Larry Keiler: The Unauthorized Autobiography

Some of you, adventurous ones who have clicked on the cufflink, may know that I have this other blog -- my unauthorized autobiography. But I really haven't done much with it. I'm going to make it a little more active by posting previously written portions of the autobiography. Let's say one section per week. Perhaps this will spur me to add to what's already been done.

My apologies to those who have read these sections before. But then again, it's been so long, it will all seem new again anyway. For those of you who haven't read this stuff before, or noticed Larry Keiler: The Unauthorized Autobiography, here's a short teaser. (As always, comments are invited.)

Everything I’m going to tell you is the truth. Except for what I just said.

Don’t let that put you off, though. People read lies every day. They build their lives around them, act on them, make a living with them, carry them to the grave. I like to carry mine in my back pocket, next to the credit card (a lie about how much I’m worth) and the birth certificate (a lie about my true identity).

Go here for more...

Retiring Ken Driedup's Jersey!

Last night the Montreal Canadiens raised Ken Driedup's number 29 jersey to the rafters of the Forum (or whatever it's called now...) Good for him, I say!

Of course, we all know, especially if we read this blog now and then, that he recently ran for the leadership of the Gliberal Party of Canada.

All I can say is, as a politician he makes a helluva goalie.

Google: Everything That's Safe to Print?

I offer this little tidbit of content from Slashdot: Politics for Nerds (which probably describes me to a Tea)(shall we have Tea?)(lemon or milk?)(one sugar or two?)(oh, do have a crumpet my dear while we watch the whirring satellites and wonder will the sky fall up on us)

Google Blurring Sensitive Map Information

Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 28, @04:27PM
from the blurring-the-nukes dept.

Cyphoid writes "While viewing my school (the University of Massachusetts Lowell) with Google Maps, I noticed that a select portion of the campus was pixelated: the operational nuclear research facility on campus. Curious, I attempted to view the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It too was pixelated. What or who is compelling Google to smudge out these images selectively? Will all satellite images of facilities that the government deems 'sensitive' soon be subject to censoring?" Not surprisingly, the same areas are blurred in Google Earth. But how about images from satellites operated by other nations, such as SPOT or Sovinformsputnik?

Just so you know, I browsed thru some of the comments on this piece, and most seem to say that Google is not responsible for this blurring. So there.

Haiku Two You

Winter Haiku #1

ice storm in January
makes frozen trees
diamonds in the moonlight

Winter Haiku #2

snow shovelled at midnight
-- a breath of cold air
aimed at the clouds

A Maher Canadian Event

Talk radio! Yechh! Sometimes I think the dregs of the earth call into talk radio shows. Unfortunately, I've done it once or twice myself. Of course, I think the hosts should thank God they get the occasional intelligent commentator like me. But mostly, it's feeble-minded chatter, faulty logic, unfocused meandering, inability to stand up to an argument, ubridled envy and uncontrolled rage. And that's just the hosts! The callers are several rungs below that.

What brings this rant on? Maher Arar, that's what.

I begged the powers that be at the Yoni School to bring me a radio so that I might follow the proceedings in Ottawa as Prime Minister Harpie extended his heartfelt apology to Mr. Arar and his family for the unspeakable ordeal they've suffered. And they did! Wonders never cease. A radio appeared and I avidly flipped the dial for outside news.

Actually, the apology itself was a rather banal event, and afterwards Mr. Harpie took all manner of questions, some of them even related to the Arar affair. I'm not going to get into the details of that. What do I look like? A reporter? A journaliste? No! Suffice it to say that Mr. Arar will be paid $10.5M (Cdn) for his troubles, plus legal expenses. Go here for a factual report. Go there for another one. In fact, the most powerful moment of the day was the statement made by Arar's lawyer. Quite impassioned, it was.

After the Prime Minister's press conference, (and actually for a while before) I got to listen to call-in radio shows. And the big topic of conversation was this Maher event. Then there was Mr. Arar's press conference. Then there was more blather on the call-in shows. Now, I'm not big on outrage. Annoyance, yes. Righteous indignation, most certainly. But today, I am positively outraged. I never thought I would use this word seriously, because I find it comes to the lips of Canadians too easily, but I am appalled, utterly appalled, at the attitude that some of the callers took in regard to the settlement with Maher Arar. In the space of a few minutes, Maher Arar was transformed from a cause célèbre and Canada's most famous (recent) wrongfully accused into a greedy, suspect, overpaid, self-serving possible terrorist (torture victim...)

One man called in to 570News this morning and suggested that he would like the opportunity to be tortured if he was going to get $10M. ! I repeat: ! And the afternoon host, Gary Doyle, repeatedly mentioned that this apology from the government was politically beneficial for the Constipated Party and Canada's "New" Government. Then! Later on I heard callers to the afternoon drive show on CFRB. One man, a Canadian serviceman no less, insisted that Arar would not have been put on a watch list for no good reason. Indeed, that there was much more to this than we have been told (because the Murricans still don't trust Mr. Arar....! I repeat: !) and that some day we would all discover (presumably when Mr. Arar succeeds in blowing up the Parliament buildings) that we have been duped.

