn a Canadian flag, but wasn't having much luck. So a helpful RCMP officer (the Red mounties), worried the protester would injure himself, helped the fellow ignite his flag. Now that's a gracious host, eh? ;-)

Microsoft has announced that it will "conquer" the search market

That's kind of like me announcing that I'm going to "conquer" the mightly legions of Flurg, Grand Arch-regent of the Kuzar sector.

Microsoft plans to catch up with search engine leader Google - TechSpot News

Freedom fries arrive in Basra.

It is now illegal to sing in Basra. You heard me right - it is illegal to sing in Basra. Funny - I never thought the sound of liberation was silence.

Islamic Law Controls the Streets of Basra

Bald spot

I've been a cycling madman. I was home alone on the weekend, and I biked everywhere - to the movies, to Wal-Mart, to Mooney's Bay, where I swam, had a picnic for one, and watched the dragon-boat races.

I also biked to get my haircut - it had been months, and I was starting to look like a late sixties Beatle. As I tried to describe what I wanted done, the woman cutting my hair gestured with her hand. Unfortunately, the hand happened to have a razor in it, and she lopped off a small patch of hair, right down to the skin. So now I have very short hair and a bald spot. I am rather pleased however - I got a free haircut out of the deal. :=)

Batman

I am home all alone this weekend, so one of the things I've done is gone and seen "Batman Begins." Minor spoilers (very minor) follow.

The first comic book movie to get it right was 1978's "Superman." That film understood that any film based on a comic book powerful enough to become American mythology had to be self-referential. The film referenced many of the earlier incarnations of Superman. Ones I've noticed include John Williams' music, which echoes the theme of the 1941 cartoon. Also, the way Superman stops a bursting dam from causing chaos echoes the first episode of that first cartoon.

The next major milestone in comic book cartoons was Tim Burton's "Batman." Burton understood something about the comic book characters' worlds - they are not our world. They have a character all their own - Superman's Metropolis is not New York, it is a gleaming supercity as people imagined a future urban environment in the 1930s - not unlike Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Gotham, especially as portrayed in the Frank Miller-era graphic novel Batman stories was a gothic, dark, and rainy city, much like Blade Runner's Los Angeles, but with Gargoyles. The landscape is as much a part of Gotham as the hero. So that's exactly what Burton did.

Unfortunately, Burton is where comic book movies also started to go wrong, and why they disappeared for a while (until the Marvel ressurection brought them back in this decade.) Burton's Batman should have been called "Joker." We got to see how and why the Joker was created, but Batman already existed. We never find out what led Michael-Keaton to dress in black rubber, though we know he's generally mad at criminals because of his parents' death. The successor movies did even more of this, sidelining Batman until the time of the ridiculous "Batman and Robin," when we learn more about Batgirl, Alfred the butler, and Poison Ivy than we ever, ever do about the titular character.

The Marvel movies, especially Spider-Man, get it right. It can be interesting to see a charismatic actor ham it up as a bad guy, but what is really interested in terms of story is the genesis of somebody about to step up to the plate to true greatness - what makes that person different from those of us who lead unremarkable lives?

This new Batman film does that. Sure there's a bad guy, and we even to some extent know what drives him, but even that serves to highlight who Batman is, as the villain is himself a kind-of prototypical Batman, a predecessor kicked into motion by a similar tragedy to Bruce Wayne's into becoming what he is. The focus here is on Batman, and we learn what motivates him. It isn't mere revenge - he tries and fails to take a shot at that. No, something else inspires him, and he himself does not fully appreciate his own motivations until the end. He is inspired by hope! He profoundly believes that, despite how bad things appear, Gotham city is worth saving. That in fact, it can be saved.

Batman is brutal, and devastating when fighting criminals - he leaves a trail of cracked skulls and broken limbs. And he terrifies criminals (a thing he learns he must do before he becomes Batman.) But he does not execute justice or judge, the way his opponent would. He leaves the system, however flawed, to do the work, because there are still good people in the system (like pre-Tom Katie Holmes.) He thinks fate is a hopeful thing, if prodded along by a dark flying bat.

Evangelicals Building a Base in Iraq

I truly deplore this. And it seems like some of the more ardent evangelicals always do this - come to a country with ancient and rich Christian traditions, and ply them with a dumbed-down replacement alien to their culture, plundering Christian churches with millenia of accumulated wisdom and traditions of reverence. The Chaldean Catholic church is a unique rite of the Catholic church, with liturgies and churches of supreme beauty. It is ancient, founded by the apostle Thomas the Twin. Also common in Iraqi Christianity is the Syriac Orthodox Church, founded by St. Peter within a decade of the crucifixion (the account of this church's founding is actually recorded in the book of Acts.)

