George's Window

Mousetraps and Ipads

2012-01-29T07:41:00.000-08:00

We recently detected evidence of a mouse in our garage. I went immediately to the hardware store and bought a couple of mousetraps and noted that they looked and operated exactly as mousetraps did when I was a kid some sixty years ago. (I’m 70; bite me!) Somewhere out there, there’s a company that’s been able to manufacture the same wood and wire mousetrap for, lo, these sixty years with virtually no R & D and no appreciable embellishment of the product.

Of course there were other traps for sale, one apparently designed to resemble crocodile jaws with menacing steel teeth. I opted for the tried and true wood and wire one.

Last Monday morning, the talk on CBC News World focused on RIM’s change of chair and CEO. The focus was on the stock market reaction to the news. It got me thinking about the entire picture in the computer/cell phone/tablet market these days and, obviously, to compare it to the lowly mousetrap. Seems you can get away with producing the same old wood and wire mousetrap year after year and be successful—even without advertising—but that doesn’t hold true in the tiny tech industries. Subtle changes to whatever worked before, accompanied by massive PR, seems to be the only way to prosper when it comes to computers/cell phones/tablets.

Here’s a statement you’re never likely to hear: “My dad used this tablet to do his email when he was a kid, and it’s still working great!”

A mousetrap my grandfather used, however, might well fill the bill for annihilating that one mouse in the garage.

I’m a moderate consumer of technology, but a bit of a sucker for the slick, new devices that can do almost unimaginable tricks to make a one-minute job take only 50 seconds. In my office you’ll find a desktop computer with a terabyte of memory, a laptop, a Blackberry Playbook (manufactured by the struggling RIM), a laser and an inkjet printer, two scanners (one of which reads receipts and shunts them into pre-organized virtual file folders) and, of course, the telephone with caller-ID. I could pretty much spend the whole day playing with these toys without getting a lick of meaningful work done.

The cornerstone of the capitalist market is the manufacturing of needs in order to stimulate consumption. I didn’t invent this observation, of course, but I have to remind myself of it from time to time, and so I’ve been amused recently by the patently contradictory messages of economic pundits in the news:

a) consumer debt is getting out of hand and individuals and families need to save and draw down their debt. Meanwhile

b) “consumer confidence” (euphemism for unrestrained shopping) has to rise in order for the economy to bounce back.

So, to be a good citizen, I should save 10% of my income monthly, but in order to help the economy, I should buy a new car, the down payment for which I’d have to borrow because of the saving thing, but I need to draw down my debt, so I should keep the old car and walk if it gives out. Or should I use the 10% I saved to make the down payment on a new car, thereby boosting the economy?

It’s not surprising that the average citizen is confused on this subject.

While you’re pondering that, consider a way to get rich in this mad, mad, Kevin O’Leary world: invent a wood (oak) and wire (stainless steel) mousetrap in a choice of green, pink or beige with a built in chip which triggers a message (“Got the little b*****d”) on your TV screen when the jaws snap down on the victim out there in the garage.

Of course, everyone would soon be producing a variation of this Cadillac of mousetraps, so massive advertising would be required. (I visualize a model that plays “Abide with Me” to accompany the mouse to the pearly gates.)

. . . I got the mouse, by the way, and now I suffer from cognitive dissonance produced by the simultaneous existence of my abhorrence of killing and the fact of having murdered a mouse. That’s not unique to this event or this time; I have to re-convince myself that meat grows on trees before lacing into a steak.

Would that the corporate world had at least a similar conscience about their role in dumbing down our world . . . even further.

Higg's Boson meets Peter Rabbit

2012-01-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

Sweating the really small stuff in the 'Peg

While visiting family yesterday, our sister-in-law showed us a comical essay on the word “up.” I suggested to Agnes that she email it to herself so we could have it, and she did. Her brother said, “I’m still amazed that you can, with a few key strokes, take a piece of information here in the countryside and place it on your computer far away. I mean, how does it get there?” and he waved a hand toward the ether.

I, too, stand amazed.

On average, our concepts of the world of quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) are probably comparable to a rabbit’s concept of parliamentary democracy. Unless you’re a physicist, that is, in which case your visualization of QED might be compared to the young rabbit’s concept of snow: the “what,” the “why” and the “how” are still mysterious; the nature and effects, however, are becoming clearer by the minute.

Over generations, we’ll gradually come to be more conversant with the world of photons, quarks, leptons, neutrinos and all those other hadrons that mean little to us now.

What is probably even more difficult for us to grasp today, though, is the vista of possibilities that familiarity with the basic workings of the universe may open up. The idea that mass could be converted to waves, transported at the speed of light and reconstituted as mass again puts a whole new light on time and distance. (A tantalizing dream this, but it may be through QED that some will come closer to embracing the possibility of a non-material soul, life that is never ending and the possibility of places that are not evident in any physical exploration of the universe: heaven comes to mind. Not to mention intuition, second sight, a fourth dimension and—shudder—even demons, ghosts!)

Early discoveries in the area of quantum mechanics were also incomprehensible before their time; how could a voice possibly be transmitted for miles over a wire?? A technology so very simple by today’s standards was, in fact, an accidental stumbling on some principles of QED. A next step was exemplified by Marconi’s famous trans-Atlantic radio transmission. How can a voice be transmitted without even a wire when no apparent physical material is passed from A to B?? And then television pictures, cell phones, etc., etc. And now: how can entire books complete with illustrations be transported through space and appear in an intact—although still virtual—form, nanoseconds later, on the other side of the world??

How far away are we from the transportation of the actual physical book with such speed and integrity? Who knows? I’m sure many would say that such a thing is impossible, but that might be an overly-hasty response. That a heavier-than-air machine could fly was until recently—as long-time goes—considered a patent absurdity.

I am currently 800 kilometres from home and it was –25^oC when we arrived in Winnipeg, and the drive here and home takes 9 hours each way and the price of fossil fuel is $1.11. I would relish the idea of being converted to my waveform in some phone booth-like apparatus and momentarily rematerializing in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, hopefully with my head still right-side-up on top of my neck and my arms and feet in their proper places.

Hello, Higg’s Boson! Hello neutrinos that travel faster than light (maybe; the jury’s still pondering)!

I can virtually hear you raising your eyebrows.

Skeptic! Ludite!

Say "Hello!" to Higg's Boson

2012-01-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

Grandpa's Basic Building Blocks of the Universe

Basic Building Block of the Universe - 1960 High School Text

Basic Building Block of the Universe - 2005 -highly simplified

A man walks into a church while the priest is greetingcommunicants arriving for Mass. “I welcome you here, but I don’t remember you,”says the priest.

“I’m Higgs Boson,” says theman, “and you don’t remember me because I’ve always been invisible until now.”

The priest smiles to himselfand says, “Invisible or no, I assume you’ve always been a good Catholic?”

Boson smiles and says, “I’meverything and everywhere, Catholic included.”

The priest frowns and says,“Well I’m not sure if you’re welcome if you’re that undecided . . . denominationally, I mean!”

“Oh,but you have no choice,” says Higgs. “Without me you can’t have mass!”

This “joke,” adapted from the internet, wouldn’t havemeant anything to me if I hadn’t read Frank Close’s The Infinity Puzzle or recently heard Bob McDonald explain on theCBC News that the Hadron Collider in Switzerland was on the verge of provingthe existence of the so-called “Higg’s Boson.” It’s all part of Quantum Physics'struggle to break the universe down to its smallest, most basic components andtheir interactions, thereby establishing once-and-for-all, a theory of everything.

I doubt that anyone couldexplain all this to me in so simple a form that I would be able to say, “Oh, Iget it now!” The need for the existence of a Higg’s Boson was worked outmathematically on a blackboard by physicists; the Hadron Collider is designedto accommodate experiments which prove or disprove what has been theorized.

TheHigg’s Boson is often called “The God particle,” especially by the media.Simply put, the Higg’s Boson is theorized to enable bundles of energy toacquire mass . . . become matter, if you will. (Do you get the pun now? Silly,isn’t it.) Without its effects, the molecules that form the rocks and the soil,the vegetation and the animal and human life on earth, the stars and theplanets, would not exist, so the theory goes.

Thetechnique for finding Higg’s Boson is simple; you fire streams of protons athigh speed so they collide and disintegrate, and then you examine the pieces tofind what the composition was. It’s a lot like figuring out what’s wrong with acertain model of car by colliding two of them at top speed and sorting throughthe debris!

