The Kraalspace

Guilty. Every damn one of them.

2012-01-29T17:31:00.006-05:00

Good news from Kingston: the jury verdict in the Shafia mass-murder honour killing trial is in, and all three defendants are guilty of first degree murder. Thank goodness, the system worked and the murderers are headed for jail; 25 years with no chance of parole, then I guess we'll see. Christie Blatchford's reports have been terrific; I hope she writes a book about this case.

There was one thing she reported early on in the trial, when the court was hearing testimony from the teachers and social workers who could easily see that these girls were living in hellish abuse yet were too cowed by political correctness to intervene and save them.

One of the girls didn't want to go on a sugarbush field trip with her class, and the teacher told her firmly that she had to go, because this was "part of our culture" and it was important she learn about it. I was struck by the firmness and certainty about Canadian culture when it was a rather trivial, picturesque novelty in question. Why were these people never told with equal firmness about the other aspects of our culture they had to accept?

And not just the usual "human rights" blather that everyone piously intones at times like this. I mean something as simple as the way our laws work and what happens to people who try to defy them? I think making the Shafia adults watch a season of "CSI" would have been a more valuable introduction to our culture than a whole seminar on maple sugaring, snowshoeing, hockey, and how to bake butter tarts. Why didn't anyone ever say to Shafia "Do you know what we can do to you if you put a foot wrong? We have machines that can make the stones talk to us. We can overhear your whispers ten miles away. We can see what you do without even opening our eyes. We will find out everything and you can't hide from us."

Instead, this Afghan mini-tyrant was flattered and deferred to - at every turn, he was encouraged to believe that his foreign culture was a sort of magical cloak of invincibility that could deflect every presumptuous attempt by the infidel to interfere with him. No wonder when Shafia and his two accomplices finally turned their mind to committing murder, they figured the same threadbare little bag of tricks that thwarted the Montreal social workers would defeat the Kingston police.

"We'll just haughtily deny everything! We'll tell bald lies! We'll get on our high horse and act offended! We'll claim we can't understand! We'll throw ourselves on the ground and sob hysterically! What could go wrong? It's always worked before!"

It was like watching a spoiled 5-year old who thinks he can buy the CN Tower with the contents of his piggy bank. These three simply had no idea how a police investigation works or what sort of tools a modern Western criminal investigator has at his disposal. If someone had managed to get through their bumptious conceit and really teach them how this culture they were inhabiting worked, maybe they wouldn't have felt that murder was an option for dealing with disappointments.

But no, we didn't want to hurt their feelings by pointing out that they were backward hillbillies; we covered it up and ignored it so they sailed along confidently in their bubble of error, until they crossed a line we wouldn't ignore. I'm sure all 3 are bewildered at finding themselves in jail; they thought they'd figured us out and knew the magic formula for passing unscathed among us. And we let them think they had, until it was too late.

Word fun

2012-01-21T08:52:00.003-05:00

My sister sent me this funny article. The task was to "to take
any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or
changing one letter and supply a new definition". I especially enjoyed the following:

Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after
you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

I remember long ago finding an almost identical contest in the back pages of a Spectator magazine, only people were to take the name of a book, movie, poem, etc. and alter one letter to create a new work. The one I remember was "Wein Kampf: The inspiring story of Hitler's struggle against alcoholism."

The Tales of Hoffmann - Opera Nationale de Paris (Bastille) 2002

2012-01-17T13:25:00.011-05:00

We're lucky that nearly every Sunday evening the French Ontario TV station TFO broadcasts an opera, usually in French, but sometimes in another language with French subtitles. This past Sunday they showed 'The Tales of Hoffmann', recorded in 2002 in Paris, with Neil Shicoff as Hoffmann and Bryn Terfel as Lindorf/Coppelius/Dr. Miracle/Dapertutto.

I normally prefer traditional stagings of opera, so when I saw the bare stage at the opening of this version, I didn't expect much. I was pleasantly surprised, due mostly to the performances of the leading male singers. Shicoff's Hoffmann was quite a different interpretation from what I'd seen before. This isn't the eagerly-awaited life of the party one usually sees entering Luther's tavern to the applause of enthusiastic students. This Hoffmann begins the opera alone in the dark, passed out drunk on the floor before the crowd even enters. As the opera house patrons flood in during intermission, they don't even notice Hoffmann until Niklaus hauls him up off the floor. The modern dress manages to downplay Hoffmann's "poet" identity; in his disheveled suit and askew tie, he doesn't look like a poet. He looks like one of those raffish, hard-drinking reporters from a 1940s Hollywood film (when they were still called "reporters" and not "journalists"). He's already drunk, so when he starts calling out "Allumons le punch! Grisons-nous!" it's more obvious than usual that he's not drinking to celebrate anything - he's bitter and rather unpleasant.

This gives an odd atmosphere to his first song, the "Kleinzach" number.

I've never cared much for this song; it seems a rather silly interruption to the story, and I've always just waited it out until it segues into his reminiscenses of his beloved. But here, it works in a different way from what I've experienced before. When the crowd calls out for him to "sing that song about Kleinzach", it doesn't feel like a bunch of friends happily asking to hear a familiar, fun story. Suddenly I got the feeling that this was a crowd in a bar cruelly egging on a drunk to make a fool of himself. Maybe these people aren't his friends after all.

Bryn Terfel as Councillor Lindorf has already appeared before this, plotting his seduction of Stella, but now he starts interacting with Hoffmann. It's hardly a fair contest. Shicoff is actually a bit on the short side, and Terfel is quite tall, but it's more Shicoff's acting ability that convinces us of Hoffmann's emotional turmoil and weakness. Lindorf is coolly scornful of his rival; Hoffmann's taunts never leave a mark, and his physical stumbling and weakness are a metaphor for his inner disarray. When Lindorf mockingly asks, "Ah! ah! ah! monsieur aime donc quelque fois?" ("So, the gentleman is in love, is he?") Hoffmann really looks wounded as he pauses, clutching his sad little pages of poetry, and I suddenly felt genuinely pained for him. It's so easy to make him suffer, and he can never hide it, no matter how he tries. Torturing him is child's play for a hardened villain like Lindorf; I almost wondered at that point how Hoffmann could possibly make it through the entire opera.

The main way this Hoffmann is different from all the others I've seen is that here, Hoffmann from the beginning is a loser. He doesn't really have friends, except for Niklaus. This whole story is going to be a list of the ways and things he's lost over the years. It's both an explanation of why he's down and out today, and why his history is one of failure and loss.

The story of Hoffmann's 3 loves begins with Olympia, the doll, and for the most part I enjoyed it. Olympia's mechanical party song starts with her waving a fan, which she eventually folds up and turns into a microphone, as she carries on a pop-diva performance, even to the point of holding out the mic to the audience for "callbacks" during the little repetitions in her song. Very funny. I immediately thought of Madonna, but she could have been any pop singer. I could have done without the simulated sex during the song, but this seems to be becoming more common in modern productions. I can't understand it myself; Olympia is supposed to be a robot, without heart or feelings. Why directors seem to think that this should also make her a nymphomaniac is beyond me. I think it's just because this is the most obviously comic part of the opera, and today "comic" seems to equal "lewd". It was funny and even a little shocking, but in a silly way, when her dress flew off and she was walking around "nude", though of course the soprano was encased in plastic "body armour", that I couldn't help noticing was not anatomically correct, just the way a real Barbie doll would be. Poor Spalanzani kept trying in vain to cover her offensive areas with nothing but his hands, which didn't do much good, but added a lot to the humour. At least he was having the normal reaction to seeing his "daughter" marching around in public stark naked!

Terfel's Coppelius doesn't have that big a role in this part, but he did well enough. I didn't find him that overpowering as Coppelius. When he was plucking eyeballs out of the giant jar of preserved ones sitting on the table, I really expected him to start juggling them. That would be a nice touch, frankly; I wonder if it's hard for a baritone to juggle while singing? I'll bet not many could do it. When at the end, he pulls out a saw and goes roaring off in search of revenge, he reminded me a lot of Sweeney Todd.

But it's Shicoff I wanted to watch all throughout this section. He's playing a younger self, and you can see it in his almost little-boy skittishness (even though Shicoff was over 50 for this performance, he still manages to carry it off). He simply can't protect himself; "heart on the sleeve" doesn't nearly adequately describe the way this Hoffmann surrenders to love. When he drops to his knees in adoration before Olympia, it's almost indecent to see so much emotion pouring out of a man. He's both wonderful and pathetic. Coppelius's suggestion to Spalanzani to marry off Olympia to Hoffmann manages to convey more than the usual random malice of an evil man. It fits because Hoffmann is a loser. He's not a naive, innocent boy who can be deceived; he's the sort who'll always end up with a piece of junk because that's what he deserves. Poor Hoffmann! I can feel sorry for him while realizing that he brings this sort of disaster on himself. He's not just a victim - he's complicit in his own degradation.

The next section deals with Antonia, the artist. I didn't care for the set design that much. The bottom/front section is an empty orchestra pit; the top/rear is a stage with closed curtain (the curtain opens when Antonia's mother finally appears). Most of the action between Hoffmann and Antonia takes place in the lower section, and I found it so dark it was hard to see what was going on. All the chairs and music stands seemed just so much clutter for the performers to thread their way through; this was one instance when I would have LIKED a bare stage. Antonia was fine, though I didn't detect much fire in her. She seemed depressed and colourless, as if the dark stage design sucked the life out of her. When she finally gives in to her desire to sing, she didn't seem to have that much fire; I've always thought Antonia should have a sort of hectic excitement whenever she sings, so you can believe that this could push her past the limits of her physical strength.

Terfel's Dr. Miracle is pretty sinister in this section, though I was a little amused because he was dressed in a tuxedo. With those little glasses, he reminded me a lot of John Candy's Dr. Tongue. I kept thinking, "Welcome to Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Opera!" The villain really dominates this section of the opera; in fact, Hoffmann hardly appears in it except near the beginning. Instead, it's a long interview between Miracle and M. Crespel, then another long interview between Miracle and Antonia. Hoffmann and Dr. Miracle don't actually meet at all. Antonia seems to be the best "match" for Hoffmann - they're both artists and they do genuinely love each other. But Hoffmann still looks like a scruffy loser; you can see why M. Crespel doesn't want this guy hanging around his lovely, talented daughter - he looks like a bum. He does lose her, but it's not exactly his fault this time. Instead, the problem seems to be that he's drawn to a woman he can never really win. She's an artist, and she'll choose her art over him, no matter how much he means to her, even though in the end it costs her life.

Finally, we come to the Giulietta segment, which naturally starts off with an orgy, which I found a bit meh, but other people seem to like this sort of thing. Giulietta is quite a piece of work - she looks like a 1920s blonde movie star, with lots of style and absolutely no heart whatsoever. I found her strangely convincing as a femme fatale for hire. The background of this set is a wall of (moving) theatre seats; the chorus occupies these seats both as participants in the action, and then will suddenly transform into an audience observing the performance. It's surprisingly effective to see the main performers suddenly turn their backs to us and stand facing this applauding "audience" - we're suddenly "backstage" watching someone else's theatre experience. Hoffmann arrives on the scene clutching a bottle; he's moved on from the bamboozled dope he was with Olympia and the runner-up he was with Antonia. Now he fancies himself a man of the world, and he walks right into Giulietta's setup. It's obvious to everyone else that she's out of his league, and can only be paying attention to him for some sinister purpose, but he thinks he's got a chance with her. Once again, Hoffmann throws himself head-first into this love affair, which we quickly realize is overwhelmingly sexual on his part. When he realizes he's been tricked out of his reflection, his anguish is real and crushing. As Giulietta is about to walk out of his life for good, he falls on his knees before her and buries his face between her thighs - she doesn't even notice him. The scene ends with Hoffmann having killed his rival for nothing, and the villain Dapertutto towering over him as he lies broken and damned.

Back we come to the tavern for the epilogue, where we discover that all 3 women are really 1 woman: Stella. Hoffmann, the eternal loser, is in the process of losing her, in all 3 ways we've just witnessed. She's a vain, empty flirt who performs a role; she's an artist who'll always care more about opera than about him; and she's a whore who can be bought by Lindorf's box of jewellery. The crowd surges out, following the diva and the triumphant villain, as Hoffmann collapses into a drunken stupor. Then the final reveal comes: Hoffmann's faithful friend Niklaus reappears, this time as the Muse. He can't see her, but she caresses him and revives him; he even momentarily leans his weary head on her shoulder, then notices his page of poetry lying scattered on the floor. His suffering turns to inspiration, and he begins to write. With her hand on his shoulder, he gets up and walks toward the distant light, a page of poetry held triumphantly aloft. I've seen versions where this final scene with the Muse is cut (I think the Powell and Pressburger film ends the film with the students singing as they leave), but it's a beautiful ending. Hoffmann is no longer a loser - he's been redeemed by his Art.

One thing that doesn't quite work for me is the deliberate theme of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' that is carefully worked through the entire opera. Stella is performing in 'Don Giovanni'; the music scattered about the set in the Antonia scene is 'Don Giovanni', and I think Dapertutto is holding it during Hoffmann's destruction. It's the role Antonia's mother is costumed for; all the women carry the same black fan. There are some parallels between that opera and 'Tales of Hoffmann', but I don't think it quite works. Yes, in each case the hero is involved with 3 different women. But Hoffmann is uniformly unsuccessful in love, whereas up until this point, Don Giovanni is famous for his success. Both protagonists are accompanied by a companion (Niklaus/Leporello) who continually tries and fails to turn the main character from his mistaken path. And by the end of Act III Hoffmann has committed murder, lost his soul and even "falls" as if to damnation, like Don Giovanni but he is saved in the end. "Don Giovanni" doesn't have a separate villain; Don Giovanni IS the villain, as well as the hero. And the "happy ending" in "Don Giovanni" comes from the restoration of virtue through the destruction of vice; Hoffmann's ending is happy even though evil seems to have triumphed. They even eliminated the final scene in Act III where Giulietta accidentally drinks poison; "Ah, Giulietta, maladroite!" growls Dapertutto as his useful tool foolishly kills herself. So we never see anyone punished for their bad actions, only Hoffmann suffers. But at least his suffering is not pointless; he suffered as long as he sought something other than Art. And having suffered, he can now become the great artist he was meant to be, and transform his suffering into beauty.

.WAV of the Future

2012-01-07T09:24:00.005-05:00

I have seen the light. The True Faith has finally been revealed:
Sweden has formally recognized the Church of Kopimism whose central tenet is the right to file-share.

The church claims that "kopyacting" - sharing information through copying - is akin to a religious service.

The church holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V (shortcuts for copy and paste) as sacred symbols.

It was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student and leader Isak Gerson. He hopes that file-sharing will now be given religious protection.

So I have decided to convert, from .RCC to .KOP. We even have a place of worship all ready to go:

I'll meet you there tomorrow, wearing my very best go-to-matinee hat!

Wounded knees and baked bread

2012-01-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

The Christmas holiday is going pretty well. We're in another warm spell, and the snow that fell over Christmas has melted off the driveway. It's a strange pattern right now; we're in a sort of wave pattern, where it warms up almost to or over freezing, then drops way back down to -14 for a few days, then the pattern repeats. I'm not complaining; ever since I started driving the school bus, I anxiously watch out for snowstorms, and a dry winter is the best for me.

James somehow hurt his knee Saturday night. I don't know just what happened, but I thought I heard him stumble going up the stairs that evening. The next day, he was complaining about a hurting knee, and he hasn't walked on it since. He's just hopping all over the house on one foot. I'm sure it's just a muscle pull, because there's no bruising or even swelling, but you can't explain that to him. It's sort of funny to hear him saying "OWWWwwww!" in a surprised voice; he's not used to encountering something that can really stop or even inconvenience him.

I went out to the drugstore yesterday and got some liniment and joint-ache bandages. Now my hands smell of that awful eucalyptus, and he keeps demanding "Medicine!" but I think this is something that only time will heal. I've got him to at least stretch out his leg on a footstool under the desk when he's at the computer, and I think that's an improvement. Hopefully by tomorrow he'll try putting some weight on the foot.

He loves baguettes, and we'd run out by the weekend, so finally I couldn't stand him demanding "Bread!" all the time, so I decided to MAKE some bread. I got out the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, looked up the basic bread recipe and got started. It turns out it's not that hard to do after all. I've done it before, long ago, but in the last 20 years I used bread machines from time to time and just figured that this was the way to go from now on. But bread machines break, and I finally decided they take up too much space in our small kitchen, so I haven't made bread for many years.

I made a dozen buns and a loaf of white bread. My mom used to make buns, and I've always wanted to be able to do the same. Mine weren't quite as large, but I may be seeing the past through those kid-eyes that see everything as bigger and better. Maybe they weren't really that large. Mine tasted the same, though.

A nice Christmas

2011-12-26T16:15:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Ours was very nice, though it started a bit early, at around 6:30 AM when James leaped from bed and headed down the hall.

Actually, I'd woken up at 2:30 and couldn't sleep, so I sneaked downstairs at 3:00 to put the presents under the tree. Just as I finished, I looked out the window and saw that it had started snowing! It went on snowing most of Christmas Day, so against all the odds, we had a white Christmas this year.

The kids are getting older and more capable of waiting, so we were able to make the present-opening last about half an hour. I remember years when we were up before 6:00, and it was all over in about 5 minutes! And that usually involved Thomas opening EVERYONE'S presents for them.

Dean got me a new food processor, AND a blender! I'd asked for a blender because I'd needed a new one for several months, since James threw the glass pitcher out on the bricks in the back yard and smashed it. I'd specified that the pitcher would have to be metal or plastic, and both machines are nice, unbreakable plastic. I know it's not glamorous-sounding, but when you cook as much as I do you NEED some of these machines, and there are several things I just haven't made because I didn't have the equipment.

I gave him an electric blanket, because he'd grown very fond of an old one I'd picked up at an auction this summer. It was unused, in its original plastic, but I think it was at least 20 years old, and the wiring seemed a bit dodgy to me. One night, I think it caused the circuit breaker in our room to trip, so at that point I threw out the cord - I just don't like taking chances with electrical stuff. The new one is very soft and up-to-date.

For Emma, I got her the complete Twilight Zone dvd set. She's been asking for it for years, and I'm happy to see her taking an interest in live action drama instead of anime and cartoons. Besides, the Twilight Zone is classic; I may end up borrowing it to watch myself!

Government Goliath, Local Davids

2011-12-20T16:22:00.006-05:00

I sent this local Ottawa story to Mark Steyn, in the hope he might write about it on his site or put it on his sidebar. It's similar to a story he's written about a few times, regarding a bridge near his little New Hampshire town that needed to be replaced.

This story, I think, is even a bit better, because it shows how government health care leads us on and on to more and more government dependence, even as the growing government does less and less for us.

A local man in poor health had to have his leg amputated this past year, and he required a ramp to be built at his house before he could go home. Not being related to a cabinet minister or a hockey player, he joined the line of supplicants for government funds to build the $4,800 ramp, and was turned down at every turn (with the encouraging promise that he could always reapply month after month until he finally succeeded). With no ramp, he couldn't leave the hospital, so he's been languishing in a hospital bed since August, at a cost to the government of over $90,000.

