Learning the guitar

I've been playing the guitar for about twenty five years. I can't really tell you why I learned it. I don't really remember.

I was an organist - not a great one, but I had taught myself out of my mother's organ instructionals. Being a teen-ager, naturally, I wanted to be in a band. So with a friend, I started one. I don't even remember what the heck we called it, but we were awful, as most peoples' first bands are. We eventually played a coffee house. We were booed and they pulled the microphones on us. I have it all caught on audiotape somewhere.

We did a few more things, got booed some more. That summer, at a Flea market near the cottage, I bought a twenty dollar nylon string guitar. It was a piece of junk, but it was a guitar. My father soon bought one, intrigued by the idea, and we went to lessons together in the afterschool program at Glebe High School. Unlike my only mediocre skills with the organ, I was a natural at the guitar, and within three months, quickly progressed beyond the teacher and the rest of the class.

My best friend and I wrote some songs, and we did another coffee house. Unfortunately, our guitars were badly out of tune. We were still terrible, and we got booed. I rushed down to the piano and played Baba O'Reilly, doing my best Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend impersonations. For the very first time ever, I received applause – a lot of it, even. It was a good feeling.

Saving my meager earnings from odd jobs and money my parents tossed my way for vacuuming the pool and mowing the lawn, I secretly bought an electric guitar, a Les Paul clone - real cheap one. I didn't let my parents know about it, because they definitely frowned on the whole music thing. I'm sure they thought I wanted to turn into a pot-smoking hippie. I remember one time my father took my radio away and pretended to heave it into the ravine. I was crushed – it was the only material possession, other than my guitar, that I valued. (Months later I discovered it was fine.)

My freedoms began to increase. I started jamming with a guy named Nick, whom I had met in summer school, and we began to explore the blues a little bit. Of course, our idea of blues was the Rolling Stones, and maybe some of their obvious influences like Muddy Waters. Nick brought two others, new arrivals from Edmonton, into the band – a harmonica player named Jan and a guitar player named Sue, Sue Foley. I was the only one who could sing, but they both knew a lot of material, so they were fun to run through material with, which we did while plugged into my organ. None of us had amplifiers but I had jury rigged the organ so it could be used as a guitar amplifier with multiple inputs.

Within a couple of weeks, the two newcomers had convinced Nick to kick me out of the band, and made him tell me. I was crushed. This was rejection, in the area of my life that had become most important to me. Being rejected by girls was one thing. Being kicked out of a band was an awful shock.

After moping the rest of the summer, my interest in music reignited when I arrived at Glebe for my last year of school. It was an incredibly fertile environment for music, and a number of its students have become famous (including Alanis.)

I started another band, called Tresa, named after a math teacher I had once had. We played three shows during the school year –a Halloween party, a gong show, and a coffee house. The coffee house was well-received, as was the Halloween party, which was for a group of kids at the Glebe community center. By this time, I was not yet a great guitarist, but I could keep a guitar in tune, play a handful of rudimentary solos... and I had learned to play the guitar behind my head and also with my teeth. (Foolish flashiness that I never do now. :-) But we did get gonged.

But my own outings were not important to me anymore. I was in a school that had master blues musicians. Tortoise Blue was there, who is today the best harp player in Canada. A guy named Chris could play the blues like nobody's business. And he would play – everything from Buddy Guy to Albert King, expertly. And then Stevie Ray Vaughan came along.

Nick's group had failed, so hoping to mend fences I brought him into mine. He now had a vintage telecaster, and looked just like Ron Wood. He was now into the blues in a purer form.

I would spend that summer listening to all the blues I could get my hands on. A radio show called “Blues 106” with local personality Brian Murphy gave me access to hundreds of artists, and I taped every show every week. I discovered the people who would become my guitar heroes that summer – Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Luther Guitar Junior, Jimmy Vaughan, Son Seals. And I listened to Chris from school, whom I'd joined in a band. Local guitar god Tony D sold me his amplifier, my parents bought me a mimic Stratocaster for graduation, and I now had that Fender tone.

My sound has changed somewhat over the years since that summer – I've incorporated Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton into it, to give it a touch of finesse, along with Carlos Santana. But the blues is where my skills were born. I can play on other kinds of music, but I'm often thinking blues, even when I do. It is a music form full of heart and soul. Although it was born in suffering, it is suffused with joy.

As to the rest of my musical journey, I may tell it to you, when I get time. :-)

CBC News: Falling in love with Michaëlle Jean

Canada has a new acting head of state. The Governor General, is for all intents and purposes, our Queen. Now, technically, Queen Elizabeth II is our sovereign - but all of her duties are fulfilled by GG Jean.

CBC News: Falling in love with Michaëlle Jean

My banned book list

OK, Irina tagged me to do this. How this works - bold I've read it, italic I've read some of it, no highlighting means I've never cracked it open.

#1 The Bible

I read the whole thing when I was eight or so. We were in no way religious, but it was there, and so I read it. It is, if you think about it, a very impressive literary work (well, except for the many begats in Chronicles and a few other dry spots.) The King James translation is, even while only being a translation, one of the most influential works of the English language. I've re-read it a couple of times over, I'd wager.

#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Loved it. Jim 'n Huck – never even noticed the politics, other than being aware of the use of some bad words, for me it was all about being friends. I loved the colourful characters too – the guy who sold the enamel-removing tooth powder. :-)

#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Read a little, remember even less.