The happy-clappy types come to convert Iraqis found that the Muslims weren't interested. So in order to feel better about their mission I suppose, they started drawing Christians away from their long-established hearth, plying them with Michael W Smith songs and the reductio ad absurdum Western hemisphere preaching style that tends to exalt the preacher (and their personal political views), and not that which is to be preached. These peoples are a living remainder of an ancient form of Christianity - St. Basil's liturgy (basically the words to be said during church service) is seventeen hundred years old and used every Sunday in both Chaldean and Syriac churches in Iraq. Converting these people to an alien form of worship is little short of the ravishing of Christianity's living heritage.

Evangelicals Building a Base in Iraq

Please... take my house!

I live in a city where this has famously happened for years. Most of the city is under the real estate control of a body called the National Capital Commission, which can oust anyone it wants for nearly any reason it wants to.

I lived in a neighbourhood that had this happen - Lebreton Flats. I lived there near the tail end of one section's destruction. An old brewery right across the street from my house, a marvelous old building of distinguished architecture, was the last building to come down, which I watched happen from my bedroom window. For thirty years the land has sat empty, a vibrant community turned into a field of grass, when the development plans stalled.

Interestingly, I went back there for Canada Day a couple of years ago, and in a spot where one of the old streets is, I noticed the pavement crumbling down to... streetcar rails! The rails had been paved over some fifty years earlier, but were reemerging through the decay....

Chicago Tribune news : Nation/World

Top Commander Says Insurgency Still Strong

The theatre commander in Iraq has contradicted the Vice President, who claimed the insurgency was in its "death throes." Will realism ever become part of the White House approach to the war?

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Top Commander Says Insurgency Still Strong

CNN.com - List: AFI's top 100 movie quotes - Jun 22, 2005

How could they ignore, "No... I am your father!"

CNN.com - List: AFI's top 100 movie quotes - Jun 22, 2005

Summer Solstice

It was the longest day of the year. And it was going to be the longest day of the year in what I thought would be the worse sense – I didn't want to be away from home, and my flight back to Ottawa had been scheduled for nine P.M., getting me home after dark. A taxi strike was set to cut off access to the airport on the way home. And when that threat evaporated, we sat on the tarmac for half an hour, queuing up much longer than expected to take off - “I'm afraid it is rush hour,” the pilot said.

When we got airborne, I received yet another lesson that all the maddening things that make us impatient are an opportunity to peer through a window of hope and beauty. Because it was the longest day of the year, the sun began to go into its golden last hour just as we rose into the air. We soared into the cumulus clouds, and at first, they turned my window into an opaque milky-white view port. But as we rose higher, large windows would break open into the clouds. I looked up at these openings, and saw huge fluffy heaps of soft cloud, shimmering in the fragile gold of sunlight, back-lit with the impossible blue of of the open sky. Then as we began to rise higher, the windows in the clouds, gave way to soft terraces of white. I looked out on a vista of cloud-plains, from flat and swirling marshmallow prairies of colour, to mountain ranges across a landscape of gold, white, and blue. “I'm flying to heaven,” I whispered audibly, oblivious as to whether the businessman sitting beside me thought I was a nutter. I barely held back tears.

We descended into Ottawa flying a lazy herd of darker clouds. Across the cloudscape, I could see fork lightning and flash lightning brighten the stone blue of a high rising storm cloud. As we settled into them, the dark clouds contrasted with the fiery red of the afterglow. It was a very different, but equally beautiful, scene. Twice in one evening flight, I'd been privy to such beauty as I've rarely seen.

It was overcast in Ottawa. If I had stayed in town, the longest day of the year would have been a dull and gray affair. Instead it was perhaps the most memorable solstice I can recall. Never assume the worst, I reminded myself yet again.

Thursday through Monday

I've been lax, I know it. Here is my life, as of the last few days.

On Thursday of last week, I went to a practice for the church picnic choir. Actually, my wife, daughter, and a friend had been out to dinner, so we all went, really. When we got there, I discovered the practice had been the previous night. Oops – guess I am not going to be part of that, I thought to myself.

On Saturday, I recorded a new song – I set an ancient Latin sung prayer called the “Great Gloria” to Stax/R&B style music. I'm pretty sure the Gloria has never quite been sung such a way before!