The story came to mercifully happy end, though, and, just as in Steyn's bridge case, it was no thanks to the multi-million dollar government do-gooder ministries. I'll quote the Citizen article, because it has that tell-tale ring of good common sense, practicality and neighbourliness that's becoming all too rare these days:

After I left him the details on a phone message Thursday, (local Conservative MP Jack) MacLaren called Friday morning to tell me what he was working on with Tom Black, president of the Ontario Landowners Association.

In addition to promoting property rights, MacLaren, a former president of the association, says the group helps people in need whenever it can.

As MacLaren sees it, it's almost Christmas, and what a "real nice Christmas event" this would be if Larry is reunited with his wife for the holidays without having to worry about returning to hospital afterward.

"I'm sure this man would be much happier, and much healthier, at home," he said. "Everyone wants to be home, right? He needs a ramp and it needs to be built. We have the people and the resources to do that, and we will do that."

The work could start as early as tomorrow and be completed by midweek. The ramp is going to be built in Black's barn and then assembled at Larry's house. MacLaren said the ramp will be built by volunteers who the association can call on. One building supplier has already offered a price discount on lumber.

Today's paper had a followup:

The people who promised to build Larry Torrington a wheelchair ramp so he could finally be released from Saint-Vincent Hospital obviously don't fool around.

The ramp was designed Saturday, built Sunday and assembled outside Larry's Stittsville house Monday.

With the ramp in place, Larry - who had surgery in March to remove the lower part of his right leg because of complications from diabetes - was expected to leave hospital and arrive home early this afternoon.

So to recap: Local newspaper alerts local MP of situation on Thursday; by Friday MP has contacted local community leaders and they have assessed problem and are figuring out how to solve it. Tuesday: wheelchair ramp is built and installed and Larry returns home.

This contrasts with 4 months of fruitless petitioning to several government sources of funding, resulting in nothing, and coincidentally costing over $93,000 in hospital expenses, covered by government health insurance.

Now, I don't want to be a Grinch; this is a genuine feelgood story, the good guys came to the rescue and everything worked out the way we would hope it should. But there's still something about this story that bugs me. It's not the insane difference between the money saved by one stingy government bureaucracy versus the amount squandered as a result by a different government bureaucracy, or how nobody could seem to line up those two items into one mind and decide, "This is ridiculous! Give the poor guy his ramp, and let's free up that hospital bed!"

No, it's the way things happened in such an unnatural order. Why was the simplest, most direct course of action the LAST resort? Why did Larry have to spend 4 months wasting his time entreating the government to take pity on him when help was just around the corner? Why do we resign ourselves to filling out endless little bits of paper to feed into an anonymous machine in the hope of getting what we need eventually, instead of speaking directly to the people nearest us, who know us best?

It's not just Larry - we all do this. I think Steyn is right when he warns about how government medical care changes the nature of our relationship with the government. We don't think it will, but we find ourselves just sliding into this supplicant position without even thinking about it.

What's even worse, it seems that as the government takes over the provision of more and more of our needs, it inevitably takes over bits of our life that we never willingly agreed to assign to them. Think about it: this whole story concerned the building of a wooden platform outside a man's house. If Larry's wife had wanted a clothesline erected at the back door, he would have just built it himself or hired a handyman to do it in an afternoon. But somehow because government medical care has gotten involved, a little bit of carpentry has suddenly become "government business", and we slump resignedly as we wait our turn for the government to get to us and take care of the business that we no longer even imagine can be done any other way.

Why do we do this? It isn't because we're getting better service from the government; look at Larry - he never got anything at all, at least, not what he wanted. There was plenty of what he didn't want - moping in a hospital, but nothing at all of what he, his doctors and everyone who knew him knew he needed. Maybe we have all decided that it's too hard to make personal appeals to people we know - it's shameful to reveal that we have needs we can't take care of ourself. And we worry too much about being a burden and a bother to people around us. But a government doesn't have a personality we have to worry about interacting with. We never really think "If I get this, then someone else can't have what they need" because it's never presented that way to us individually. We know that one department loses funding while another one gains it, but it's never personalized. Whereas, with real human beings, we might think "My son's family had to give up their vacation this year to help me to pay for my new furnace" and the resulting discomfort makes us unhappy.

Of course, by eliminating the possibility of getting personal help from someone, we also eliminate the other person's ability to be generous and experience the happiness of helping. Instead, we get our "stuff" - not very good, and maybe extremely late - and there are no messy human interactions to worry about. Even without intending to, letting government help us all the time ends up creating a distant, alienated society of people who don't know each other and don't know how to deal with each other.

Emergencies can still override this numbing effect, but in everyday life we seem to be slumping into a poorer, lonelier existence.

Mysterious doings at local Presbyterian church

2011-11-27T09:31:00.005-05:00

An interesting, if obscure, story in today's Ottawa Citizen:

OTTAWA — Today marks a new era at St. Giles Presbyterian Church. It is the congregation’s first Sunday in “exile.”

The prominent red-brick building has stood at the corner of Bank Street and First Avenue since 1928. But last Sunday night, in a grave ceremony, the congregants were locked out of the building’s main sanctuary. The Presbytery of Ottawa, which said the congregation showed a “lack of respect” for its authority, announced that until the flock repents, it will be allowed to pray only in the basement.

The presbytery, which oversees the 18 Presbyterian churches in Ottawa (and one in Gatineau), imposed the move after St. Giles members signed a petition asking for the removal of the pastor.

I know this church - we used to live just two blocks away. But the story is very unclear in just what the problem is here. Maybe someone who knows will enlighten us. It just sounds like a pretty heavy-handed reaction on the part of the local presbytery (I guess the equivalent of a diocese). From the comments I gather that the congregation is pretty elderly (no surprise there) and not exactly large, especially compared to the size of the building they occupy. They don't fit the profile of Occupy-style troublemakers, though I can well believe that they could be recalcitrant and set in their ways. What did the pastor do to get them so riled?

The only clue is that their petition to have him removed complains of his sermons and actions, which left them feeling alienated and troubled. Is he some radical slash-and-burn type who wants to start doing gay weddings in the Glebe? Or is he just the sort who keeps lecturing them on their laziness? It could be anything. Though to tell the truth, I always wonder at ministers who think they can nag a congregation of octogenarians into leaping from their pews and charging out to evangelize the world. People wear out when they get old. You have to keep some young people around to do the heavy lifting; it's unreasonable to expect age and weariness to disappear just because it's church work that needs doing. Then again, why would any young people want to hang around a joint that's full of creaky old codgers? Especially once they realize that they'll have to pull a triple load to make up for the old-timers who are beyond it (and often don't see, or more likely, have forgotten, the point of the exertion anyway)? Vicious circle.

Whatever the reason, they sent them away from the table with a good solid thrashing:

Hymns chosen for the congregation to sing included “We come to ask Your forgiveness.” The responsive readings included a turn for the congregation to say “Compassionate God, how quickly we forget you. We trust instead in our own judgments; we pursue our own agendas.”

The scriptural reading was from the book of Lamentations, Chapter 3, with words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light.”

The sermon, given by Rev. Jack Archibald of St. Paul’s Presbyterian on Woodroffe Avenue, made the comparison explicit, likening the St. Giles congregants to the Jews of Judah who suffered expulsion from their temple in Jerusalem and exile from the Holy Land.

Archibald spoke of the calamity and humiliation involved in both the biblical and current episodes.

“It’s a tragedy,” Archibald went on to say. “But you know what makes it the greatest tragedy of all? Certainly for Judah it was this: that they had brought it on themselves. They knew that they had deserted their god, that they had left him and were worshipping idols as their pagan neighbours did. And they were warned by prophet after prophet who came to speak to them until finally it was too late.”

There was a lesson there, he said.

Anyway, exiling these people to the basement of their own church is the sort of action that would be advertised far and wide as an example of heavy-handed inflexibility if it were the Roman Catholic Church doing it. The Presbyterians don't really have that reputation, so I'm wondering what's going on.

It occurred to me that maybe the newspaper has hit on a new way of sparking interest in their product. Instead of the old-fashioned method of just telling us all the news in one edition, they can turn this story into a serial, like the old Charles Dickens method of publishing his novels in monthly installments. I know I can't wait for Part II of this intriguing mystery - I'll be watching the paper like a hawk for the followup story, where we may learn a little more.

UPDATE: No real additional information, but Metro News seems to have sent their own reporter along to the church this morning, and she reports that 40 people attended the service in the basement, which is a good turnout(!). I guess this church is a bit more "fragile", in the words of the minister, than I realized. The earlier story implied a church membership of nearly 200, but this sounds like a very small, probably elderly group, and the worries that people will just leave are probably very well-founded. Nobody wants to say just what is wrong there. I didn't think of it at first, but the pastor is ALSO down there in the basement with the rebellious congregation. Oh joy. It must have been a great way to begin Advent.

The Playing Fields of Penn State University

2011-11-19T06:28:00.005-05:00

Mark Steyn has a good (as always) piece up about the disastrous child-rape scandal in the football programme at Penn State University. How telling that this scandal erupted in the university's sports programme, and not just in any sport, but the football programme.

I know one of the arguments for sports is the health one, but few people who love sports are thrilling to the sight of calories being burned on the field, or muscle resistance being built. That's the utilitarian facade erected to satisfy the philistines (and the one resorted to to force people like me, lazy dreamers who hate participating in sports, into smelly gyms and onto cold fields 3 times a week in school). People who LOVE a sport love it for its beauty, and the human skills and strengths required to do it well.

Wellington never really said "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton", but it makes a sort of sense - you can see why the saying caught on. Sports are small-scale yet magnified enactments of human endeavour, and when they're done well they involve much more than pure muscle development. A football game employs physical strength, but combined with farsighted planning, canny strategy, wily deception - it's a whole little battlefield, scaled down to manageable size.

In short, sports showcase what have traditionally been called "the manly virtues" - courage, daring, innovation, loyalty, camaraderie, and more. This is why sport has always been praised as "character-building". How pathetic to find in a crisis that the development has all been on the outside for some of these sports leaders. Where is the "character" that should come from all these years of "building"?

Steyn rightly scorns the 28-year old assistant who witnessed a little boy being raped and then ran away. The apologists have gone the usual route of exculpating the responsible adults by mewing about typical reactions to severe shock, how "nobody can know what they'd do in such a situation". Steyn quote Kathy Shaidle who correctly squashes this pre-emptive surrender by saying "When we say 'we don't know what we'd do under the same circumstances,' we make cowardice the default position."

How acceptable would the "I was so surprised I just froze" or "I couldn't think of what to do so I just ran away" argument be if a football game were in progress? Part of the game is to try to outwit the opposition and ruin their plans. If a player has been prepared to do a certain play and the opposing team suddenly does something unexpected, what is the player required to do? He's supposed to have some backup plan to immediately switch to in reaction. He can't just stand there open-mouthed and refuse to act. You have to do SOMETHING, to TRY to rescue the situation.
You can't just give up and then snap at critics, "Yeah, well, I'd like to see YOU play the hero without warning!" Life is all without warning.

I was disappointed that one of my favourite newspaper columnists, David Warren, took a rather lackadaisacal approach to this matter when he wrote about it last week. One argument (or lack of argument) that sets my teeth on edge is the laid-back "Oh, this is nothing new. It's ALWAYS been like this" approach to evil. It smells of that pre-emptive "making cowardice the default" mentioned above. What's the point of doing anything? Nothing will change, so why even try? His argument is that people responsible for institutions might see that more harm than good can come of taking swift and thorough action. Theoretically, I can see that that's true, but practically it seems to be that the opposite is true: however much harm might have been done by calling in the police and having Sandusky arrested, could it really have been MORE than leaving sleeping dogs lie, and having the scandal erupt more than 10 years later? Who really benefitted from the delay except Sandusky? He had 10 more years of child-hunting to enjoy. Everyone else is getting now, and much worse, what they could have weathered more easily back when the crime occurred.

Refinishing the bed, Part II - veneer

2011-11-16T11:47:00.008-05:00

Yesterday I got started on applying the veneer to the spot on the bedrail when it peeled off. Don't believe these DIY websites that say applying veneer is so easy; it's VERY DIFFICULT. I spoiled so many pieces of veneer with false cuts.

Stupidly, I took seriously the advice not to use straight lines, but to cut the veneer on a curve to hide the lines of the repair. If I'd just completely removed the veneer from the entire rectangular section of rail, from edge to edge, I could have easily applied two pieces to fit, and it would have been done in an hour or so. Instead, I laboriously traced an outline of the curved section that needed fixing and went through hell trying to cut veneer to fit.

One thing that did work well, though, was taking off the old veneer around the edge of my design. I used a steam iron to loosen the glue and then pried it off easily with a putty knife.

Then came tracing the shape on paper and cutting it out:

I tried to do it in 2 sections, but I had to give up when I was about half through. The pieces just wouldn't fit, so I got the first piece glued down then the second piece broke in half and I glued that down, and resumed work today.

Today I redrew the remaining section so the curves are a little wider, and applied the last piece.

Here's hoping it glues down without too many bubbles and gaps; I'm getting sick of trying to squeeze glue into tiny cracks and clamp every square inch of this thing. I don't know if I'll bother fixing the back of the rail - this was really hard to do, and took me 2 days. The back won't be seen when the bed is in use; it could just be left and nobody would ever know.

Bawdy humour - Nicolas Cage's Agent

2011-11-13T20:38:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's a bit vulgar. But it also made me laugh so hard I literally fell over sideways and had to beg Emma to stop the video because I couldn't hear the lines anymore. I'm not a fan of Nicolas Cage - the only movie of his I actually have watched from beginning to end is 'Raising Arizona' (and I liked it a lot). But I gather from this that he may be a little lacking in discrimination when it comes to movie projects.

Another refinishing project

2011-11-12T09:38:00.008-05:00

I have a new furniture project: stripping and refinishing the bookcase earlier this year went so well, I decided to try my hand at another one. A few years ago at a country auction I bought an interesting bedstead - it's rather plain in design - just flat wood with a small Art Decoish trim on the footboard - but it has one interesting feature: in the headboard, on either side, there are two diamond-shaped cutouts with glass in them, and behind the glass is a little light fixture! I guess you could use this to read by in bed, or else just as a nightlight while getting ready to sleep.

My sister saw a bed like this in Vancouver and really liked it, though I think in her case the cutout was a different shape - maybe a circle, like a porthole. Anyway, the finish has deteriorated over time, and on one of the side rails some of the wood veneer got damp and peeled off. I'm going to strip the finish off, try to patch the veneer, and rewire the electric fixture, to make this bed fully functional again.

I started early this week, simply stripping the finish from the side rails, and moved on to the footboard yesterday. I was so surprised when the finish started coming off. I'd thought the bed was some very dark wood, like cherry. It's hard to show in pictures, because the flash tends to brighten the grain of the wood and it DOES look like walnut, but these pictures are pretty close to the darkness of the wood in everyday light. I always mentally considered this bed as black - almost as if it came from the House of Dracula! You can see what it looks like with one of the glass windows illuminated. It turns out it's just light walnut veneer! There were so many layers of varnish, and it had turned so dark, it gave the impression of near-black wood. When the stripper went to work, the top layer of varnish just started to crystallize, and then the lower layers of stain (I had to do several coats of stripper) peeled off with a putty knife, just like icing on a cake!

Anyway, today I finished stripping the headboard, so the whole thing is stripped now and ready for a new finish. I'll go to Lee Valley Tools, where they sell small sheets of veneer, and get some to patch that one rail. If that fails, there's another trick I could try; the inside of the rails is also veneered, but with no finish. I could lift off a piece of veneer from there and use it to patch the front (sort of like a skin graft). Then I could patch the back with the bought veneer, not caring if it doesn't match that well, because this part will never be seen once the mattress is set inside.

I'll take some more pictures when I start working on the electrical part of the project, perhaps next week.

Outrageous

2011-11-07T11:52:00.003-05:00

This is the sort of "public service" we enjoy in Ottawa:

And no, we don't see what preceded this, but the guy who videotaped it was there, and didn't report that the young guy was attacking or abusing the driver - there is NO EXCUSE for what this pig did to this young man.

Dean told me this morning that the kid apparently has Asperger's Syndrome. So does Emma. (The article shows a nice confusion between the terms "mentally ill" and "mentally handicapped", which doesn't help.) It took us years of practice to get Emma to be able to ride the bus by herself; I want to be sure that she doesn't run into this pig of a driver some day and find herself being screamed at because she laughed or chatted too much, and then flung off the bus in the middle of nowhere, maybe in the winter. And what's worse is that she's come to trust bus drivers, because most of them have been pleasant to her; she'd be completely defenceless against an attack like this. If she even WITNESSED it, she'd probably be so traumatized she wouldn't want to go back on a city bus again.

Two weeks ago this entire city was bawling and striking dramatic "Never again" poses over the suicide of a young man who was victimized by bullies. Well, what is this incident but pure, naked bullying? What breaks my heart is the poor kid blurting out "Sorry," as he runs out of the bus - it must have been the cherry on the sundae for that thuggish driver. Terrify a kid and then have him humbly apologize for his own torture - must have made his day!

I hope they throw this asswipe out the door, but I have little hope of that. Instead of being concerned by the behaviour of Mr. Bus-Pig towards a vulnerable passenger, the Hog-In-Chief of the drivers' union had his priorities right:

Transit Union Local 279 president Garry Queale took aim at the passenger who videotaped the driver threatening a rider, saying the employee’s privacy was violated.

Queale said the person who captured the incident on video shouldn’t have been filming in the first place, even though a city bylaw allows recording on buses for personal use.

Just sit back and enjoy the brilliant brain power involved in that statement. According to this guy, every employee walks around the world encased in an inviolable virtual bubble of "privacy", even when he's out in public doing a job that involves dealing with the public. I guess people who look at him when they board the bus can be fined for peeping, too.

Just to reassure myself

2011-10-30T15:18:00.005-04:00

After the great Vindaloo Disaster, I wanted to prove that I still could cook something new and different, so I turned to a French tart cookbook that I'd picked up at the library's used bookstore a few months ago.

Last week I took the kids to Smyth's Apple Orchard, because it's that time of year when rare types of apples are appearing, and some I can only find if I go out into the country. They also had some nice pears, and I ended up buying a basket. After a week or so, we were sick of eating fresh pears, so I decided to find a nice recipe to cook them into a dessert. I knew the French were better at cooking pears than the English, so I looked until I found a recipe for Tarte Bourdaloue. (It wasn't exactly this recipe, but very similar.) It's poached pears baked in a sweet custard called frangipane, and topped with crumbled cookies.

It was rather a more difficult recipe than I usually make, with lots of steps like "whip the eggs and sugar then add the flour little by little" followed by "boil the milk, then add it little by little along with the ground almonds", so I had a lot of ingredients out and had to be quick grabbing and adding them in sequence. Then I had to cook the frangipane, and they didn't tell you how to know if it was thickening properly; mine started getting a little lumpy, so I grabbed a whisk and began beating it energetically, and that seemed to do the trick. This was also my first time making a pâte brisé, which is basically a shortbread.

Anyway, it all turned out beautifully: my first French dessert! My confidence is restored.

Girl of the Vindalost

2011-10-29T07:53:00.005-04:00

I don't have too much excitement in my life, so yesterday I thought I'd spice things up by trying to cook a new dish: Duck Vindaloo! I studied the Bombay Palace cookbook recipe, and spent a few days gathering ingredients, including a frozen duck that I carefully unthawed over 2 days. Yesterday morning, when I got back home from my school bus route, I got started.