#4 The Koran

I've read most of it, obviously not in Arabic. My brother has a copy, and between his place and online, I've probably read most of the Suras. It could be the quality of the translations, I suppose, but I found the Quran to have considerably less oomph than some of the other religious texts I've read. Its creation narrative, with Iblis told to bow before Adam, it just seems a lot drier and less theologically potent – not to mention less rich in mythology – than Genesis.

#5 Arabian Nights

On the other hand, Arabian Nights seemed very powerful to me, mythologically speaking, with jinn and flying carpets, and what have you. But I didn't get very far with it. I didn't own a copy, just read it at someone's house for a few minutes.

#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Surprisingly, did not enjoy this quite as much as Huckleberry Finn. But I did enjoy it – how could you not?

#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Delightful as both a childhood read, and when I re-read it as an adult. As a child, the story of a man become a giant, and then become a mouse inspired me to daydream about both circumstances. I learned to do camera tricks (simple special effects) where I'd get my brother to pose for in which I made him seem either very large or very small.

As an adult, I loved the cynical appraisal of human beings the book offered. The way the Houyhnhnms looked at the strange and oddly behaved human beings digging for shiny things made me think of how truly strange we really are, doing much of what Swift describes, just with a slightly more civilized veneer over it.

#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Some people remember the inspiring and profound tales the pilgrims tell each other. I can only remember the Miller's tale. :-)

#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Never read it.

#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

This either.

#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

We had to read this for Political Science class. To tell you the truth, I don't remember too much about it, other than that it basically lived up to the word that sprung from it.

#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Never read it.

#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

You know – I've seen her house in the Netherlands, and I know her basic story, but I have never read her diary. I can't explain why not – I've just never had the chance.

#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Nope!

#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

I enjoyed it to a point, but I wondered sometimes if Dickens wasn't simply being cruel to his literary creations. How could anyone suffer so much?

#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

One of the most touching things I have ever read. A treatise on love, set in an age where the ideas of hardened hearts trumped love. I felt awful for Javert, but his end was needless. Valjean's life is the proof that you can be redeemed anything.

#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker

Loved it. Delightfully gothic. If it is stereotypical, it is only because it defined the stereotype.

#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin

Nope.

#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

We had it, but I never read it.

#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne

Nope.

#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

My mother used to complain I made the yard look like the Jodes yard. :-)

#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

I've read a lot of history regarding the Romans. My mother was a teacher, and we had dozens of history books, including this was one of the many she had that I read.

#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

This and Jude the Obscure are so... depressing. Nonetheless, both were beautifully conceived stories, and you never feel, as you do with Dickens, that the author is deliberately torturing the characters! (Well, OK – little Jude's actions might seem that way.) You can tell which of Hardy's stories struck me more, eh?

#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

I've not only read this, but how it came about. Darwin was such a timid soul, and it is astonishing that he would coerce himself into publishing a work this bold. However, his timidity does show through in how he words his boldest assertions - “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history” is all he dares say of human beings. His last chapter, “Conclusion and Recapitulation” almost apologizes for delivering the theory!

#25 Ulysses by James Joyce

Nope.

#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

Nope.

#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell

Yep. I always tried to figure out which farm animal was who, related to Red October.

#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Of course. I'm always wary whenever anything in the modern world echoes this work. Despite its quaint imaginings of what later technology there'd be for Big Brother's supervision, 1984 has the potential to be prophetic, and most of us realize that.

#29 Candide by Voltaire

Nope.

#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Yep.

#31 Analects by Confucius

No.

#32 Dubliners by James Joyce

No.

#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

No.

#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Yep.

#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal

No.

#36 Capital by Karl Marx

Yes, we had to for political science class. While he does shoot some holes in the idea behind capitalization by pointing out how it really adds no value (some today would say its just a higher form of gambling really), the shoddy working conditions of the 19^th century blinded Marx to the possibility that while, yes, labourers may do all the work, it is possible to compensate them justly without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Technological advancement, in particular, depends on capitalization.

#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire

No.

#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

No, though I did read Agatha Christie.

#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

We had this on the shelf when I was a kid, and I read it at far too young an age, I suppose. I really didn't think too much of it, truthfully. I found the gardener crude and unappealing, and not gruff in a Heathcliff kind of way. I'm much more enamoured Lawrence's poetry.

#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Though I don't remember a thing about it. I read so much when I was young!

#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

No.

#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Saw the movie, never read the book.

#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair

No.

#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Yep.

#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

Boy I hated Political Science.

#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The very first Reality TV show (only in book form.) I don't think he really describes the human condition – I don't accept the argument that we're that base when civilization is removed from us.

#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys

Nope.

#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

We had it. Never read it.

#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

See earlier.

#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Never got too far with this.

#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Nope.

#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Had this in philosophy class.

#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Never got far with it.

#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus

Nope.

#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Nope.

#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

“We didn't land on Sherwood Forest! Sherwood forest landed on us!” (Apologies to Mel Brooks.)

#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker

Nope.

#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Would you believe... no?

#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

Yes.

#60 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

No.

#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

No.

#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

No.

#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck

No.

#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

No. I guess I was disappointed when it didn't turn out to be as cool as the TV series about the invisible guy with the watch! ;-)

#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

No.

#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau

No.

#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

No.

#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

No.