Whatdoes it mean for you and me? Besides determining who wins the next Nobel Prizefor Physics (for which there is fierce competition!), not much. Even thestrictest creationist should see that the Higg’s Boson—if it exists—has alwaysexisted and that the God of Creation is also God of the Higg’s Boson, whichmay—if it exists—be comfortably seen as one important tool in making possiblethe miracles of life, love and human consciousness.

Butthere’ll be more rhetoric coming out around this. Already, the internet isfilling up with it; many of its participants obviously knowing little about thesubject.

There is no competitionbetween Science and God. Discovering and describing how the universe works hasalways been a part of human nature; when it gets more complicated than the crossbreeding of plants to produce more food, however, we sometimes feel threatened andbecome defensive.

We should get over it!

Pipeline, Anyone??

2012-01-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

Historical CNR Caboose.

Far be it from me to say the two are the same . . . but:

Tuesday’s news highlighted:

1) President Assad’s defiantspeech to the Syrian people and the world, and

2) the Canadian government’sstatements regarding the mass of people registered to intervene at the openingof hearings on the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta toKitimat, BC.

Not the same, of course, but both news items bear oneeerie similarity. In both cases, the entities in power applied the ad hominem argument to their opponents,a tactic that has been historically typical of tyrannies but hardly becomes theleadership of a democracy.

It’salways a temptation in a debate—especially when truth is not firmly on yourside—to bolster your chances by denigrating the opposition. President Assad andthe Harper government both fell prey to this temptation yesterday and labelledtheir oppositions as:

a) being a uniform pack ofagitators, and

b) supported by foreigninterests.

The first assertion is an attempt to make the oppositionappear to be an ignorant and/or malevolent mob, the latter an appeal to thenationalist sentiment in the population.

Neither addresses the meritsor demerits of the argument.

Perhaps both Harper and Assad can beforgiven; the temptation to label and homogenize our opponents is deeplyembedded in all of us. We practice it in our education systems, in ourchurches, in our municipal and provincial politics (especially at electiontime), even in our families. It is, after all, far simpler than the hard workof open, honest negotiation and reasoned debate. It raises its ugly head infamilies, for instance, when an exasperated father tells his son, “You’re nothingbut a little thief,” when the son borrows a tool without asking and leaves itout in the rain. It shows itself in churches when people are grouped andlabelled on the basis of differing interpretations of the faith. It’s implicitin party politics and the labels that attach to proponents of one viewpoint orthe other.

“Anad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to theperson"), short for argumentumad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointingout a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it. Ad hominem reasoning is normallydescribed as a logical fallacy.” (Wikipedia)

The government of Canada is convinced that the economicbenefit to the country of being able to ship volumes of oil-sands oil to theOrient outweighs the danger of accidents and the compromising of the naturalworld that accompanies any project of this magnitude. The Aboriginal nationsalong its route see the pipeline as yet another infringement on theirterritories and their traditional way of life, besides being environmentallyvery risky.

These are major considerations. They need to be weighedsoberly and respectfully.

Our government’s adhominem intrusion into the atmosphere of the hearings before they even getstarted is inconsistent with the ideals of democracy.

Assad’s, on the other hand, is simply an affront to allthat is reasoned, noble and generous in the human spirit.

2011-12-31T09:36:00.000-08:00

A memory of summer

Our new town hall

Happy New Year!

It’s my lot to preach the sermon at the Horse LakeMennonite Church on New Year’s Day. I’ve decided to use the allegory of The Wizard of Oz alongside variousBiblical references as the medium for making the case that we don’t need new “stuff”nearly as much as we need a renewal of wisdom, courage and heart in order tomake 2012 a more victorious enterprise than 2011. If you’ve read the novellately (which isn’t likely) you’ll know that three characters accompany Dorothyto the Wizard in the hope that he’ll grant them what they lack. The cowardlylion wants courage, the tin woodsman needs heart and the scarecrow lacksbrains.

Inshort, I’ll pursue the point that a new commitment to courage, heart and wisdomis what we ought to be seeking in the New Year; we and the world are going toneed it.

Ifyou want to read the whole sermon on this New Year’s Day, just go back to theemail that pointed you here and open the attachment.

Otherwise,simply acknowledge my wish for you all, that in 2012 you are granted the wisdomto make good choices, the heart to feel joy and sorrow in a new way and thecourage to go where your wisdom and your heart tell you. Happy New Year!

Kananaskis Christmas

2011-12-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

Kananaskis Country - Courtesy James Bernier

Consorting with the Reindeer - Courtesy James Bernier

Christmas Eve. Outside our window in the Delta Lodge in Kananaskis, a child is being photographed against a background of penned reindeer under the watchful eye of a six-foot elf. Santa is nowhere to be seen but I presume these reindeer are not HIS reindeer since getting them to fly to the North Pole before nightfall would be difficult.

Beyond the pen of reindeer and a spruce forest, a jagged mountain peak rises into a dark cloud; they say there’ll be snow tomorrow.

This is a great place to be; a comfortable lodge that welcomes kids and dogs, both of which have the run of the place. (Not quite true, actually; the dogs are on leashes.) We’ve met people for whom coming to Kananaskis for Christmas has become a longstanding tradition. A huge hot tub—half inside and half outside—is great just before bed. Cross-country skiing is not great; it’s too warm and the trails are icy. Luckily, we had no intention of skiing anyway. Earlier, we hiked past an outdoor rink where a rollicking hockey game was in progress, a skating oval just behind the lodge is busy all day and into the evening.

I remember Christmas in 1987 when Agnes and I took the train up to Oberammergau as a diversion from the emptiness of a Christmas far from home. It was like this place, this year: mountains in the background, snow melting in unseasonably warm temperatures, plenty of time and places to take long walks and marvel at the views. We’ve gone to Jasper for Christmas since, as well as to the spa in Moose Jaw. Seems being somewhere that’s not home is becoming a tradition for us. I wonder why that is.

In my experience, it’s not possible to “recreate,” to rejuvenate without leaving home. The old adage, out of sight, out of mind, applies here; everything you see, do and experience at home is a reminder of any stresses from which relief is wanted. The reindeer outside my window are no stressors whatsoever, especially now at five o’clock when they’ve nearly disappeared into the early dusk.

The upshot: you must go home for Christmas, and then you must go away. That, of course, makes no sense whatever.

I don’t know how you describe your experience of Christmas. I don’t mean when you were a kid and couldn’t wait to open your presents. I mean now, when you’ve passed all that, when you’ve long since ceased anticipating Santa Claus. For me, it’s become a much-needed sabbatical at exactly the right time of year, when the shortness of the days, the length of the nights threaten to dampen the spirit.

And it’s in this vein that I wish you all a wonderful, sabbatical Christmas with opportunity aplenty to put your tools and your anxieties aside for a few days, and to refresh your relationship with those you love, and with the vision we follow. The vision of which Christmas should be a reminder but, alas, is often more of a distraction.

Merry Christmas anyway, and a Happy New Year!

And now, it’s Christmas morning. The first cup of coffee is sweet. At 10:00, the hotel will lay on an enormous brunch buffet for us in the Olympic Ballroom and tonight, a “Traditional Christmas Dinner.” I’m guessing . . . oh, turkey? After which the elves from Ontario, Australia, Great Britain, the Maritimes—the young folk who have followed some private dream to the mountains of Canada—will clean up after us.

There certainly is that to be said for Christmas away!

Have a great day, wherever you are.

For I am involved . . .

2011-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

"Full fathom five thy father lies . . ."

EMC Cemetery on Highway 312

A host of good friends came over a few days ago tocelebrate—or mourn—my passage of the three-score-and-ten millstone . . . er,milestone. It was a great party with enough gag gifts and cards and just asmany of the warm, well-wishing kind to melt anyone’s heart, even that of a70-year old curmudgeon (which, I suspect, doesn’t truthfully describe me). Afriend reminded me that it wasn’t a significant date at all; that I’d actuallybegun my 70^th year a year ago. The jury is still out on whether ornot that’s a distinction without a difference. A card I received said “Age is just a number . . .” and inside“. . . and yours happens to be a prettybig one!”

MyBlackberry Playbook told me the very next morning that Christopher Hitchens,renowned journalist, polemicist and irritating anti-religionist, had died of esophageal cancer at age 62. (It might be fair to say that he smoked himselfto death—his consumption of cigarettes was said to peak at 130 per day.) Youmay know Hitchens from his best-selling diatribe against all religion: God is not Great, published in 2007.

Oneday later, an acquaintance and sister of a near neighbour died peacefully at104. Her very last thought—her sister told me—was about the imminent reunionwith her mother.