The recipe calls for skinning the duck and cutting the duck into 8 serving pieces. This took me nearly an hour. Duck is very hard to cut up - the bones are much stronger than chicken bones, and they're put together in an odd way. At least once the skin was off, I could see better what I was cutting into. The one other time Dean and I ever tried to cook a duck was before we were married, when we roasted one, and had no idea what we were doing. I remember him trying to carve it like a chicken, and encountering bone everywhere he tried. And as he struggled over the bird, grease was pouring off of it and overflowing the platter, until I finally yelled at him to stop because he was ruining my tablecloth!

With the help of the biggest, sharpest knife we own, I finally got the thing cut up and put it into a pot to stew with some cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. It smelled very nice when it was done, then I drained it and put it aside.

The real "vindaloo" stuff came next, and I accurately put together the spice paste with vinegar, onions and hot peppers (from our garden!) all pureed together in the blender. The grand moment for assembling the dish came, I put everything together with the duck, and then put it in the oven to cook on the slow cooking setting. This was when I made my fatal error: I put everything in an aluminum pot!.

I came back from my afternoon bus route and checked on the vindaloo. The duck was soft, but there was an odd smell coming from it...a metallic smell. I tasted it...metallic taste. Then I realized that all the vinegar had reacted with the aluminum and produced...this. I moved it to another dish to cool off, hoping things might get better when it was cooler, but actually it was worse. When I tasted a bit of duck, it was like chewing on a piece of aluminum foil.

I had to phone Dean at work and tell him, as Basil Fawlty would say, 'Duck is off', and he'd have to come up with something for supper. "Help us, Obi-Dean Kenobi; you're our only hope!" As he saw this as an invitation to fire up the barbecue and cook some steaks, he took it pretty well.

Now I'm scheming to retry this experiment, only with pork next time, because it's equally authentic and would be much easier to prepare. Only I'll get out my enamelled pot to cook it in, and not make the same error twice.

Under the weather

2011-10-02T20:21:00.002-04:00

I'm in the midst of a cold right now, which started last Wednesday. Thank goodness I'm past the horrible sore throat stage, but now I'm suffering a stuffed head and runny nose. Makes it hard to sleep, and that along with the general sense of malaise isn't doing much for my mental processes.

Just to show you how fogged I was, on Friday I came back after driving the kids in the morning, puttered around the kitchen for a bit, then decided I should force myself to get outside for a little walk. I decided that I might as well go and vote before anyone else, as the polls during our provincial elections open at 9:00. So I took my voter's card which was sitting in the mail rack, put on a coat and headed off to the Anglican/United Church down the street which is our usual polling station.

I thought it was odd, when I arrived, to see no signs out. Usually there's a "Polling Station" sign marked with a big X near the door - they used to have them out on the street, but in the past election or two they've been less obtrusive. This time I couldn't see anything. Aha, I thought - this must be a result of heightened security because of the danger of terrorism. People like me, who are registered to vote, have these cards with the address, so we KNOW the polling station is here. But without the signs, random terrorists driving by won't know it's there, and won't be able to shoot up the place. Not that this has ever happened in a Canadian election, but you can't be too careful.

When I reached the entrance, I found all the doors locked. Mystified, I looked at my voter's card. It read "Election Day: Thursday". Oh, my God, I thought, the election was yesterday and I missed it! How I could imagine that the day after an election there'd be no mention of it in the paper or on the radio, or that my husband, an election junky, could have possibly forgotten an election and not said a word about it, just didn't occur to me. Then I looked further on the card: "...October 6." I'd actually gone to vote a week early, AND on the wrong day! I've never before been that confused without heavy medication.

The damson tree

2011-10-01T12:33:00.004-04:00

I forgot to mention that for the first time ever, the damson plum tree produced enough fruit to be worth picking! I believe it was about 11 lbs, and I ended up making over 2 dozen jars of jam.

It was a surprise that anything came of this tree at all, because as usual, it was bedevilled all season by various pests. Aphids were EVERYWHERE, because it was so damp this year, and there was also an attack by the dreaded plum cuculios, but I beat that off with several doses of insecticidal spray. Worst of all was that the tree was afflicted by a sort of dying-off blight. Whole branches would just dry up and die. I'd have to cut them off, back to healthy tissue, and hope for the best. Sometimes the tree would put out fresh shoots around the cut, so it still has lots of vigour, but I was worried I'd have to cut it back to a stump! Of course, it's got the usual canker problem too - that's also worse in a damp year, but I'll get a better look at the damaged branches once the leaves fall off.

Meanwhile, here's a look at the glorious scene in August, just before I picked the plums:

2011 Garden

2011-10-01T11:49:00.010-04:00

I didn't blog much about the garden this year, because it was pretty much a so-so season. It wasn't too bad, but most everything was a bit mediocre. We never quite recovered from the very cold rainy spring, which caused everything to be so late being planted. It was so damp, in fact, that about half of my raspberry canes died, and I'll have to replant some fresh ones next spring. The ones that survived produced some nice berries, but only enough to eat as a snack; no raspberry jam or pies this year.

The potatoes did pretty well for the most part, but some of them were attacked by some sort of underground pest. The potatoes were chewed, but underground! What could do that? Not squirrels or chipmunks, who don't bother with potatoes anyway. Raccoons will chomp on potatoes, but they usually carry them off a little distance, and then you find a half-eaten potato lying on the ground. I suspect some kind of maggot. And I noticed that it happened particularly on the patch of ground where last year I planted corn! I wonder if the corn attracted some sort of pest that hung around and attacked the potatoes this year? Next year, I'm going to plant something else where the corn went this year - maybe tomatoes.

Speaking of corn, well, the less said the better. I mentioned we were late planting. The early corn only was ready to pick in mid-Autust! And the late corn was still immature when it was struck by a plague of raccoons. They stripped the cobs in just a few days. I don't think I'm going to bother growing corn next year - it takes all that space, and then something like this happens!

The tomatoes were...okay. Slow to ripen, but they tasted nice; there just weren't that many of them. In past years Dean has had to go loaded down to the office to give them away because we had so many, but this year was just got enough to get by.

I had one notable success, though, and with a new plant that was an experiment: I tried growing Garden Huckleberries. I ordered the seeds from Dominion Seed House, even though I've never been one for starting anything from seed. But I tried it and found that they sprouted very quickly and were quite hardy, fast-growing plants. I put out a total of 8 plants in the garden and waited to see what would happen. Once the warm weather started, they grew very fast - by the end of the summer they were taller than me!

A few weeks ago, I decided the berries were looking black and shiny, so I picked a batch and followed the recipe given in the link above. It's true what they say, they have absolutely no flavor fresh at all - it's like eating hay. I also noticed that even though they'd grown through the net I'd put over them, no animals tried to eat the berries at all - the birds and the chipmunks left them completely alone (unlike our poor blueberries, which were stripped from the plant while they when they were just barely changing colour!)

The recipe is pretty easy to follow; my only problem was finding a non-reactive pan to cook them in, because of the baking soda. I don't know just what the baking soda does, but it must be some chemical reaction, because as the recipe says, as soon as I added it, the liquid turned a fantastic lime green! I think kids would really enjoy participating in a cooking project of this sort; the bright green foam is very unexpected.

Then I rinsed off the berries, added the sugar and lemon juice, and sure enough, it turned into a lovely dark purple pie filling/ dessert topping that does taste a lot like blueberries!

I'm going to try this again next year. Oh, and the plants are VERY prolific producers - I've frozen 8 pies so far, and gave away one, while the plant is still going strong in the garden. It's even producing new flowers, even though the frost is going to kill it off in a few weeks. It seems to be similar in growth habit to an indeterminate cherry tomato plant - it just goes and goes until the frost.

Ten Years On

2011-09-11T11:35:00.003-04:00

So here we are, 10 years after 9/11. Sure, I remember what I was doing when I heard the news. Just like now, I was on Weight Watchers, and I was in the middle of my regular morning dance workout, with music coming from the computer. I was aware of some little news crawl along the bottom of the screen, something about a plane crash, but I paid no attention. The phone rang, but I wouldn't interrupt my routine by answering, not until I'd finished and gotten out of the shower. Then, at about 9:30, Dean got through to me and told me to turn on the TV. I don't think I stopped watching the news for the next week.

We were in Boston, and we soon noticed the absence of planes and coming from and going to Logan Airport. Only the military jets were flying in the days that followed, and you noticed them because they were so alone in the sky. Ever since that day, I never see a plane landing or taking off without thinking about 9/11, and watching to see that they get safely away. I watch planes fly overhead, and won't look away until they're out of sight; I always wonder if I'll see them explode before my eyes, and I calculate where the debris would fall. Would it hit my house? Would it get any of my family? Yes, I guess I could say that I've been permanently changed by that day.

I haven't been watching much of the coverage - I saw a bit of a documentary on the second plane that hit the Twin Towers, and I started feeling such rage that I had to shut it off. I don't want to feel that anger again, and not because it's a sin and bad for my soul. I don't want to feel it because I don't want to get all worked up for nothing, yet again.

Ten years ago we were angry and ready to obliterate the Islamic vermin that did this to us. For awhile, we went in the right direction. George Bush left his enemies gaping open-mouthed with shock when he refused to negotiate with the shit-encrusted criminals of Afghanistan. They couldn't believe that he was not following the usual Western plan of talks, and shuttle diplomacy, and all the rest of the sensitive crap we'd wasted the previous 30 years doing. Before they could even accept that the delicious game of "Tie the Infidel in knots and jerk the string" had been snatched away from them, death was pounding down on their lice-infested heads, blowing them and their filthy superstition to the hell that it crawled out of.

But that was Afghanistan. In the year and a half that followed, George Bush's anger cooled, and by the time of the Iraq war he'd turned into Gentle George, Meek and Mild. He had a higher ambition this time than just destroying enemies: it was to awaken the kinder, gentler Islam he just knew was struggling to come into the world. It was a sort of shamefaced evangelism: we couldn't actually MENTION Christ or Christianity, but we sort of convert the heathen through our gentlemanly method of waging war, so they'd absorb Christian decency from us without really having to recognize it. Because of course to actually point out the indecent failures of the alien religion would be impolite and insensitive.

It didn't turn out that well, any more than our humane method of pinprick war has subdued the enemy. Someone said there's just no way you can manage to make a man not notice that you're killing him, and in the same way there's no way you can subconsciously turn a Muslim barbarian into a mild-mannered Protestant. And so 10 years later we're still pretending that "freedom is the desire of every human heart", no matter how much the savages demonstrate the opposite.

It's not just the dink in the White House - every politician has signed on to this failed policy of pretending that reality isn't what it is. I can't participate in their phony game, and I know they'll never agree that this war is anything but a minor disagreeableness that can be safely farmed out to professional soldiers in far-away lands while the rest of us go on with our normal lives. So that's why I don't "participate" anymore in these soft-focus "memorials" to 9/11. I don't have any soft-focus memories.

Another Metropolis release

2011-08-20T21:32:00.002-04:00

Wonderful news - the 1984 Georgio Moroder version of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' will be released on dvd and blu-ray later this year! This one provokes a lot of controversy, but I'm going to be out buying a copy as soon as it's available. I still have the VHS tape of the movie, which was one of my first videotape purchases - I bought it when we were living in Washington, DC, right after we were married. It was expensive - about $80 US, and that's when American dollars were worth a lot more than Canadian ones! Of course it's not as clean and sharp as the modern Kino restorations, but you have to take the era into account - this was long before the use of computers to digitally "repair" damaged film. Back in those days, they were pretty much restricted to just cleaning the physical film in a chemical bath, and then transferring it to a more stable medium. This was the very beginning of the movement to restore silent movies - actually, I think the French were the first on the scene with Abel Gance's 'Napoleon' and Mosjoukine's 'Casanova'. Then the Germans took over and drove the development of the hi-tech methods they have today.

I know the music is a bit dated, but for me this doesn't matter - I've never followed development in modern music anyway, so I'm not aware of the trends following each other, the way someone who actually LISTENED to this stuff would be. To me it's just "soundtrack music", and I connect it purely to the movie - if these songs had a life outside Metropolis, I was never aware of it. And even though I have all the modern restored versions with the original Huppertz orchestral score, there are a few scenes that in my mind I still "hear" with the Moroder score. The scene with the Robot first walking down the walkway to meet Joh Fredersen, for example - Huppertz writes a sort of tinkly score for this, rather reminiscent of 'Coppelia'. I like Moroder's version - soft, discordant electric piano chords matching each footfall - it's creepier and more menacing.

There's not too much from this version of the movie available on YouTube, but here's the trailer:

Another birthday

2011-08-19T08:19:00.002-04:00

My 52nd birthday yesterday. I'm getting very decrepit - I think I'm getting the first twinges of arthritis in my thumb and forefinger, and I've developed a painful cramp in my right leg. I think it's a mental thing, actually - anxiety because the new school year is about to start and I'll be driving again, and I'm the worrying kind. Sometimes the leg is fine, then I'll think about driving and it seizes up again - I'm sure it's just tense muscles, but I wish I could just unthink the tension, because it hurts!

Dean gave me a very nice assortment of soaps and bath products, and Emma gave me a bead bracelet and a box of fudge from her new favorite shop downtown. I made a peach pie for dessert, but can you believe it, Dean and I drank a bottle of champagne and forgot all about it! I'm not used to drinking anymore, and 2 glasses left me feeling positively looped. But it was a good preparation for watching the MST3K episode "Riding With Death" - it's only on my birthday that Dean would agree to watch that episode, because it's SO incredibly lame, but I love all the banter between Mike and the bots.

Yo ho ho

2011-08-15T17:15:00.003-04:00

Remember the post I did awhile back about my subtitles for Marguerite de la nuit? I still think that's my best subtitle project, but just last month I finished another that comes a close second: Juliette, or Key of Dreams, by Marcel Carné. It has that fantasy theme that I like so much; in this story, the hero is in jail and dreams that he's in a strange little village where nobody can remember anything. He's looking for the girl he loves, and when he finds her, naturally she can't remember him either. When he wakes up, he finds reality so unbearable he wants to go back to the Land Without Memory. It's unlikely that such an ending - being unable to face reality and seeking to escape - could count as a happy ending, but oddly enough, it is. I'm glad it ends the way it does, even though logically and morally it's not right. But the art manages to convince me that in this world, it's the right course of action.

Anyway, I burned some copies of the movie (with my subtitles) to send to friends and was looking for a brief synopsis online to put on the back of the cover, when I came across this site which had a pretty good paragraph describing the movie. But on looking a bit closer, I saw that they were selling a dvd of the movie. And what's more astonishing, the description reads "In French with English subtitles".

Now, there ARE no English subtitles for this movie, except for the ones that I wrote! I can conclude only one thing: these people are selling pirated, unauthorized copies of my unauthorized subtitles! And making money!

I became suspicious, and began looking up other titles. Sure enough, I found three more movies that I have written subtitles for:

Marguerite de la nuit
Knock
and Mademoiselle Doctor

All of these for sale. I suppose they have someone with a membership on Karagarga, and are able to download movies that they think would be interesting to collectors, and once a movie has English subtitles, it's definitely much more accessible to a wider public. I've seen a few other movies that I know other people have recently done the subtitles for, because on the forum everyone posts when they've finished a subtitle file.

Now I'm thinking that maybe *I* should sell copies of "my" movies - mine would be much better than this guy's because I've designed a dvd label and artwork for the case. And at least they're my own subtitles - maybe I could design a box set: "The Kraal Collection".

Anyway, I don't know if I should inform the Karagarga people, or if this is just so inevitable it's hardly worth making a fuss over. Made me a little indignant, though.

It's here!

2011-08-12T13:49:00.003-04:00

My autographed copy of After America finally arrived today! Now I can start reading it, though it's butting up against another project: I'm translating and making subtitles for Le Capitaine Fracasse, a 1943 movie by Abel Gance. The movie was based on the 19th century novel of the same name by Gauthier, and I'm trying to READ the novel while I translate the movie. It's not that useful, because Gance does things his own way, so it's not the most precise adaptation. The broad story is the same, but he pretty much rewrote the entire dialogue and invented all sorts of amusing scenes around the bare skeleton of the original. August is "French Cinema Under the Occupation" month, so I want to finish the subtitles by the end of the month - not so easy when I can't get extended time at the computer, but I'll do my best.

It's actually not such a bad little movie - it's pretty much dismissed as pure escapism, but who wouldn't want to escape into "good dreams - cheap!" as the Pedant in the story puts it. It's the story of an impoverished young Gascon nobleman in the 1600s who runs away and joins a band of strolling actors. He falls in love with the ingenue of the company, but the villainous Duke de Vallombreuse takes a fancy to her and abducts her, so our hero has to rescue her. There's a subplot about the girl's real identity, as well, and lots of background scenes of life as an actor in the age of Louis XIII, as well as sword-fighting and intrigue. And I think there's a fair bit of Gance's own experience as a starving young actor in it. Anyway, it's not a masterpiece, but poor Gance only made a few of those; despite his phenomenal talent he didn't have much control over his projects as time passed, rather like Fritz Lang in Hollywood. But it's still fun, and there are some challenging passages written in rhyming alexandrines, like 'Cyrano de Bergerac' - I'll have to think hard to come up with some English rhymes.

Poor Barack's a-cold

2011-08-08T17:33:00.002-04:00

Ace of Spades posted a Twitter comment from pollster Larry Sabato:

Obviously this is Obama's low point. Whether he recovers depends on unemployment and GDP more than SuperCommittee debt proposal.

Yes, the Dow just dropped over 600 points today (and 500 last Thursday), and the United States has lost it's AAA credit rating for the first time in history, but is it really obvious that Obama has hit bottom? I fully expect the bad news to continue and get worse, despite Obama's predictable money-throwing as he revs up his re-election campaign. I'm not at all sure that he'll go ahead with his re-election bid; on the one hand, he's a ravening egomaniac, and is surrounded by yes-men who'll never tell him that he might not be successful. On the other, he has a record of cutting and running when something gets hard; his fragile ego can't handle failure or rejection, so he pre-empts the possibility of either by escaping from dangerous situations. Of course, as president, there's no place to escape but down, but he might be able to talk himself into doing it. A narcissist like him will always try to hide from himself any fact that's damaging to his self image; he'd be able to tell himself he was "never defeated" if he just quits and refuses to run a second time. It's a shabby sort of "victory", but if it's the only one on offer, he'll take it.

Anyway, the economic news is bad enough; it's too much to expect that "events, dear boy, events" will demurely recede while America and its cockeyed captain struggle over the cashbox. This would be an excellent time for some terrorist outrages, and I think they may start appearing in the fall. (Tenth anniversary of 9/11 - what would be more appropriate?)

So I don't think this is "Obama's low point". I think it's the lowest point Obama has hit so far, but I expect him to entrance us even further with his ability to descend.

EDGAR
[Aside] O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at
the worst'?
I am worse than e'er I was.

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'

Great gift for Grandma

2011-08-05T12:55:00.003-04:00

I've ordered my personalized copy of Mark Steyn's new book "After America". I asked him to inscribe it "To Dr. Mabuse", but now I wish I'd asked for "To Dr. Mabuse, The Blogger" as a play on the title of Fritz Lang's first great Mabuse film. Maybe next time, if there are enough printing presses still standing for Steyn to publish another volume.