#69 The Talmud

Having never been to Rabbinical school or seminary, I think this one too weighty to take on without help. :-)

#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau

No.

#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

No.

#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

No.

#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

No.

#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Our school library had it. One day I was wandering by the shelves, and there it was. I picked it up. What an odious psychotic work! I still feel dirty...

#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles

No.

#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

No.

#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck

No.

#78 Popol Vuh

Uh-uh. Nope.

#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith

Some of it.

#80 Satyricon by Petronius

Nope.

#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Saw the stop motion film. ;-)

#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Never read it. As a guy, you'd probably be suspect if you were seen reading it. It has that stigma. I did see a friend who was in a play of it though. She was the mother Humbert Humbert married.

#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright

No.

#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu

No.

#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

No.

#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

Never heard of it.

#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle

Nope.

#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

About half of it.

#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin

No. I am not a Calvinist, and the religious wars of Europe were some of the bloodiest years in history.

#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

nope.

#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

nope.

#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner

nope.

#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Nope.

#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

Yep. I never got why this was controversial. His awkward experiment may have been in slightly poor taste, but it was one of the first real attempts by an American caucasian to put himself in the shoes of the other. It was a brave endeavour, and a compassionately written telling.

#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig

Never heard of it.

#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nope.

#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Much drier than I expected. Doesn't read like quackery. Reads like a sleeping pill. :-)

#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Very dark and dreary in Atwood's usual style, but still very compelling.

#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown

I know I read this, but I remember nothing of it.

#100 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Nope.

#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines

Nope.

#102 Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau

Nope.

#103 Nana by Émile Zola

Nope.

#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Nope.

#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

I thought that was a hymn?

#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nope.

#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Yep.

#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

Nope.

#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Never heard of it.

#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Nope.

Through Song

Last night, our folk group leader called in sick. Whenever I pinch-hit, it always seems to be at the last minute. Not having him there means I have to scramble to get things ready, since I have to set up the PA system, pick the songs, find the overheads. Usually I compensate by picking songs which I know we have overheads for and which I know we don't need much rehearsal on. However, I've also dreamed of getting a chance to showcase some moving hymns our leader does not frequently want to do. So last night I said to myself, to heck with it, I'm going to do what my instincts are telling me to do, and I don't care if we don't have overheads, and I don't care if it is hard to learn.

I learned from one of our members, however, that my watch was running ten minutes slow. I wondered why so many people were sitting in the pews! Mass was about to start. With only five minutes of rehearsal time, I rushed downstairs and took everyone through the songs. We got back upstairs late. I waited dumbly for the greeter, until I realized that might have already happened. We opened with a rousing version of Open the Eyes of My Heart. Later, we would do "Be Exalted", "Be Not Afraid" and "Halleluia I'm Ready."

Later after Mass, a friend came up to me and told me how before Mass, she had been worrying about something: how was she going to do all the things that she has to do this year? One of her big projects is tied to that song, Open the Eyes of my Heart. My impulsive choices to take risks had put the song she needed to hear right before her, as if to say, don't worry, it will all take care of itself.

People talk of a "God of the gaps." I prefer to call him the "God of the coincidence." :-)

Sharia

Until a couple of weeks ago, the province of Ontario was preparing to permit religious arbitration in civil matters to Muslim parties who agreed to it. Critics suggested this was the implementation of Sharia law in Canada, but the scope of it was never really that radical. Today in Ontario, Jewish courts and Catholic annulment panels can resolve disputes that, after thirty days, take legal force. All that was being considered was granting the same rights to Muslim clerics. In all cases, religious arbitration must conform to the Canadian charter of rights.

Soon after the province began to float this idea, there began protests by feminist groups as well as Canadian Muslim women, who fear the possibility of discriminatory practices regarding divorce and inheritance rights (which were very progressive 1300 years ago, but not so much today.) The response of premier Dalton McGuinty was to remove all religious arbitration – even the Jewish and Catholic forms that have been present in the province for generations.

Canada is a strange country in this regard. It works hard to allow individual cultures to flourish within the polity. It does this in a number of ways –aboriginals, for example, possess various fishing, taxation, and land rights. The provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick offer linguistic environments that permit the French language to survive. The Federal and provincial governments sponsor “multiculturalism” groups and events in order to allow minorities to retain their distinctive character past one or two generations.

On the other hand, the country is committed both to egalitarianism and equality. Many women’s’ groups shuddered at even the idea that a religious legal system with a pattern of reduced rights for women in some countries would get a foothold here. Personally, I thought it a bit alarmist. The government could have slowed things down, and brought women’s groups into the process of designing how this arbitration could work. A made in Canada solution has worked before.

As a result, I wonder if perhaps we are watching the threads of multiculturalism begin to unravel. Governments have become perhaps too convinced that multiculturalism means exotic foods, weird dances, and odd but quaint rituals. It does not mean that, and they do not understand their own country if they believed that. Multiculturalism has meant allowing people to bring some of their self-conception to our shores. In the case of Muslims, an important part of that is using the principles of Islam in government.

However, there is no question that it is Muslim women themselves who have been most vocal about the question of religious arbitration. One has to think they have reasons, as they have more experience than anyone. But it is those of us who are Catholic and Jewish who are paying the price…

Torture

Discipline is a very difficult thing for an army to maintain when morale is low. I always thought that had a lot to do with what happened at Abu Ghraib. It wasn't that the staff there were carrying out the will of the military. Instead they were bored reservists, taking out their frustrations on the powerless.