It’sbeen a week of passages and numbers and conversations about passages and numbers.

I’mcurrently reading the diary of Jacob Klaassen, early minister in the EigenheimMennonite Church, and I’m learning from him what thoughts were raised bypassages experienced in the 1920s. In my last reading, his good friend andbrother-in-law, David Toews, survives a house fire in which his four year-olddaughter dies; a teenage boy dies on the operating table in Rosthern from anoverdose of chloroform and a man in Neuanlage is killed in a threshingaccident. Jacob Klaassen mourns these deaths with understated poignancy, andusually adds something like a quotation from Psalm 39:4: “Show me, LORD, mylife’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.”

Thereare echoes in Klaassen’s diary of John Donne’s “Meditation 17” in Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, laterpublished as the poem, “No Man is an Island.”

Each man's death diminishesme,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Thenthere’s that other view of death from the pen of William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar: Caesar: "Cowards die many times before theirdeaths / The valiant never taste of death but once." Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37).In other words; why should the fear and anticipation of old age and death characterizeus? Death will come when it will come. Interestingly, Shakespeare’s charactersleaned toward predestination, both in the inevitability and the timing ofsignificant events.

Ibelieve more in the significance of influences around us and their effects oncritical constructions in our minds: more simply put, if my experiences and thoughtscircle increasingly around aging and death, I can easily come to see the worldas characterized by aging and death. The reverse, of course, is also true: if Iremain fixed as much as possible on deliberate, ongoing participation in theevents of the world, that will be the world view for which I will be known and bywhich I will continue to know myself. But as a TV ad says: “Good luck withthat.”

Don’t retire; retool. Theuniverse exists in your head.

Next week, I hope we can all joyfullyget on with it, whatever “it” is, as another ad says.

What the Sam's Hill is going on??

2011-12-10T06:03:00.001-08:00

So how are my stalks doing today?

I know numerous people who cultivate soil, seedvegetables or grain, nurture the crop they’ve planted and harvest the results.They trade their potatoes, tomatoes, wheat or canola for cash and the buyers arefed and the grower is able to feed and clothe his/her family. It’s a happyexchange. Everybody benefits. It’s how economies are supposed to look.

Ialso know a few people who spend a great deal of time at their computers,following the current value of investment packages, hoping to enrich themselvesby selling stocks, bonds, derivatives, gold, foreign currency etc. at a higherprice than they paid for them. Their activity produces nothing useful to theirneighbours while having the power—given any crisis that leads to panicsell-offs—to bring an economy to its knees, including the crippling of growers’and consumers’ legitimate ability to trade for food in a workable manner. It’s whatan economy should NOT look like.

What the Sam's Hill is going on?!?

Giventhe news of economic doom and gloom in the USA and Europe with which we’re being bombarded daily, I’ve tried to understand some of the underlyingprinciples at work here. I began with derivatives,a word one hears constantly but only speculators generally understand. It workssomething like this:

Afarmer plants, say, 100 acres of lentils but he can’t be sure that hail, earlyfrosts, pests or drought won’t mean that the crop will fail. So to reduce therisk of loss, he finds a speculator who agrees to pay him, say, $15,000 forthat crop on October 1, whatever crop comes to fruition. They sign a paper tothat effect.

Now suppose that this samespeculator makes similar deals with 100 other farmers, betting that the canolacrops will come in at a higher value than the derivative agreements he has made. The speculator is assuming anawesome risk; if the crops are all wiped out by disease, he’s bankrupt. Ifthere’s a bumper crop, he’ll be an overnight millionaire, of course. To reduceHIS risk, he packages up the agreements and finds other speculators willing tobet on a good crop. He sells bundles of derivativesto these new speculators for the equivalent of, say, $16,000 per 100 acres sothat should some of the crop fail, his losses will be minimized.

There’spotentially no end to the ways derivatives can be repackaged and resold. Whathas been erected here, however, is a house of cards. Follow the bouncing ball:if all the canola crops in question should fail, the individual farmers willcall in their $15,000 per 100 acre payments; but in order to meet that payment,the buyer of the farmers’ derivativeswill need to collect from those to whom he has sold them and so on up thechain. But there is no crop for anyone to resell, and so the chance that paymentwill actually work its way down the chain to the farmyard is minimal, dependingon the final holder of the derivatives. No one up and down the chain is requiredto back up his purchases of derivativeswith actual money! The house of cards collapses, naturally.

Inthe USA, the “lentil crop” consisted of bundles of below-prime mortgageagreements that “got hailed out” because thousands upon thousands of mortgageholders defaulted. We all know what the fallout looked like: banks facedfailure, companies dealing in the derivative market went belly up and taxpayershad to rescue American banking institutions lest the very core of the financialsystem should be forced into receivership.

Areal, smoothly-working economy would have eliminated speculation entirely,either by prohibiting it or taxing it to the point where it becomes uninviting.

But it’shard to imagine how that could happen. We are so attuned to the gambling temperamentby now that eliminating the prospect of unearned, windfall rewards in themarketplace would kill investment outright and quickly. And once you’ve decidedto live in a casino, you apparently have to play by the rules of the casino.

Pity.

My house is a very fine house . . .

2011-12-04T06:13:00.001-08:00

"My house is a very fine house, with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard . . ."

At home in Attawapiskat . . . courtesy CBC.ca

So it begins again, the political debates about whyconditions are so bad on some reserves that other countries are offering tosend aid . . . to Canada, and who’s to blame, what might constitute a solutionto the problem of poverty in places like Attawapiskat, etc., etc. The situationin Attawapiskat is summarized by Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay inthe Huffington Post, Politics Blog:

Within a day, the media coverage turned from humanitarian relief to afull out national exercise in a forensic investigation of the behavior of adesperately poor community. Where did the money go? Why was the Band hiding itsfinances? Why, questioned one reporter on national television, was such a poorcommunity even "allowed" to have a hockey arena?

It did little to explain that the Band's financialstatements were posted online. Or to point out that $50,000 per persondivided over six years, works out to about $8,300 per person per year, lessthan 50% of what is spent on Non-Native people. Or that 80% of this funding isallocated for education, 10% for social programs, leaving a paltry 10% tomaintain housing and deal with infrastructure.

All of this could be explained, but as oneveteran politico used to tell me, "in politics when you're 'splaining,you're losing." (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/charlie-angus/attawapiskat-reserve_b_1126595.html#s487209)

Charlie Angus, of course, is biased against the currentHarper Government; it’s the nature of our political setup where thefirst-past-the-post party gets to govern and the rest get to oppose. The resulthistorically has been that a raucous PR battle ensues, stories likeAttawapiskat are spun left by one party, right by another until everyone hastired himself out, emergency help is given and the same-old practices are leftin place to prepare the next disaster.

But “havingsaid that,” it strikes me as unconscionable that our Prime Minister would jumpso quickly to the feeding of old prejudices. An elderly lady in the localnursing home said something like this to me: “Those Indians just want us to payand pay them all the time.” This is the sentiment that Harper’s questioning: “Whatdid they do with all the money we gave them?” reawakened in many people. Nevermind that for the lady in question, government Old Age Security and supplementsprovide her with more than double the average annual amount governmentexpenditures provided to each Attawapiskat citizen.

Thequestion all of us Canadians should be pondering is the nature of our treaty relationshipto Canada’s Aboriginal people . . . today. Successive governments have failedto address these matters in a manner that provides a broad understanding of thesignificance of treaty relationships. It’snot surprising that non-Aboriginal Canadians are prone to making uninformed,erroneous judgments about situations like Attawapiskat, in this case that the 90million dollar figure Harper put out there was a gift, that it was charityoffered out of the goodness of our hearts, and that it was wasted.

MikeHolmes, the TV home inspection guru, recently described the housing provided onreserves as “junk.” I’ve lived on and around reserves enough to know that thisis an apt description. Reserve housing is typically mass-produced on the cheapand along with the water, sewer and power infrastructure failures, conditionsthat wouldn’t be tolerated in the rest of the country are allowed to persist. It’sjust one more way of telling children growing up in places like Attawapiskatthat they don’t really matter that much.

Something is rotten in the state of ~~Denmark~~ Canada.

"The law is . . . a bachelor"

2011-11-26T06:43:00.001-08:00

Still life

Gare de Jasper

Yet another expert on the TV news yesterday shared an opinion: that bullying should be made a hate crime, in this case. She undoubtedly has a point;hate crimes relate not so much to the holding of hateful opinions as to theinstigation of hatred in others. Public taunting is clearly a deliberate effortat besmirching someone’s reputation broadly, whether it be with a clique on theplayground or attendees at a political rally, hockey game, demonstration, indeed,any event where others can overhear the taunt.