Sunday: our parish priest always schedules the picnic for Father's day – I think its his funny way of getting as many people as possible to wish him a happy Father's day too – so that would be our big event of the day. I got up first Sunday, as I always do. I just can't sleep in. The kids stumbled down eventually half asleep. After an hour of not even acknowledging me, I grumped to my wife that they'd forgotten about me. She rolled her eyes. Later that day, I would discover they had in fact gotten me a mountain bike, as well as Star Wars trinkets they'd been holding onto for about a month. Never assume the worst, I reminded myself over and over that day. It was a particularly thoughtful gift. I love biking, but I'm a bit rough about it – my ten speed can barely take the punishment when I ride over to Conroy Pit.

I'd also been assuming that by missing practice during the week, that would be it for me and the choir. Quite the contrary – the band leader was relieved to see me, and set me about finding other singers. I gather almost nobody had showed up to practice. At least I went on Thursday. ;-)

On Monday, the women of my household all had a girl guide meeting for their camp this coming weekend – they're all going, and I will be all alone at home (except for the cat – he doesn't get to go either.) I decided to ride my new bike down to Mooney's Bay and go for a swim. And so I did. The water was very cold, colder than in early June, but it was a very hot day, and that can be quite refreshing. Fifty feet away, a woman was surfing – in a manner of speaking. You can't expect to ride the waves at Mooney's bay, which is on a very calm portion of river. So she would paddle out as fast as she could, come back in, and paddle out some more. Getting in shape for real surfing, I guess.

After my swim, I rode back to the Tim Horton's where my family was meeting with the other campers. My wife introduced me to everyone, and then smiled at me and said, “Now, go play, little boy.” Truth to tell, I felt like a little boy that day.

After all, don't you remember the freedom you felt when you got a new bike as a kid, and knew about all the places you could secretly go now?

It may sound harsh of me...

but I think organized religions should not give fuzzy images of God, even though we all know that the picture is necessarily a little fuzzy from our Earthly vantage point.

My wife helps run the Catholic classes at our parish. Invariably, people seeking out a church to call home are people who are running from fuzziness. People are desperate for grounding, to feel certain things are true, even if we can't fully know them to be. When it comes to the passages in life, people find themselves wanting the "rock of ages" to be a rock, not an unsubstantial mush. Hence the care that goes into marking the rites of passage: the first communion dresses, baptismal gowns, and wedding preparations.

And this does not apply to just Christianity, of course. Halachich law in Judaism gives life a well-defined set of constraints, making observance a necessary patina, coating the surface of life. And religious holidays give seasons to the soul, set reminders of the passing of time just like physical seasons. Although the discipline of the Ramadan fast in Islam falls earlier and earlier on the Gregorian calendar every year, and goes out of whack with the seasons, it means the same thing every year as Eid approaches.

People do not want fuzziness, compromise, and mush for their souls. They want water turned into wine; or manna from heaven falling in the desert, or the first grape of Eid.

Church debates whether to concede that Jesus is Lord

I was baptized in a denomination called the United Church here in Canada, but it is independent of the one I write about below. But though independent, they often seem headed down the same path. Before I converted to Catholicism, we had a moderator named Bill Phipps who was unwilling to accede to the divinity of Christ - he would demure and say such things as, "I believe Christ was as much of the divine as could be poured into human form."

This particular United Church, the American iteration, now faces a similar test. How much faith is it willing to have? A resolution has been put before this denomination stating in essence that Jesus is Lord. The measure is not expected to pass.

Here is a news story about it.

North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!

Now you can believe a lot of things and be a Christian. "For now we know only in part," St. Paul tells us. And Lord knows, so many of us believe a lot of different things, which is why there are 57,000 denominations (I made that up, and I'm sure that number is too small.)

But one bit of St. Paul's writings shows what distinguishes us from other faiths, who may ignore Jesus, or may admire him, or may even regard him as a prophet (the way Islam does.) He says, "Noone can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit."

This is what it is to be Christian - the ability to say (and to believe) "Jesus is Lord." It is an astonishing and humbling thing in your faith journey to realize, a change in faith that at once wounds you (when you realize that you are not your own) and heals you (when you realize you are his.)

This at a minimum is what it is to be Christian - can you say, "Jesus is Lord?" If you can't, you're not. And that, of course, is fine. But no organized religious body should be masquerading as a Christian denomination if they find themselves unable to utter those three words...