It is getting hard for me now to believe that it wasn't systematic. Another two prisons indulged in torturing prisoners. The sexual edge was not there at these locations, but the dogpiles were. Beatings came into it at these places too.

20 things about me.

I've been tagged.

OK, 20 facts about myself.

1. I was terrified by fire alarms as a kid, and jump two feet today when the smoke alarm goes off.
2. The smoke alarm always goes off when I am cooking.
3. However, I am a good cook.
4. My favourite foods are raspberries, green grapes, strawberries, pizza, lasagna, and chicken burgers.
5. I have an extremely acute sense of smell. Last week from the basement of the house, I smelled someone barbequing outside.
6. I sent my daughter out to the school bus today and she had a small nosebleed. She was upset, and I feel awful.
7. As a guitar player, I favour Fender Stratocasters.
8. I am a hermit. I prefer being home, and I like any night when we don't have company.
9. But I like going up to the cottage every weekend, and spending time with my extended family.
10. I like to think up pet names for people, and say them under my breath, repeatedly.
11. I once had that song, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie..." stuck in my head for months, all because McDonald's used it in their Pizza ads.
12. I got it out of my head finally by getting Glenn Campbell's "King of the Road" stuck in there instead.
13. It was stuck in my head nearly as long.
14. One of my guitars has a name - Jasmine. It isn't even my favourite guitar.
15. I bike to work every day. It is a long haul, so I get quite a workout.
    
16. I subscribe to Discover magazine, and it is currently my only subscription.
17. I practiced the bass guitar last night, trying to teach myself how to play syncopated reggae.
18. I listened to Bob Marley and the Wailers this morning before going to work.
    
19. I was afraid of snow plows as a child, almost to the same extent as fire alarms.
20. Quiet days in the woods make me happy.

I'm tagging.... Lane!

Irina has written very honestly about prejudice, and what it is she "prejudices" about. There's no trackback at blogspot, so here's the link.

The IgNoble Experiment, a.k.a. Live Dangerously!: Choose Your Own Prejudice

I used to have this prejudice - bums. I hadn't always had it. When we first moved downtown, my brother and I met a street musician named Gary I think. He was kind of halfway between bum and cool guy, because when we talked to him, he'd show us how he could play all these cool rock songs from the radio. He asserted, for example, that Malcolm Young (AC-DC) was a terrible guitar player, and illustrated the point by showing how simple “Back in Black” was to play.

But when I began my working life, which for a while was in the restaurant business, these guys would make my life miserable. They'd steal, or beg in the restaurant, or be obscene. Not all of them mind you. There was one fellow my heart just ached for – an older gentleman who slowly over the course of my years at this job slowly transformed from being an unkempt incoherent street person into a well groomed man who wore suits. His recovery appeared to me be an act of great personal character. But my initial views were repulsion. I'm not proud of it.

My first glimmer of insight into my own prejudice was this time I was on a bus to work at 4:30 in the morning. I got off the bus, and being well over six feet, did what I so often do – whacked my head on the top of the exit. I held my head in my hands. I thought I was going to faint from this one.

A voice behind me said, “Are you alright, sir?”

I turned around, and it was one of the fellows who begged near my deli. I tried to speak, and acknowledge him, but my fear and bigotry kicked in. I turned around and began to walk towards work. He continued to shout, “Are you alright, sir?” I continued to respond to this Samaritan with silence. But I burned with shame, now. He had had compassion, and now I was refusing to acknowledge his basic humanity. I was refusing to acknowledge even his very existence. I remain ashamed of this to this day.

But it was my wife who began to draw me out of it. She worked at a post office downtown, and I used to lock up for her, because it was on my way home from work. From time to time in the winter, different homeless men would be taking shelter from the cold. I felt awful having to turn them out, and something died in me each time I did. Sometimes they'd refuse to cooperate, and I'd have to call the police and wait for them. I felt a little better about that, since the police would usually take them somewhere they could be warm. Once I came in on a fellow who was bleeding. I don't know where he injured himself - not the post office. For him, I called the ambulance.

I'd visit her on my way to work, and she would tell me about some of them. One of them, a pleasant young fellow who always had a cheery smile, had very bad epilepsy. Randy I think his name was. He could not work, but had a disability cheque because of his recognized illness. However, and I don't remember all the details, it did not nearly cover his living expenses. So he panhandled, quite cheerily, up the street from the post office. My wife knew him by name, and joked around with him. If you've ever wondered why I love my wife, whom I know I don't talk about much here, this very thing is so emblematic of everything I love about her. He was a human being. He got that treatment from her. He was no different in her eyes than any of the prosperous businessmen who came to the Post Office to conduct their affairs. She told me of how he helped all the homeless people, looked out for them, got them help when they inevitably got too cold, too sick, or into trouble.

I rarely see panhandlers today, because I don't work or live downtown anymore. And when I do see them, I still sometimes instinctively walk by them silently, particularly if I don't have money on me. But more often than not now, I will give them something, and I will talk to them, and wish them a good day.