Lawsregarding slander and libel could be applied and the designation, “bullying”dropped. Given that there’s a mile of difference between slander perpetrated byan adult or by a 10-year old in a playground, the crime is the same: one person’schances in life are diminished as the result of a deliberate attack by anotherperson.

Furthermore,the law must judge—in cases of slander and libel—whether the attack wasdeserved or not: if you steal my cow and I publicly announce that you’re athief, no slander has been committed. The question of deserved or not becomesextremely murky with the taunting that typically occurs on a playground: “faggot”refers to same-sex orientation, but it’s a pejorative just like “nigger”, and acase could be made that no such put-down expression is ever deserved, in thelegal OR moral sense.

(Ihave, by the way, tried to work out the etymology of “faggot” as it’s usedtoday—without success. In older English, a faggot is a piece of firewood and Ispeculate that when burning was a standard procedure for doing away withheretics, witches and homosexuals, calling someone a piece of firewood wastantamount to indicating that they were deservedly headed for the bonfire.)

Ihold out little hope that elevating bullying to “hate-crime” status would make muchdifference. There is something animalistic and visceral in the expression ofhatred and vengeance, and the cure has to be sought somewhere else.

InDickens’ Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble istold by the magistrate that he is responsible for the actions of his wife. Hereplies—famously—that: “If the law supposes that . . . the law is a ass—aidiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst Iwish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

I’msure there are thousands of good teachers out there who would say that if thelaw thinks it can effect better relationships on the playground through harshertreatment of offenders, then “the law is a ass—a idiot.”

HaveI just committed a libel by denigrating members of the legal system, in writing?

You be the judge.

Crime, Punishment and the "Occupy Movement"

2011-11-20T06:12:00.001-08:00

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true . . .

John Cabot - Cape Bonavista

I must go down to the sea today . . .

During the 1860s, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky workedon and published material that would later be collected into the novelcalled Crime and Punishment. By today’s standards, it’s a flawed novel thatwould have to be heavily edited to become publishable; speeches that go on forpage after page, for instance, along with the tendency to wander off into plottangents and to give near-irrelevancies as much weight as the crucial.

Rereadingit this week, however, I was impressed by the parallels in its dominant motifs to events of the present. Simplified, Crimeand Punishment revolves around the central theme of the nature andboundaries of human morality. Itscentral characters fall into three categories: evil reprobates (Luzhin), themorally upright (Razumikhin) and, thirdly, the key characters who by choice ornecessity, are caught between the two poles (Raskalnikov, Sonya, Dounia).

Central to this latter group,of course, is Raskalnikov, who as a student contemplated the nature of crime,and tentatively concluded that laws relating to moral actions are applied only to“ordinary” people, while a layer of “extraordinary” people are exempt. Inconjunction with this “theory,” he postulated in an essay he wrote thatmorality is relative, i.e. that to murder can be justified by the good itachieves.

There existed a number ofprotest movements in Russia in the mid to late 1800s, including a UtopianSocialist movement (that undoubtedly became the germ of Soviet socialism), anarchist gangs and nihilist groups to name afew. All were expressions of discontent with the state of affairs in thecountry, a country of extreme wealth alongside abject poverty, of the “poor man’snihilism”—drunkenness.

The “Occupy” movement as weare witnessing it is a protest against the state of affairs in North Americatoday. Unfocussed and ad hoc as it may be, politicians and corporations maywell ignore or dismiss it at their peril. The rage felt by many as a result ofeconomic collapse and the resulting loss of jobs, foreclosures, etc. hasn’tfound clear goals yet, but the anger is not gone just because the tents are.

Although they may not havediscovered it yet, participants in the Occupy movement are protesting amorality that condones crimes in the “extraordinary” while punishing the “ordinary,”and perpetrates the notion that the end justifies the means, even when the means requires that thousands will diein phony wars, that millions will be reduced to poverty because the “extraordinary”have been greedy beyond what countries’ economies will bear. They’re protesting the fact that the “ordinary”must pay for the immoral acts of the “extraordinary.” They’re protesting that apetty thief can be thrown in jail while Bush and Cheney and the oil barons areexcused.

Canada is preparing itself forthe onslaught by building more jails to house the rebelling “ordinary.”

We are led by anextraordinary prime minister; his foresight is amazing.

It’s, in part, what Crime and Punishment is about.

There really is nothing newunder the sun.

Crime and Punishment

2011-11-13T06:17:00.001-08:00

Erst muss Ordnung sein

Speaking of Bark . . .

I’m sure that the set of motive/opportunity circumstances for pretty muchevery crime is unique, so it’s somewhat foolish to talk about crime as if itwere one thing. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crimeand Punishment, Raskalnikov—a student who has had to quit lessons becausehe has no money—lives in a garret and while feverishly ill, is tortured by theinjustice of his situation and resentful of the old woman who holds all hisformer valuables in pawn. In this condition, he first dreams about and thenpremeditates her brutal murder and robbery, which he then carries outmethodically.

Exceptfor one thing. The old woman’s daughter walks in on his crime and he sees noway out but to crack open her skull with his axe. So confused, guilty andagitated is he by this time that he botches the robbery in his attempt to fleeand ends up with little except his guilt to take home with him.

That,in short, is the anatomy of one crime, albeit fictitious.

I seeno authentic way to equate Raskalnikov’s crime to those of Clifford Olsen,Robert Pickton . . . or Osama BinLaden, for that matter, except that all four knew that the consequences fortheir crimes—if apprehended—would be enormous. None of the above, it seems,were deterred either by the prospect of a life of remorse and guilt or thepossibility that they might well be executed or imprisoned-for-life for what theyhad done.

Slowlybut surely, Canada is allowing the Harper government to pull us back to medievalconcepts of crime and punishment, namely, if thirty lashes won’t detercriminals from committing crimes, then let’s see how they like sixty lashes! Ican only assume that both Stephen Harper and Vic Toews are aware that the crimebill they’re championing will be both futile and expensive. The obviousconclusion is that they have also discovered that 39% of the population isenough to win a majority and that with law and order, jet fighter andeconomy-before-environment policies, they can be assured of 39% of the vote, noproblem.

Ifthere is a key to solving problems of crime, terrorism and environmentaldegradation, it is surely in the area of prevention, not retribution.

Mindyou, prevention wouldn’t be cheap either. For instance, we know that a combination of poverty-amidst-wealth alongside exclusion breeds high crime rates,relatively speaking. Raskalnikov’s crime was hatched in the futility of povertywithout prospects. Bullying in schools is symptomatic of the competitive andexploitative, them-and-us environment inwhich our children are raised. Tackling realities like those makes buildingpipelines to Texas child’s play. It won’t be cheap.

An imaginative approach to povertyin Canada is way overdue; it’s time to take down the “Stop Bullying” placardsand put up the “Prevent Bullying” signs; it’s time for a serious, communalrethinking of our child rearing, community institution and educational objectives.

Everycrime involves a unique set of circumstances and it’s likely that degenerates likeOlsen and Pickton will appear again, a new, sterner crime bill or better preventative programs notwithstanding. But heaven help us if we don’t even giveprevention a good try.

It’s time for informed, sincere leadership.I’m guessing that 100% of the population could rally behind it.

Black Hats

2011-11-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

Gros Morne

I wear a big, black leather hat I found in a roadsideshop in Arizona a few years ago. I like it. When it rains, I don’t need anumbrella. When it’s hot, I take my shade with me. It gathers a few smiles as Iwalk down the street in Saskatoon and a smile is always nice. People need to beamused and I’m happy to oblige.

In Howard Jacobson’s 2010 ManBooker Prize-winning novel, The FinklerQuestion, an Orthodox Jewish lad wearing a black hat and side curls issurrounded in the street by high school kids taunting “Look! It’s a Jew!” Thedifference between him and me (besides the side curls, of which I have anobvious dearth) is probably that when I walk down the street, most peoplethink: “There goes one of uswearing a funny hat—amusing.” When the Orthodox Jew walks down the street in ablack bowler, it’s: “There goes one ofthem in a funny hat; let’s knock it off!”

If you can get past frankdialogue about sex and the use of related words we’ve designated “smutty,” youmight want to pick up The FinklerQuestion and spend some time with it. I won’t review it critically; acompetent jury selected it to be the best of the novel-writing craft for 2010and their judgment is good enough for me. It is at the same time a fascinatingstudy of what it’s like to live in one usand them world.