Right. The RCMP admitted there was no good reason. Mr. Justice O'Connor stated unequivocally that there was no good reason. The government has just declared publicly there was no good reason, and apologized for it. But the supposedly reasonable, fair-minded, intelligent citizens of Canada can't believe there was no good reason for it. After all, he's a Muslim ain't he?

Talk radio typically overflows with vitriol, but really, this is too much. Bewildered and bedeviled, I ask myself, "What is with these people?" I put it down to several causes:
1. Envy. Pure envy. "How come I don't get ten million bucks?" these niggardly souls complain.
2. Laziness. Intellectual and emotional. Many of the callers didn't even possess the basic facts about Mr. Arar's case. Too lazy to find out. Too lazy to imagine what his life must have been like then, and now.
3. Faulty logic. Some people wanted to know why this one man should get so much money when there were so many other worthy causes crying for government aid. As if it were a zero-sum game. As if one worthy cause negates another.
4. Stupidity. Sad, but true. Some people are unrelievedly stupid.

Wake up, people! Maher Arar is, and was, INNOCENT! It's not a case of not guilty, or let go on a technicality. He was INNOCENT! From the very beginning. As determined by a two and a half year national commission headed up by a well-respected judge. His rights as a Canadian citizen were abused and his personal safety jeopardized by the calculated actions of a few individuals in authority. People who should have known better but were too absorbed in their own little high-security top-secret worlds to pay attention to something as abstract as inalienable rights. Canadians should not be quibbling over a few million dollars (out of a surplus of billions). On the contrary, Canadians should be expressing massive concern that our collective values of freedom, justice and respect could have been so easily subverted.

In effect, Maher Arar was abducted by the United States, aided and abetted by the Canadian government, his own government. And subjected to torture. For anyone to suggest that the amount is too much, let them think of what it might be like to be tortured for a year. Not just physically. Mentally and emotionally too. Now, I don't like to admit this, but I've been known to cook bacon now and then without a shirt on. You all know what happens when you cook bacon. Sputtering fat, that's what! And it hurts like hell to get just one little drop of hot bacon fat on my oh-so-sensitive belly. I have difficulty imagining what it must be like to be tortured every day, not knowing when the fat will hit the fan, not knowing whether you might live or die, not knowing if anyone at all cares...Anyone who thinks they might like to trade places with Mr. Arar, for any amount of money...well, they're clearly more than one brick short of a full load.

Far be it from me to praise Stephen Harpie, but he and his government did exactly the right thing. Whether it's politically expedient or not makes no difference. And it's not necessarily the easiest thing to do either, apologizing for someone else's behaviour when you had no control over it and it happened several years ago. Think how you would feel if you had to do that.

To tell the truth, I'm practically struck dumb by the idiocy of some of those people. It almost calls for yet another apology to Mr. Arar. If people want to be outraged, they should direct their attention to the people in authority, members of the RCMP and their overseers, who committed this most grievous error and in the end made it necessary for the government to apologize and spend 12 million dollars worth of taxpayer money to try and make it right.

OpenOffice.Org

Do you chafe inwardly at the digital tyranny of Microsoft? Do you wonder if there is a way to reduce the irritation caused by frequent crashes and burns. Are your finger muscles sore and red from repeatedly clicking on error reports to the Bill Gates brain trust? Do you fear having your tongue fall out of your mouth as a result of the foul curses heaped upon inanimate objects and control keys that control nothing?

Never fear. Uncle Larry has soothing balm. Baby powder for your digital brain. He recently downloaded the OpenOffice.Org suite of programs very similar to Microsoft Office. Text documents, spreadsheets, databases, presentations. Pretty much everything MS Office does. And this is an open source program. Free.

Did I mention that it's Free? And it works pretty well too. I haven't explored the thing extensively, but I have begun to use it for documents. The word processor works much like MS Word. One thing it does do, which I like a lot, is easily convert text documents to PDFs. Very cool.

I've had a look at the spreadsheet setup, but believe it or not, I'm sticking to Excel for now. Mainly because I'm familiar with it. Don't have to search for things.

Most of you probably know that there is a growing presence of open source programming now available on the net. Everyone's heard of Linux. I love this idea. Unfortunately, I feel tied to the Microsoft operating system. Maybe at some future point I'll have the luxury of both. Still, there's lots of other free stuff available if you look. If you Google "open source software" you get 291 million hits.

For now, though, I recommend OpenOffice.Org. Or I should say, I recommend that you check it out.

Meanwhile, speaking of Google. I've been delving into some of the services they have (not least of which is this blog!) Talk about global hegemony! But the many services they offer for free are hard to refuse sometimes. I've actually made my home page a Google home page now, with a clock, a calendar, a notepad, several news feeds, a Buddhist Thought of the Day, iTunes free downloads, an eBook feed, a font of the day, Google docs & spreadsheets, a service to create PDFs...I'm gearing up to be some sort of power user. What sort I don't know. But I've got some ideas. Stay tuned.

A Dharma Definition of Evil

If you are going to learn only one thing from your Dharma studies, it should be that every problem on Earth comes from attachment...

