P1090493

Originally uploaded by ms_doyle.

Cultural sensitivities are and important thing. No one wants to see their Norse heroes depicted as thick skulled axe draggers. The French don’t like references to hygene or cowardice. Americans insist Uncle Sam is not imperialist and Jesus has a plan for your life. Crocodile Dundee, Buddha the jolly fat nit-wit, the parsimonious Jew. It is all touchy, it all makes it into the press; it is all cultural fodder for those trying to make us think or piss us off.

Is one culture special enough to be exempted from this treatment?

Jews and Muslims do not eat pork. I eat pork and so do people I know. None of us are causing a riot. You don’t like depictions of your religious icon? Don’t draw them. You don’t like it when others draw them? Suck it up.

Protesters protest at the embassies of the countries where the people live that draw pictures to go into newspapers for people to read. The actions of those persons are legal in those countries and beyond the jurisdiction of the governments they protest.

What is Denmark going to do? “Sorry boys no more journalism carreer for you. You drew a picture of the prophet Mohammad (may Allah truly bless him) and now you must go”.

Don’t buy La Monde (et al). Write a petition. Tell all of your friends not to buy it. Live in an autocratic regime where copies of La Monde are not permitted. These are all valid reactions.

Demanding Western Countries become dictatorships just so they have the power to suppress journalism? What do you expect to achieve?

Canadian diplomats take fire in Baghdad as hail of bullets riddles their car with out warning. American officials unrepentant. Related stories in Afghanistan and again in Iraq.

Preston Manning

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

A recent comment on Peace order and Good Government got me to thinking on ambassadors, elections and so forth. Although I do not have a link for you yet on this rumor, Preston Manning, the patriarch of reform style conservatism in Canada, may be appointed as ambassador of Canada to the USA. The afore mentioned quote:

Och, weel: given the ambassadors that the Americans send us, I suppose Preston is more than a fair trade.

It is as clear to me as it is to Frank McKenna that Canada needs a new man in Mordor. This Liberal big whig is in the running (perhaps) to be the next Lib chief. Who then?

Oh I know! Preston Manning! I can see this working, really I can, With the Tories in Ottawa and the #$@@%&%*)! in Washington, a plaid shirt wearin’, cattle brandin’, true believin Albertexian just might fit the bill. I can see the logic but still, this is not my choice. I dissagree with him on most things but Preston is scholarly and thoughtful, faithful and clean living. Still he is not the man for the job.

In a way, I feel that an ambassador should not just be a representative for a people but a representative of a people. Canada’s ambassador in Washington should be polite but have a ’smug self satisfaction’ that we Canadians often have when dealing with our southern neighbours. He needs to be well versed in the politics in the world and their root causes. She needs to care deeply for the rights of people oppressed and suffering.

It is because of these two last points that our ambassador in Washington, to be a true representative of the Canadian people, must harbour a deep and righteous hatred of the American political establishment, all of their entrenched values and presuppositions and an opponent of almost all they are trying to accomplish in the world today. I propose a different ambassador. One whose views are clearly more those of Canadians writ large. I propose Svend Robinson for ambassador to the US.

He could bring his husband and Marc Emery could be their press secretary. They would bring cocoa and give speeches with the parents of the war dead protesting against the war. The whole thing is prodigiously Canadian. Any MP that got beat up by the Israeli military gets my vote, for ambassador or otherwise.

Really though, the Grand Ambassadorship should be one of the posts of merit and of good fit. Ohh. Imagine Conrad Black. Hey buddy, here is yer get-out-of-jail-with-diplomatic-immunity-free card. Thanks for all of the good press and the consolidation of the national media etc. More seriously though, I could see David Frum for example or former Tory PM Kim Campbell. Campbell was a consul general for California in recent years. This post would perhaps be a reasonable promotion.

Keep the ideologues out. It only encourages them.

Monte Solberg has a blog and I am pretty sure he writes it himself. Mostly sure anyway. It seems honest, sometimes plain, sometimes funn, sometimes partisan, sometimes about his dog but I really get a different sense of him than, lets say, on Don Newman’s Politics. Here, a snippit:

Its January and people in Calgary are wearing t-shirts and shorts. Yes, this is what the weather will be like under a Stephen Harper government.

C’mon. Thats funny.

I link to him now. He is my overlord. (yes master)

This is in response to a thread of comments on one of Breebop’s posts. It got so long ( and was so buried) that I thought I would post it here. I responded to an American friend who mentoned that some in the US were paying more attention to politics and culture in Canada and that some o those were pleased to have Mr. Harper as a new, more neighbourly PM. I remembered this same sentiment for Mr. Martin and pondered if animosity between the PMO and the Oval office was innevitable for a principled Canadian leader. Read on:

I agree that it is really interesting to see the events through Greg’s eyes. Also I am glad that Canada figures larger (generally) in the conscience of America. I feel if they know more about us they are less likely to write us off as stereotypes or quaint do-gooders, trample all over international treatys and ratified trade agreements of refrain from illegally detaining and torturing our citizens. This is yet to be seen however. It is a good theory. Until then we may have to put up with unannounced and unauthorised incursions into Canadian Arctic territory by American forces, a regular public lecture from our Southern ambassador and the unending skewing of our natural political landscape from US religious fundrasing.