We've all made mistakes. They've paid dearly for theirs, by being stuck in a life that can be very hard to escape. My coldness is an additional punishment they do not deserve. My own estate is fundamentally just as humble. What good I have in my life is as much dumb luck as my own accomplishments. There is one dignity that no homeless person has ever yielded up, and it can't be taken from them – membership in the human race. It is a long-in-the-teaching lesson, and I am grateful to have learned it.

Luke, you're fired!

Star Wars: Episode III | Trump's Apprentice Takes on the Sith Apprentice

Global warming is real

You thought I meant Earth, didn't you? :-P

HoustonChronicle.com - Mars getting warmer, orbiter data suggests

Spam filter report retort

I have an excellent spam filter on one of my email accounts. Its basically a white-listed account, so not much can get to me. And I take a certain enjoyment in knowing that frustrated spammers aren't able to get to me or anyone else with good filtering. So I go in there, and check out the subject lines from time to time. And then I think up my public retort.

Lose those pounds quickly Procmail and delete spam instantly!!!
PERFECT christmas presents... Seriously,there is something they want here beer cans and chicken bones?
Please Restore Your PayPal Account Access Sure, if you'll restore the bank account no. you opened for my Nigerian prince friend.
last night ...I got loaded, on a bottle of whiskey, on a bottle of whiskey (apologies to Los Lobos)
fwd: Major Report major dump.
Rolex was Never so Affordable! Or fake!
Online Drugs - save up to 80% NEW! Get stoned over the Internet!
Oil Stock Shakerz AND Moverz Spell checkerz
5th Notice: RE: You Won 6th Notice: RE: You Deleted
Password Change Required Fraud Charges Pending

Muslims and the Holocaust - The Boston Globe

What this author describes is indeed very disturbing. Once the exclusive domain of people in white sheets and Ernst Zundel, another group has taken to a sort of Holocaust denial.

Muslims and the Holocaust - The Boston Globe

When shadows fall

This city has been traumatized by another mysterious murder. Two weeks ago, a young woman, walking home from her job at a restaurant, disappeared. Local residents volunteered by the hundreds, but searched the whole neighbourhood in vain. And then, this weekend, police found her body in an NCC park, eerily echoing another young woman's disappearance and murder two years ago – both involved NCC parks, although in different parts of the city.

Although I've never been to the park where this grisly discovery was made, I know something of these places. There is an NCC park near where I live – Conroy Pit. It is a busy and lively set of trails, because it is one of the few parks where the NCC lets dogs run off the leash. I hike and bike there all the time, and there are always dogs chasing one another, as serene young couples dote on their mutts as though they were offspring. The forests are maintained with great care to ensure a variety of tree species. Each fall, the variety pays off in a splendour of orange oaks, red maples, and yellow birch. Birders put out feeders and then watch with binoculars. I remember going out tracking deer with my daughter in the fall. There are pictures in my photoblog of that.

So it saddens me that beautiful things are used by the ugliest people to conceal the darkest deeds imaginable. Our cherished places become infamous places.

But that, I suppose, is the nature of a crime like this. It is the ultimate act of callous selfishness. Someone out there – and sadly, surely male – placed preeminence that night on his own imagined need that had to be satiated – lust, jealousy, anger, or some power-mad craziness? He didn't take into account in any way the personal sovereignty of a young woman who had every reason to hope – and every right to hope – that she would go to college, and/or pursue her interests and ambitions, and share in the unfolding lives of family and friends. It never entered his mind to care for the outcome of her life - that she deserved an end in a hospital bed surrounded by great-grandchildren. He never cast one thought in the direction of her now shattered family, how they may never be the same.

There are many variations of the Golden rule – from the Wiccan rede (“an ye harm none, do what you will”) to the Abrahamic commandment “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Its a ridiculously simple concept for a human being. Would you wish to be treated in the way you are about to treat someone else? Most people fall a little short in this department, but we try to live that out day by day. Our sins against one another are venal, usually a petty crime of omission, not commission. We are mostly good people.

Whoever did this act is not good people. He doesn't bother with the golden rule, and may not even truly understand it. Oh, he may recognize the need to affect the appearance of basic decency. But inside, there is nothing. A black hole. A void. Or maybe something worse than nothing, who knows? Most of us never do more than peer into the dark well, the fevered nightmares of childhood, or some cinematic moment that scared the hell out of us. This man lives there, permanently. I cannot imagine he knows any real happiness; just a feral sort of schadenfreude. And perhaps now, panic, as he realizes he may be caught. Though I am frightened for my daughters and want him caught and jailed, I also feel sorry for him, in a very weird way.

Love is always at hand - Part II

This is the song I wrote that night. I'll leave the mp3 up for about a week, because they'll surely nag me to to delete a 5 meg file like that.

Irina, it is Jewish-safe. ;-) I based the words on a book from pre-Christian Jewish literature that we Catholic have in our bibles, the Book of Tobias.

Crash Into June

There's a band called Crash into June that has an excellent song called Pete Ham that reminds me of my own discovery of the late great tunesmith. However, I could not help but note a certain irony in the way the band arranged the song.

When the guitarist comes out for his first guitar solo, he steps up and does a near perfect homage to a Badfinger guitar solo. Only he knocked off the wrong guitarist - the tremolo sound and playing style he uses are a close match for Joey Molland, not Pete Ham.