Luke.... I am your President

Apologies to Republicans in advance... but someone recently taught me how to do lightsabers in Photoshop, and I had to see what i could come up with.

Who says humans are special?

Who says humans are special?

I do.

One blue flower in a field of wildflowers is still unlike any of the others. My religion says, "Every hair on your head is counted" to each of us. Just because there are others, how does that make each of us any less special? Where does this notion come from that there cannot be a God simply because he filled the rest of his universe with good things as well?

Soup kitchens

I once heard of a neighbourhood distressed by rumours that it might get a soup kitchen. The neighbours were made anxious by the people it brought into the community.

Personally, I'd be more worried about the people already in the community. If I lived in a neighbourhood of people so concerned with property values that they put the boots to the hungry, I'd leave and not look back, for fear of turning into a pillar of salt.

Would it be unkind....

...to have NASA sieze Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, strap them into the space shuttle, and have them rocketed to, oh, say the moon?

Really, if I never heard anything about either of them again, it would still be too soon. :-)

My wife works at Timmy's

...and I have a craving for one of their big veggie sandwiches right now. Mmm, mmm good. Cream cheese, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes, peppers... mmmm. Minestrone soup. Pity I don't have time to visit her on the way home. :-)

The dogs of war

Although the press scarcely mentions it, the Downing street memo probably ensures the Bush administration's haste for war in Iraq will hold a position of infamy in the history books. The President knew it was illegal under International law to overthrow another country's government unprovoked. So they moved to create linkages with Al Qaeda and hype the weapons issue, although they already appeared to be aware their evidence was weak.

baltimoresun.com - Damning evidence can't be ignored

This bolster's my own earlier assertion that the Iraq war did not meet the Just War threshold.

Heat update

We did not get quite the twelve degrees celsius I had hoped for - but the twenty six degrees we have is an improvement, and I'll take it.

The cat has been following people around and meowing at them, a sure sign the weather has grown modestly tolerable. The last few days he has simply lain about, prostrate and stretched out on the ground. He's been eating again, and well, appetites throughout the household are returning, including mine.

My parents were in town yesterday. My youngest daughter and I went to see them at the hotel they stay at. We visited for a bit, went to swim in the pool for a bit, and then visited some more. While we were in the poor, some Asian tourists who didn't really speak English laughed at my antics in the pool - handstands, swimming lengths underwater, and surfacing like an otter. Soon they were all doing exactly the same, but somewhat more boisterously. I had spentthe day too hot to be too self-conscious about the matter.

Perhaps it is the heat, but I have been very disconnected of late. My spiritual core feels a little vacant. I know these things happen, and I've been through it enough not to be too worried (although I'm too neurotic not to worry some.) Faith always deepens and strengthens when you come out the other side. I know the advice any wise person would give - pray. I have to believe my prayers are heard right now. It does not always feel to me like theyshould be. How much can a person ask?

I'm reminded of the Bill Cosby skit when he talks about gamblers each praying for numbers, and God getting confused with all the incoming numbers, and responding, "Bust 'em all!"

Funny, I know, but I have to remember that God's not like that. He really can do all that math. :-)

Sex accusations, accusers, defendants

Not to dwell on the Michael Jackson question too much, but this trial exhibited a pattern very similar to many trials where a sexual invasion of some sort is alleged to have taken place. The strategy of the defence invariably seems to be the personal demolition of the individual alleging the crime took place.

In the Jackson case, the defense was fairly gentle; most of their ire was reserved for the alleged victim's mother. The celebrity trial I can't help but remember was actually the Kobe Bryant trial - despite rape shield laws designed to protect putting the alleged victim on trial and subjecting them to a second violation, during that trial I formed a definite impression such laws are ineffective. As I read each day about the progress of that case, I felt I could only characterize the Bryant defense strategy as being fairly blatantly, "she's a slut!"

I'm at a loss to suggest something better, however. In an adversarial justice system, how does a defendant defend himself, since the crime is almost exclusively carried out in private? The statistics on sexual assualt are frightening - it is probably the least prosecuted serious crime there is, because of the shame, stigma, and revictimization. But the presumption of innocence does not seem to lead to any other road...

When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call

This story seems so far fetched. From distant Canada, I cannot imagine a scenario like this, not even in a Michael Moore movie. Can this be real?

When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call

A very, very surprising result

I foresaw that Michael Jackson could not be convicted on the molestation counts; the onetime case in a possible Jordy Chandler charge (the 1993 incident) would have been a lot stronger. In this instance, the possibility that gold-digging was going on was too potent for a jury to ignore.