And how us vs. them we’ve become—or have always been: Arian vs non-Arian;black vs. white; Arab Muslim vs. the West;real born-again Christians vs. false non-born again so-called Christians; Jewsvs. Gentiles; conservatives vs. liberals vs. social democrats; the smart vs.the stupid; heaven-bound vs. the world;Americans vs. pretty-much-everybody else by now (except the Harper government).I won’t dwell here on the fundamentals of tribalism, of clannishness except tosay that from a biological, anthropological standpoint, the instinctive needsfor “us and them” come first; the methods by which we make the distinctions areinventions that follow.

For a more amusing descriptionof this, just read Dr. Suess’ TheSneetches. It’s a much quicker read than The Finkler Question and probably even more insightful.

Or watch the World Series andlisten critically to the words of the opening and seventh-inning anthems: God gave this land to me (no he didn’t;he gave it to the aboriginal people—you stole it from them) and God bless America, my home sweet home. Alwayswith the: we, the chosen ones.

Meanwhile, in Rosthern the winter vs. summer distinction is beingdramatized this morning by a few inches of snow and a minus three temperature. It’sinteresting to note here that snow falls on everybody; it’s not clannish. I’llbe wearing my black hat today; it actually keeps the otherwise-unprotected topof my head quite warm. Knock it off if you dare.

How am I gonna feed all these people?

2011-10-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, we’re told, the earth’s population passedthe 7 billion mark. We were also told that population was being added at therate of 4.4 per second, so by today, the number would be 2,661,120 more thanthat, or 7,002,661,120 and counting—that is, if we weren’t also dying at therate of . . . X per second. (For an interesting read on the meaning of 7billion people, see http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/10/27/f-population-big-numbers.html).

Itwas Thomas Robert Malthus (1776-1834) who pioneered world-wide demographicstudies that predicted almost 200 years ago that population would rapidly outstripthe earth’s ability to feed everyone. The starvation he predicted didn’t appearas early as prognosticated, but when we hear about African famine, we’rereminded that parts of the earth are periodically in just such a dilemma.

Onthe other hand, we’re assured that there is food enough for all; that it’smerely a problem of difficulty in transporting it from place to place to meet emergingneed. But if you or I were faced with an Ethiopia-like famine, this informationwould bring little consolation.

Anobvious conclusion is that the world is not overpopulated, but that parts of it certainly are. Where I live,in a small town in Saskatchewan in 2011, rising population is still linked to progress, the store shelves are alwaysbrimming with cheap food and the nagging problem is not starvation, but obesity.

Rosthern,Saskatchewan is not overpopulated. Parts of Africa may be.

Manyanimal species are territorial; they stake out areas large enough to sustainthemselves and defend those areas pugnaciously. Inuit would traditionally limittheir households to sustainable numbers by birth control or, if necessary,infanticide. Apparently the instinct to balance population to local environmentexists but has been largely extinguished in the course of human development. Theability to reach and sustain such a balance is as important a human skill as isagricultural knowhow. The relevant point—surely—is to grow enough food, not togrow as much food as is possible. Enoughmay in future mean: as much as isnecessary to feed an area’s population without importation. As fossil fuelenergy dwindles over time, its price will inevitably rise and the growing andtransportation costs of food will rise proportionally. Poor areas of the worldmay increasingly be out of luck when droughts, for instance, curtail localsupplies.

Populationcontrol is one of a number of measures that is needed. Birth control devicesare far lighter, easier and cheaper to transport than grain, meat, fruits andvegetables.

Theother measure will, of course, be the wresting of food production and marketingfrom corporate hands. But that’s a whole other story.

What time is it?

2011-10-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

West Brook, Gros Morne National Park

On the set of Random Passage

What struck me most forcefully in reading paleoecologist CurtStager’s Deep Future: The Next 100,000Years of Life on Earth was his emphasis on our skewed perceptions of time. Myexample of what he’s talking about is this: if continental drift occurs at anaverage speed of one centimetre per year, then the final separation ofNewfoundland from Labrador took place approximately three million years ago,assuming that the ferry crossing over the Strait of Belle Isle is 30 kilometresat present . . . and increasing by one centimetre per year. (For those of youwho don’t think metric very often, a centimetre is the approximate width of afingernail.)

It’slittle wonder that we can’t feel the earth move beneath us as it does in ourimaginations, except when the continental plates grind against each other andearthquakes result.

Stager's examples relate to the effect of human-activity-driven global warming on, forinstance, the inundation of low-lying areas of earth. Florida will graduallydisappear, but it will be so slow that people will not have to rush to higherground. There will be plenty of time—possibly a few centuries—for thepopulation to adapt to the slowly rising waters. The burning question becomes: “Ifit’s that far away, does it really matter?”

And,as Hamlet says, “there’s the rub.” Our lives are such a short blip in the storyof human life on earth and so fragile that we seldom sense our kinship withpeople who lived through the last ice age and the people thousands of yearsfrom now who will live on an earth shaped—in part—by our activities. “Sufficientunto the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:34).” Stager would likely wish thatJesus would take this almost-epicurean aphorism back. When we talk aboutconservation these days, we hope for a good life for us, our children andgrandchildren, and that’s about as far as we seem able or willing to think.

Threethings I can think of this morning prevent us from being responsible parents tofuture humanity:

1) OurPolitics: those who govern us have trouble thinking beyond the next election.There is little personal reward for a politician who advocates conservation nowin the interest of the deep future.

2) Ourreligions: a consciousness that assumes the end of everything is near is notlikely to concern itself very much with a deep future.

3) Ourignorance: we need to understand our lives in a bigger context than at present—bothin time and space. Reading Stager’s DeepFuture: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth, Jeff Rubin’s Why Your World is about to get a Whole LotSmaller or The Grand Design byStephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have helped me gain new perspectivesrecently.

There may be an even bigger impediment to the awakeningof a new vision for the human race, something to do with an overarchingawareness of our kinship and an end to racial, ethnic and class differencesthat hamstring the chances for joint endeavour.

Thereinlies another “rub.” And it's a big one.

A Reflection Concerning a New Found Land

2011-10-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

It was, for us, a New FoundLand although we knew the maps, had seen the pictures and heard regularly of thisisland that is not-quite-Canada in the news. The rugged beauty of the outports, the magnificence of Gros Morne National Park, the charming architectureof St. John’s are not exaggerated in the travel brochures.

But like the majority of theplanet, you can hardly find a place where the majesty of the created andevolved planet isn’t mitigated by the presence of humans and the things humansmake: highways, railroads, cities and towns, docks and ships and salt-boxhouses clinging to the rocks. For the filming of the CBC mini-series—Random Passage—a cove was found fromwhich no sign of human activity can be seen; such a place is a rarity. What’s uniquein Canada about Newfoundland as a province is that every human endeavour therehas faced daunting obstacles in the steep, rugged landscape. Quite literally, itmeans that every structure must cling to the side of a rocky hill, every fishor chunk of coal must be carried uphill and down to reach its market.

And then, there’s the sea fromwhich Newfoundlanders have traditionally earned their daily bread. A map of theshipwrecks around Cape Bonavista is so cluttered with Xs that they overlap eachother. Still, the map doesn’t include the dories smashed against the rocks instorms, their planks scattered on the shore, husbands and fathers and brothers drowned.

For men must work and women must weep

For there’s little to earn andmany to keep

And the harbour bar be moanin’.

Although written for fishermen off the coasts of GreatBritain, the song popularized in Canada by Stan, Nathan and Garnet Rogerssummarizes well the agony of out port life on the sea.

Allthis complicated further, of course, by the hurricanes that roar up from theCaribbean, blow kisses to Boston and Halifax and vent their nearly-spent furyon the Avalon Peninsula. The remnants of Hurricane Marie blew us off SignalHill but barely raised an eyebrow among native islanders. The winds thatpowered the ships were, indeed, fickle and truculent friends.

SoNewfoundlanders are a hardy, friendly, honest lot like everybody says? I’m notgoing to add to this generalization: I’m sure that kind folk, happy folk,thieves and liars appear in the same proportion in Newfoundland as inSaskatchewan. Furthermore, visitors (tourists) are catered for and pamperedbecause they have—in fact—replaced cod as the staple in much of Newfoundlandand should therefore hesitate to judge the smiles and courtesies of their hostsas indicative. I do know that you can pile your firewood along the roadways inNorthern Newfoundland without fear of its being stolen, and front doors areseldom locked except in downtown St. John’s. I also know that theoff-the-record chats with hosts at the historical sites were highlights of ourtrip; most seemed relieved to branch off the official discourse into thefriendly, dignified stories of the real Newfoundland, its beauty and its warts. Their Newfoundland.