He made a great appearance on Ezra Levant's show on Wednesday, the day after the GOP-Democrat Deal of the Century, and the day before the catastrophic stock market meltdown everyone was assured could only be averted by said deal.

One of the points he made, which he's made in a few essays over the past year, was that he keeps wondering "What's keeping the joint up?" I think I know: it's hypnosis. As long as people believe that they can spend more money than they possess the economy will continue defying gravity forever. But if those Tea Partiers succeed in sowing doubt, well...

Verrückt

2011-08-02T11:43:00.003-04:00

So the U.S. Congress managed to cobble together some sort of quick fix to enable them to borrow another 2 trillion dollars. Not only do I have trouble writing about this, I have trouble thinking about it. I start feeling a genuine detachment from reality that is very scary.

The German word for it is "verrückt" - normally you'd translate that as "deranged". But there's a lovely illustration of just what it means in this clip from Fritz Lang's "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse".

The psychiatrist, Dr. Baum, is describing Mabuse's criminal career and subsequent mental breakdown (Mabuse is now an inmate in his asylum). At first he uses the more typical word for insane - "wahnsinnig" - but when he wants to describe exactly what happened to Mabuse's mind, he says "verrückt" and even employs a physical gesture with his hands. It's like the moment in an earthquake, when the ground shifts out of alignment. "Verrückt" is going off course, like a train flying off sabotaged tracks.

That's how I feel when I try to enter into the logic of Democrats yelling louder and louder for an increase in the amount of money they should be permitted to borrow. It's already one step from reality, because they're not arguing for a particular use for money that they already have. A few years ago, the cry went up for increased spending on "infrastructure". Our bridges are falling down! Our sewers are crumbling! Our roads are decaying!

Anyone can understand an argument between "We have to pour our money into this!" and "No, this is more important!" But the U.S. is far beyond such prosaic battles. Now we are in fantasyland: "We must be allowed to borrow more of somebody else's money! We can't live unless we get more of somebody else's money! We have to have it! NOW!!!" When I try to think of someone so deeply in debt they can't get out, insisting that a bigger, additional shovelful of debt will...somehow...fix everything, I have that almost physical feeling that something in my mind is faltering and slipping sideways. Verrückt. To try to argue with this: "But borrowing means paying back, and you've already borrowed up to 15 trillion dollars. If you need so much money that you have to borrow it, then when and how..." only provokes screams from the insane asylum: "No!! Give it to me! Give it to me! NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!" I truly don't think that you can negotiate or reason with people so deeply in the grip of insanity.

Off they go

2011-08-01T10:23:00.004-04:00

Well, the birds left suddenly last week. I checked the nest one morning and found that one baby was gone - I was very worried, and looked on the ground, but there was no sign of it. I thought maybe it had fallen out and been eaten. But by the end of the day, ALL of them were gone. I looked up robin lifecycle online and found that baby birds jump out of the nest at the age of 13 days! I was so disappointed - I'd assumed that they'd be around for weeks, learning to fly, but it happens very quickly. Now they've gone and there's just a bare nest left behind. They were so entertaining. Here's the last picture I got, on the day they left:

Something cute

2011-07-18T13:35:00.005-04:00

Robins have built a nest in the clematis twining up the little trellis on our fromt porch!

For some weeks I'd noticed that whenever I walked out the front door or up the front step, a bird would fly out of the clematis and into the pine tree standing in the front yard. I thought it was a bit odd that a bird would be so fond of perching on the trellis - it had never happened before - but it wasn't until yesterday that I put 2 and 2 together and wondered if there mightn't be a NEST in there. I just didn't think that the clematis could be strong enough to support a nest, but I haven't cut it back very far for the last 2 years, so there are a lot of dry vines behind the leaves and flowers, and I guess that, what with the wooden trellis behind, it's enough to support the weight of a little nest.

After watching a lot of to and fro action from the robin, I sneaked up to where the bird usually hung out, which is just at about eye level, and spotted a very well-concealed nest. Not only that, but I could see a tiny chick in there! It must have just come out of the egg, because it was lying on its back with its eyes closed. After a few hours, I could tell that there were THREE baby robins in the nest! I can see the edge of the nest from the living room window, and from time to time I could see their little heads moving around, usually with their beaks wide open for food! The two parent birds are now carrying on a continual relay of bringing food to the nest; one robin spent over 5 minutes breaking a large earthworm into little pieces to carry back.

Once the babies were 2 days old, I think they'd figured out a few things: mostly that food only comes when a parent bird arrives. So it's useless to wave their mouths around looking for something to eat when there's no adult bird - now they go to sleep in between food supplies. But when a parent arrives, they start bouncing around and waving their beaks in the air - I can see their downy little heads bobbing over the edge of the nest.

I took the above picture the day before yesterday; the birds are already a fair bit bigger now. Their nest is at about eye level, but I try not to poke my nose in there too often, and only when the parents are away. Actually, now I can't even sit out on the front porch, because after 5 minutes, I'm confronted with a robin with his beak stuffed with goodies, who just stares at me until I leave. They won't go into the nest while they think someone is watching, and I don't want the little birds to have to wait for their food, so I just try to peek at them through the front window. The parents are pretty canny, though; they're always watching and they spot my even when I'm inside.

Veggiegate Update

2011-07-17T11:38:00.004-04:00

An alert reader at Stand Firm provided an update to the travails of Julie Bass, whose criminal vegetables drew the ire of Oak Park bureaucrats.

It looks like the charges and threat of 93 days in jail over the unlicensed vegetables in her front yard have been withdrawn. Not permanently, mind you; "without prejudice", so the city can refile the charges if and when they feel inclined (perhaps when they think the press and bloggers aren't looking). Still, Mrs. Bass must be feeling pretty good that her struggle garnered so much outraged attention, and that the city had to back down.

But did they?

The newest twist is that they've dug up something else to punish Mrs. Bass for: she was late renewing her dogs' licenses! This ALSO merits 93 days in jail, even though she paid the licensing fee in June and her dogs are entirely "legal". But to the city, "It's not over"; it's NEVER over when the bureaucratic meatgrinder gets going, until it ends they way they like, with uniform, one-sized, docile subjects standing in neat rows, awaiting their orders.

Now you see why the part of this story that annoyed me the most was the "You WILL submit!" attitude of the government bureaucrats. Having failed in one area, they immediately set about to find something, ANYTHING, to pin on this woman in order to make an example of her. An example of what happens to you if you dare to resist Authority. And it was also a lame example to blacken her reputation to the rest of the world, especially those who defended her in the garden fracas: "See? She's a scofflaw! Aren't you ashamed now, to be sticking up for such a degenerate character? She doesn't deserve your support; leave her to us."

Well, I don't think it will work, even though there are more bad-tempered comments from supposed defenders of law and community standards this time. I think they were totally taken by surprise the first time around - this sort of secret mau-mauing works so often, they didn't know what to do when the searing glare of critical attention fell on them.

Kitten/Green Apple Death Match

2011-07-15T13:16:00.003-04:00

<a href='http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/kitten-terrified-of-apples/1gl8xobs6?cpkey=b4ff5f11-a60b-4eb0-949b-8e26886cd546%7C%7C%7C%7C&src=v5:EndSlate%5EWide:email:&from=email' target='_new' title='Kitten Terrified of Apples' >Video: Kitten Terrified of Apples</a>

Reminds me of "Galaxy Quest"

Gwen: Does the rolling help?
Jason: Yeah, it helps.

And the little veer off at the end: "I'll get you too, gladiolus!"

Anniversary

2011-07-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

Today is Dean's and my 25th anniversary! And naturally, we're celebrating in style: Dean came to me and asked this morning which one I wanted for MY anniversary present: the new air conditioner, or the wonderful unplugged toilets! There you go, two expensive purchases, one for each of us.

I think we're going to go for something a little more sentimental, but later in the summer. But there's no denying, the two we already have contribute a LOT to our enjoyment of life.

For supper, we're going to have a nice tenderloin, accompanied by our first new potatoes and fresh peas from the garden, with a nice little bottle of champagne after.

New air conditioner!

2011-07-12T14:33:00.002-04:00

Ahhhhh...we have a new air conditioner! It's a Lennox, and it's absolutely marvellous!

The old one turned out to be even older than we'd thought - the guy from the furnace company said he figured it was 25 years old. That's almost as old as the house itself! I'm guessing it was installed when the basement was finished, and the house never had another one until now. There's a unit of measurement that compares the cooling produced by the amount of electricity used; I think the new one is 12 or so, and the higher the number, the better. The old one was 3, which means it used a LOT of energy for the amount of cooling it produced. Also it was terribly loud - just like a cement mixer when you were standing outside next to it. This new one is so quiet, I have to put my head around the corner and see the blades actually turning to be sure it's going.

We got it just in time, too - it looks like we're going to have one short heat wave after another for the rest of the month. Now we're sleeping well at night, we're not dragging around tired and cranky all the time, and life is great again.

You grow, girl!

2011-07-08T15:22:00.004-04:00

Nazi busybodies in (where else?) Michigan punish a lady for growing vegetables in front of her house:

OAK PARK, Mich. (WJBK) - "The price of organic food is kind of through the roof," said Julie Bass.

So, why not grow your own? However, Bass' garden is a little unique because it's in her front yard.

"We thought it'd be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help," she said.

Bass' cool garden has landed her in hot water with the City of Oak Park. Code enforcement gave her a warning, then a ticket and now she's been charged with a misdemeanor.

Listen to the voice of "You can't........" government tyranny from the mouth of pipsqueak commissar Kevin Rulkowski:

"That's not what we want to see in a front yard," said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski.

Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what's "suitable?"

"If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers," he said.

And they used to laugh at the stiflingly oppressive bourgeois conformity of Eisenhower's America. This Rulkowski has it all: patronizing recourse to authority, "Webster's dictionary" in this case, which miraculously provides him with a definition of "suitable" vouchsafed to no one else on Earth. Look how much contempt the guy has for the average citizen: he brazenly makes up a definition that suits his own convenience and attributes it to a respected authority, because he's so confident that nobody will look it up and prove him wrong! He just doesn't care. He waves the magic words and figures his status as a government bossyboots will simply cow the peasants into dropping their gaze and letting him have his way.

We asked Rulkowski what he would say to those who feel this is ridiculous.

"I would argue that you won't find that opinion from most people in Oak Park," he responded.

Once again, there's just breezy assertion here. How would HE know the opinion of "most people in Oak Park"? He doesn't know. This is HIS opinion, and he's just attributing it to a bigger group of people in order to use the "intimidation by size" ploy. Where are all the voices from this local majority to support him? Nowhere. There are no crowds of people standing on their front lawns shaking their heads at the vegetable menace down the street, the way you'd find if it were a crack house being busted. There is no groundswell of opinion to support ripping up this lady's garden; at most there's a ratty little malcontent or two who anonymously snitched to the city. (And I don't even know that for sure, except that this is how this sort of thing usually falls into the greasy hands of government apparatchiks.)

It's not just the gardening side of it that infuriates me so much, though I can easily see myself in this lady's place (and I do have 2 big garden tubs growing tomatoes sitting right on my front driveway by the garage door). It's the vicious over-reaction of the powerful at the effrontery of this little nobody who wants to have her way. The swinging of a MACE to crush a grasshopper that's chirping out of turn. To threaten a respectable woman with 3 months in JAIL - for this. It's like the case of the guy assaulted in his own home by a SWAT time run by the Dept. of Education, for God's sake, or the Iraq vet in Arizona shot 60 times by government thugs because the only acceptable response to a command by a government official is immediate, silent submission. More and more, this is becoming the default attitude of the government towards it's former citizens, now it's subjects - submit or else. This woman is being punished for not being obedient to a government command - people should be hopping mad about it.

(Hat tip: The Agitator)

The terrible, terrible Sunday

2011-07-05T12:30:00.002-04:00

Even around the Kraal, which can boast a collection of disasters few can rival, Sunday was a memorable day. We ended up with THREE blocked toilets, thanks to James (I think Thomas the Tank Engine toys were the culprits, in at least one case - they're now banned from the house). I was struggling to unblock one of the upstairs toilets when I must have caught something in the pipe and pulled too hard, because I managed to actually rupture the drain pipe! Water began POURING through the ceiling immediately below - horrible, horrible dirty toilet water. We didn't actually know at that point what had happened, but in desperation I shut off all the water to the house. The water still kept coming - emptying out the entire pipe and toilet bowl, I suppose, and the same pipe empties BOTH upstairs toilets, so for all I know we were getting the effluent from both clogged toilets coming through the ceiling.

I must say, I had serious words with God over this - I'm not the Patient Griselda type, and I figured this treatment was quite intolerable.

Dean finally scrounged up a plumber who could make an emergency call on a holiday weekend, and I decided to take James out in the van to get him out from underfoot while all the plumbing was going on. We drove to Value Village and I got him a Scooby Doo stuffed toy plus a bathing suit for camp, then we took a leisurely drive to the other side of town to pass by Hawthorne School, which has become his current obsession. We finished up at Best Buy, where we bought a dvd, then decided to head home.

The car wouldn't start.

Either this was my punishment for complaining, or God's way of getting the last word - it definitely worked, because I'd exhausted my store of reproaches during the toilet fiasco and couldn't think of anything else to say.

I called a 1-800 number for emergency roadside assistance that had been provided when I bought the van; of course it was long expired, but they offered me a year's coverage for $69, so I took it and they dispatched a tow truck. I called Dean, and when the plumber finally left I asked him to come in a taxi and take James home - I had to wait over 1.5 hours for the tow truck, the stores around were all closed as it was almost 6:30, and James was getting increasingly perplexed and irritable, so I figured it was best to get him home first and then figure out what to do with the car.

When the tow truck finally arrived, he managed to boost the engine and get it started again, so I was able to drive it home. I was hoping I'd drained it by leaving the fog lights on or something, but the next morning the engine was dead again, so I called another tow truck, they got it started and I took it to the garage, where it is now. Dead battery; the van's a 2002 Pontiac Montana, which is pretty old. I guess batteries eventually give out, so they're going to replace that. Of course a number of other things are wrong with it too, but they can wait until September or so, and then I'll get them taken care of one at a time.

Naturally, this all happens just as we're buying a new central air conditioner, which will come on Thursday; too late to save us from the current heat wave, but by the end of the week hopefully we'll be able to get a decent night's sleep in a cool house.

CANADA'S SHAME

2011-06-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

That headline is a bit of a joke in our house. One morning, years ago, Dean told me he'd had a nightmare the night before. He dreamed he was looking at the front page of a big national newspaper (maybe the Washington Post) and that was the caption - directly overtop of a giant photo of him! Now whenever something goes wrong - Dean undercooks a piece of chicken, or fails to unclog the toilet, or whatever - we recall the grand headline of his dream.

Of course, today Canada's Shame is the herd of stampeding buffalo in Vancouver who decided to smash up the joint after the Canucks failed to win the Stanley Cup. I was going to post on this earlier, but I don't move as fast as I used to. It's pretty obvious that losing the Cup wasn't the "real" cause of the riot, just the handiest pretext. That bunch was going to have its riot no matter what, win or lose. This has happened before, and in Vancouver, too. But we also know from the G20 riots in Toronto last year that our society has degenerated to the point where any large gathering of people is viewed by some as a perfect setting for some smashing, looting, arson and general mayhem.

The "official" excuses were pretty much what I expected: the mayor of Vancouver and the police chief (how reassuring!) immediately blamed the fracas on "anarchists". This is the up-to-date version of "they weren't from around here" - every time there's a particularly shameful display of public brutishness, the people whose community has broken down immediately reach for the palliative excuse that it isn't really that there's something wrong with US. It's THEM - those darned outsiders, those alien Others who came into our innocent, blameless community and spoiled everything. The "anarchists" scapegoat didn't hold up too well because it was obvious that way more people were involved than could be attributed to any tiny fringe group of crackpots, which is what true anarchists are.

The police were almost comical in their wooly-minded perplexity over the mysterious manifestation of these fiendish anarchists:

The mayor said there was no advance warning of the strategy, which caught police and city officials off guard, and may force them to take a different approach to security plans for large public gatherings in the future.

“There had been absolutely no signs of this coming,” Robertson said Thursday afternoon. “Both during the G-20 [leaders’ summit in Toronto] and the 2010 Olympics these thugs were well known to be organizing and preparing to take action and criminal activities on the streets. There were no indications of that leading into last night,” he said.

Maybe the reason there wasn't the same trail of breadcrumbs they'd seen during the previous 2 cases is because in this case the same people weren't pulling the strings. Is it possible? Could the police actually be facing a situation that doesn't neatly fall into one of their two or three neatly-labelled pigeonholes? Maybe something quite new? Like a general breakdown of social order?

And the photos and videos that began pouring over the transom the day after this incident bore that out: this wasn't a pre-planned anarchist action that exploded in the middle of a blameless crowd of bewildered innocents, dragging them into somebody else's fight. This was a crowd of people we thought we knew - well-meaning, well-behaved Canadians - deciding that they'd like a little taste for themselves of the thrill of lawbreaking they've been watching other people on TV indulging in. When push came to shove, a lot of people who'd given a good impression of being civilized and respectful of the laws that make civilized societies work showed that they couldn't be relied upon.

R.I.P. Peter Falk

2011-06-25T08:20:00.003-04:00

Dean emailed me yesterday to say that Peter Falk had died, aged 83. I knew he'd been suffering from Alzheimer's for some years, poor guy. In his honour, we're going to watch some of his Columbo episodes, since I have all but the very last set of dvds. Those last seasons - the "new" Columbo episodes - weren't nearly as good as the originals, but there are still some bright spots. "Columbo Goes To The Guillotine" is pretty good, and I liked "Columbo Goes To College", though the plot was incredibly sophisticated and dependent on technological gimmicks. I found it hard to believe that two college boys, who weren't especially noted for their technological expertise (they were upper-class frat boys, basically interested in partying and playing around) could have come up with something that flawless in so little time.

Among the original episodes, there are almost too many excellent ones to be able to list in order of preference: I especially liked "Playback" with Oskar Werner, and pretty much anything with Jack Cassidy in it - he was such an arrogant bastard in every case. Dean likes to mimic one of his lines in Publish or Perish, where he's conning a demented explosives freak into thinking that he wants to publish his book "How To Blow Up Anything": "There's no doubt this book of yours will change the world!"

I liked Falk as Sam Diamond in Murder by Death, too - all that tough guy bluster concealing some very bizarre backstory involving a lot of sexual confusion. "Sam, why do you keep all those naked muscle men magazines in your office?" "Suspects. Always looking for suspects."

What was nice about Falk was that even though he was pretty typecast as Columbo after the 70s, he never seemed to resent it. Not like Basil Rathbone, who hated Sherlock Holmes and detested the way that character dominated his career. Falk seemed to like Columbo, and never minded the fact that this was to be what he'd be most remembered for. And why should he? "Columbo" was a good show - well written, with good performers and handsome production. It holds up very well today, especially compared to freakish murder mysteries like "CSI", where everything seems to be caused by some new secret underground world of fursuit fetishists, or diaper-wearing fantasists, or mouse-worshipping cannibals, or whatever. Columbo was almost always set in the real world; no matter how unusual the people he encountered, they all ran on recognizably human motives - money, jealousy, revenge, fear.

So long, Columbo - you and your car and your raincoat belong to the ages.