I am highly surprised that the lesser counts of intoxicating a minor returned a not-guilty, however. There were numerous people who saw the kids stumbling around drunk, and the lurid accounts of the "Jesus juice" would seem to defy the determination of the jury on this matter. Were they a bit star struck by a really good defense lawyer and a big star? I really think that this one, from the evidence that came out in public, should have stuck, in my non-lawyerly opinion.

Nonetheless, that would be a fairly minor offense to be convicted of. Michael Jackson has got to be a happy guy today. Perhaps he will look a lot less frightened and wan in the days ahead.

Michael Jackson circus almost at an end

In a half hour, the jury will submit its verdict. Of course, to say the circus will end is not entirely correct. If Jackson is found not guilty, the newspapers will switch gears and begin to tell the story of the singer's (alleged) impending financial ruin. If he is found guilty, there will of course be appeals for years.

Free will

The question of free will is a difficult question - most explanations that approach the topic can be kind of glib. The best way I've seen the value of free will explained is by Tom Harpur, the former religion editor of The Toronto Star, in his book Would you Believe?

He asks, what would we think of the alternative? Yes, it is true, that God could probably create his creation so that all of the little pieces of it had their actions controlled by God. But that in essence would make us robots - unthinking, unfeeling automatons. Would you want that life?

There are life forms essentially like that now - hive insects, protozoans, bacteria. They generally do only what their programming allows them. Would you envy such a life?

God loves us. He gives us a life where we can do things with our lives. As in the parable of the ten talents, it is what we do with these gifts that forms our response back to him. Do we take our five talents and invest it in good things? If we choose to, we will do well, even more abundantly than the gifts we already know about..

Thank God for weekdays

Work is air conditioned.

We slept in the basement last night, too. We rented "Stripes", "The Life Aquatic", and "I Heart Huckabees." I didn't stay awake for much of it, but I can't say I really slept either. I slept this feverish kind of waking dream, something that involved (I think) losing my bus pass and Star Wars characters.

I knew one of us would have to be on the clock, so when I woke up at 4 AM, I migrated to our oven^H^H^H^H... uh bedroom. I don't need the alarm clock to trigger awakenness, but I do rely on daylight, which would not have happened in the basement. After shearing away the covers, I slept, but woke up with an awful headache. I got everyone up on time this morning. The first bus in today was excruciating, but the second was one of those low floor buses with the wicked-powerful air conditioning. Even though it was packed and I had to stand, that was an amazing relief. Whuh.

I got to see what dedication looked like at church yesterday. At practice in the basement, twelve worn out and melting people barely lurched through the songs we were supposed to do. Upstairs, under the hot lights of the altar, twelve people sang their lungs out with a passionate and feeling delivery. I wish I had more chances to tell everyone how impressed I am with them.

Our pastor began to preach a homily about Christ's compassion (the reading was about the harvest is large and the labourers few.) Before he got far into it he said to the sweltering congregation, "And now to show Christ's compassion to you, I will immediately end my homily!" My poor daughter in a white alb must have been happy at those words.

Thank God it will be rain and twelve degrees tomorrow.

A billion degrees

It is a billion degrees here. Thirty nine degrees with the humidity. Nearly Baghdad weather. We don't have A/C. So we are going to watch movies in the basement and maybe sleep there tonight. I joked today that I am having fantasies about ice fishing. I'd enjoy that about now! My daughter and I spent the day at the beach. My wife went to a mall to spend it indoors - her asthma won't let her outside for long.

You are salt, you are light

Quite some time ago, I was inspired to write the song I've spent the last week trying to make a decent recording of. What inspired me was a dream - not mine, one I read about online. A terminally ill teenager had made a web-based journal (not quite a blog) describing her struggle with cancer. At the top of the page, she posted an experience she'd had in a dream around Christmas time.

Jesus came to her bedside, and took her hand. Soon they were on a beach, like in Footprints in the Sand, and he brought her to a beatific vision that she could barely describe, it was so beautiful, and many of her fellow patients were there to greet her. But Jesus sent her back, indicating it was not yet time.

At the end of this account, she said she did not know why she'd been sent back. She could not understand it, and even seemed disappointed somewhat all that day.

It occured to me that I knew why. She was salt of the Earth, light of the world. She would go on to inspire the Guiness-record setting group hug, one that raised over a hundred thousand dollars for cancer research. Though I never knew her, her shining witness in this world left a lasting impression on me.