When people talk about evil, they always make it sound as if it comes from outside of themselves. There's no such thing as outer evil. Mahayana Buddhist art might depict horrible-looking demons but this is just symbolic. We never believe that evil is external. Evil is nothing other than the manifestation of ego and attachment. If somebody asks, "What is evil?" the answer is attachment. Attachment is evil; ego is evil. If you want to know the sords for evil, they're ego and attachment."

Lama Yeshe
Ego, Attachment and Liberation:
Overcoming Your Mental Bureaucracy
pp. 77-8

Lest this be misunderstood, here's what I think Lama Yeshe is saying. Yes, the evil is within us. All of us. But this does not mean we are evil. That sense personifies evil. Makes it external, in fact, as Lama Yeshe says. No, the evil we see and experience is an effect. A result of ego-grasping and attachment.

Attachment to outcomes. Attachment to things. Attachment to opinions. Emotions.

I see this in myself clear as day, when I have the courage to look at it. Spend a lot of time trying to force the world into my own personal view of the way things should be. Fortunately for the world, I don't have a lot of wealth or power to throw around at it. Yet, my little corner of the world can look pretty evil/unpleasant when I'm not getting my way.

But for those who do have wealth or power...Iraq. Attachment to oil. Attachment to pride. National pride. Religious pride. This is just one example, which I use because it is so current.

The ego, which we grasp at as real and solid and in fact the essence of our selves, and consequently cherish as if its loss would be the end of the universe, is simply afraid. What is it afraid of? What are we afraid of (when we identify so strongly with this conception of self)? Powerlessness, that's what. Non-existence, that's what. And we'll do anything to avoid that. With six billion people all doing whatever they can to avoid what they think is powerlessness and non-existence, what can you expect but evil results?

I don't know if even this has said what I meant it to say. But let it stand.

Changes to Mental Blog

I've added a couple things to the blog in the last few days. A hit counter. An RSS feed. It's Murrican, I know, but I still haven't come across the Canadian feed that I want to put there. And finally, a tag-board, or message board. It's way down at the bottom of the sidebar underneath who knows what all. You can leave me a short message there, if you like. Fill in your name, type the message (or choose a smiley) and click on the "Tag" button.

State of the Onion

Are we all going to watch Dubya on the tube giving us the state of his onion tonight?

So many layers. Such pungency. Ah cain't hardly stand it.

Global Good Neighbour Flash Video

Click on title. Enjoy.

Cultural Product

The new rules for crossing the Canada-US border have the tourism mavens of Hawgtown all in a dither. They are convinced that the Yanks are too stupid or too self-absorbed to bother coming to Canada if they need a passport to get back home. Why bother, eh? We can see McNuggets and Burger Kink down the street. Don't need to go to Hawgtown or any other Canajun town.

Ontario Today on the Mothercorp interviewed a guy from the Hawgtown Tourist Bureau (or whatever it's called.)

(Aside: I checked the Ontario Today web page to find out the man's name and get all the facts straight, but there's no text version of the interview, only audio, and you need RealPlayer to hear it, and I really didn't feel like downloading yet another audio software device just to listen to a six minute piece and then I've got more software cluttering up my hard drive and trying to cajole me into free music download trials and librarying all my music and making playlists and organizing podcasts and having RealPlayer fight with Widows Media Player and iTunes for dominance over Larry's audiovisual experience and who's going to be the Default Player and choosing your favourite psychedelic visualization when you listen to music, and skins, you know what skins are? and goddam you can only handle so much of this crap and when I had the computer rejigged a couple months ago it came back all clean and devoid of superfluous stuff and who needs to add more, eh? I ask you...So, anyway, no names, no facts, just what I can remember off the top of my inflated head.)

Ontario Today. Tourism. The man from the Cat Detector Van said he could detect a purr at 400 feet, and Eric, bein' such a 'appy cat was a piece of cake.

Sorry, that was an unnecessary Monty Python digression.

Ontario. Tourism. Hawgtown. The man from the tourist trap said the need for passports would likely discourage Yanks from coming into Hawgtown to spend their pesos. Business travellers, sure. But regular down-home touristas? Uh-uh.

How to entice them? They've been looking at different markets in the US. Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington. Why? Because these places have a vibrant cultural component. And Hawgtown does too. Frank Gehry architecture. ROM. Theatre! ART! Music! Ballet. Opera. Homeless people under the bridges. They figure people who are interested in those sorts of things in the US would be attracted to the same things in Hawgtown.

But that's not what I want to talk about.

What got me was the way he talked about it. It's not Theatre. Not ART. Not Music. By Gawd, it's cultural product! Little did you know that we here up in the wilds of Southern Ontariariario have some of the finest cultural product anywhere in the world that cultural product makes hearts beat faster! Yessir, I get wet just thinking about a close encounter with some yummy cultural product.

Hey, all you potes, all you righters and musikantes! How do you feel about having the sweat of your inspired cerebrations labelled cultural product? It makes me all warm and fuzzy, I tell ya!

The Speling Master Speeks

It has come to my attention that the speling of the werd "potery" is somewhat unsetled. No, it's not pottery. How shall I spel this werd? I think I'm gonna have to setle it with Po-tree. po-tree. A venable and time-honerd usage. Guarantys correct pronounciation. Po. Tree. Rhymes with Bo. Tree. Both are venues associated with enlightenment.