Ah well. :-)

Love is always at hand

You may be wondering why I never wrote about it. I may have needed some space to put a bit of reflection and time into it. Or perhaps Ive just been lazy. Or maybe it isnt really even any of your business. :-P

We were a bit late getting out of the cottage. My older daughter was not with us, so my wife dropped my daughter and I at church (we both serve in some capacity) while she rushed home to get ready and to get my other daughter. We were there about seven fifteen, which is about fifteen minutes earlier than I normally would get there. So with my friend the caretaker, I set up the folk groups microphones and PA system

After setting the equipment up, I went downstairs to join the other singers, who were waiting for the practice to begin. While we were waiting, the singer we least expected to be there walked in with her husband. You see, she was checked into the hospital, booked in for major surgery the next day. She joked that she was on shore leave.It was amazing and inspiring to see her there.

I had written a psalm arrangement for the occasion, but I left the words upstairs. So I had to hum how it went for everyone. We went upstairs, and because they only knew it by humming, we all kind of sang the phrases a bit differently. Nothing ever goes as planned.

Sooner than I expected, the good Father called us to the altar. We were facing each other, staring, as we had all those years ago. We always stared, actually. It is the one thing I still remember vividly from the first few weeks we dated.

We said our vows. I stared straight into her eyes, and I said the words without fumbling, without hesitating. Earlier that day, I had worried I would be distracted and unfocused, as I so often can be. But I wasnt.

No, this moment was joined in time to an August day decades ago. This September day and that August day were one. I looked in my wifes eyes and I saw this woman smile at me. And I also looked into the eyes of the nervous girl from August. It is a moment of supreme commitment, a moment in which I realize that my life is not my own it belongs to her, it belongs to her family, it belongs to my family. It belongs to our childrenand their children after that. It belongs to the people seated in the pews, to the priest solemnizing this moment, and to the God who, somehow through all the chaos of free will, planned this for us. Tears are running from my right eye, but I am not ashamed, and I am not sad. This moment is love. There is no worry, anger, shame, blame, or jealousy in this moment. Only love an ephemeral thing that is always waiting to rush in on wings, and fragile enough to be chased off by cares and worry. But ever-present all the same.

When we were done, the priest said a blessing on our shore-leave singer, and the love that was in the building continued full force. Standing near her was her husband her friend, lover, her helper, and comfort. We were all one that night. The whole congregation, united in genuine love.

Poor President Bush

I know when I write embarrassing things on paper, I don't have news photographers taking shots of it!

Pictures | Reuters.com

Blog Search

Did you see this? Cool.

Blog Search

Red Green gets the top FEMA job?

But what will happen to Harold and Possum lodge?

Capitol Hill Blue: New FEMA Boss: The 'Duct Tape' Guy

A window onto the hand of God

This is an exceedingly beautiful photograph. This is an image of what I posted about yesterday - the explosion of the earliest stars, providing the universe with lifegiving elements and gravity wells that would become the centers of galaxies. It is almost literally an image of the hand of God. And it is beautiful.

Big Bang-era explosion sheds light on stars. 13/09/2005. ABC News Online

A Big Bang of sorts...

Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk

The massive explosions of the universe's original super-stars is thought to have made the universe a more interesting place. Prior to these super-stars, the universe was basically a giant cloud of hydrogen. As the hydrogen began to amass, it fell into large bright fusion reactions - the first stars. These stars were so big, they only lasted a few million years (as opposed to the ten billion year lifespan of our star.)

They exploded with a force that is almost inconceivable, and the giant explosions caused the heavier elements to form. All of us living are made out of these bits of kaboomed super-star, the remnants of these earliest explosions.

Let's try that again.

I thought this was interesting. The record industry got totally side swiped by the Internet (as well as the invention of compact and compressed music formats.) From a technology standpoint, they were a cross between a deer standing stunned in the headlights, and an angry bear who's just seen you run off with his blueberries.

So the music and movie industries are going to test some ideas they have for distributing music and movies via the next Internet, Internet2. College folk will know what that is - the rest of us don't have access though.

MPAA and RIAA participate in Internet2 project

The joys of sattelite internet

I've been outside almost all day. My brother in law and I put in a mailbox at the side of the dirt road just a few minutes ago. And I can blog about it a few minutes later. Cottage internet - how'd we ever get by without it? :-)

They found Fred Flinstone's airplane

Scientists think a pterosaur with a 60 foot wingspan is conceivable.

(The article's author gets some of his science terminology wrong - pterodactyl is a specific pterosaur species. The word pterodactyl means wing-finger.)

Disasters, and recovering from them

I'll never forget September 11, 2001. It was a beautiful blue-skied day, warm but not too warm. A lot like yesterday. It seemed like a perfect day, with the engines of commerce revved up again after a long summer, for the orderly and routine processes of urban living to unfold. Instead, chaos was brought from the sky on people who had no reason to expect it.

Katrina came with warning, but it brought chaos too. In both cases, reassembling order out of events that took only hours - the moment of destruction - seems almost impossible. In New York, the debate about what to do with the Twin Towers site remains unresolved. Only in Washington, where the Pentagon wing was rebuilt, has even the facade of order been reintegrated. In New Orleans it may be even more difficult. Flood waters do more damage than anything short of an A-bomb, though the damage can be hard to see. The spread of toxic materials has turned the entire city into an enormous brownfield. When you think of how expensive brownfield cleanups can be in urban areas of only a few blocks, imagine having to redo an entire city?