This is that song.

If Nothing Else

I saw a man who went up to the mountain
A crowd had followed him
To hear him speak
He looked at us, a billion strong, and then
He began to talk of the blessed and the meek

You are salt,
You are light,
A shining hill
Cannot hide
So shine your light
Shine it to the world

He said, If nothing else
All our time is borrowed
Consider even the lilies have their home
So if nothing else
Leave your cares to tomorrow
Each day brings enough of its own

I saw a smiling girl, she was struggling to her feet
He came to her and gently took her hand
He carried her, leaving footprints on the beach
She asked him why he took her from the sand

You are salt,
You are light,
A shining hill
Cannot hide
So shine your light
Shine it to the world

He said, If nothing else
All our time is borrowed
Consider even the lilies have their home
So if nothing else
Leave your cares to tomorrow
Each day brings enough of its own

I saw a man we followed to Gethsemane
He said, The hour has come, yet you will all be mine
His friend seized a sword and cut away my ear
He healed my wound then told me it was time

You are salt,
You are light,
A shining hill
Cannot hide
So shine your light
Shine it to the world

He said, If nothing else
All our time is borrowed
Consider even the lilies have their home
So if nothing else
Leave your cares to tomorrow
Each day brings enough of its own

Michael Jackson virus

I hear there is a Michael Jackson virus scouring the Internet, one of these emailed worms that sends itself to others when you open the attachment.

Now if this worm causes my computer to hold an umbrella over my head and give me wine in a can, I just might install it. It is a rather hot day.

TheStar.com - Medicare ruling a wake-up call

Most of our corporatized media (who tend to be out of step with their far less conservative readership) will laud this decision. How glad I am that the paper that helped start it all has not joined their number.

TheStar.com - Medicare ruling a wake-up call

A disastrous day

It was the early nineteen thirties. A hospital administrator who had a cottage at an Indian reserve on Carlysle lake (near Weyburn, Saskatchewan) befriended a fiery baptist minister, a tireless advocate for the poor and critic of the rich. These two men and their wives formed a lifelong friendship. Irma and Eva would get together years after the hospital administrator passed away, catching up on old times everytime Eva went to Ottawa. The two families left descendants to remember them of course. I remember my grandfather very fondly. That other grandfather's grandson stars in an action TV show called "24." He is very proud of his grandfather, too, and he has every right to be.

His grandfather, you see, was a tireless advocate of the idea that medical care is not a commodity. And it is more than a utility. It is a fundamental right; he believed passionately that every person, no matter how poor or rich, was entitled just as equally to medical care. My grandfather, a conservative man by nature, supported his friend's views, and voted for him in every election he ran in. You see the baptist minister in Weyburn, Tommy Douglas, would come to lead a new political party called the CCF, and become premier of Saskatchewan. As premier, the greatest Canadian would institute public health care, a system that eventually became our greatest national project since the coast to coast railway that created Canada, a partnership between the provinces and the federal government; one that would ensure everybody was equal - the poorest man would be entitled to the same level of care as Conrad Black.

That dream may have ended yesterday. The Supreme Court ruled that the province of Quebec cannot prevent private health care insurance from existing. When you hear the details of the case, you cannot blame the justices for being sympathetic to the complainant. He was a man who waited a year to get a hip replacement, and knew a doctor willing to establish a private clinic to get him that replacement far faster than the publicly funded system was willing to. But the arrival of a second tier of health care does mean an eventual switch to the thinking that prevails in Britain and France, where the public/private combination already exists. There, public health care is seen as sort of benevolent government benefaction, a service kindly provided by government to those who can't afford private care. The most Schweitzerian doctors will work in that system of course, but many doctors who are more ambitious prefer to work privately.

Canada does not have that view. Health care isn't a charity performed by beneficent government. We see it as a right, as critical as the right to speak freely, associate, or be free from discrimination. However this supreme court decision may be the beginning of that unravelling.

Internet diet

I've been on a kind of Internet diet the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of substantive reflections or spiritual musings. Hopefully, I will be back on topic soon. :-)

Flying home

On the flight back to Ottawa last night, we passed over the island in Lake Ontario where my parents live. How fragile those small beaches and cargo ships looked, though I knew how large they are in real life. "Home" I muttered as I looked at the thin wedge of sandbars dotting the west side of Quinte's Isle.

Funny I should think that. I never lived there. They moved after I grew up. But I do think of it as home in some way.