There ye have it. Po-tree.

Excuse me, I see the Warden of the Yoni School marching down the range. She wears a scowl. She also wears a cowl, but that's another storey. I'm sure she's just heard that I've made a firm decision on the speling of po-tree. Which, of course, is a clear defiance of the injunction to spel keerectly, and will undoubtedly affect my parole and probation.

(Sigh)

Addendum to the Doomsday Clock

New York Times Editorial

Busywork for Nuclear Scientists
Published: January 15, 2007

The Bush administration is eager to start work on a new nuclear warhead with all sorts of admirable qualities: sturdy, reliable and secure from terrorists. To sweeten the deal, officials say that if they can replace the current arsenal with Reliable Replacement Warheads (what could sound more comforting?), they probably won’t have to keep so many extra warheads to hedge against technical failure. If you’re still not sold, the warhead comes with something of a guarantee — that scientists can build the new bombs without ever testing them.

Let the buyer beware. While the program has gotten very little attention here, it is a public-relations disaster in the making overseas. Suspicions that the United States is actually trying to build up its nuclear capabilities are undercutting Washington’s arguments for restraining the nuclear appetites of Iran and North Korea.

Then there’s the tens of billions it is likely to cost. And the most important question: Nearly two decades after the country stopped building nuclear weapons, does it really need a new one? The answer, emphatically, is no. This is a make-work program championed by the weapons laboratories and belatedly by the Pentagon, which hasn’t been able to get Congress to pay for its other nuclear fantasies.

The Rumsfeld team’s first choice was for a nuclear “bunker buster” to go after deeply buried targets. The Pentagon got concerned about “aging” warheads only after it was clear that even the Republican-led Congress, or at least one intrepid House subcommittee chairman, considered the bunker buster too Strangelovian to finance.

One crucial argument for the new program took a major hit in November when the Jason — a prestigious panel of scientists that advises the government on weapons — reported that most of the plutonium triggers in the current arsenal can be expected to last for 100 years. Since the oldest weapons are less than 50 years old, supporters of the new warhead have fallen back on warnings that other bomb components are also aging, and that the nuclear labs need the work to attract and train the best scientists. But the labs are already spending billions on studying and preserving the current arsenal.

Then there’s that guarantee that there will be no need for testing — one of the few arms-control taboos President Bush hasn’t broken yet. While experts debate whether the labs can really build a weapon without testing it, the more important question is whether any president would stake America’s security on an untested arsenal.

America would be much safer if the president focused on reducing the number of old nuclear weapons still deployed by the United States and the other nuclear powers. The new Congress should stop this program before any more dollars are wasted, or more damage is done to America’s credibility.

UNESCO names 2007 ‘Year of Rumi’

This comes from the Daily Times out of Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD: The mystic literature of Islam is a source of inspiration and following its universal values of love, peace, harmony and tolerance can bridge the gap between the East and West, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Mushahid Hussain Sayed on Monday.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has designated the year 2007 as the ‘Year of Rumi’ to develop inter-faith dialogue and spread his message of humanism throughout the world.

Speaking as chief guest at the launch ceremony of Rumi Forum, Hussain said that Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi was the greatest Turkish Sufi inspirer and had championed the cause of peaceful co-existence and mutual respect. He said that through the forum, Rumi’s teachings would be made widely known to the people of Pakistan and the bond of friendship between the two countries would be strengthened.

The senator said that during his visit to the US, he inquired, at a number of popular bookstores, about who the most widely read Turkish poet was, and he was surprised to learn that it was Rumi. “If there is any general idea underlying Rumi’s poetry, it is the absolute love of Allah and his influence on the thought, literature and forms of aesthetic expression in the world of Islam,” he added.

2007 marks the 800th anniversary of the great spiritual and literary Muslim figure, Rumi. Born in Balkh, Afghanistan, in 1207, Rumi was a conservative cleric in his youth but upon his meeting with wandering dervish Shams Tabriz in 1247, he metamorphosed into an entirely different personality and from then on preached the message of Islam. His six-volume Mathnavi and Diwan Shams Tabriz were best sellers in the US and Europe. He was also a major influence on some of the most popular names in the Islamic world, including Allama Muhammad Iqbal, who considered himself as Rumi’s Hindi Mureed (Indian Disciple). staff report

***

Soul receives from soul that knowledge,

therefore not by book nor from tongue.

If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind,

that is illumination of heart.

Waiting On the World to Change

Mr. B. Bacon has a comment on my previous post that made me think of this latest song by John Mayer:

me and all my friends
we're all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there's no way we ever could
now we see everything that's going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don't have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's hard to beat the system
when we're standing at a distance
so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their door
and when you trust your television
what you get is what you got
cause when they own the information, oh
they can bend it all they want

that's why we're waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's not that we don't care,
we just know that the fight ain't fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

and we're still waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
one day our generation
is gonna rule the population
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

***

This song has become a sort of anthem. Pretty passive anthem, don't you think? Not much of a protest song. I think I'll keep waiting...

Until the real thing comes along.

Photoshop Comes to Life!

Go here for a fun video (with music).