Itook hundreds of photographs, as we tourists tend to do. My favourite is of theyoung woman who passed by me in St. John’s, walked decisively to the end of a desertedwharf and sat for fifteen minutes gazing pensively out to the harbour mouth. Icould say that this photo summarizes the personality of Newfoundland, but forall I know, she was a student from Saskatchewan studying archaeology atMemorial University, as some have done.

Giveme a break; I’m just a tourist!

A rose for Jack

2011-08-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

A rose for Jack - rest in peace

Let’s assume for a moment that the political economicgoals in Canada are that everyone should have enough quality food, a comfortableshelter and equal access to healthcare. There’s much more to a fulfilled lifethan a roof in the rain and a balanced diet, of course, but let these be thegoals that are espoused by politicians at election time for argument’s sake.How are we doing?

Thedeath and funeral of Jack Layton provided us with a curious televisionspectacle: the camera panning over the audience would stop occasionally to letus see how Conservative and Liberal politicians were standing and applauding StephenLewis’s unabashed defense of Jack’s Social Democratic ideals. I’m sure theywere forced into some quick calculations: I’veridiculed this world view a thousand times so will I look worse if I stand andapplaud or if I sit here unmoved among a sea of New Democrats? Given, ofcourse, that I’m at the man’s funeral and am listening to his eulogy!

Ifyou were following other news beyond the tragic early death of Jack Layton, youwould have been aware that Stephen Harper was in the Arctic for much of theweek. In one news interview, he expressed the view that social progress iseasier if there is economic development. He was wearing a hard hat and therewas a gold mine in the background, I think. He was expressing a major tenet ofa model that would nearly equate with the worldview of most of the non-NewDemocrats in the funeral audience: Freethe market up so capitalists can create wealth, which will pour down on thewhole of society.

This model, however, has hadto defend itself over and over again—against charges, for instance, that thekind of economic development that big capitalism tends to bring not only doesn’tbenefit area populations, but destroys them. UN High Commissioner for HumanRights, Navi Pillay used the Lubicon Cree of Northern Alberta as an example toshow that rights were being ignored or trampled upon by development around theworld: “For example, intensive oil andgas development continues in northern Alberta, Canada in the areas where thelong-standing land claims by the Lubicon Lake Nation remain unresolved.”

Amnesty International Canadadescribes the issue in more detail:

The traditional territory of the LubiconCree is criss-crossed by more than 2400 km of oil and gas pipelines. The latestleak has spilled an estimated 28,000 barrels of crude oil – the largestoil spill in Alberta since 1975.Although the province says that the spill hasbeen contained and poses no threat to human health, the Lubicon are questioningthese claims. The school in the Lubicon community of Little Buffalo had to beclosed after the spill and there is still no explanation for why students andteachers got sick.

The capitalist, trickle-down model doesn’t deliver on thegoals, but our Prime Minister either doesn’t get that, or chooses not to getit.

Andthen there was Jack Layton and before him, Tommy Douglas, David and Stephen Lewis,Ed Broadbent and others who proposed another model that begins, not with economicmega-projects and growth, but with the welfare of the population in an area. Bythe outpouring of empathy for the Jack Layton vision over the past week, onecould almost be convinced that Canadians are ready to give his model a try.

Theinterests that support the status quo are strong and influential in thecorridors of power. But their model is ill; in the USA, it’s so sick it’s throwingup all over the population and the public institutions are bankruptingthemselves in attempts at cleaning up the vomit.

I hope a lot of Canadiansappreciated the juxtaposition of the two models this past week—and drew somesubstantial conclusions. May Jack’s enthusiasm and optimism for a better Canadacontinue to inspire Canadians in the days to come.

(For more on the Lubicon Creestory, click http://www.amnesty.ca/lubicon/)

the play's the thing

2011-08-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

"Never trust a man who hates dogs" (Gustav, in Heroes)

“The plays the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience ofthe king . . .” (Shakespeare’s Hamlet)

Of course Shakespeare, the iconic bard, would see in astage play the power to move even a king to question his conscience; hisvocation revolved around those peculiar events where actors assume thepersonality of a character in a story and strut and bellow their hour on thestage, acting out parables for the enlightenment and/or entertainment of acrowd who, for the most part, just don’t get it. So he wrote comic relief into his plays,humorous—often bawdy—bits to appease the groundlings,the uneducated poor who could stand on the ground below the boxes for theadmission of one penny.

Heroes, too, has its humorous and bawdybits. Tom Stoppard collaborated with French playwright, Gerald Sibleyras, toproduce this English version of the latter’s popular play about a few days onthe terrace of a retirement home in France. Three surviving veterans of WW Iare facing old age—as are all of us—and the terrace has become their private nation, and when it’s threatened, theycomically revert to military strategies to defend it. Cantankerous and quarrelsomethroughout, they are nevertheless bound by the strictures of a past when theywere heroes in an heroic cause.

Morepeople stayed away from Heroes thanattended it, obviously. Of those that did attend, some said they didn’t get it,some felt it was fraught with so much subtle, nuanced meaning that they had to see it twice. A few said they didn’t getthe gestures at the end, and one or two implied that it was a bit too corny tobe enjoyed by them. For the bottom-liner in us at the Station Arts Centre, thefact that we were sold out, turning people away for the last half of the run,spoke loudly about the play’s impact.

It’sa rare drama indeed that plays to audiences who come away unanimous. Neithercan you base your entire outlook on one parable (Jesus told many).

Revertingto the bard, I recall Hamlet’s instructions to the actors about to present theconscience-catching play before the royal household:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure (Ham: III, ii, 17ff).

I’m not sure how many patrons saw their virtues and scorns reflected in Heroes, nor whether it mirrored the age and body of the times for them as itought. As for me, I loved it from the first time I read it to the last time I watchedPhilippe, Henri and Gustav united in their longing for the freedom of thegeese, heading south to their mating ground.

Oh to be young again!

Twisted Poplars

2011-07-31T06:56:00.000-07:00

Consider these lilies

What would you conclude if you were exploring a remoteforest and found an acre or two of poplars that were bizarrely twisted likecork screws while those in the rest of the forest had trunks as straight ashydro poles? There exists an anomaly like this an hour’s drive from here. An artwork based on this phenomenon is currently on display at the Station ArtsCentre where I work.

Twocouples traveling through stopped for lunch yesterday and I got into a conversationabout the twisted poplars with the two men. One of them opined that since itwas not a normal earthly occurrence that poplars should grow this way, thelogical conclusion would be that it was the result of extra-terrestrialinterference—an alien visitation in other words. His friend scoffed at this andoffered the biological, rational explanation as follows:

Weare constantly bombarded by cosmic rays that pass through our bodies, throughplants, through everything around us. Occasionally, a cosmic ray will strike insuch a way that a gene is damaged; in this case, the gene that regulates theshape of the tree as it grows.

The flying saucer man wasskeptical: “but why, then, isn’t this characteristic passed on through theseeds scattered from that first, mutated tree? Why is the twisted-poplarphenomenon confined to a discrete couple of acres?”

Like a crop circle? Ithought.

“Simple,” said hisfeet-on-the-ground companion. “Poplars populate by suckering, not through seed.Cloning, in other words. All the twisted trees are really only one tree poppingup at various places through the root system.”

His listener wasn’t convinced.

Hello!I thought. Are you two traveling in the same car? That should be interesting!

. . .As the world itself is interesting, populated as it is by people who see theunexplained around them as manifestations of planning and execution by an unseenoutside force (let’s call them religionists) traveling alongside others whorely on science and logic to find answers to the riddles of life (let’s callthem rationalists.) The rationalist in our conversation was asked by thereligionist why he was so sure of his “cosmic-ray theory?”

“Becauseit’s the truth,” the rationalist replied, raising his chin just a tad.

‘Twas ever thus, eh?

“Huh!”said the religionist.

Thereafter,they had a jovial and companionable lunch with their wives at the best table inthe house—by the big, sunny west windows under a prairie landscape by DarrellBell, a landscape awash, apparently, in cosmic rays.

This isnot a sermon. If you can find a metaphor in this story that illuminatesanything for you, help yourself.