The plane headed north, over the thousands of lakes that dot Eastern Ontario. They're home too - I know their life well, a hundred summers of outboard motorboats dashing up and down lakes with waterskiiers, or trolling the twenty foot depths for pickerel as fishermen drink beer and fight off mosquitoes.

Perhaps the whole province is home to me. I can feel at ease in any place that I have so much affection for.

Rumsfeld meets Jabba the Hutt?

Doesn't it look, in the picture accompanying this article, as though Jabba the Hutt is at the secretary's right hand?

CNN.com - Rumsfeld angry over reports regarding N. Korea - Jun 6, 2005

CNN.com - Scientists: Dinosaur bones show T. rex link to birds - Jun 3, 2005

so if you see Big Bird across the street, run like hell!

CNN.com - Scientists: Dinosaur bones show T. rex link to birds - Jun 3, 2005

I love June

My pattern is that I want to be awake when the sun is up, and I want to go to sleep when it goes down. This makes me a very tired fellow in June. Take for instance, last night. We didn't have supper until 9 PM. There just didn't seem a need. A glimmer of light remained until about 10:30, which is when I went to bed. And then I got up this morning about 5 AM because it began to get light out. (I'm sitting here watching the early morning colours over the lake at the moment.)

It is sleep I gladly give up. How can you complain about a day full of light?

and....

Why are they burning books, and not all the oak furniture? That's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen!

Hollywood - do your research!

One thing that annoys me is movies that portray things the directory clearly has no concept of. I’m sure, for example, that the people and scenes in Walker, Texas Ranger bears absolutely no resemblance to anything Texan whatsoever. They do look a lot like those in Calgary, Alberta where the series was filmed however.

We’re watching The Day After Tomorrow right now. The movie has an interesting premise - what would happen if the world froze in weeks? Unfortunately, the screenwriter and director have no apparent awareness of what being in weather colder than Los Angeles is actually like. Take, for instance, the scene in the film in which British helicopter pilots crash because a super cold snap freezes the fuel lines on their helicopter. After one of them crashes, a crewman opens the door of the coptor, putting his bare hands on the outside of the metal door. But they don’t stick to the door, which of course they would instantly.

Then the crewman sticks his head out, catching his breath. He stands there with the door open for about five seconds, then his hands freeze (but still not stuck to the door), then his face freezes, covering itself in ice.

Now let’s stop here - if you’ve ever stuck your face out into a really, really cold breeze, it burns, just like fire. What do you suppose the reaction would be of someone who puts their face out into a fire? You’d imagine instinct would kick in and the person would recoil, right? You’d imagine right. That’s exactly the reaction this crewman would have had. When he opened the coptor door and put his hands out, he’d have screamed in pain, and would have tried to yank his hands free of the door.

Secondly, when something flash freezes, it doesn’t become instantly coated with ice. Ice is just water - it forms from moisture. You do not get it on things that freeze quickly. Don’t get me started about the stupid scene with the wolves. When the weather gets cold in Toronto, the wolves escape from the zoo all the time, right? Because they like cold? And don’t all zoo wolves instantly develop wolf pack culture without an experienced and trained alpha male as leader, right? And of course cold makes them attack humans. Ice age cold, of course, since modern day wolves of course do no such thing, being shy animals and all.

Argh.

History lessons

The pause has also given me a chance to read. I’ve been reading a book about the history of Christianity, which is very closely aligned to the history of the western world for the last twenty centuries. I am currently reading about the rise of the renaissance, beginning in Florence.

What is astonishing is that, just as art, philosophy, literature, and theology were beginning their ascent, the papacy was going into steep decline. The serious papacies of the 1100s were giving way to a period of Papal debauchery and worldliness, beginning at Avignon, France, where the papacy was moved, and continuing on in the time that it was moved back towards Rome under Martin V. These were Popes who were princes of the world, such as Julius II, a warmonger who led invasion armies, maligned as being more like the other Julius (Caesar) than like Julius I. Other Popes had large households of children via their many mistresses. One of the Borgia Popes left his daughter in charge of the Vatican while he was off carousing.

In retrospect, it is not too difficult to understand why Wycliffe might have planted the seeds that led to the Reformation. We’re much luckier with our Popes today - they might still have controversial opinions, but they are men of a much more palpable holiness!

If canoes tip, so do kayaks.

I went kayaking today for the first time ever. I picked it up fairly easily, but it is quite different from canoeing in one very obvious way; in a canoe you can put your weight into your rowing. In a kayak, with your centre of gravity at the bottom of the boat, you do not dare put any weight in any direction other than the center.