Visiting NY state

2011-06-17T13:19:00.004-04:00

Emma and I went on a little daytrip to the U.S. last weekend. We drove down to Prescott, and crossed the bridge over the St. Lawrence near Ogdensburg. The purpose of the trip was to do some very specific grocery shopping - there are several flavours of Jello fat-free, sugar-free instant pudding mix that are simply not available in Canada. We have chocolate, chocolate fudge, white chocolate, vanilla and butterscotch. In the U.S., they also have pistachio, as well as banana cream, cheesecake and lemon. The last two are new flavours that came out since our time in Boston, but I've been hankering for the pistachio since we moved from the States 9 years ago, and I decided that it was worth making a trip over the border to find some and bring in back.

Emma also had a list of things she wanted, particularly cereal. She's been talking about the American Nesquik cereal for years - she says that, unlike the Canadian version, it will actually turn white milk poured on it to chocolate! She also wanted Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles, so I said we'd see what we could find.

While in Ogdensburg, we went to look at a tall ship that was moored in the harbour, then headed off to the local Price Chopper store. I'm sorry to say that they had banana and cheesecake flavours, but NOT the pistachio or the lemon! I picked up a few of the former, even though the banana is not my favourite flavour, and then looked through the store for other things we can't get in Canada. I found diet Vanilla Coke, so I got a case to bring back, and a few cans of Libby's pumpkin pie filling. We have pumpkin pie filling in Canda, of course, but not this brand.

After the groceries, we went over to Walmart and got some summer clothes - Emma needed new shorts, and I got some skirts and T-shirts. I haven't had new clothes for a very long time, and figured it was time to get something that actually fit me properly.

I must say, Ogdensburg wasn't quite what I expected. I thought it was larger, for one thing, but its population is only 11,000. It also seemed rather rundown. I always have this presumption that the U.S. is bound to be wealthier and better than poor little Canada, but this town looked like it was in a long decline. Houses were ramshackle and unpainted, lots of places were boarded up, particularly old factories and businesses - this must have been going on for a long time, predating the Obama Depression. Now, I didn't see the ENTIRE town, staying mostly on the eastern half, but still, the population wasn't so large that I can suppose that there's a huge, wealthy sector hidden just around the corner. The place looked rather shabby and poor, overall.

I wasn't willing to abandon my pudding quest with the failure in Ogdensburg. I remembered long ago crossing the border at Cornwall, and vaguely recalling that the shopping on the other side of the border was better than where we were, so we decided to head east to Massena and try our luck there. We could come back to Canada over that bridge, and the trip back would be a bit longer, but we had time and Emma would enjoy seeing a little more of the countryside.

Our drive through northern NY state didn't show a much different face from Ogdensburg - the whole area looks a bit rundown. It's surprising, that waterfront property wouldn't be more valuable, but I guess business and employment has really drained away from this part of the state.

We didn't stop to look at Massena, just got a bit lost in it looking for the shopping mall, but it seemed slightly better off than Ogdensburg. Next time, when I'm not struggling with maps and highway signs, we'll look around and get a better idea of the place. We finally found the St. Lawrence Mall, and a big grocery store, where - hallelujah! - we found the pistachio and lemon pudding mixes! I bought about 18 boxes, which, with all the other flavours, should keep me supplied for the better part of a year. I didn't bother buying flavours we can already get at home.

We were flagged for Customs scrutiny when we came back, but on looking over my bills the agent just dismissed me and we weren't charged duty. It was almost all groceries, with a few Walmart clothes - I don't suppose there would have been much to collect in any case.

New computer

2011-06-10T10:22:00.007-04:00

I have a new computer, but it's not just any computer. This one, I actually built myself! I bought all the components, a case, hard drive, processor, dvd/cd drive, etc., and put it together on Sunday.

It all started with James's campaign of terror against the Mac. He kept saying he wanted a Dell, but I didn't want to buy him a new one, so I found an old one at the thrift store, and thought I'd try to upgrade it. Turned out it had a fried hard drive, so I thought maybe I could replace that, and I started looking for videos on YouTube on how to do it. When I saw it demonstrated, I realized that it's really pretty easy - same thing goes for replacing a cd-rom drive. But there was a hitch; I discovered that the computer was really pretty old - from about 2003 or so, and a lot of the connectors have changed in the meantime. Finding compatible parts looked like it was going to be a difficult, expensive process.

Then, while looking for "how to upgrade your computer" books in Chapters, I saw one on how to build your own pc. (This one). I took note of the title, and found it was available in our library, so I took it out and read it. This is when I decided I could do this myself, so I followed their "recipe" for building a budget computer, and gradually accumulated all the parts needed. Then on Sunday I followed their pictures and guidelines and put it all together. And believe it or not, it all worked perfectly the very first time!

Of course, they said they could assemble it in 30 minutes, while it took me 4 hours! And that included a trip to the computer store to buy another SATA cable, because the components only provided one for the dvd drive, not the hard drive.

Since this was a first-time attempt, I saved money by buying a $10 monitor at the Salvation Army, and a used keyboard and mouse for just a few dollars each. Now that I see how well it worked, I'll watch the sales and get a really nice monitor when I see a suitable one on sale - it's a bit weird to go back to this curved square screen again, as it's one of those old-fashioned monitors with the big long rear section, just like an old TV.

Now that I can do it, I'm going to save up and build a really super computer in a year or two: something with huge memory, that I can use as a media center, with all our movies on the hard drive, and connected to big HD TV! Ahhh, it gives me something to dream about...

Here are the components I used:

Case - ANTEC NSK 4482B (Power and fan included)
Motherboard - MB ASROCK K10N78M-PRO
Processor - CPU AMD|ATH II X2 250 3.0G AM3 RT
Memory - 2x2GB Crucial CT2KIT25664AA800 R (4GB total)
Hard Drive - SEAGATE ST3500418AS 500 GB
Optical Drive - Asus
Speakers - Altec Lansing 2.0 Computer Speaker (VS2620)
Monitor - Dell (used)
Keyboard - Dynex wired (used)
Mouse - Logitech wired (used)

It's almost exactly what was recommended in the book for a "budget system", except that the processor they called for was #240, I think, and this slightly more advanced model had replaced it. I'm just a beginner, and I didn't know enough about computer building to feel competent to change the components, but maybe someday I will.

I strongly recommend the book to anyone thinking of building a pc. For the most part it's very easy to understand - they occasionally get swept away using acronyms and tech terms, but eventually you'll find a definition or explanation of what they're talking about. Before I tried this, my only computer hardware experience had been connecting cables at the back and prying off keyboard keys to clean the dust and hair that was gumming up the works. If I can have a success the first time, I think anyone can, you just have to be patient and read the instructions and get a clear idea of what you're about to do.

Taking apart the old computer was a big help - it was useful to actually see how things fitted onto a motherboard, how big a processor and fan were, how many cables there were, etc. It made the real thing much easier to comprehend.

Here's a picture:

Keeping regular

2011-05-28T06:29:00.005-04:00

Mark Steyn has posted a piece about the morass of regulations in the U.S. There is a person in the U.S. government who "is charged by the president with "an unprecedented government-wide review of regulations" in order to "improve or remove those that are out-of-date, unnecessary, excessively burdensome or in conflict with other rules."

It's not so different in Canada. When I worked in the Secretary of State's office, I remember reading some correspondence on "regularizing" regulations. After the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was passed in 1982, government departments were given several years to look over their regulations and revise them to bring them in line with the new rules. This meant pretty much pc-ing the whole lot, making sure that "man" was replaced by "person", "he" by "he/she", etc.

The memo I read was complaining that the deadline was coming up, and so far there had been precious little progress in the Department of Transportation on bringing their regulations up to snuff. In fact, the writer said there had been just one amendment: a regulation on maritime navigation had replaced the word "lunatic" with something more decorous. All I could think was "What on earth was the original regulation that could incorporate the word "lunatic" in a question of sailing a boat?" Allowing lunatics to pilot boats? Transporting lunatics by sea? I'll never know, but my imagination will play with it forever.

Cruel but funny

2011-05-14T08:38:00.001-04:00

My sister sent me this:

Actually, Dean DOES have conversations like this with Yin, only she's the one who ends up getting all the treats while he starves!

Secret weapon

2011-04-18T10:54:00.003-04:00

My favourite store in Ottawa is the T&T Supermarket, which opened about a year and a half ago. It's just 2 miles south of us, and I walk there and back at least once a week for exercise, and to shop for Asian groceries. James Lileks did a post awhile back about the strange things you can find on grocery shelves, like Grass Jelly, and you can certainly find all that and more at T&T. I got a can of Rambutan on Friday, because I wanted a tropical fruit for my Indian fruit salad. The recipe calls for guava, which is okay but not my favourite, and I'd already tried lychees, and this looked interesting. It turned out to be very nice - very like lychees, just a bit sweeter and smoother.

Well, up at the front they have a place where you can buy ready-cooked food to eat there or take home. Every now and then for a treat I buy a barbecued duck, because you just can't make that sort of thing in your own kitchen. They also have some packaged cooked food, and it changes every day - salted chicken, barbecued beef tendons, duck feet, you name it.

Last time I went there I wandered through this section, and my attention was caught by some packages of sliced meat strips. The label read "Pork Bungholes". I looked again; the meat DID have a sort of bullseye in the middle of the slices, but I thought this can't be what I think it is. When in doubt, consult the French - when I studied translation I learned that French is a much more precise language than English, and it's harder to conceal the truth in French. For once our bilingual labelling laws came to my rescue, and I checked the French version on the label. Sure enough, there it was: "Rectum du porc".

Well, now we have the ultimate weapon to defeat the jihadis. Attack them with volleys of Pork Bungholes. It's just wrong on SO many levels, even to me, that I think the mere thought that such a thing exists is likely to make jihadis spontaneously combust. The Chinese will save the world; maybe "Firefly" was prescient in foreseeing a future in which America and China have melded to run the universe.

And now for some good news

2011-04-02T09:10:00.002-04:00

March wasn't all disasters. For the last few weeks, I've been working on a new project. Years ago, we had an interesting bookcase probably from the 30s, with sliding glass doors. James tipped it over and it broke (yeah, I can't entirely keep out the scarlet thread of James's destructiveness). One of the glass panes shattered, and the whole top of the bookcase broke off as well as part of the base. We didn't know what to do with it, so we pushed it into the cold cellar and left it lying on its side. I finally decided it was uselessly occupying space down there, and I'd like to build a potato bin in its place.

I pulled it out and figured that maybe it wouldn't be that difficult to fix myself. The foot was easily put back on, and then top fitted back on top, except that a few fragments of wood had been lost. Unfortunately, during its years in the non-climate controlled cold cellar, it had warped slightly, so the sides are not perfectly perpendicular anymore - I could tell when I put the sliding glass doors back and realized that when they overlap, they don't entirely line up straight. It's not a big deal, though.

While I was regluing the pieces, I figured that perhaps I could strip and refinish it as well, so that's been the job for the last week. Stripping was quite easy, and I put a maple stain on it. I'm not sure what the wood is, but it's some sort of hardwood; could be maple or pine. I'd post pictures, except that I need the Mac for photos, and, well...you know what happened to that.

I've now got the final coat of sealant applied, and it's just got to dry before we try to haul it upstairs again. Oddly enough, the small windows gave me much more trouble than the actual bookcase. The varnish seems to dry oddly in places, leaving a sort of whitish bloom - I may have to do an extra coat to get it to look quite smooth and even. I think I'll get the glass replaced on all of them; the old glass feels sort of thin and cheap, and now we have safety glass which would be much more sensible for our family.

The other thing I've been working on is losing weight. Of course it's for health reasons, but the immediate cause was because I need new clothes and I hate having to shop for fat clothes. They're always such dull colours and so styleless. I still have perfectly nice things that no longer fit, and I figured I'd rather try to wear my old clothes than invest in new ones I won't like.

I'm glad to say it's going quite well. I did Weight Watchers about 10 years ago when we lived in Boston, and was very successful - I lost about 70 lbs. I'm following the same program, but I'm not doing it officially - I've tried once or twice since we moved back to Ottawa, but I don't like the WW program up here. In Boston, the meetings were great - everyone was very supportive and enthusiastic - just the American character, I think, very generous and happy for other people's success. Here the directors are rather cool and brusque, and the people who attend are usually claques of middle-aged ladies who do this as a sort of social event, and have no interest in anyone outside their own set. It felt more like checking in with one's parole officer than going to a support meeting.

Anyway, since the beginning of February, I've lost over 20 lbs, so I'm thrilled with the way things are going. I hope to lost another 30, but that will probably take the better part of a year. Twenty pounds in 2 months is very creditable, but it certainly can't continue at that rate.

My next job is to try to sync the subtitles I did for 'Marguerite de la nuit' to the dvd version of it - I think I may have figured out a way to do it, but it's long and complicated and I have to have a lot of uninterrupted time to work on it.

Meanwhile, the snow is retreating, Canada geese are returning, and the first tips of rhubarb are starting to poke above the ground. In a few more weeks, I'll be doing garden cleanup and starting to think about planting peas.

March Madness

2011-04-02T08:43:00.003-04:00

Well, March is over at last, and a mad month it certainly was. Sorry I've been so dilatory in posting, but things have been a bit hairy around here. Just as March break was starting, Emma dropped out of college. The program was just overwhelming her, and now she wants to change to a different one. We have to think carefully about this; I'm afraid that it might be the same story with ANY program - OK the first year, then it gets progressively harder until it's too much for her. It took a week or two, but I'm finally over the shock, and now we can use our heads coolly. I keep telling myself that there are thousands of people in Japan who would trade problems with me, and it's not that bad, but it still threw me for a loop.

Then last week, James struck with his typical criminal brilliance. He took a pair of scissors and cut the electric cord of the iMac computer! Fortunately the cord is removable and I guess I can get a new one, but there's no way of telling if the computer itself was damaged until I can reconnect it and examine it. I first realized what had happened when he came upstairs carrying the iMac and I saw what had happened to the cord - obviously he wanted an audience. When I went downstairs, I found that he had also cut the cords of the keyboard and the mouse, so those will have to be replaced. He had also shorted out all the lights and outlets on that circuit; I tried to fix it, but it was too dark in the garage, and all the switches on the fusebox seemed to be in in the ON position. Finally I gave up and told Dean we'd have to call an electrician the next day.

The electrician found the fuse - it WAS off, but it wasn't visible. But while they were here we got them to fix another outlet that had never worked, so it wasn't a wasted call.

The followup to the Mac destruction came the next day. James came up to me with a piece of paper on which he'd written in very large letters: DELL. Dell? Dell? So that's what all this was about? He didn't want to use the Mac, so he figured if he sabotaged it I'd have to buy him a Dell instead? That little &$#@**@@!! Just for that, I decided I'd leave him without ANY computer for a week, so he'd appreciate it more, but he doesn't seem repentant. He's very tranquilly gone over to watching his "101 Dalmations" tape, and still wants a Dell. Now I'm afraid to bring back the Mac - what if he throws it out the window to REALLY finish it off? Perhaps I should just wait until he's asking for it to come back again. It's weird, because he used the Mac like an expert, and never betrayed any hint that he didn't like it. I don't know where he gets his ideas.

Oh, and he's also clogged up one of our toilets, and even the mighty auger can't free it. I suspect that he flushed a towel down there, because I managed to extract a tiny fragment of terrycloth. It's probably time to replace that toilet with an uber-toilet like the one we have on the ground floor. They'll all go that way eventually, I suppose.

Finally, the clothes dryer has reached the end of the line. It's the last appliance in the house that was here when we moved in. Over the winter, it was getting feebler and feebler - over an hour to dry underwear? Ridiculous. Then a few days ago, this odd, scary smell started coming from it - a kind of oily smell, so I think the wires are overheating. It's time for a new one, so on Thursday I went to the Maytag store, where we'd bought our washer several years ago. The new dryer will arrive Wednesday night. Meanwhile, it's warm and sunny out, so we can dry clothes outside, which I prefer anyway.

So that's my recitation of woes for the past month.

The horror in Japan

2011-03-14T08:57:00.004-04:00

This has been such a terrible week in Japan. I've got CNN on all the time, just watching those endless repeats of that unstoppable black tide sweeping over farmland. Salt water, too - imagine what that will do to the soil, even when the debris is cleared away.

One of the most uncanny things is the absence of dead bodies. We keep reading reports about whole towns swept away, 10,000 missing from a population of 17,000, but where are the bodies? It's like 9/11, when the hospitals in Manhattan were braced for a wave of casualties that never came - the bodies were just incinerated and never seen again. Weeks and months of homemade "Missing" posters on plywood barriers, growing faded and tattered, as people had to accept that they'd never really know what happened to their family members.

This reminds me a bit of the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania in 1888 - not in scale of course, but the descriptions are eerily similar. The tidal wave of water that crashed down the mountain was not a pure, white-topped wave like off the beaches of Hawaii - what we all think of when we hear the words "tidal wave". It was also cluttered with dirt and debris, and looked more like a liquified mountain churning towards the city.

The wall of debris and water came on not steadily but in an irregular series of thunderous checks and rushes.

At times, eyewitnesses said later, the debris would even clog the path enough to bring the whole thing to a momentary standstill. All the crushed and tangled sweepings from the dam down would lock clear across the valley, seeming almost more than the millions of tons of pressure from behind could budge.

But the then whole seething mass would burst apart, with trees and telegraph poles flying into the air, as though blasted by dynamite, and the water would rush forward again, even faster. And as it moved on, the water kept on tossing logs and roots above its surface, as though the whole mass were full of life.

The friction set up by the terrain and the debris also caused the bottom of the mass of water to move much slower than the top. As a result the top was continually sliding over the bottom and down the front of the advancing wall, like a cake of ice across a slick board. The water, in other words, was rolling over itself all the time it was pressing forward, and this caused a violent downward smashing, like a monstrous surf falling on a beach, that could crush almost anything in its path. A man caught under it had no chance at ll. In fact, one of the major problems later on would be finding the bodies that had been pounded deep down into the mud.

The last human remains were recovered in 1904, I think.

A lot of people must have been swept back into the sea when the tsunami waters receded, and there's a hope their bodies might be found. Very soon, I expect, they'll find them floating on the surface. But I fear that many may have been crushed into the earth the way the people at Johnstown were, and the Japanese may be finding fragments of them for years.

Anglicanism's rich musical heritage

2011-03-09T20:06:00.004-05:00

Stand Firm and MCJ posted this incredible addition to Anglicanism's rich musical heritage:

I guess Dudley Moore's estate wouldn't grant them the rights to "Jump":
(DNPAW - Do Not Play At Work)

Flushed with success

2011-03-05T10:12:00.005-05:00

One thing I will probably never succeed in doing is conveying adequately to other people how very dominated by unlikely things our home life is. And one of the most dominant features is the toilet. A lot of our life revolves - one might even say, "swirls" - around the toilet. Getting kids to the toilet on time and coping with the times when we don't make up a big part of every day. And apart from normal use, we also have to deal with James's very innovative approach, which involves flushing things down as entertainment.

Clogs were such a frequent occurrence, that when we had to call the plumber two weeks in a row to unclog the same toilet, he finally took pity on us and recommended we invest in a super-toilet. After a few more experiences, we did, and this is the monster we now have in the main floor bathroom:

It is the American Standard Champion 4, and believe me, it's a brute. But plumber calls have dropped dramatically since we installed it some 6 months ago. When we eventually have to replace the normal toilets upstairs, we're going to get these, but we did the ground floor because that's the one James and Thomas tend to use the most.