Asfor me, I recalled how someone said to me when my daughter died tragically atfifteen: “Perhaps God took her to save her from something horrible,” and Isaid: “No, she neglected to fasten her seat belt.”

Twistedpoplars.

If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you . . .

2011-07-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

Money, money, money

Coleus, coleus, coleus

I’m a bit preoccupied with money these days. Oh, I know; “abit preoccupied” is an oxymoron. I should say that when I’m at work, I’m preoccupied with money matters and whenI’m at home, well, I’m enjoying the relief of not thinking about that for awhile, except that the news tends to intrude.

Let me explain:

Ido payroll for the actors and crew in the production currently running for 31performances at the Station Arts Centre. Our core is made up of actors whobelong to the Canadian Actors Equity Association, a professional union. Othersare not. They are paid differently and receive unequal remuneration for doing,basically, the same job. None receive a fair living wage when the blood sweatand tears they throw into the work, the working hours, the itinerant nature oftheir profession—they’re always job hunting—are considered.

Weare silently auctioning a donated painting by a talented local artist at theStation. The bidding has gone from $200.00 to $350.00 so far. A painting in ourgallery was purchased recently by a patron for $3,000+.

What’sthe right price for a great dinner out? How much is a ticket to Jasper Station or a Canadian Tenors concert worth? The dollars patrons pay for theentertainment product we provide is seldom enough to cover the cost of producingit. What happens when cultural grants dry up federally—which they probably willunder the current balance-the-budget drive?

Acommentator on the East African famine said that there was food to be had inSomalia, but with increasing prices, the majority of people simply hadn’t themoney to buy any of it. Should we help people in this dilemma by sending money?And if so, how much would be fair? Will one child live who would otherwise die if I send a hundred dollars? Five hundred? 75 cents?

The desk at which I’m sitting along with the computer onwhich I’m composing could be sold for more than the average two-thirds worldfarm family is “worth.” Should I sell them? do my writing at the kitchen tablewith a pencil? send the difference to Africa? Should I at least feel guiltyabout my good fortune?

One thing seems clear to me in all this. Inequities—whetherin the area of arts & culture or in the availability of food—are systemic. Theyare symptoms of problems of policy, the failures of national governments andinternational monetary systems, the rapidly-increasing control of multinationalcorporations over the marketplace. To try to patch up the symptoms with bandaids is one thing; to insist that the policies change to prevent the nextfamine takes the real courage. Have I got it? Have you?

Two actions we can take now. Send $500.00 for EasternAfrica to MCC or a similar organization that you trust. You can find it. Write lettersto your MP and your MLA to tell them you favour keeping the Canadian WheatBoard in place. If it dies, the most vigorous hurrahs will come from Cargilland the other mega-corporations that are determined to control all the world’sfood resources for profit.

You may be thinking: what a crass subject for a Sundaymorning. If you’re headed off to church today, though, one facet of the worshipservice will undoubtedly be the passing of the offering plate. Yet one moremoney decision: do I put in a tooney, a twenty or a two-hundred dollar cheque?

Have a relaxing Sunday . . . anyway!

What is Man, that Thou art Mindful of Him?

2011-07-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

There shall be . . . tomatoes

"The problems for humankind begin when myths are taken literally. In fact, one might go so far as to say that if myths and legends were not taken so literally, there would be far less trouble in the world." - Robert Buckman

We’velong known that there are areas of the brain that arouse us to action, and thereare areas that moderate our actions, that say, “Hold on, mister. This isneither the time nor the place to submit to that urge!” We know the names ofthese parts of the brain and because our research tools are becoming more andmore sophisticated, we are getting better and better at observing the anatomyof various human actions. We now know which areas of the brain are activeduring sex, during anger, during periods of peaceful well-being. We can observethe effects of hormones and pheromones on behaviour with a precision that isstill relatively new. For instance—as Buckman points out—we have found throughmeasurement of brain activity that the right temporal lobe is active in bothecstatic religious experience and in aggression. As Buckner points out, thisproves nothing by itself, but does demonstrate our ability to view humanbehaviour in a much more specific manner than heretofore.
Myinterest in this area of research arises partly from observing the messChristianity has made of its dialogue on sexuality. Determined to describe thissignificant human behaviour using terms like sin,lust, fornication, adultery,and a whole host of pejoratives, Abrahamic religions have tried to cope withthe reality of sexual lust and its potential danger to family, culture andcommunity without one important piece of information, namely a precise andobservable description of the biological functions inherent in human sexualityand the differences from person to person. Spiritual and cultural models ofsexuality on their own just haven’t been able to reach a satisfyingunderstanding of what it means to be sexual human beings, remarkably similar inthis wise to monkeys, donkeys, lions and rattlesnakes. We’re shocked by the newsof priests molesting children, evangelical pastors addicted to pornography, incestin conservative Mennonite communities, as we should be. But until we broadenour discussion and our views to include the current research on the biology of sexuality,expect the mess to get worse and worse.

We’vegot to stop enforcing ignorance as a defense against doubt and apostasy. Solet’s think of ourselves in broader ways for a change. For instance:

1) Varyingthresholds are observable in the human limbic system. Simplified, it means thatJake is more quickly aroused to anger and aggression--and also to fanatic highs--than Ben.

2) Thecontrol system varies from person to person. Simplified, it means that Ben’sfrontal lobes are bigger and more active than Jake’s and insert a strongerinfluence on his limbic system in times when “busting out” is a danger.

3) Jakegrows up a handful in school and later, is abusive as a husband. He is repeatedly repenting in tears and ashes, but falls into the old trap again and again. Ben is agentle, amiable man, a valued church member.

4) Describingtheir differences in spiritual terms without reference to their biologicalmakeups opens the door to injustice and silly solutions.

I certainly don’t want to leave an impression that we arewhat we are because we can’t help it--end of story. Jake has got to stopabusing his wife, period. For him, a combination of sensitive counselling with a therapy that recognizes his biological weaknesses and builds hiscoping strategies might be the ticket. Altering the thresholds that triggeraggression with drugs may be standard therapy in the future, but for now,anger management classes might also be an answer for Jake. Inany case, rejecting the biological side of our natures for some fantasy of whatwe would rather believe we are can’tbe good in the long run.

IfGod made us, he made all of us: biological included. If nothing else, Buckman can help us take another step in understanding what that might mean.

If I like it, it ain't art

2011-07-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Fire and Ice

Artist and Creator collaborate

I eat my lunch in an art gallery most working days. Thismonth, I’m surrounded by the landscapes of Darrell Bell; last month by the Illuminated Spaces exhibit of artistCarri J. McKinnon. Before that—the exhibits change monthly—I have eaten soupand bread among fabric art, photography, tattoo art, and even some tradigitalart, a cross between digital manipulation of photo images and painting. I’m alucky guy.

Sometimeswe exchange opinions around the lunch table on the quality of the exhibits. Thenouns art, craft, kitch, mereillustration and . . . some Iwon’t mention here . . . occasionally intrude into the conversations. And thenthe whole question of what, in fact, can and cannot be considered art gets another airing. I’m reminded ofRed Green’s summary answer to this question: “If I like it, it ain’t art.”

Notso long ago we had a display called “Wayne Gretzky’s Last Game.” It was aseries of framed, hockey-rink-shaped canvasses on which the artist had tracedall of Wayne’s movements in his final game in the NHL with a china marker. Onewas called “First Period,” another “Second Period . . .:” you get the drift. Itelicited quite a few responses in the “What the hell is that??” vein, or “Mythree year-old could have done that with his foot!”

Onejudge in his ruling involving a different sort of “art” is reported to havesaid, “Pornography may be hard to define, but I know itwhen I see it.” Maybe all art falls into a similar category? Most ofus can look at a painting or photo or drawing and although we can’t be certainthat it’s good art—or even art, for that matter—we have an idea whether or notwe’re looking at something of quality or not. We can’t define it, but we know it when we see it.