We have not done a lot of work today at the cottage, which is an unusual thing - we usually work quite hard. But we’ve only just come into the good weather, with it having been a very wet spring until now. So we wasted the day away on the jet ski, the kayak, and jumping off the dock.

Come on, in the water's fine!

Finally went swimming. Not really the first time of the year, as I did go in the Ocean and in at Wakulla springs in Florida, but its certainly the first time in up here!

When I got home on Thursday, it was still 28 degrees, hot enough with the humidity. To boot my wife had set that day aside for having swiss steak, so she was exhausted from the from the hot oven adding to the heat for the last three hours. So we all bundled into the car, and headed over to Mooney’s bay at 9 PM for a sunset swim.

Mooney’s Bay is a beach on the Rideau River in south-central Ottawa. It is a pretty spot, surrounded by forest and parkland on one side, a small marina on the other, bounded by practicing Dragon boat racers in the water, and by a Syrian Orthodox church on the back. As we arrived hundreds of volley ball players were rehearsing. Mooney’s Bay is the site of the world’s largest volley ball tournament, and the time is coming, but this night, the players moved on as soon as we got there, for the sun had just gone down.

My daughter and I rolled down a big green hill. Then we went charging at the water, slowing considerably as our feet struck the still bone chilling liquid. I inched in to my waste, and then threw myself in, swimming as fast as I could to ignore the cold until I got used to it, which you do in about twenty seconds or so. Then I cannon-balled my daughter.

I shouted out to my wife, “Come on in, the water’s fine!” She replied that she knew how long it had taken for me to get in, and knowing that I’m something of an arctic char, she added, “There’s no way in hell I’m going in there!”

We played in the water until it got dark. The afterglow was gorgeous, all red and purple brush strokes and pastel swipes. My daughter stayed in while I did the get-sand-off-my-feet dance at water’s edge and put my sandals back on. It is good to have access to the water again. It is always far too long in between.

Speaking of news blogging...

You know I was kind of hoping Deep Throat would turn out to be Elvis or an extraterrestrial. Or maybe the bat boy. Somehow, leaving things in mystery and hidden in shadow adds to their allure.

G. Gordon Liddy thinks Felt shouldn't have spilled the beans... I would resent him doing that too, if I'd been sent up the river!

MIDI Heaven

I made a deliberate decision not to waste time while my daughter was awake on chores or on my own hobbies. So last night I left a sink full of dishes and we went off to find a park (our dishwasher is broken, or rather I've become the dishwasher. :-) We had a wonderful little park over at Greeboro community center, but they tore it down in order to put up a library. I loved this park - the Arab women would sit and chat at the picnic bench while their kids chased one another, the Asian grandmothers would be pushing their young ones on the baby swings while singing to them, and the kids of many different origins who lived in the houses looking out on the park's walkway would run through the sprinklers over and over again, narrowly avoiding the flying bicycles of their older brothers. It was like getting to watch a vibrant Norman Rockwell painting unfold before me, updated with the rich multicultural fabric of my neighbourhood. Now its gone.

So we wandered down Greenboro the road, looking for the way over to another nearby park. I realized too late that Greenboro doesn't open on this park, but my daughter informed me you can get there through her school. So we walked up to her school, wandered through the migrating herds of soccer players in the soccer field, and walked towards the other park. We reminisced about the time we saw the hot air balloon crash land in the park, taking out a street lamp in the process. I remembered how I had cynically thought at the time that the city would leave the lamp broken for years, but to their credit, they did not.

When I finally got her off to bed (a more and more difficult thing to do as she gets older), I set to work on a song I've been composing on the laptop. I've discovered the joys of MIDI programming. Now I am mostly a guitar player. I am no concert pianist, though my piano playing skills are sufficient to provide ambience on some of the songs I've recorded. But I discovered a few months ago that I know how to read and write musical notation (I was surprised as anyone, but I guess I did pay attention during those grade school lessons.) So using the computer, I can compose music on a staff, convert it to something called MIDI, and then the computer can make the music I've composed sound like pretty much any instrument. So I've turned a guitar tune I wrote into more of an electric piano number, something stylistically similar to that old 70s song 'Dreamweaver.'

I'm kind of informally planning to turn some of this recording I'm doing into a CD, and then releasing it locally. Maybe. Depends how ambitious I am. I wanted to have at least one song on the disc be more than a guitar tune. Looks like I might have that now...