Stupidest thing I've ever heard of

What's the most important issue in Sudan? The humanitarian crisis? The roaming bands of Janjaweed militiamen?

Apparently not. It seems we're worried about teddy bears.

No Muslims in Romney Cabinet

Mitt Romney says, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Dude - not to put too fine a point on it - but does this not also disqualify you? Because, last time I checked, Mormons were a comparably-sized minority. And the Presidency certainly qualifies as a "cabinet position."

A Musical Blog

How far I've fallen I'll never know
I've lived in the darkness that reigns below
The power of your mercy, the strength of your grace
Lifts me up to see your face

And so it is I've fallen down
To let all my sorrows drown

The rivers of tears I'll cry for your feet
I'll dry with my hair for the times I've been weak
Let me love much, Lord, let me love deep
Abundant forgiveness for the tears that I weep

How distant I've travelled to faraway lands
Squandered my riches, let got of your hands
And so I've returned, just call me your slave
But you've jewelled my finger, this son that you save

And so it is I've fallen down
To let all my sorrows drown

The rivers of tears I'll cry for your feet
I'll dry with my hair for the times I've been weak
Let me love much, Lord, let me love deep
Abundant forgiveness for the tears that I weep

Caught in betrayal, they bring me to you
They're asking to stone me, they turn to you
And down in the sand, you write my name
You say, “Who will condemn you?”
Breaking my shame

And so it is I've fallen down
To let all my sorrows drown

The rivers of tears I'll cry for your feet
I'll dry with my hair for the times I've been weak
Let me love much, Lord, let me love deep
Abundant forgiveness for the tears that I weep

So, anyway....

...not that it's really safe for me to talk about my personal life here, anymore, lest it become someone else's personal life as well.... but I'm not going to be scared off my own blog. Dammit, my sister-in-law's passing, becoming a grandfather... all the songs I wrote, like "Finish the Kitchen" and "If Nothing Else"... that all happened to me, and I'm taking it back.

So anyway, what's going on in my world? My daughter is moving out, or rather, she's moving home. We're happy she's ditching the unhappy situation she's in. But my wife and I have some misgivings about this, of course. The elder daughter does have a habit of finding ways to get you stuck with the baby while she goes off to do her thing. That's not going to work for my wife and I, as our careers are both taking off. I'm flying to Toronto once a week on top of being short handed, and that is really draining. My wife is working 50-60 hours a week trying to keep her staffing situation together; being in management during an economic boom means lots of staffing shortages.

So becoming proxy parents is just not possible for us right now. We're going to have to draw lines with my daughter to make sure she knows she can't do that to us.

She's also addicted to WarCraft, and will have designs on our Internet access.... to that I say, no way. My younger daughter and I do a lot of our socializing and networking online, and we should not have to give up the access levels we've gotten used to, particularly not with how much my daughter plays.

My stand on it is this: glad you're getting out, but I'm the grandpa, not the Dad. I've done this all already, and I'm not willing to do it all over again - not full time like a father has to. I like my life and the freedoms that have crept into that life with age, and I don't feel I have to let them be disrupted. That may sound selfish, but it is also not in a way; my daughter needs to learn that this is her life now, she's an adult, and we can't carry her now.

How to Defend Against Splogging

Here's a helpful link that tells you how to keep Sploggers at bay.

http://www.blogherald.com/2007/06/25/the-20-best-free-anti-plagiarism-tools/

I haven't quite figured out how to handle mine yet. First things first will be to put a Creative Commons license notice up on my site.

How distressing Content Theft can be

It is with a sense of both wonder, fear, and repulsion that I wandered through post after post that I had written about my life and my thoughts. I couldn't help but say, "Cool!!", a few times - I'm ashamed to admit. It turns out I have had a lot more readers than I thought I did! Many, many more.

But then, it isn't my life is it? I'd tell myself as I would sometimes see certain key details altered. My wife was now my "girlfriend", or sometimes a deceased "first wife" (the real me has only been married this once.) My locale was shifted out of Ottawa, and reset in a faraway place I have yet to go. And my story was intermixed with other stories that are not mine, as well as pictures of faraway people that my tales do not describe. I felt like a giant amoeba had vacuumed me up, subsuming parts of my personality, just like deer meat often tastes like Juniper berries.

I've always been generous with what I have. I post my music on music sites, and don't restrict downloads or charge for them. I Creative Commons license almost all of it. I didn't think I even had to license the content of Leave the Light On - since nobody reads it, who would steal it?

What floored me the most about this site which took and re-fashioned my words is that sometimes "I" would be challenged on some of "my" views, particularly in "my" theological posts. And then "I" would jump in with a response and clarification!! It is like running into my own pod person, and watching as my pod person engages other people on my behalf, sometimes getting it right, sometimes right.... and all the while, there I am silently screaming, "But this isn't me!!" This alternate me in one comment even described my guitar style at the music store!

(By the way, I am actually an expert guitar player, other me... and you probably got that one wrong.)

Here it comes

Winter that is!