But I only point to the physical reconstruction to point out the bigger and more complex question of rebuilt lives. Having seen my wife's family coping this last year with the loss of her sister has given me only a glimpse of this. A newsmaking calamity may be a big story for the newspapers. But what it really amounts to is an aggregation of ten thousand small stories: ten thousand lives lost, ten thousand families who have to go through that long and protracted process of converting the anarchy of unexpected shock and grief back into the mundane we call everyday life. If it ever happens, I'm sure it takes years. I'm not convinced everyone recovers, though I earnestly hope for it.

What is surprising about the loss of a loved one is how cruel society's response to it is. A person who loses a spouse has an intense legal process to go through, the paperwork for which could break a mule's back! You're made to sign doctor and hospital forms, pick out caskets and flowers, organize a huge amount of visitors, and pull off an event as complex as a wedding within a week. Loving and supportive families step in and handle vast amounts of that. But it continues for months and years, ofttimes, long after the relatives have gone home.

Is there a reason we do this? Is the reimposition of order so important that we dress death in paperwork, insurance forms, legal filings, and legal claims to make it conform to our ideas about the orderly arrangement of the world? And is that why it takes so long to rebuild the organs of commerce in New York, or why New Orleans will be a generational project? Is it coincidence that these endeavours will probably last as long as their grief does?

Gettin' married again today...

Well, renewing the vows anyway. Not quite so elaborate a thing. I've written a song for it, which hopefully the folk group leader will agree can be sung. If my wife is giving me this, I'd like to give at least something back in return. It is actually hard to write a song about someone or for someone when you have to... those sorts of things come only spontaneously, usually.

But I gave it a yeoman's effort, and I hope she will like it.

"Born again"?

I'm going into Christian mode here. You're warned. ;-)

What is it about the words “born again” that causes Christians to instantly feel simpatico with one another, and yet can cause people of other or no faith to react with rolled eyes, humour, or even fear? There is no question that “born again” is an important part of the Christian lexicon, and yet only a few inside or outside the faith truly understand the words in their entire nuance.

The phrase refers to a discussion Jesus has with Nicodemus, a member of the Jerusalem temple elite. Jesus tells him that believers must be born again. Unable to understand the figurative language, Nicodemus asks how a fully grown man can reemerge from the womb – perhaps he is worrying Jesus is referring to reincarnation, a serious heresy even in first century Judaism?

Jesus replies with what is, if you will, the soteriological creed of Christianity: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

As with all religions, however, this pivotal statement finds itself understood in all kinds of ways. The oldest way is perhaps the sacramental understanding that persists in Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches: grace comes from membership in the church and membership in the church comes from baptism (water), and confirmation/chrismation (spirit.)

“Born again” in evangelical churches often has another meaning. Though there’s no water or spirit in it, St. Paul quoting scripture, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:3) tells the story as they would see it. “Born again” is thought of as the moment belief appears, the start of a new tale concerning a new person.

There’s certainly something I take away from both approaches. I like the humility of the sacramental view of things: there are some things God does of his own power; we don’t earn it, we didn’t help kick-start this power, and membership in the church makes you only a small part of this journey – the baptized are many, and the personal saviour is clearly a communal saviour, as interested in the next man, woman, and child as in you.

But what about the renewed person? There’s some merit in craving more than a formal renewal via sacraments, although there is also reason to credit cynics with a point. There are many “born again” people who are not that different in their “born again” iteration than they were in previous forms. It isn’t an all new car when you fill the tank with gas. Just a car that can hopefully now do better than stalling when it pulls out into traffic. The driver hasn’t changed, nor the wear and tear on the vehicle – just the ability to get fuel to the carburetor.

I like better the idea of everyday renewal. Even every hour renewal. Every moment is an opportunity to make it better than before. I fill up the tank and renew my commitment to God, my family, and my friends as often as I think to; because I know the tank runs empty a lot.

It is a powerful idea, this notion that grace is a free gift, an idea Catholics share with Protestants, though they differ on the mechanisms. Grace is like gasoline, line an oil change, to overuse my bad metaphor some more – but it costs nothing (unlike real oil.) And it costs everything. (Like real oil!)

Though I must say it is a lot better for the environment! ;-)

The Journey from Hard Hearted to Kind Hearted....

I make this journey several times a day. And yet, because I travel it in both directions, it is a journey that is taking me a lifetime.

Sitting at the right hand

Someone I know has a rich land-owner friend on the Gulf of Mexico. He sent her an email with a copy/pasted news opinion piece blaming Katrina on the “welfare state.” I have to say, I have rarely read anything so very offensive.

Some people seem to think that the biggest catastrophe along the coast was the loss of property. What particularly scandalizes them is the possible loss of property to “looters” (as often as not people taking diapers, food, and clothing needed to survive in the dessicating saltwater environment of the flooded New Orleans basin.)

Let's be clear on one thing – Katrina's great tragedy is the tremendous loss of life. Property can and will be replaced, not just by governments but by the tremendous generosity of the many benefactors who have stepped forward. The lives lost cannot be replaced. Many of the people who died were people who did not foolishly choose to “stay behind.” These were people in many cases completely unable to leave – not by car (due to not owning one), nor by foot (New Orleans just wasn't designed for pedestrian exit.)