Not that things are entirely problem-free now. We don't have so many clogs, because this toilet is so powerful and the pipe is wider, so things can actually make it down the bend. I'm pretty sure James flushed my car keys down the toilet, because I've searched the whole house and there's no sign of them. He also sometimes tries to flush his Thomas the Tank Engine toys down the toilet, and those can get wedged in strange angles, which makes them hard to dislodge.

That's why I also bought a drain snake last year, to try to get some of this stuff out myself. First I got a little one, and it worked well, fully justifying the $15 or so it cost. After that experiment succeeded, I decided it was worth investing in a big 6' long industrial-size one for $75 to cope with bigger problems.

I have to say, it's a marvellous tool, and has paid for itself several times over. The best experience I had was when I put it down the toilet several times, and managed to bring up one of the train toys - it had caught the tiny little plastic coupling tab between the coils of the head, and pulled it out that way! This thing has worked on at least 3 occasions, saving us about $100 each time for a call to a plumber, so I have every reason to recommend it.

Last week, however, something went down the toilet and nothing would dislodge it. The event started with me at the computer, and James standing at the door to the bathroom, looking over to me and saying several times "Uh-oh." Foolishly, I ignored him because I wanted to finish what I was reading. After these attempts to get my attention failed, I heard the fatal FLUSH - the flush that didn't finish with a big roar, meaning that the drain was blocked. Too late, I leaped to my feet and hurried to the toilet, but it was too late. Nothing was visible, but a few flushes proved that water could only slowly filter down. Ten sweaty minutes with the plunger produced nothing. Finally I pulled out the big snake, but this time even that failed me. I couldn't get the wire coil to go in even one foot, and twisting the handle did nothing. This time, I figured we'd HAVE to call a plumber, and I was steaming.

But before abandoning all hope, I reasoned that if the snake couldn't get down at all, it meant that the clog was really close to the opening. Maybe I could poke something down there and reach it. My hand was too big, so I unravelled a wire hanger and tried pushing the two ends in, rather like a pair of forceps. Once, twice, then hurrah! Something moved and I was able to pull it towards me. I couldn't believe it - James had managed to flush an entire electric shaver down the toilet! I mean one of those chunky Phillips shavers, with the triangular head with 3 round shaving blades. It came out in 2 pieces, the main body and the detachable shaver head. We lost the plastic guard that fitted over the top. And most amazing of all, the battery still worked! I figure it was only because the toilet was as powerful as it is that the shaver got down even part way; in a normal toilet, it would have just lain at the bottom of the bowl, but this managed to suck it down until it wedged in the drain.

My Magnum Opus

2011-03-04T12:13:00.009-05:00

I think I've done it - the best subtitles I've ever done or ever will do. I translated and created subtitles for Claude Autant-Lara's 1955 film "Marguerite de la nuit" (Marguerite of the Night), a wonderful movie almost completely forgotten today. It stars Yves Montand and Michele Morgan, and is a modern version of Faust. (I can never see or hear those words without thinking of The Bandwagon, and the disastrous stage show Jeffrey Cordova put on with just that theme.)

The sets are incredibly weird - very artificial, almost Expressionist in appearance, though not in theme. There's very little on this movie online - just a few clips, and they don't show the sets at their best. Here are some still photos:

This one has a very Caligariesque feel to it, as does the entire scene - it shows old Dr. Faust, in his tall hat and black cape, walking home from the opera, past the unrealistic walls and pavements of this fantasy Paris.

That is Yves Montand, as Mr. Léon, aka Mephistopheles. Note the date on the wall above his head: April 30, Walpurgis Night. I wonder if his name isn't a little Biblical allusion too: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."

Now look at the weird scene with the church and the graveyard:

Some people complain that the movie is too long at 2 hrs. 5 mins., but how can you possibly have too much time on your hands when you can fill it looking at visuals like these?

The movie was quite a flop when it came out, but I don't think there was anything wrong with the film. I think it was just created at the wrong time; the New Wave of French cinema was on the verge of arriving, and people just weren't in the mood for a stylized fantasy like this. I wish it could be released on dvd in North America - now that I've done the subtitles, it should be a cinch! It came out on dvd in Germany, in an Yves Montand collection - it wasn't subtitled, they provided a German dubbed version along with the original. What a shame to dub Montand's wonderful baritone voice, though! He doesn't sing, Michele Morgan does, but it's delightful just listening to his voice speaking the lines in that deeply ironical way he has. Maybe I can teach myself dvd authoring and figure out a way to build my subtitle file into the dvd; I've seen other people do it, but I've never tried.

Well, as I say, this is my best project so far. Now I don't know just what to do - it'll take me a while to find another movie I'll enjoy as much.

Bizarre weather

2011-02-14T13:55:00.002-05:00

It's been over freezing today - +3 C and raining if you can believe it! And now we're waiting for a very scary reversal; there's a Flash Freeze Warning on right now, and they're predicting it to happen at 3:00, just the time I'll be bussing kids home! Actually, that's an hour from now, and I think it may be arriving ahead of schedule: it's getting bright out, and the wind is really picking up. Here's hoping that the wind can dry some of the water on the roads before the temperature drops to -7. Flash freezes are really scary, right up there with whiteouts, and I hope I can get out to the school and back again without encountering any disasters.

But the weirdness doesn't stop there; it's going to be -9 tomorrow, and then the temperature is going to go back up as we head into the weekend, all the way to +9 and raining on Friday! This is so strange for February, and it's going to play havoc with the second week of Winterlude that's already underway down at the Canal.

Ear worms

2011-01-25T11:43:00.003-05:00

There's no hope for me now, because I have an ear worm - that's one of those tunes that gets stuck in your mind and plays over and over.

This one is particularly bad: it's the opening theme to Rocket Robin Hood, a cartoon I used to watch when I was little.

When I looked it up on YouTube, I was astonished to discover that it was a CANADIAN cartoon - produced by Trillium Productions, which should have told me all I need to know (the trillium is Ontario's official flower). This is why the only Americans who know of it are those who grew up along the U.S.-Canada border, and were able to receive Canadian TV signals. Apparently it also was shown in the U.K. - one of the advantages of belonging to the Commonwealth, I suppose!) This cartoon was typically shown on Sundays - Saturdays were for the lavish American cartoons. It's odd, but I can't remember any actual episodes of Rocket Robin Hood; I clearly remember the little "intervals", where characters like Prince John and Friar Tuck were introduced, but the episodes themselves have vanished from my memory completely.

When I mentioned this to Dean, we got into a dispute over which cartoon was worse, Rocket Robin Hood or another Canadian cartoon, The Mighty Hercules:

This also has a catchy opening tune, though the lyrics sound a little funny today. It's bad enough to have to listen to "Softness in his eyes,/Iron in his thighs," but I had to convince Dean that an earlier line was "With the strength of ten/Ordinary men" not "the length".

The Ottawa Senators are Doomed

2011-01-21T12:47:00.002-05:00

This must be the worst hockey season for Ottawa since the franchise first started in the early 90s. It's surely the worst since we came back from Boston. The season's only half over, and the Sens are already out of the playoffs!

Yesterday's paper had an article by Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette, on the many injured players the Montreal Canadiens will have to do without for tonight's game against Ottawa. (I can't find a link to it online, unfortunately.) The headline read "Habs likely down three for game in Ottawa". Dean glanced at the headline and said, "Oh, great! Now the Senators are so bad, they're being given a 3-point handicap going into Friday night's game!" Well, it works in golf, why not hockey?

The sad thing is, even if it were true, it wouldn't have saved them from last night's 6-2 defeat in Philadelphia. They stink.

Vanderleun's Law

2011-01-21T09:35:00.005-05:00

Oh, by the way, see those people over there? Yes, the ones who had nothing to do with it. They did it.

Let's call it Vanderleun's Law: the principle that every stinking blossom and rotten fruit that comes forth from the tree of Liberal Socialism is to be blamed on Conservatism.

Thus, 2 weeks ago, we had the Left's itchy trigger fingers letting fly on the Right within minutes after a dope-addled schizophrenic shot up a Congresswoman 's meet 'n greet in Tucson. The Right and Sarah Palin had been allowed to release toxic emissions - ideas - into the atmosphere, and this invisible but deadly cloud had enveloped one Jared Loughner and caused him to go berserk. To their surprise, this "argument" was not allowed to stand unchallenged, and today the Left has seen its victory crumble before it could be grasped, and must console itself with mere sullen refusal to apologize. They should be thanking us: we stopped them before they could follow their insane reasoning to its logical conclusion and declare that Loughner himself is a "victim".

Now another atrocity has occurred: on his way to canonization in the Episcopal Church, an saintly abortionist has been caught running an abattoir

In a nearly 300-page grand jury report filled with ghastly, stomach-turning detail, prosecutors said Pennsylvania regulators ignored complaints of barbaric conditions at Gosnell's clinic, which catered to poor, immigrant and minority women in the city's impoverished West Philadelphia section.

Chris Johnson has collected a good number of examples of Vanderleun's Law, as pro-abortion writers immediately try to blame this abomination on the people who were systematically frozen out of all opportunities to get in the way of the Slaughterhouse Doctor's multi-million dollar empire: the Right. The Pennsylvania Department of Health chose sides: the abortionists were on the side of the angels, and could not be permitted to be inconvenienced in any way. Just complaining about conditions was evidence of "anti-abortion" heresy, and so complaints were to be ignored, and the path made smooth and easy for anyone who provided this valuable public service. This is what you get when make Death your god: butchered and broken bodies piled on a blood-soaked altar.

Now the doctor's been outed, and for once even pro-abortionists can't keep up the smug act. This is actually a filthy horror, and so their first thoughts are to find a convenient conservative scapegoat to smear the blood on. Coming on the heels of the Tucson Debacle, they're facing an alert and prepared Right - they're not going to be taken by surprise by a sucker punch, and I trust the Right will hang this rotting albatross around the necks that own it.

Alien Tomatoes

2011-01-14T10:08:00.007-05:00

My aunts have been sending me reports about their strange encounters with tomatoes over the past year. Last week they sent me a clipping from a gardening magazine where someone wrote in describing the same experience and furnishing me pictures. Auntie Kay asked me to put this up on the blog, because it's really weird and it's creeping them out.

It started last summer, when they bought fresh tomatoes from the grocery store. They were perfectly nice tomatoes, but after a while they started to notice something odd. The tomatoes started to develop strange bumps. What's more, the tomatoes themselves did not deteriorate as normal tomatoes do when they're not refrigerated. These looked bright red and shiny, with no sign of decay or wilting. The letter to the editor they sent me reported the same phenomenon; the tomato was put on a counter to ripen, but it seemed almost to have an "anti-aging" characteristic and ripened very slowly. Also

I noticed that the tomato had multiple little "pimple-like" bumps on its surface. Some of the bumps seemed to have a "tail-like" appendage which "travelled" under the skin surface of the tomato.

When my aunts finally cut open the tomato, they found that the seeds inside had actually sprouted and the inside of the tomato was a mass of sprouts! It was really disgusting - rather like the creature in "Alien" germinating inside the guy's stomach then bursting out.

They tried scooping out the mess inside and just eating the shell of the tomato (which still looked very shiny and appetizing) but Auntie said the tomato didn't taste like a tomato at all: it tasted like HAY.

This has happened to a couple of tomatoes they've bought recently, and when they brought the tomatoes back to the grocery store the people there were baffled. These aren't some rare variety, and they must have bought them from regular suppliers, but they're complete mutant tomatoes. I wonder if this might not be a case of genetic engineering, which we've been hearing so much about. The tomatoes do have a characteristic that would make them desirable: they're much less perishable than standard tomatoes. I can see why someone might want to breed for that trait, but this side effect is just bizarre (not to mention the tomatoes LOOK good but taste terrible)!

I've found very little online about this. A year ago there were a few posts on gardening boards from people who experienced the same thing, but it seems to be a rather rare occurrence (not for my Aunts, though; it's happened a few times to them). Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

UPDATE: I've tried to find more information on this sprouting tomato phenomenon, and I did find this plus a few other discussions on gardening boards. Opinion is divided on whether it's a question of genetics or chemical additive. Some say it's normal for seeds to germinate inside tomatoes, others say it should be impossible. But I can't help but notice that all of the incidents being discussed are recent - within the past 4 years, it seems. Surely, if this is normal behavior, people should be able to point to older incidents? I mean, think of the decades and decades of tomato-growing history that we can look back on, just in our own lifetimes; why wouldn't there be anecdotal evidence going back a century on this?

The best tundering muffins in the whole wide world!

2011-01-08T15:05:00.003-05:00

Dean's wrestling club is hosting their annual tournament today. It's a big fundraiser for them, and they're expecting kids from all over the province to come, some driving through the night to make it here this morning (and I hope they didn't get caught in any bad snow on the way, because we've had about 5" since yesterday). One of the big moneymakers at this event is the concession stand, and I generally contribute some baking - this year 4 dozen Boiled Raisin Muffins. They are so good, Dean's devious strategy is to charge 25 cents for the first one, then $50 for the next, because nobody can eat just one!

Here is the recipe for the very best muffins in the world:

Boiled Raisin Muffins

TEMP: 375 F
TIME: 20-25 minutes
MAKES 12 large muffins

1.5 cups raisins
1.5 cups water
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

1. Boil raisins in water for 20 minutes.
2. Cream sugar, shortening and egg.
3. Add cooled, drained raisins, plus 1/2 cup raisin water to sugar mixture.
4. Add sifted dry ingredients to first mixture.
5. Add vanilla and stir until blended.
6. Fill muffin cups and bake.

UPDATE: They sold them ALL!

The King's Speech

2011-01-02T19:59:00.005-05:00

We did go to see "The King's Speech" after all, at a nice theater out in the suburbs. The theater was about half full, which is a good sign, though Dean did notice that a lot of the audience was older - even older than us! It's the sort of story that I suppose would appeal to older people with a love for and interest in the Royal Family; I was more interested in it as a story of overcoming a handicap.

Colin Firth has been a favourite of mine ever since "Pride and Prejudice". He's STILL the definitive Darcy, and I don't even know why filmmakers keep trying to remake that story - I don't think there will ever be a better version than the 1995 miniseries. (A female journalist once wrote, "Like all women, I know exactly what Elizabeth Bennet looks like; she looks just like me!" ) Anyway, I suppose he's done a fair number of movies in the meantime, but I think this must be the best thing he's done since P&P, and now everyone's talking about Oscar nominations and the like. I hope he does win - the sheer voice work on this movie alone is remarkable. As the Duke of York, he has a rather high-pitched, strangulated voice that makes you feel the character's exhaustion every time he tries to choke out a normal line of speech. He also does a good job portraying someone who's ALREADY isolated and cut off from ordinary life - it's not just that as a Prince he doesn't carry money on him (the running theme of the shilling he owes his voice teacher is quite amusing). He knows he doesn't know ordinary people or have any idea how they live, but the speech impediment makes it all but impossible for him to begin to break out of his tiny family-sized zone of safety. As Logue says to him at one point "What are friends for?" "I wouldn't know," answers Bertie bleakly.

There's one part that I really liked - the movie managed to take a cliched moment and make it surprising. When during their first meeting Logue 'tricks' the Prince into speaking fluently - he reads Hamlet's soliloquy while wearing earphones playing Beethoven, so he can't hear his own voice - Logue records the speech on a record and gives it to Bertie to take home as a souvenir. Months later, Bertie is listening to a jazz record at home and gets up, irritated, to change the record. I expected it to be that old chestnut: He's forgotten all about the record, and picks it off the pile and puts it on, expecting to hear music, and instead is astounded to hear his own voice speaking fluently! But no - the record plays, the speech fills the room, and we see Bertie sitting on the couch, listening intently. Then his wife comes into the room, and we see the look of astonishment on HER face. She didn't know all this time, but he did. He's listened to that record over and over, and it's familiar to him. It just takes him this long to get up the courage to go back to the teacher to try again.

Geoffrey Rush is excellent as Lionel Logue, the Prince's speech therapist, though I found his resemblance to Michael Hordern rather distracting. Bertie has a terrible moment when he discovers that Logue isn't a doctor after all (not that he ever claimed or pretended to be), but is rather an unsuccessful actor. I remembered later that George V at one point tells Bertie that the Royal Family have fallen to the level of the dregs of society, actors, which would explain why he feels so humiliated and crushed to find that his admired teacher is a member of this vile brood. Actually, it makes perfect sense that an actor would be very capable of teaching speech. Claude Rains started life with an atrocious stutter, as well as an almost indecipherable Cockney accent. When working as a gopher at a theatre, an actor took an interest in him and gave him books and techniques to teach him how to overcome his speech defects, which he did through incessant practice. He was really self-taught. Then he went to the trenches in WWI and was injured and gassed; he lost the sight in one eye, and what was worse, the gas paralysed his vocal cords and he couldn't speak! It must have been an incredible blow, but Rains relearned how to speak again - in fact, the gas damage was responsible for that very characteristic slight roughness in his voice ever after.

I've hardly any complaints about this movie, except that the actor playing Churchill didn't LOOK much like him. But he had the voice, and that's what really matters. Edward VIII certainly was a caddish loser, and they portrayed Mrs. Simpson as a real torn-down piece from Baltimore. Not that she was ever beautiful, but it sure was hard to see why David was so fascinated by her (must have been those 'techniques' she picked up in Shanghai after all) - they portrayed her as a brassy, pushy American cocktail-swiller. Probably pretty accurate.

The Royal Family comes across as quite dysfunctional - bullying males and frigid females, with Bertie trying very hard to create a different kind of atmosphere in his own home. It's always interesting to compare what people thought was important in those days with what prevails today. The typical reaction to Edward VIII Abdication Crisis seems to be "Oh, what a lot of fuss about nothing! Look, today the Prince of Wales can marry a divorcee and see? The sky doesn't fall. Nobody cares any more." I find it all a bit sad. I think of all the sacrifice people went through in the 30s, and don't think they're foolish - I feel embarrassed that their grandchildren just gave up the fight so completely and so quickly. I mean, we're not talking about the days of Henry VIII here, this is just 2 generations ago, and now who takes seriously the idea of sacrificing anything because of duty to God or to the people? Nobody. The present Queen will be the last who does.

Starting 2011

2011-01-02T10:16:00.002-05:00

Christmas holidays almost over, and it's been quite nice the past two weeks. James was so insistent for holidays to start and Christmas to come, but now he's a little bored, and is already asking to go back to school. I won't argue with him - it'll be nice to have a quiet house again, and access to the computer from time to time. My holidays tend to start when the kids' end.

Dean gave me a delightful present this year: a LAMINATOR! Now I can not only laminate James's favourite pictures so they don't get lost or torn, but I can also plastic-coat my favourite recipes so they don't get stained and ragged. As usual, I had to cut the picture of the machine out of the paper a week before Christmas and give it to Dean; he never can do the "surprise" thing, and if I don't think of something myself in advance, he'll be asking me, "Uhhh, what would you like for Christmas?" on December 22. Once the kids go back to school I'll get busy laminating some of my favourite recipe cards; I've already tested the machine with my recipe for Texas Brownies and a new one I tried over the holidays: Pumpkin Cheesecake.