Follow-Up on the Doomsday Clock

In case you missed it, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the clock today from 7 minutes to midnight to 5. Five is where the clock started in 1947. The closest it has ever been is 2 minutes to midnight in 1953.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

That was the title of a lecture sponsored by the Campbell Baptist church in Whimsy, ON, that lovely border town nestled cheek by jowl against Motown. It's part of their Winter Theological Conference called The Deadly Threat of Islam.

Mothercorp was blasting away on this today. The man who gave the lecture is named Zachariah Anani, a Muslim who converted to Christianity (and then found his life threatened.) He is a former member of a Lebanese militia group called Ali's Youth and one way or another claims to have killed more than 200 people in the course of his career of rebellion. Before the age of 17. He decided to give that up and came to Canada as a refugee, and now he's a Canadian citizen. Anani's lecture was intended to inform people of the violent underpinnings of Islam and the Koran.

The second session in the conference is apparently called Could Jihad Be Coming to Your Neighbourhood? Nice, eh? Very neighbourly. Friendly neighbourhood Baptist Church.

Needless to say, the content of the lecture and some of the discussion that took place has caused some stir in the state of Whimsy. Hate speech, some are calling it. Jihad coming to your neighbourhood? Well, maybe not hate speech, but certainly a healthy dose of hyperbole. Fear-mongering. Just what we all need to sleep better at night.

The reason I bring this up is because I had an experience with this sort of thing a few years ago. I don't remember exactly when, but it was after 9/11. (As a matter of fact, I just remembered that it was around Nov. 11, Remembrance Day.) Now, I don't want you to think I'm picking on the Baptists, but it just so happens that this occurred at a Baptist church in Arnprior. (I could never make up a better name...) The sermon that day was about Islam. How "their" God is not "our" God. How they worship a black stone that resides in Mecca. How they were trying to fool us by claiming it was the same God. Infidels! Beware! All done with PowerPoint, no less! PowerPoint. Talking Points. Pamphlets for further perusal. Investigate the stranger in our midst!

The whole thing made me extremely uncomfortable. I did not feel as if I were in Christian surroundings. And though it may not have been hate speech, it was definitely (but subtly) inflammatory. And the congregation was encouraged to study up on this dangerous foreign religion. Ordinary whitebread Arnprior townsfolk being spoonfed bitter pablum by a nominally Christian pastor...and unfortunately, I could see that a number of them swallowed it.

Reminds me of a song by Steely Dan...Third World Man:

Johnny's playroom
Is a bunker filled with sand
He's become a third world man
Smoky sunday
He's been mobilized since dawn
Now he's crouching on the lawn
He's a third world man

Yep, I'll be out patrolling the quadrangle of the Yoni School every afternoon now, just in case Jihad is coming to my neighbourhood.

Paul Tillich's Take On It

Forgive the long quote, but this passage from Paul Tillich's series of sermons entitled The Eternal Now published in 1963 just seems so apropos. (Or a propos if yer a stickler...) This is from the sermon called Salvation.

In the ancient world, great political leaders were called saviours. They liberated nations and groups within them from misery, enslavement, and war. This is another kind of healing, reminiscent of the words of the last book of the Bible, which says in poetic language that "the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations." How can nations be healed? One may say: They can be liberated from external conquerors or internal oppressors. But can they be healed? Can they be saved? The prophets give the answer: Nations are saved if there is a small minority, a group of people, who represent what the nation is called to be. They may be defeated, but their spirit will be a power of resistance against the evil spirits who are detrimental to the nation. The question of saving power in the nation is the question of whether there is a minority, even a small one, which is willing to resist the anxiety produced by propaganda, the conformity enforced by threat, the hatred stimulated by ignorance. The future of this country and its spiritual values is not dependent as much on atomic defense as on the influence such groups will have on the spirit in which the nation will think and act.

And this is true of mankind as a whole. Its future will be dependent on a saving group, embodied in one nation or crossing through all nations. There is saving power in mankind, but there is also the hidden will to self-destruction. It depends on every one of us which side will prevail. There is no divine promise that humanity will survive this or the next year. But it may depend on the saving power effective in you or me, whether it will survive. (It may depend on the amount of healing and liberating grace which works through any of us with respect to social justice, racial equality, and political wisdom.) Unless many of say to ourselves: Through the saving power working in me, mankind may be saved or lost -- it will be lost.

LA Times, Jan 7/07

I got an A in Phallus 101

The list of the 12 most bizarre college courses in the U.S. includes offerings such as 'The Phallus' and 'Queer Musicology.'

By Charlotte Allen, Charlotte Allen is an editor at Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."

Since the 1960s, the Young America's Foundation has decried what it considers leftist radicalism on college campuses. Last month, it released this academic year's "Dirty Dozen" — college courses it found to be "the most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist activism supplanting traditional scholarship."

1. "The Phallus"

Occidental College. A seminar in critical theory and social justice, this class examines Sigmund Freud, phallologocentrism and the lesbian phallus.

2. "Queer Musicology"

UCLA. This course welcomes students from all disciplines to study what it calls an "unruly discourse" on the subject, understood through the works of Cole Porter, Pussy Tourette and John Cage.