Thingis, we look at questions like this backwards. ART is a nominative, a noun, a word that has rather loosely come torefer to a certain human activity and the resulting product. Like abstractnominatives, it represents an attempt to convey in language something thatdefies clear definition, like love.That activity—which involves a concerted and skilful attempt to createsomething symbolic and beautiful—has come to be called art. The activity and its product wouldn’t change even if we lostthat word and called the activity foop,or dorp, or croot. As the bard said, “A rose by any other name would smell assweet.”
I’mconvinced that there’s a whole broader category of human striving that includesart, but also includes exploration, architecture, scholarship, plant breeding, gourmetcooking . . . etc., etc. All are expressions of our longing to fly, to riseabove the mundane, the vulgar, the mortal. There are those among us who learn—ifhaltingly and tentatively—to fly, and taking us by the hand, they lead us to realmsabove whether through food, through gardens and architecture, throughliterature or music, through whatever they have created that is new, ispleasing and elevates us—if only for a moment—above the toil and sweat andweeds of our mortal lives. We call them artists. They are pastors and priests,intermediaries and teachers between us and what we long to be. Many of us “don’tget it,” and how can we, when we’ve never been taught to aspire to flight? Indesperation, we seek our fulfillment in the pursuit of comfort, money and/or notoriety,in the momentary ecstasies of hysterical religions, in physical and emotional gluttony.The saddest of all are those of us who retire into our private enclaves andmake a fetish of gloomy despair.

Jesus, too, was an artist, hisobject to raise us up from the mire in which we languished. Unfortunately, veryfew understood—or understand—his art. Like investors who buy paintings and hidethem away as a hedge against the market, his art was overtaken by the religious“investors” who substituted a vision of immortal blandness in place of thepromise that, mortal as we are, we may soar with the eagles. They convinced usthat living forever was the right compensation for wallowing in the muck forthree score and ten. They took artand made of it . . . wallpaper.

An Aside: I once took a university half course called“The Psychology of Aesthetic Responses.” In it, I learned what appeals topeople visually—statistically—and some theories of why things appeal or don’t.I got the top mark in the class, so if you’re ever wondering if the objectyou’re looking at is or is not art . . . just ask me.

If you look back at the top of this blog page you’ll find an object titled, Fire and Ice. It’s not art. Or is it?You tell me. Does it inspire you to flight?

Maybe dorp is the appropriate nominative.

Guns, butter and the Stanley Cup - a few scattered thoughts

2011-06-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Summer at the Station

*Economics 101’s basic tenet: what is spent on guns cannot also be spent on butter. (Are youlistening, United States of America, Greece, any other countries that finance domesticor military projects with borrowing because they flunked Economics 101?!?)Fanatics (fans) spent millions for seats at that seventh game snorer; thosemillions ceased to be available for groceries, charitable giving, gardeningtools . . . whatever. Guns or butter.

*Next to the fear of death, the fear of boredom rankssecond. Sports fanaticism provides an illusion of engagement, an occupation forminds that doesn't tax the imagination. The bottle must be filled; if not with fine wine, thenwith Kool-Aid.

*Welding a link between professional sports and militarismseems pretty natural. Witness that guru-of-hockey-knowledge and militarybooster, Don Cherry. In the minds of many people, apparently, life is azero-sum game. For there to be a win, there must be an equivalent loss. Prideof victory demands equivalent agony of humiliation. And if it’s the home teamthat must bear the humiliation, well, then, police cars must be set on fire. Somebody who is not me must be humiliated.

*The pride of Rosthern, Robyn Regehr has been traded toBuffalo by the Calgary Flames, which means that it won’t be possible forRosthernites to nip over to home games to watch him play next winter. What acrisis in fan loyalties this is going to create around here! I suppose a fourmillion dollar a year salary takes some of the edge off the uprooting.

*Sport: an activityinvolving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competesagainst another or others for entertainment. ▶success or pleasure derived from an activity such ashunting (Oxford).

*Vancouver/Boston playoff series – by the numbers

Henrik Sedin’s salary in 2010-11 $6,100,000

What the average nurse can earn in a lifetime $1,500,000 (est)

Vancouver losses to vandalism and looting $4,500,000

Distance travelled by players in final series 16,089 km

Cost of fuel for team travel in final series $275,760 (est)

Cost of insulin therapy for 9,500 diabetic

Kenyans forone year (MCC) $275,760(est)

% of Canucks who are Canadian 55

% of Bruins who are Canadian 65

% of Canucks who are American 19

% of Bruins who are American 12

Cost of a keg of champagne for Bruins party $100,000

No. of players on the Canucks active roster 36

No. of persons arrested during riot 99

No. of persons injured during riot 140

But when all's said and done, it’s OUR GAME!

Food, glorious food

2011-06-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

And the winner for the best Moussaka made by an Anabaptist is . . . ARNE!!

Order me another, please.

Like most of you—probably—I am in love with food.Furthermore, I am extremely promiscuous in my affections. I can devour withequal relish a hot dog on a store-bought bun heaped with mustard and relish asI can a rare and delicate avocado and butter lettuce salad with balsamic andvirgin olive oil dressing topped with sesame seeds. Nothing starts up mysalivary glands like a perfectly roasted asparagus Rinderoulade with a side ofmashed potatoes and garden-fresh baby peas. But if that’s not available, I canbe perfectly happy with a cheezeburger and a pile of French fries with ketchup.

What’smore, I like watching cooking shows on TV and reading cookbooks. It’s throughthe variety of cooking shows that I’ve come to the following conclusions aboutthe relationship between people and food. Food is religion in our culture—and inmany others, I suspect—with the French and Italians leading the way. But differencesthat are the most striking—attitudes toward food and cooking—can crosscultures just as there can be African Jehovah’s Witnesses and Swahili-speakingMennonites.

I beginwith that attitude of near-worship of food, of food plants, etc., thatcharacterizes some people. To them, tradition is everything; they practicallyfaint at the sight of someone trying to whisk a sauce with a fork on high heat.They are adamant that there’s only one way to roast a duck properly. They can’tabide anything that’s even slightly overcooked or underdone; pasta that’s notdone el dente is only fit for hogs. Theylean heavily toward food names that are in a foreign language. Not only willthey not eat at Tim Horton’s; they can’t even bring themselves to say “Tim’s.”They are the high church of food; eating is a highly structured, liturgicalevent. They pay homage to butter and cream. They are proud to call themselves Conservative.

Nextcome the food fundamentalists. Theysee food in black and white, figuratively speaking. As adamant about the rightsand wrongs of food culture as the traditionalists, their choices are driven bya combination of conspiracy theories, Biblical injunctions and reverence for anever-changing procession of healthgurus. So preoccupied are they with balancing their mineral, vitamin, proteinand carbohydrate intakes that they hardly have time for anything else. But that’sOK; they have truth on their side. Also like the traditionalists, they wouldn’tbe caught dead in a fast-food joint, but unlike the traditionalist, they arequite evangelical; they feel compelled to win converts.

Thereare those, of course, who can’t much be bothered with the niceties of consumingor not consuming food. They’re right at home in the whole range of eatingestablishments from Boston Pizza to restaurants with “Chez” in their names. They are not intimidated by gravy or ketchup,and yet, know how to eat a whole lobster gracefully. They appreciate caviar ona boiled egg, but they enjoy nothing better on a weekend evening than frying upa batch of eggs and potatoes, opening a beer and watching a baseball game on TVwhile they eat out of the frying pan. They are the food liberals, and they don’tcare what anybody else eats, as long as they don’t eat their lunch.

Andat the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, are the food agnostics andatheists. They ignore others’ preoccupations with food altogether and sneer atthe pronouncements of the traditionalists, the fundamentalists and the liberalsalike. They neither eat nor dine—they feed. They feed so they don’t die or becausethey’re angry, upset, depressed or because it’s a day that ends in “y”; theyorder in a lot, throw frozen pizzas in the oven, drink until the beer runs out,eat until they’re comatose. If they have a kitchen, their tools consist of afew burnt pots and half a wooden spoon; neither cooking as an art nor eating asa social sacrament would ever occur to them. They have terrible table manners;tend to shovel their food while bent over their plates with one arm in theirlaps. Evenliberals find them irritating.

As forme, I can’t think of a greater pleasure than sitting at length around a table withfriends and eating well-prepared and perfectly spiced and herbed food. I guesslaughter and banter are my two favourite condiments. I’m probably a foodsocialist.

Bythe way: I invented a new way to enjoy cauliflower yesterday; here’s the recipe:

Herbed CauliflowerFlorentine

Ingredients:

10-12 cauliflower florets

ca. 10-15 pak choy or spinach leaves, chopped

½ cup freshly shredded old cheddar
1 Tbsp butter
1Tbsp whole wheat flour
½ cup milk
1 tsp oregano flakes

Salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Bring cauliflower to boil. After 5 minutes add pak choyor spinach. After 2 minutes, drain and cover.

In a frying pan, make sauce with butter, flower and milk.Stir in shredded cheddar. Add oregano and salt and pepper to taste.

Toss cauliflower and pak choy or spinach with sauce andserve.

Serves 2-4 as side dish.

Guten Appetit!