A few weeks ago I was in the drugstore waiting for a prescription to be filled, and wandered over to the newsstand where I spotted an entire magazine of cheesecake recipes. I shouldn't have, but they looked so good I bought the magazine, and since then I've been itching to try out some of the recipes. The pumpkin one was a great success, but I tried another one for peanut-butter cheesecake and it was too sweet. There's this rhubarb one I'll try in the spring, but now Dean is asking me to just make the plain old cheesecake I used to to make. I tried yesterday, but discovered I needed a lemon, and went out on a quest for one single lemon. Of course, being New Year's Day, my endeavours were fruitless (har har) so I think I might do it today.

Thomas and James have gone out for a day of respite with one of their teachers, and so Dean, Emma and I are planning to go see a movie - "The King's Speech", which I've read good things about. It must be having a very limited release in Canada, however, because I think it opened here just before Christmas and it's only at 3 theatres in town.

Article by Theodore Dalrymple

2010-10-11T08:47:00.004-04:00

This article by Theodore Dalrymple is ostensibly about denial in the face of death (illustrated by a trip to an art exhibition) but halfway through you'll see what it's really about: dogs. Prepare to be crying by the end.

(Hat tip: The Skeptical Doctor)

Too funny not to share

2010-10-11T08:37:00.005-04:00

At the Belmont Club, a discussion goes on about technology, and how kids today don't even know how to work a rotary phone, because they've become so unfamiliar. Someone comments:

I have one of those huge old rotary phones.

My granddaughter brought a friend over the other day for the first time.

When the friend saw the phone the first thing she said was – “It must be able to hold a lot of music.”

Thanks

2010-08-31T11:47:00.010-04:00

I really appreciate all your nice messages. To be honest, I really didn't think anyone would notice if I left. It's true, I'm burned out, but it's not so much that I'm burned out with blogging. I'm just burned out in general. I'm rather depressed just now, to tell the truth. Partly it's because summer is ending, and maybe that change in the season is just having a bad effect on me. It's really been a lovely summer - so warm and pretty, and the garden has done great. Several time this last month, I've found myself consciously thinking, "I'm going to REMEMBER this summer," almost as if I'm afraid that something bad is about to happen, and I'll be happy someday to have these good memories. But I also had another birthday a few weeks ago, and I guess I'm starting to feel old - I'm 51 - and I'm becoming oppressed with fears about what will happen to the kids as Dean and I get older and less able to stand the constant burden of caring for them. People who don't have autistic kids don't realize how overwhilmingly REACTIVE your life is - it's barely possible to originate and carry out any plan, because all our time is taken up with responding to the incessant avalanche of demands. Anything you start is interrupted, usually with the sort of base needs a 2-year old would have: food, toilet, entertainment. Most people deal with a 2-year old for...well, a year or so; we've been dealing with them for over 15, and after a while it wears you down.

I don't usually talk much about the hard part of my life, but when I find myself frequently on the verge of tears, I think maybe I should ask some of you kind people to take the time to say a prayer for me. I don't ask for help much; hardly ever, actually,, but I'm feeling a bit low just now.

It's not that I disliked writing the blog; it's just that I've gotten into a pattern of thinking, "Oh, I really should write about that!... Well, I'm tired, I'll do it later...Drat it, now it's too late..." and I was simultaneously obsessing about my NOT writing, so I was both guilty about not doing it, and guilty about not doing it well.

But I don't want this all to be a downer; I had some pictures in my camera I'd been meaning for a long time to post, but as usual I just didn't have the energy, so here they are:

This was the corn earlier this summer. We had a big storm a few weeks ago, and I think a sort of microburst came through a gap in the trees on the right, and blew over a number of stalks on that side. But most of the corn was really good.

This year I tried something new: two butternut squash plants. I planted them in front of the corn, but they grew and grew, so finally I had to resort to winding the plants through the rows of corn. In so doing, I unwittingly adopted one of the practices of the early native Indians; they used to grow squash in the space between the corn rows. So far I see 6 squashes on the vines; they keep producing flowers, but I don't think any more will develop - I doubt they'd have time to mature in the time left before the weather turns cold.

Here are our tomatoes, with a tall beanpole at the back - I built it myself, out of bamboo sticks and a weird tough vine that grows over the trees behind our fence. It's like a grapevine, and it's always straggling over onto our side of the fence. This was the first time I ever thought of a use for it - it's rather tough and woody, but has quite attractive curly tendrils that help the beans grab on.

A VERY attractive dragonfly I found sitting on the netting covering the blueberries one morning. The picture doesn't do him justice; he was a very brilliant green velvet.

We've had other garden visitors this summer; I saw a small rabbit one morning, but they've pretty much left our garden alone this year. A few days ago there was a story in the paper about how Monarch Butterflies are no longer around in Ottawa, because so much of our wilderness area has been cut down, taking with it the plants they like best. One of those plants is Joe Pye Weed, which I've grown for years. Lo and behold, two days later, I saw Monarch Butterflies feeding on them, and they stayed around for several days; I saw one or two yesterday, as a matter of fact, but for a couple of days, they were having a regular party.

At one point, about 6 were out there, and when Dean and Emma and I went out to look at them, they left the Joe Pye Weed and began fluttering around over US! I said I thought they were actually trying to drive us away from their food supply! Just try to imagine half a dozen butterflies trying to look menacing! We also had a garter snake this summer, but he was so sneaky I was never ready with a camera to take a picture of him.

Time to say goodbye

2010-08-26T10:48:00.001-04:00

I think I'm going to wind down this blog. The stupidity of the religious Left has stopped being funny to me, and I find that commenting on their continuing decomposition just isn't worth the energy genuine indignation would require. Politics is also going from bad to worse, what with the Ground Zero ~~Abomination~~ ~~Mosque~~ Roach House project failing to produce the correct response: pistol duels. I'm starting to feel like M. Scott Peck dealing with one of his evil-infected patients: that the sickness of so many parts of the world today is so great that it will overwhelm me if I don't get away from it. I'm going to go on reading Chesterton, translating obscure French films, and working in the garden when I'm not looking after my family. There will always be Chris Johnson's place to go for humorous commentary, and the Belmont Club for gloomy forbodings. If something really important happens, I might make the occasional post, but I think this blog has served its purpose. Thanks for all the nice people who've commented here and thought my writing worth reading.

Geico commercial

2010-08-02T21:34:00.003-04:00

I haven't enjoyed a commercial this much since the "Canadian police chase" from a few years ago.

Makes me laugh every time. "He's thinking! He's thinking! Oh, the tension!"

Run for your liiiiiiives!

2010-07-31T21:23:00.003-04:00

It's The Mitre That Ate Manhattan!

In the Name of the Nudge-nudge, and the Wink-wink, and the Huminah-huminah-huminah

2010-07-29T17:00:00.004-04:00

I was hunting around on the Internet the other day, hoping to find some Bad Vestments bad enough to send to Chris Johnson's blog. (Hint: do a Google search for "rev* susan" or "linda" or "ann" or any female name you want to try, and you'll probably reel in a whole bunch of crummy pictures.) Unfortunately, his standards are pretty high. I kept finding pictures of crudely appliqued stoles, but it was like the scene in 'The Producers' where Bialystock and Bloom are hunting for the world's worst play: "'"Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find he had been transformed into a giant cockroach."...It's too good.'"

Finally I came across the website of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. I quickly realized that this what Dean and I call a Crazy Church. It's a "social justice" church, signed on to the whole menu of homo-marriage, homo-ordination, feminism, marxism, environmentalism...you name it.

The sermons are densely plotted excursions into the leftist wilderness, and I only looked at the most recent ones.

The sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter starts out "In the name of God: Lover, Beloved, and Love Between. Amen." I think this is the sort of thing the Orthodox Church is getting queasy about when it comes to recognizing the validity of Anglican baptisms.

It started off with a complaint that the higher-ups don't appreciate their wonderfully zestful sassiness:

And this week nine members of the parish met with Archbishop Johnston—planned well in advance of the ordination objection—and it would be fair to say that we were very clear in showing how the diocesan policy of discrimination affects us in so many ways and drains off so much creative energy—not only here but widely in the Church. But it would also be fair to say that the Archbishop also told us we are a parish much encumbered with what is perceived to be a rebellious history that still tells against us. We also heard that we have overstepped boundaries that we should not have transgressed—although we had earlier been told to test the limits, and we were given faint hope that there might be some movement in matters of justice and equity that we so heartily seek to have prevail.

This led into an examination of Acts 10 and 11. The story of Peter receiving a vision from God explaining the overriding of some ritual prohibitions quickly led to a present-day "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for anything we may feel like doing.

Now my parallel begins. He had broken the laws of the Jerusalem community. he was summoned before the Jerusalem believers and their community–the Jerusalem Church. They pointed out that Peter had stepped over the bounds allowed by orthodoxy. Peter retold the whole story about Cornelius. He says why he had transgressed the laws of acceptable conduct. The Jerusalem Church authorities were concerned that he had associated with Gentiles—and he admitted to the unacceptable acts, breaking the purity laws about who is pure, who impure —need I draw further the parallels to Holy Trinity before the Archbishop?

Then Peter explains his reasoning: he affirms that God has revealed to him not to call anyone profane or impure because that is that the heavenly counter-history. The story of heaven is the story of how we learn not to call anyone profane or impure or unacceptable, or unordainable, or unlicensable, or subject to any discrimination, on the basis of ethnicity and religion in Peter’s version, but on the basis of Peter’s vision, no discrimination on the basis of nation or race or colour or sexuality or age or ability or wealth or any other difference—so that a story is created in which there are, in fact, no impure or profane or discriminated-against people. The King James version reads “The Spirit bade me go with them [the men from Caesaraea, to Cornelius], nothing doubting.” But the RSV and other translations put it differently: “And the Spirit told me to go with them making no distinction—or, without discriminating, doing nothing to discriminate, between them and us.” That word “discrimination” in Peter’s argument is crucial. Diakrino Dia means through; and krino means “to separate, to judge between, to take to court over.” Peter was to go into the house of a Gentile, and by no means to separate out him from others with whom Peter could associate. He was not to discriminate against Cornelius, even though he was impure according to Jewish law —but his vision said he was not impure: so—no discrimination!

It's so wonderful to have a God who'll helpfully scrawl a faint outline, and then hand us the crayons to go on embroidering the picture with everything that takes our fancy. I don't suppose we could conclude that He actually meant something with specific with his vision of edible things descending from Heaven? I mean, he repeated it three times, and never saw fit to add little altars with human sacrifices, or people having orgies or abortions, and yet this modern twerp feels free to shovel in his own personal wish list and presume that it's all covered. And it doesn't make any difference that the traditional rules were being set aside for the sake of "A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." No, no, no indication that there might be a hierarchy of values: that obedience to God's commands is good, but it's better to bring "natural believers" into the family. And in the crudest possible way, God even gave Peter proof that he was on the right track: the Holy Spirit descended upon Cornelius and his family. I've yet to see anything comparable in the churches that have arrogantly grabbed this as an excuse to celebrate sexual and social deviancy.

Reciprocity

2010-07-21T22:02:00.001-04:00

"Revenge is a dish best served cold":
Wed Jul 21, 6:03 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – US president Barack Obama was presented with matching wellies and a painting by a British graffiti artist as Prime Minister David Cameron came bearing gifts during his first official visit to Washington.
Ben Eine, a relatively unknown south London graffiti artist who has three convictions for criminal damage, could now be in illustrious company if the 44th president decides to hang the art-work in the White House.

The spice of life

2010-07-01T20:14:00.001-04:00

I haven't written recently about the kids and their entertaining activities. Well, the other day James took a look at one of the kitchen cupboards and noticed that there were several boxes and bags of spices up there that might be useful in one of his games. I've mentioned before, he likes to dump out powders and run trains through them - a sort of re-enactment of Thomas the Tank Engine going through snowdrifts and avalanches.

He hasn't done this for a long time, so I became less vigilant, and started putting frequently-used spices in the cupboard instead of out in the fridge in the garage, which is our usual secure place. Naturally, he showed me that time has not completely smoothed out his rough edges, and he decided to play his old game again.

For some reason, he didn't take ALL the powdered spices out of the cupboard - from what I could gather after sweeping and vacuuming up later, he focussed on turmeric (loves that bright yellow color), cumin, paprika, cayenne and black pepper. As you can imagine, this produced quite a sneeze-worthy mess in the TV room, where the powders were liberally scattered over the fireplace mantle. It had one further effect on James himself...

Oh, I forgot to mention: he did all this in the nude.

So when he came up to me later complaining about "peeper hot", I guess you could say that this would be a classic case of "burning sensation while urinating", only it was self-inflicted.

Well, what could I do? After the first "Serve you right!" which naturally made no impression on him whatsoever, I located a bottle of Solarcaine gel, for the relief of sunburn and itchy mosquito bites. I told him flatly "No, I am NOT going to apply it! Here, do it yourself." And it seemed to do the trick. I don't suppose Solarcaine would want to use this as an endorsement, but there it is, for what it's worth.

Slasher brilliance

2010-06-23T06:20:00.000-04:00

It's summer, so the horror films are coming on apace. I never actually went to see any of the famous slasher films when I was young, but I can't help noticing that they're being made all over again, and without, it seems, any particular new twist or insight. Just better special effects.

Despite not seeing the Jason, Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street movies, I've read about them, and learned the basic premise: unstoppable monster with vaguely supernatural powers comes back to kill unwary or terrified teens, especially sexually active ones. Death is the punishment for sex, they all seem to agree. One girl is left alive at the end.

Just in time for the movies, here is an utterly brilliant script for the earliest slasher story of them all, written by Shakespeare. I especially liked the 2-line introductions of all the hapless victims:

Exit Chorus; enter Moros & Hippolyta, Satyrus & Carnalia, Impudicus & Lascivia, Turpino & Bimbona.
.
Moros: Come, we must find the camp, and all prepare
For opening – then, frolic without care.
.
Hippolyta: Some passing chill brings goosebumps to my skin,
Some strange foreboding quivers up my spine...
.
Satyrus: From all such foolish fancies am I free;
I think of nought but coming revelry!
.
Carnalia: Aye, thinking on it warms my quickened heart;
In revelry I’ll play no modest part!
.
Impudicus: My thoughts turn to my fair Lascivia’s charms,
And what we'll find when in each other’s arms.
.
Lascivia: You are too froward, sir – think all you please:
You may find I am nothing but a tease.
.
Turpino: Here is much beer and wine – I shall drink deep
And pass the night in sotted swinish sleep.
.
Bimbona: So nothing shall we lack of what we need,
I have with me a casket of fine weed.

(Hat tip, not to mention swirling cape and low bow, to The Trousered Ape)

The Bags of Summer

2010-06-19T14:32:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago, The Swan of Newark looked up from her volume of Mrs. Beeton's Household Book of Overextended Metaphors and penned this gem:

A few seconds past and I said, "What is it?" A few more seconds and she looked up and said, "++Katharine Jefferts Schori has just hit one out of the park."

It appears "Our Katie" has stepped up to the bat and decided to play good old fashioned American baseball with the Big Boys across the pond.

The occasion was The Madwoman of Second Avenue's Pentecost-timed Grand Remonstrance to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Since 'the Big Boys across the pond' don't play baseball, she must have felt pretty confident that this was going to be as easy as taking candy from a baby, or robbing a conservative congregation of its steeple.

It's her response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Pentecost Letter, and it's a pip.

There were no swings and misses. She never chocked[sic] the bat. Neither did she foul out for an easy walk to first, just to load the bases.

No, she boasted about the ancient, 50-year long campaign to elevate "Four (Or More) Bare Legs In A Bed" to the status of a sacrament. That was followed by a languishing glance at the self-sacrificing nature that could spend 6 years (2003 to 2009) sullenly sulking through a moratorium they'd agreed to, all the while lying in wait for just the right moment to break their promise with a dramatic flipping of the bird.

She looked over the madding crowd, some of whom boo'd while others shouted words of encouragement. She took the bat and hit the dirt from her shoes with this:
We do not seek to impose our understanding on others. We do earnestly hope for continued dialogue with those who disagree, for we believe that the Spirit is always calling us to greater understanding.

We live in great concern that colonial attitudes continue, particularly in attempts to impose a single understanding across widely varying contexts and cultures. We note that the cultural contexts in which The Episcopal Church’s decisions have generated the greatest objection and reaction are also often the same contexts where women are barred from full ordained leadership, including the Church of England.
Then, she seemed to center herself with a deep breath and then a spit, straddled home plate, took steady aim and knocked that sucker right out of the park.

Spit, eh? I always thought Mrs. Schori had a prominent jaw, but who knew it was loaded up with Copenhagen?

As the crowd roared and cheered, Our Katie took a victory lap around the bases, sliding into home base with this final quote:
As a Church of many nations, languages, and peoples, we will continue to seek every opportunity to increase our partnership in God’s mission for a healed creation and holy community. We look forward to the ongoing growth in partnership possible in the Listening Process, Continuing Indaba, Bible in the Life of the Church, Theological Education in the Anglican Communion, and the myriad of less formal and more local partnerships across the Communion – efforts in mission and ministry that inform and transform individuals and communities toward the vision of the Gospel – a healed world, loving God and neighbor, in the love and friendship shown us in God Incarnate.

But the Swan of Newark hasn't finished waterboarding this metaphor to extract the last possible utility out of it:

We're still going to play baseball on our field and by 'the' rules - not the ones made up by certain "Instruments of Communion" who want to change the rules in the middle of a game that's not going +++His way.

The +++ABC can't be franchise owner as well as the ump who calls the shots as they come over the plate.

So, Rowan, as we say over on this side of the Pond - grab a dog and some suds, park your back end in a stadium seat, keep your pie hole shut and watch the game. You might learn a few things about how to play it.

Alas, a week later it's clear that The Madwoman of Second Avenue instead hit a pop fly directly over the pitcher's mound. Not only that, the moment it was caught everyone on base started to run and they were all thrown out in turn - baseball's stupidest manoeuvre, the Quadruple Play.

Impregnable? I think not.

2010-06-08T10:14:00.000-04:00

The Ottawa Citizen today had a story about how raccoons have figured out a way of getting into the new green bins issued to us at the beginning of the year, to inaugurate our Green Box program.

I was skeptical of the program, but I've become a believer. By putting all our food scraps into the green bin, we've reduced our regular garbage to just one can per week, which is half as much as we used to put out. Furthermore, the garbage can is very lightweight now - all that goes into it is pretty much plastic and a little foil. All the heavy stuff is in the green bin.

Now that it's summer, I collect the food waste and keep it in the deepfreeze until garbage day - we have room in the freezer, and I don't like things ripening in the sun and getting smelly, even though the bins are pretty airtight. In the winter I put bags of garbage right into the bin, though, and one day when I moved it I noticed tiny green plastic shavings on the ground. When I looked at the edge of the bin, sure enough I found tiny little teeth marks, so I knew a raccoon had been investigating.

Well, one reporter in town was troubled with a superbrain raccoon, who figured out how to crack the security system of the green bin. Finally, he secretly recorded the raccoon to see how it was done, and this is the result. I love how the raccoon looks surprised when his trick works, then has to figure out how to get the goodies in the bin without letting the lid fall back down on him. His solution was simple and efficient: shove the whole bin right off the porch. At the end, you can't see anything anymore - pushing the bin pushed the top almost out of camera range - but you can hear the raccoon snacking on the garbage!

What the Sam Hill...?