3. "Taking Marx Seriously"

Amherst College. This advanced seminar for 15 students examines whether Karl Marx still matters despite the countless interpretations and applications of his ideas, or whether the world has entered a post-Marxist era.

4. "Adultery Novel"

University of Pennsylvania. Falling in the newly named "gender, culture and society" major, this course examines novels and films of adultery such as "Madame Bovary" and "The Graduate" through Marxist, Freudian and feminist lenses.

5. "Blackness"

Occidental College. Critical race theory and the idea of "post-blackness" are among the topics covered in this seminar course examining racial identity. A course on whiteness is a prerequisite.

6. "Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration"

University of Washington. This women studies department offering takes a new look at recent immigration debates in the U.S., integrating questions of race and gender while also looking at the role of the war on terror.

7. "Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism"

Mount Holyoke College. The educational studies department offers this first-year, writing-intensive seminar asking whether whiteness is "an identity, an ideology, a racialized social system," and how it relates to racism.

8. "Native American Feminisms"

University of Michigan. The women's studies and American culture departments offer this course on contemporary Native American feminism, including its development and its relation to struggles for land.

9. "'Mail Order Brides?' Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context"

Johns Hopkins University. This history course — cross-listed with anthropology, political science and studies of women, gender and sexuality — is limited to 35 students and asks for an anthropology course as a prerequisite.

10. "Cyberfeminism"

Cornell University. Cornell's art history department offers this seminar looking at art produced under the influence of feminism, post-feminism and the Internet.

11. "American Dreams/American Realities"

Duke University. Part of Duke's Hart Leadership Program that prepares students for public service, this history course looks at American myths, from "city on the hill" to "foreign devil," in shaping American history.

12. "Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism"

Swarthmore College. Swarthmore's "peace and conflict studies" program offers this course that "will deconstruct 'terrorism' " and "study the dynamics of cultural marginalization" while seeking alternatives to violence.

(NB. This is only the last half of the article. The first half consists of Ms. Allen making fun of the courses. You can see that here, for a while anyway, until the Times archives it.)

I have comments about a couple of these:

#3 Taking Marx Seriously: Although such a course would undoubtedly have a leftist slant, still, I would think that you'd want to take Marx seriously, since he was one of the most important economic theorists of the last 200 years. His political conclusions may not have borne healthy fruit, but his economic analyses are still powerful.

#11 American Dreams/American Realities: The US has powerful and enduring myths. The current administration is busy creating more. Why wouldn't you want to examine how these influence you?

#12 Non-violent Responses to Terrorism: Duh! If this is leftism, then the US is in a sad state indeed.

Testing RSS

You'll notice an addition in the sidebar: The Nation. I'm testing the RSS feed. The Nation can stay for now. Probably something more Canajun would be good.

United Democratic Nations

In my post about the Doomsday Clock I received a comment from Gary about an organization he is promoting called United Democratic Nations. Click on the title to go there. (This, by the way, is not any Gary I know.) I don't know how these things happen, but he responded very quickly to that post. Interesting.

I went to the website to have a look. It's an organization that doesn't exist. Even though it has a sort of charter and a mission statement and a working definition and a goal. In fact, it's a dream. A big one.

As I say, I don't know this Gary. But I admire him in a way. He has this dream. A big one...and he believes in it enough to post a comment on an obscure Mental Blog that, presumably, he just happened to come across while surfing. Or maybe his surfing is more focused, looking for items that pop up related to the thing he's dreaming about. It is possible to do that now. Anyway, good for him.

As for the dream, I think that's admirable too, although I have lingering doubts, as yet too nebulous to articulate fully.

He wants either a reformed United Nations, or a new United Democratic Nations. That's all very well. And exclusive, which gives me pause. The definition excludes most of the nations on the planet, I think. Which makes me wonder how effective it could be.

Confining yourself to "democratic" nations is, perhaps, a moral choice. It assumes that democracy is some sort of panacea. Or the best form of government. Or the most equitable. Or the most likely to respond to the needs of its citizens. But I've long had doubts about the "democratic state" of most democratic states in the world. Is it possible to have a one-party democratic state? Is a two-party state democratic? What if those two parties clandestinely conspire to shut out other rising movements, a proposition which is not far-fetched in the US?

Does the fact that one may vote make a nation democratic? Or is it a multiple choice that makes the democracy? That would apply to Canada, I suppose. Except that most everyone already knows that one choice or the other hardly makes any difference, except at the margins. A little left, a little right, a mosh pit in the centre. But the common voice, or rather, the voice of the commoner, still is unheard. (The Reform Party of Canada was one of those prairie populist movements, much like Social Credit. Vox Populi! The West wants In! And when it folded itself into the Conservative Party of Canada, it spawned a Prime Minister who doesn't even let his Cabinet Ministers speak for themselves! Not to mention making and announcing policies without consulting them.)

Canadians have long been advocates (in the international arena) of quiet engagement. ie. You engage those oppositionist elements, those difficult nations, those non-democratic players, in dialogue and slowly but surely bring them around to your point of view. Sometimes you have to be tougher, sometimes not. South Africa comes to mind. I don't know whether this really works. Would it work with China? Has it ever? Perhaps we've not been tough enough? But the United Democratic Nations would not include China.