I have met so many, SO MANY citizens of the USA that, once they find these things out, are shocked and awed. Some are even Republican. I am just not convinced that the actual will of the people of America can be reflected by its political institutions. Gagliano would have been untouchable in his position if it were in the US administration. Here, the mere hint of impropriety banished him to Denmark and after actual proof of his bad doings was discovered, he was written off. A note: the Bonnano link was a fabrication based on a tired ethnic stereptype.

Martin was supposed to be the US golden boy that would fix the relationship with America after the old sourpuss Cretien. Good intentions and a willingness to forget past abuse was not enough it seemed. Martin learned what all Canadian PMs learn, peace with the US can not come with out accepting a detriment to Canadian Soverignty or quality of life. Harper has the seat now and even before he has been sworn in, he is already chafing under the yoke.

Parliament

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

So I have just voted. I love voting. Every one around me knows…This is like the superbowl for me. The status of my franchise is verified, I choose my candidate and I vote. I love everything about this (except when my name is crossed off the list because this means I will have to wait until next time to do it again).
People look different when they are in the polling stations. They look like citizens. Never do I feel that we are all quite as equal as we are in the polling station. Various ages and shapes and shades of people look around and, well and vote! It is just perfect.

Well, it is off to the Library (the pub beside the library) for me. I shall discover with other sports fans who wins this match. Maybe we can do it again in April?

My Dad is part of group of very thoughtful folks that meet every morning and discuss matters of great import. Physics, philosophy, chemestry, politics, religion and war all are brought up at The Next Chapter bookstore and coffee house in La Connor WA. It is quite the fixture for those in the know and features many guests as well as the core members. They are the self styled “Brain Trust” and they hold court.

They are recently discussing WMD and if they have or have not been discovered in Iraq. Some in the group, dispite being otherwise intelligent, will believe anything Wolfowitz wants them to and so firmly believe that WMD was found. They cite some trucks with mobile labs that were mentioned by Colin Powell in his address to the UN. Dad needs proof to battle this opinion. I emailed him reams of articles and quotes mostly from the NY Times and CNN that mention that the trailers were actually for survelliance balloons. Below is the general theme.

“Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited.” — President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.

This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts — including the State Department’s intelligence wing in a report released this week — have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.

Christopher Scheer, AlterNet

So armed with this tidbit, I send the old man off to battle it out with those fully vanquished by Bush’s weapons of mass distraction.

Ballot Box

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

With a federal election at hand, we see many examples of the importance to vote. We are exhorted by the candidates, media and entertainment personalities and a particularly unimaginative “speak up” government campaign to promote voting. I have not missed an opportunity to exercise my franchise since I attained the age of majority. I will vote again on Monday in my riding of Vancouver Center and for the first time (federally) I will possibly see and election result that runs antithetical to my own beliefs and values. Still I will be grateful for the result.

It is not just for my love of the horse race or a naive belief in vox populi, vox dei that I will be grateful, but rather a knowledge that it is all within the greater realm of what it means to live in a democracy. The conservatives will do what they will but not for long if the public will not keep them. The opinion of many (and myself) may be that Steven Harper’s party wants to serve narrow, scary and religious interests but if this turns out to be wrong and fabricated, we may keep them indeed (cough, ahem). One benfit of a plurality perhaps is the benefit of the doubt. Go on Stevie, show us what yer can do!

Please don’t try to show me parallels in the US system, there is no representation there. The media is a whitewash and the politicians are bought and paid for. What we all know as the sponsorship scandal is entrenched behaviour in Washington and here it brought down a government. Egyptian elections have more to do with public desires than those in the US (imperious voice on loan from the national film board). You try to buy votes in a whipped house where campaign financing rules couldn’t get a candidate from Windsor to Whitehorse on a Jetsgo fare.

So as I clutch my ballot in my hand and drive away thoughts of the second coming of Stockwell (or “that he really deserved that ring”) I will be satisfied in the fact that this too shall pass.

O say can you See?

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

So the Vatican today has issued a satement discouraging the teaching of the “Intelligent Design” instead of or along side evolutionry theory as currently understood. This theory, as I understand it, developed as an honest and honourable attempt to address some of the current deficiencies in what developed from the Darwinian school.

Concern over the level of complexity, on the phenotype level but more tellingly the very genes between two mutations in the same evolutionary change led to the questioning of standard Darwinism.

The worst thing to happen to this effort to adapt or replace an existing scientific paradigm (if it needed to be replaced, I am not saying it does)was that it was adopted by the American religious establishment. Nothing destroys credibility like being supported by the right wing religious lobby. Soon all the public heard was intelligent design paired with scary, ignorant, morally questionable groups with deep pockets, political connections and the sheep like aquiesance of much of the American Public. (phew)

And now this announcement by the author of the opinion, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna. He lambasted the American treatment of the issue,

This isn’t how science is done . If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it’s not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science.

The article does mention that the Pope “criticized those who in the name of science say (the world’s) creation was without direction or order” but I don’t expect much from the current Bishop of Rome. The apparent difference of opinion (one being infallable apparantly) was a surprise in a way but the Catholic Church has long been out of the science business, focussing on the holy smoke and acting as a moral anchor for the credulous.

See the link for the full text. I have to say I am conflicted on this issue. Enlighten me?