To anyone in the US who is reading, Happy Thanksgiving!

Fish girl

My granddaughter sees her first fish tank. We went out to dinner for my birthday a week ago, and she kept rushing over to the fish tank to check out the interesting goings on inside the water. It probably helps that there were two clownfish and a blue tang, just like Marlin, Nemo, and Dory.

My wife got me this camera with which I took this picture. It takes video, too, which I am very happy about.

Goodbye for Robert

Mindful of my own belief that people must be remembered primarily as people, and not victims, I will let Robert Dziekanski have the last word.

"Ludzie staja sie dobrzy poprzez praktykowanie dobroci, rzadko sie zdarza czlowiek dobry z natury. Dobroc istnieje wcale nie po to by z niej korzystac. Dobroc nie moze wyplywac ze slabosci tylko z potegi."

"People become good by doing good; it is rare that a person is good by nature alone.

Goodness does not exist so one can make use of it. Goodness does not flow from a place of weakness but one of power."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=968afa27-6404-4718-acb0-1d3ee17656ae

No mercy

A month ago, a man boarded a flight to Vancouver from Poland. Robert Dziekanski, a construction worker, was on his way to his new life in Canada with his mother, who had spent years saving to bring her only son to live with her, where they would go into business together after he learned how to speak English.

He never made it.

After disembarking, he got lost in the airport; not speaking English, he did not know what to do, and ended up stuck in the secure baggage terminal where he stayed for over ten hours. Getting agitated that nobody was coming to help him and get him out of his Plexiglas prison, he got upset and tried to prop a sliding door open with some chairs. Perhaps as a plea for help, he picked up an electronic terminal and threw it. A woman spoke to him, trying to calm him down, but nobody nearby spoke Polish. In fact, as the police arrived, an airport worker repeatedly told the approaching RCMP that, "He speaks Russian, no English."

"How are you sir," as the police, all business rapidly approached him. "Policia, policia", he said, hoping perhaps they could help him. Staring uncomprehendingly at him for a few seconds, he turned away frustrated that even they could not help him. He walked over to the Plexiglas wall, picking up an ordinary office stapler on his way, and turned to find the police had semi-circled him, surrounding him beside the wall. In Polish, he said something to them loudly, but didn't get to finish his sentence.

Instead, one of the officers had pulled and fired a taser at him. "Shrieking in pain he staggered forward, and then fell on the ground as another taser crack split the air. Looking like a sick parody of a break dance, he writhes on the ground screaming in agony. Four police officers kneel on him. He shakes and screams some more while the officers hold him down like some sort of tranquilized rhino. Someone shouts, "Hit him again," but it wouldn't be necessary. The screams slow, and the shaking stops.

So does his heart. Robert Dziekanski lies dead on the floor, never allowed to set foot inside his new country.

And I am ashamed to be Canadian. We all failed him - the people who could have welcomed him off the plane, or let his mother find him, the airport staff who seemed think he's some crazy Russian and could have easily figured out from the arrivals who he was and where he was from, and the police who seemed to be in too much of a hurry to settle things. We all failed him.

is this how we will be welcoming our Vancouver 2010 guests?

Do you want to win the war on terror?

Bill O'Reilly's asked this before, and I guess is not happy that it's come up in a new Meryl Streep film.

The obvious answer to the question "Do you want to win the war on terror" is of course, a "hell yes!" But it is easy to forget that the "war on terror" is a marketing term, a way of understanding a specific problem and the multi-pronged approach we take to solving it through law enforcement, diplomacy, peace keeping, and yes, if needed military action.

It is an easy motherhood issue to say "Yes" to something as innocuous as, "Do you want to win the war on terror?" But the O'Reillys of the world want something more: they want affirmation and approval of the current government approach to it; acting as an agent of the current political status quo, this question is designed to solicit approval and endorsement of the current strategy the government uses to counter terrorism.

And no, I'm not prepared to fully give that; neither am I fully prepared to withhold it. I decide for myself, based on common sense and reason, what I think are the supportable techniques to be used against terrorism.

I can even itemize it as a shopping list:

For:

• NATO, US, and Canadian forces in Afghanistan - this, after all, is the country where the terrorists were, and where their state sponsors are still fighting to regain power.
• Increased funding for CSIS, RCMP, and National Defence, as well as emergency preparedness programs.

Against:

• Security Certificates, at least as currently designed: far too arbitrary for my tastes, too easily allows non-Canadians to be subject to unlimited detention at the arbitrary whims of non-judicial officials.
• Any involvement in Iraq.

...now of course, I could go into a lot more detail, and I only note the above just to say that I have a point of view.

But suffice it to say that I disapprove of meaningless generalities designed to coopt broad approval for a specific party or ideology's politics. And I'm sick of ideologies, and I am tired of politics, to tell you the truth. Do I want to lose the war on terror? No. Do I want you to ask me inane questions designed to make specific political brands look good? Also no.

We'd all do better discussing the details, and not "gotcha" litmus tests.