It might be good to remember that the failure of the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations, was largely due to the refusal of the United States to participate. If the major players are not involved, then it seems like a UDN standing on the outside shouting at the others.

I tend to agree with Gary, that the existence of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, each with an absolute veto, is a flaw and a recipe for deadlock. At the formation of the UN, those were the big players, the winners of a recently fought big war, and that was the price they exacted in order to play. In geopolitics, every nation wants its edge. So now, it's 60 years later. Has the US changed so much that it is willing to relinquish that edge? I think not. Even the "democratic nations" have not become so altruistic.

Nevertheless, change begins with a dream. And we know that Gary is not the only one who thinks it is time for a change in the international regime.

Why Didn't I Think of That?

It seems that Joshua Holland, a staff writer for AlterNet has coined a phrase: War on Terra. That's brilliant. Why didn't I think of it? It's so obvious once you see it. Damn! Now I'm going to have to go back & change all those labels I've been so busy making. Get ready Ebenezer!

Larry Breaks His Rule About On-Line Petitions

I know I said I don't participate in online petitions. MoveOn.org is a group that I've known and known about for several years. I trust them, as far as that is possible in an entirely electronic/internet relationship. This is not to say that I have any special faith in the effectiveness of this type of action. But maybe...

Dear friends,

Just when we thought the war in Iraq couldn't get any worse—it has. Last night, President Bush rejected reality, spurned the American people's verdict, and announced his new policy: military escalation in Iraq.

The newly elected United States Congress has the power to stop this madness, but it's critical to show immediate, unified opposition from the international community.

So MoveOn is helping launch Avaaz, a new international partnership to mobilize progressive global voices. We're starting with an emergency worldwide petition to the U.S. Congress and a powerful full-page ad in "Roll Call"—the Washington DC newspaper read by every member of Congress and their staff.

Click below to see the ad and sign the petition:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_campaign_jan_2007/

After years of failed occupation, it's clear to everyone but George Bush that the US cannot solve this civil conflict through force. As Bush's own top military advisors and commanders in the field have said, sending tens of thousands more American troops will only fan the flames of this war.

World opinion matters: The American people understand the US can't police the globe by itself. That's why, before the original invasion, Bush worked so hard to promote the involvement of Tony Blair and a few other select world leaders to win over reluctant members of Congress.

Today, Bush stands completely alone—but it's our job to bring this point home in Washington. The ad in Roll Call highlights Tony Blair's decision to withdraw troops in direct opposition to Bush's proposed escalation. And the petition will help show where the global public stands.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_campaign_jan_2007/

The Bush administration is already twisting arms and doing everything it can to push this escalation through. Congress may yet find the courage to resist—if we help them—but there's no time to lose.

Add your name to the petition. Spread the word to your friends. The Iraq crisis is a global problem. Together we have the power, and the responsibility, to help change course.

Sincerely,

–Eli Pariser
MoveOn.org Political Action
January 11, 2006


PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

"DOOMSDAY CLOCK" HAND TO BE MOVED, REFLECTING WORSENING NUCLEAR, CLIMATE THREATS TO WORLD

-- Washington, D.C. and London News Advisory for January 17, 2007 --

Simultaneous Announcement to be Made from Washington, D.C. and London; Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to Underscore "Most Perilous Period Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

NEWS ADVISORY//January 17, 2006///The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock" on January 17, 2007, the first such change to the Clock since February 2002. The major new step reflects growing concerns about a "Second Nuclear Age" marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing "launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the
U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

The BAS news event will take place simultaneously on January 17th at 9:30 a.m. ET at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., and at 2:30 p.m. GMT in London at The Royal Society.

News event speakers will include:

- Stephen Hawking, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of The Royal Society;

- Kennette Benedict, executive director, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists;

- Sir Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, and professor of cosmology and astrophysics and master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge;

- Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University; and

- Ambassador Thomas Pickering, a BAS director and co-chair of the International Crisis Group.

A live, two-way satellite feed (with full Q&A) will connect the Washington, D.C., and London news events.


TO PARTICIPATE IN PERSON: You can join us for the simultaneous, two-site news event taking place on January 17, 2007 -- 9:30 a.m. ET, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Auditorium, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.; and 2:30 p.m. GMT, The Royal Society, Wellcome Trust Lecture Hall, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London. Please RSVP in advance by contacting Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266, or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com.


CAN'T PARTICIPATE IN PERSON?: In the U.S., reporters can join this live, phone-based global news conference at 9:30 a.m. ET on January 17, 2007 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. (Media in and around London should dial 0800-028-0531. All other reporters outside of the U.S. and the London area should dial 001-412-858-4600, which is not a toll-free line.) Ask for the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock" news event. A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at
http://www.thebulletin.org as of 6 p.m. ET/11 p.m. GMT on January 17, 2007.

CONTACT: Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266 or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com.

Song of the Day

Sam Stone by John Prine.

Some Talk About Money

HWSRN gets the union newspaper. He belongs to the union. Musicians union. The American Federation of Musicians. AFM. Affiliated with the AFL-CIO. They let the Canadians in too.