The city's emergency plan called for the destitute to be bussed to the convention center and the Superdome, and that's just what happened. But that doesn't do a lot of good during a city wide flood. The one thing governments at municipal, state/provincial, and federal levels are supposed to provide, even as per Libertarians, is the protection and security of the citizens and the providing of civil order. So how is it we blame the victims for the failure to provide these things? We can forgive the governments for not anticipating well enough how to handle these kinds of emergencies – but that does not need to mean transferring the blame to the victims.

The people who died had inalienable human dignity. No heartless and bitter ideologue can strip that away with miserly fantasies about shiftlessness, laziness, or racial superiority. Human dignity is not earned, and it is not proper solely to the moneyed classes. It is the property of everyone, for God grants it to everyone.

My pastor says we need to see Christ in everyone. And Christ himself said something much like this.

Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'

Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'

And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matthew 25:34-40)

My picture in the paper

I had my picture in the paper a few days ago. There was an article in the city section, a long article, about how the pastor of our church had used music to transform our church into one of the most popular parishes in the city. The article in particular focused on the music group I belong to, the "Rock the Glebe" folk group. It tells the story of how our leader was asked to set up the group nine years ago when the church had about forty five people attending it (that included us.)

The reporter got what we try to do, noting the blues, gospel, and country flavours we try to touch. A fiddler player we once had described us as bluegrass-gospel. Anyway, the photo for the article had me front and center - I started out at the back, but the photographer kept moving me up because she wanted the guitar prominently in the shot. I ended up dominating the picture, which is a bit embarrassing, since it is a group effort, and I'm not even the leader.

And the fellow who is our group's leader wasn't thrilled with how it turned out - he got misquoted. One thing I was personally gratified to learn was the reporter liked my blues guitar playing, saying it sounded like slide guitar.

I aim to please. :-)

I.... HATE.... THIS.... COMPANY... Yeargh!!!

I laughed when I read this. If you have ever seen the Steve Ballmer monkey dance video, then you will have no trouble envisioning the alleged events described in this sworn statement. Steve Ballmer, by the way, is Bill Gates' successor as CEO of Microsoft, and a passionate competitor in the business world who is known for having a sense of humour, too.

Court docs: Ballmer vowed to 'kill' Google | CNET News.com

Here's a set of links to the original dance video, if you've never seen it.

Monkey dance

Spray on skin

Spray on skin will help burn victims recover. Not as science-fictiony as it sounds, it does involve the application of skin cells by aerosol, but over a lattice constructed of skin grafts.

The advantage of it is that the repairs don't require the patient to give up equal amounts of skin from somewhere else, letting the cultured skin cells that are sprayed on do most of the work. The treatment is thought to be quite a bit less expensive than traditional treatments, which I imagine will be of considerable benefit in terms of letting your average Joe or Sally get it.

The last airborne shot is more or less where we stayed, as we were coming in to land. The picture in the woods is from our hike through the rainforest, and the raincoast shot with the fog was taken from my brother in law's houseboat (which we took out one day to explore in.)

Pictures (part ii)

The road shots are from driving north on Vancouver island, on our way to catch the float plane in Port McNeil. The air shots are from near Sointulla, a Finnish town on an island off the coast of Vancouver Island. The cruise ship in one of the shots is an Alaskan Cruise, headed north through the Queen Charlotte Sound.

What pictures I can take

These are shots from the air, over the rockies in Alberta.

Digital cameras

My sister in law has moved into the world of digital cameras. (We're here for the weekend visiting her.) She's a crack shot with a 35 mil, and had a telephoto lens on that thing that could put your eye out from ten feet away! Needless to say, she's an exceptional photographer. So it has been interesting to watch her experiment with the modern newfangled camera she was just given by her brother.

One thing she struggles with - I think all of us do - is how long it takes the picture to take after you click the shutter button. I don't think you ever get used to the latency of a digital camera. She also got caught off guard by the camera's demand to be fed new batteries every five minutes or so (an exaggeration, but only a slight one, as any of you with such a camera knows.)

But I'm sad to say that she now takes better pictures than I do, after only a couple of weeks with the thing. But then, everyone has their talents, don't they? Photography's not mine. :-)

You know...

I'm in the programming biz, so a lot of the euphoria for the new century - I didn't feel it. I had spent weeks scouring for things that might not work on January 1, 2000 - I had had everybody scouring for these things.

But when the moment came, and nothing happened, I thought to myself, what a shining new century to enter on! We've developed this amazing new technology that connects everyone, the world is on the verge of prosperity, and peace may be breaking out everywhere! (Except the middle east of course.)

The twentieth century had been a brutal one - from World War I right up to Rwanda. This new century, though - it was shaping up to being the proverbial city on the hill. Fabulous internet wealth, peace, and a clean slate. Even the terrorists and computer bugs that wanted to spoil the party had been thwarted. The 21st century would be... fabulous.

What a lemon, so far!

Angels and Demons

A lot of the focus of news coverage for the last couple of days has been on looting - graphic clips on television have shown images of men smashing windows and running off with televisions.

Of course, the television cameras are only showing what is before them. And while looting is real, bad news sells. The cable channels feel that "Escape from New Orleans" (starring Kurt Russell) is their best angle perhaps.

Don't let it fool you. Most people are decent folks. When I opened the paper this morning, the story that touched me most is this sad and heartrending one - an elderly and infirm woman and her selfless caregiver desperately trying to save her.

When order and structure collapse around us, it may bring out the worst in some of us. But I really believe it brings out the best in many more.