The paper is called International Musician. That's so you know they let the Canadians in too. Canada has its own vice-president. He has a moustache.

I've got three articles here from the Jan/07 issue of International Musician. (They're a little tiny, but if you click on them you get a larger version.) The first one that caught my eye was this one:

Check out that last paragraph. $7 a day! In the good old US of A! Does this not seem Third Worldish to you? Does it not conjure up images of shacks in the Ozarks and Dustbowl Okies? Can you not picture some wide-eyed little nappy-headed boy sitting in the corner of a dank verminous underground parking lot in the projects? Wondering whether he should spend that seven bucks on a Big Mac or smokes? And the population that's living on that is larger than Canada's whole body count!

I thank my lucky stars I'm not in that situation. But all I know is, I've been working harder (it seems) for about the same money for a couple of years now. And the same can not be said for the oil companies, to which I am such a generous contributor.

Just to the left of that article was this one:$200,000. That's a lotta money for horsehair. (Or whatever. I'm not too familiar with Cellos. I have more experience with Jello. Red is my favourite.) This goes to show that the world of classical music is still a big business with a lotta money floating around. And it also shows that branding holds sway even in the rare air of Symphonic Olympus. "It is the bow's provenance that is the most significant element of its sale..." not necessarily the qualities of its construction, or whether a modern-made bow might actually be better. (Everybody loves antiques.)

Finally, on the next page of the paper, to the right of the incomes article, was this:
What do you think of a company that controls $18 billion worth of communications? If all those $7 per day people had access to the supposedly public airwaves, I wonder what they would say.

I suppose I'm commenting, eh? But I'm really just making an observation. In this union newspaper we can go from abject poverty to spending a coupla hundred grand on a cello bow to billions on ways to influence the minds of the masses. And it's all happening in one little corner of the universe called USA. (Of course, they let in the Canadians too.)

Oh, and here's another benefit of union membership...Clipart!

Michael Jackson & The Babies

OK, so I have this book. That makes 4 now.

It's called Musicians In Tune by Jenny Boyd, who was once married to Mick Fleetwood, and then ended up married to Ian Wallace, a drummer for King Crimson among others.

Another book I've had for a long time. Never looked at it. Not true. I looked at it. Several times. But I never read it.

It's Jenny's PhD thesis, more or less. Interviews with musicians about creativity and art and how it happens and all that. I'm a bit leery of it as a PhD thesis. To me, there's nothing particularly ground-breaking in it, so far. Everything she's said about creativity and how it develops or is nurtured is pretty well-known these days. And all you writers out there, if you happened to read this, you'd probably say, "Oh yeah, I knew that..." Channeling the unconscious, tapping into the undercurrent or the Oversoul, being a vessel, accepting the gift of inspiration. All that stuff. But it is interesting to read what all the musicians have to say, and their stories about how they got involved in music, and how they were supported (or not) by family and friends.

And Jenny herself has an interesting story. She and her sister Pattie were both Carnaby Street models, when Carnaby Street set the world standard. Pattie married George Harrison. And then Eric Clapton. They both were in India with The Beatles and the Maharishi. Fascinating stuff.

But that's not why I'm writing about this. I believe the Maharishi has left this astral plane. What I really want to do is quote from the book. Because the quote is a bit eerie, considering it was published in 1992. It comes from a section entitled Musicians as Role Models:

Keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, who's played with numerous artists including Michael Jackson, pointed to the duty that musicians have because of their music's power: "There's a responsibility because people are greatly affected by what you do. I know people don't want to believe in hidden powers or hidden messages behind music, but I believe that. I think it greatly affects people, and it's a responsibility. How can you account for the appeal that Michael [Jackson] has with the kids? I think it's positive; babies from six months to sixteen love his stuff. He's got a serious thing with the babies. I think it's very powerful."

p. 135

A serious thing with the babies? No kidding. Seriously.

What, exactly, caused Phillinganes to choose those words specifically? Talk about channeling the unconscious...

Larry Keiler, Boy Soprano

Yes, yes, I was indeed a boy soprano. It happened like this:

Sister Stanislaus went out (on the feast of Stephen).
Gathered children round about and lined them up all even.
She caused them all to sing a song, list'ning so intently
And singled little Larry out, all quite inciden...tal...ly.

Hither, child, and thither soon, darling little songbird.
You can really hold a tune, judged by what I've just heard.
You shall sing at Festival, you are designated.
You shall represent us all, boy soprano fa...a...ted.

That was in Grade 2. I was seven.

To be precise, I wasn't the only one pulled out of the line. There were others, but I really only remember Mirie O'Neal, she of the long blonde hair that always seemed to be in her mouth and drove the teachers crazy. She did have a sweet voice, though.

The "Festival" turned out to be the annual Kiwanis festival. A bloody competition. Competitions! The bane of shy kids and underachievers.

But don't get me wrong. I think I wasn't really shy. I rather enjoyed these competitions. Or maybe it was more the singing that I enjoyed.

I sang in Kiwanis festivals for quite a number of years. I never won. Always silver or bronze. Silver or bronze. Bronze or silver. It's sort of the luck of the draw. It just so happened that my age group had two other boy sopranos who were really good, and in fact grew up to be professional singers. Ind