2010-05-23T17:54:00.003-04:00

The mascots for the London Olympics of 2012 have just been revealed, and for once in my life I was speechless:

Never fear, though, the comments following this article more than made up for my incoherence:

"Is Matt Groening on our Olympics committee? First the 2012 logo looks like Lisa Simpson giving head to Bart, and now we have Kodos & Kang as our mascots?"

"They look like something you would expect to find chasing Doctor Who."

"Its a fair bet that the contestants on Junior Apprentice will have to design something this series, and if they come up with anything half as bad as those silver dildos they'll get a kick up the arse from Sir Alan on their way out the boardroom"

"was the brief to design japanese manga penises?
100% successful then."

"I suggest jazzing them up with a variety of amusing sounding visible farts. The kids will love em."

"They look like what I imagine humans will look like in 10 years, once Apple buys the species and merges it with the iPod to make the iHuman."

The designers claim that they are appealing primarily to kiddies, and the kiddies like the mascots. But that's just another example of how the people in charge have no clue of what's important. It's nice that kids are entertained, but the Olympics isn't primarily about children. Kids don't participate, and they're not the audience. Adults are. So why this infantilization of what is a serious business for a few talented grownups? Sure, kids today will be the Olympians of tomorrow, but today's 7-year old practising scales on the trumpet will be tomorrow's symphony orchestra musician; we don't try to market season's tickets to the opera with cutesy appeals to children.

One comment, however, seems to get to the heart of the matter:

I think they are GOOD.

The fact that they are non-gender specific will prevent negative gender stereotypes forming.

The colours are OK but I would have preferred a burnished one which could have represented alternative skin colour which would assist in communicating the diversity of populace in the UK.

We have to take these things into consideration and not pander to the cynicism of uneducated mass.

I suspect that that's a pretty close reading of what was going on in the designers' minds when they hatched these abominations: Can't be identifiably male or female, because it's an article of faith that gender is both optional and infinitely malleable. If you come down on one side or the other, someone will be upset. Can't make it look like a human because you'd have to choose a color for it, and too many "alternative skin colours" would be clamouring for representation.

And most of all, it can't look like anything identifiably British because that would be to "pander to the cynicism of the uneducated mass". The ignorant booboisie has a stock of mental images that say "British", based on centuries of history and common culture: the lion, the bulldog, the Beefeater, Sherlock Holmes, London bobby, teapots, Big Ben. It is the job of the superior, deracinated cosmopolitan uber-class to stamp on those homely images and make a point of offensively replacing them with...this. Shapeless blobs that mean nothing.

Spring turns to summer

2010-05-19T13:04:00.000-04:00

We're having a deliriously splendid spring here in Ottawa - I've never experienced anything like it since I moved here in 1984. The winter was quite mild, not too much snow, and the warm weather started quite early back in April. But within the last week, we've gone from spring to summer, and we haven't even reached the Victoria Day weekend yet - that's our "official" last frost date, but we're 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule as far as gardening weather goes.

We planted corn out in the New Garden this weekend, and I actually had to turn the sprinkler on to water the garden afterwards; it was so dry, it was like those old movies we used to see in school about farmers during the Depression trying to plant seeds in hot, crumbly dust. The first potatoes I planted a few weeks ago are up and already about 4" high, and the later plantings are breaking through the soil right now. The one thing that might suffer from the sun and high temperatures (it's 24 today, and it's going up to 30 next week!) will be the peas: they like cool weather, and it just didn't last long enough for the plants to grow up, so we'll have to see what happens to them. It's a fair tradeoff, though, if the hot weather benefits the other vegetables. Maybe this year we'll get tomatoes with a decent flavour - it's been 3 years of cool summers, with watery, tasteless tomatoes as a result.

The raspberries taste better too when it's good and hot. Our early variety are doing great, with flowers about to open all over the canes. I finally lost patience with the damaged black currant bush; I gave it several years to recover, but it just wouldn't produce fruit. Last year I bought a new one and planted it beside the old one - they say that planting different varieties together can improve yield. Well, this year the entire old bush produced fewer berries than just ONE branch of the new bush! I put the axe to the root, and down it came. Then I replaced it with two more new bushes; with luck all 3 will grow well and we might even get enough to make a small amount of jam this year. The red and pink currants are so overloaded with green berries you can hardly see the leaves through them. I'll have to put the netting over them when they get bigger and closer to ripening.

The one problem is one of the new black currants has got bugs - first I saw whiteflies, but was able to take care of them with insecticidal soap. But I spotted small worms and today I see that they've come back - I think they're sawfly larvae! This is a problem that usually assails gooseberries, but the two plants look rather similar and at the nursery they were stocked side-by-side, so I think the bugs were imported from the nursery. I discovered a small amount of malathion in a bottle in the garage, so this evening I'll go out and spray them to get rid of the pests.

The lilac is in full swing (once again, several weeks ahead of schedule) and so are the lilies of the valley. I think the earliest rose bush - Double Blanc de Coubert - will have flowers open in another week. Everything else is doing great - hostas, clementines, daylilies. It's almost getting to the "too good to be true" level. Is some disaster lurking that will ruin everything? I'm starting to feel like the Englishman in Beyond the Fringe's "The Aftermyth of War" - the guy who spent the whole war out in the garden.

I’ll always remember the day that war was declared. I was out in the garden at the time, planting some chrysanths. It was a grand year for chrysanths—1939. I wish we could have another one like it.

There's Nothing About Mary

2010-05-17T16:51:00.000-04:00

What if they gave a big, dramatic gesture and nobody came? That's what happened this weekend, when The Episcopal Chicks...er...Church "consecrated" a phony "bishop" whose novelty act is being a lesbian. The event took place in the 13,500-seat Long Beach Arena, and drew a less than impressive crowd of 3,000.

Like Sarah Hey at Stand Firm, I totally forgot about this event, even though I drop by my regular Episcopalian blogs pretty much every day, and had been reading comments about this shindig right up until the day before it happened. When it came right down to it I just didn't remember - too boring. And judging by the press coverage, I wasn't the only one. I found small blurbs on the wire services and CNN, and a couple of local LA papers covered the story, but that was it as far as North American interest goes.

The British press covered it more, I expect because right now they're dancing around the issue of women bishops in the COE, and so it's temporarily topical for them. Next to them, the only interest was from the predictable homosexual interest sites.

Carl's comment on the press indifference seemed just right to me:

What is news ... what drives the media to cover the story ... is the fight with conservative religion. The secular cosmopolitan world fears conservative religion, and the media thrives on conflict. That’s why VGR got covered. It was the beginning of the real fight. Now that the fight is all but over, and the forces of peace, justice, enlightenment, and sexual incontinence have emerged victorious, the story has lost all the hooks that made it interesting. TEC really doesn’t understand this. It thinks it has a role to play in forming the brave new progressive world. But TEC is going to find out the hard way that the secular world is no more interested in liberal religion than any other kind.

The liberals in TEC were never important to the press; the only people who ever were important in this story were the conservatives. What would WE say? How would WE react? No story about the ravings of the Madwoman of Second Avenue or the Simple Country Bishop of New Hampshire was complete without the quote from an appalled or saddened conservative. The fashionable liberals only mattered as goads and weapons to be used against the real Christians. Now that those people are gone, the tools are carelessly dropped on the ground and abandoned.

I'm reminded of a scene from Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', when Hank Reardon's horrible quisling brother reports to his masters on how dangerous his brother's state of mind is:

"Because of my political ideas and...and everything I've done for you, you know what he thinks of me! I have no hold on him at all!" "Well, that's your tough luck." "Claude!" Philip had cried in panic. "Claude, they won't leave me out in the cold, will they? I belong, don't I? They've always said I belonged, they've always said they needed me ... they said they needed men like me, not like him, men with my ... my sort of spirit, remember? And after all I've done for them, after all my faith and service and loyalty to the cause--" "You damn fool," Slagenhop had snapped, "of what use are you to us without him?"

Actually, 'Atlas Shrugged' is a very appropriate book to read right now, because it just occurred to me that TEC has "gone Galt". There were lots of references to this right after the last American election, with people declaring that they would "go Galt" and refuse to support a morally bankrupt government and social system. In the case of the Episcopal Church, it's actually happened. The people who believed, who did things, made things, kept the whole show running with their faith and energy, have withdrawn, like the "men of the mind" in Rand's novel. Now, all that's left are the freeloaders, the moochers, the parasites, the "second-handers", and the system they preside over is falling into chaos and collapse.

We have a guest

2010-05-03T12:04:00.000-04:00

A duck has started hanging out in our birdbath. As you can see, the stone birdbath is not exactly roomy; it only measures about 1' x 2', and the duck fits in it the way a human would fit into a normal bathtub. But she's come around for the past two evenings, and seems very content just to climb in, drink a lot, and soak her feet. Unfortunately, she also poops as soon as she gets into the water, so I have to clean it out and refill it as soon as she leaves. She goes and sits down on the neighbours' lawn while I sweep out the dirty water and pour in more fresh. This usually attracts her back for a second visit! She departs before it gets dark.

I was worried that she might be sick or injured, but she looks fine - no limping, no hanging wing. I've noticed that she seems to be alone. Maybe she lost her mate, or for some reason didn't find one, and has no eggs to take care of. Anyway, she seems happy to just loaf around here for awhile. I don't know what she eats, though the neighbours have some good birdfeeders which might drop seeds on the ground. Ducks eat vegetation, too, I believe, and there's plenty of grass around. The river is a few blocks away, but she seems to feel that she's got everything she needs right here. She must have a routine during the day, because she only comes by in the later afternoons.

Rewrite!

2010-04-17T21:59:00.000-04:00

And I thought "porn corn" was bad:

From the BBC:

An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed "salt and freshly ground black people" instead of black pepper.

Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.
The reprint cost A$20,000 ($18,000; £12,000), but stock in bookshops will not be recalled as it is "extremely hard" to do so, Penguin said.

The recipe was for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

The Ash Cloud That Ate Northern Europe!

2010-04-17T15:06:00.001-04:00

I was interested when story of the Icelandic volcano first broke a few days ago, but I've become so attuned to "natural disaster" stories that I wasn't prepared for it to still be going on half a week later. It's usually earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados: one big violent blast and then it's time to piece up the pieces and rebuild. But to have northern European airspace closed for three days, and read that it could just as easily go on for another week - two weeks, who knows? That sort of slow-motion nature story isn't that common. Even a hurricane has a long buildup but a relatively quick resolution.

Today I read that Prime Minister Harper is not going to be able to attend the funeral of the Polish President in Krakow - just too difficult to get there and back in the time frame.

I don't fault anyone for being cautious; volcano ash is very dangerous to airplanes, as the following dramatization/documentary shows. It's from one of my favourite TV shows, "Mayday", which is a Canadian documentary series about air disasters. It's been marketed abroad under the title "Air Crash Investigation", but it's the same show. This program is one of their best; it portrays the case of British Airways Flight 9 from Kuala Lumpur to Perth in 1982. It passed through a volcanic ash cloud while flying over Indonesia, and all four of its engines became choked with the sediment and flamed out. The plane was very nearly lost in the Indian Ocean, but a combination of excellent flying skills on the part of the crew and an amazing chemical reaction managed to save it.

This is the entire "Mayday" episode, with just a few slight differences from the Canadian TV version and the replacement of the narrator with one with a British accent; I assume this was made for the UK market. Anyway, it's an excellent series, and this is one of their best episodes.

Crummy week

2010-04-10T14:08:00.003-04:00

My crummy week started exactly a week ago today, with a sore throat right in the middle of gloriously record-breaking warm Easter weekend weather. The sore throat is still with me today, and has added its friends Stuffed Sinus and Plugged Ears. Yes, I have a fully congested head cold, and just as happened a few years ago, it has gotten bad enough to cause me partial hearing loss in BOTH ears this time.

While the cold was gaining hold, I was struggling to finish the subtitles for "Sortilèges", to the point where I think I pushed myself too hard. To complicate matters, I couldn't use my familiar and beloved Divx MediaLand Subtitler, because the film wouldn't play in it! I'm not sure why - the best guess I can hazard is that there was an MPEG 4 coding embedded in it. The movie played fine in my Divx player, and I burned a perfectly good dvd of it, but when I tried to play it in Windows Media Player - nada. DMLS is designed to work with WMP, so maybe this movie was made using a Mac or some weird European program, but the end result was I had my subtitles all written out and ready to go, and couldn't play the movie. I pottered around for a few hours, trying to download codecs that would make it work, but finally I abandoned that haphazard job and decided to try a fresh approach: I downloaded a completely different subtitle program other users had written about, called Visual SubSynch, and launched myself on a quick and dirty tutorial.

VSS *worked*, which was all I really cared about, and it's an interesting program that I might use again, although it takes a lot longer to use than DMLS. How it works is by ripping a .wav file of the movie, and then you attach each subtitle to the correct moment in the audio file, using the visual "graph" of the audio file to guide you as to where the dialogue falls. It produces a very high level of accuracy in terms of timing -once you've chosen your slice of audio and plugged in the text, you can shorten or lengthen the passage as much as you like, and you can shave hundredths of seconds off a subtitle length. This can be important when you have to subtitle fast dialogue exchanges, and need to squeeze many lines in quickly.

The only problem I can see is subtitling "inserts": text that appears onscreen, like a closeup of a sign or a letter. There's nothing in the audio to tell you what's onscreen, and you'd have to learn to memorize the background music to tell you when the text is onscreen. I only had to do that once, when the title came onscreen. This program would be utterly useless for subtitling a silent movie, but for very talky films, it's quite good.

Well, I finished on Wednesday, and now I have to wait for my hearing to clear up before I tackle Pabst's "Mademoiselle Docteur", which is what I've promised to do next.

I'm afraid this cold is going to be a long one; my partner at the library had it, and she said it took her 3 weeks to get over it! Some of the kids in my bus have been sick (and their mothers WILL send them to school) so I probably got it from them. All I've been able to do is drive my route, come home and go to sleep until it's time to drive in the afternoon. I am totally wiped out.

Oh, and my school van conked out yesterday, too. I was worried that the brakes (or maybe the wheels) were making a strange groaning sound and vibrating when I used them at low speed - very much the same feeling as when you're braking on an icy road, and just do a tiny skid before stopping. I called in to report this, and they said they'd send another driver with a different van to swap with me at the first school I stop at, and they'd take it in and look at it. When I was one block from the school, the engine suddenly conked out too! Fortunately a man came out of nowhere and got it started again, and I was able to struggle on to the school, but that sure started my day off in a miserable way. I hope they figure out BOTH the problems with the van; I'm quite useless in terms of fixing any problems myself.

One good thing happened, though: it was so warm last week, I planted a row of peas. This must be a record for Ottawa; usually I wouldn't think of it until well into May, but I figured why not take a chance? Especially as they're predicting a hot summer, which means they won't have a long growing season. They're not above the ground yet, but I expect I'll see them in a few more days, then I'll plant some more, for a more staggered crop.

Our Way of Doing Things

2010-04-01T22:37:00.007-04:00

The other day, I was doing my usual volunteer shift at the used bookstore/coffee shop we run in our local library. I do the setup, and my partner comes in an hour later. I'd put out the chairs, wheeled out the book racks and set up the cash register, so as the coffee was brewing, I turned my attention to some boxes of books sitting on the floor.

Now, we get donations of books all day long. Some of the books we sell are library discards, but by far the greater number - probably 90% - are straight donations from the public. Our little shop has no storage room, so when people bring in books we mostly put the boxes on the floor near the coat closet (slightly blocking the hardcover French section, but not too many people are interested in those books anyway). Most every morning I come in to find a few boxes of books sitting there, accumulated from the previous afternoon. They wait there until the sorters come along - these are ladies who make the decisions which books to store at the back of the library (in their storage room), which to put out on the shelves, and which to put into the "Free" bin. Those are books that are marked up and a bit shabby, but still readable. They go in with the magazines, and people are welcome to take them for free.

This time, I found two boxes of books over by the Classic Literature section, and they each had a label on them: "Damaged, Moldy Smell, Spines Broken - Please throw away". I opened them up and found a varied lot of rather old books, some of them in very nice condition, others a bit ratty looking, but all of them what I'd call salvageable. I could detect a slightly musty smell, but not very bad, and I have an extremely sensitive nose - if I think an odor is faint, most people wouldn't notice it at all. None of the books was water damaged; any "moldiness" was probably due to having been stored in a basement or attic, or it could even have been just the box that smelled a bit damp. Anyway, I rebelled at the order to destroy these books. I looked through them to see if there were any I could rescue myself, and then I put the rest in the Free Bin. If someone had said throw them out, I didn't feel right about selling them, but I felt they deserved a chance of life if someone wanted them.

The ones I picked out were rather interesting: there were two books for kids about the history of the Mounties, and then there were two young readers adventure books featuring "Dale of the Mounted", written by Joe Holliday. I looked up these books on abebooks.com when I got home, and I discovered that there was a series of 12 of them, written between 1954 and 1964. They were all-Canadian adventure stories, and I'd never heard of them.

"Dale of the Mounted: Atomic Plot" is dedicated to the workers at the nuclear facility at Chalk River, Ontario - rather poignant, as Chalk River just closed down last year. The synopsis on the dust jacket promises a story about spies and nuclear secrets.

From the moment Pakistani scientist Dr. Sachi Rami gets out of the plane at Ottawa's Upland airport with his bodyguard the bearded, turbaned Chaudri, and his shy Hindu secretary, Kalomé, trouble dogs his footsteps.

When I read this to Dean, he marvelled at how broad-minded the protagonists were: a Muslim scientist, with a Sikh bodyguard and a Hindu secretary, only a few years after they'd all been killing each other over Partition!

"Dale of the Mounted: Dew Line Duty" particularly interested me, because my Dad worked on the Dew Line when I was a kid. If you don't know, the Dew Line was a series of radar stations built in the high Arctic to detect foreign (i.e. Russian) attacks on North America over the polar ice cap. One of my favourite MST3K episodes is "The Deadly Mantis", because about a third of it takes place up on the Dew Line. I always wish my Dad were still alive when I'm watching it - I'm sure he'd have found it hilarious, and I'd have been able to ask him how accurate the details in the movie were. Was there really a giant "Have You Checked Your Antifreeze?" sign right outside the CO's office?

Anyway, I've just started reading this book, and already I'm finding that it's describing a disappeared world. It's not Dale - he's fine. It's Canada that's no longer recognizable. The story starts off with Hungarian refugees arriving in Canada, after the Communists crushed their uprising in their home country. There's some nice, robust anti-Communism here:

Most of the refugees had come from Budapest. It was now a city of ruins, the aftermath of their terrible, but unsuccessful, revolution against their oppressive Communist masters who had systematically ground the people beneath brutal, ruthless military heels.

Yeah, good stuff! And that's just on the first page!

Then the plot thickens: some Communist spies have infiltrated the refugees, and one of them is spotted at one of the shelters. A crowd of angry Hungarians threatens to kill the spy, when Dale takes control of the situation:

Dale's jaw tightened. "You tell these people," he informed the interpreter, "that this is Canada. I know they've had a rough time in Hungary, but in this country they've got to obey our laws, our way of doing things. Tell them I'll take charge of this man. We will check on his background, to satisfy ourselves about his record. Lynching may be okay in Budapest, but it isn't in Montreal."

Today, making such a speech could very likely land a citizen in front of a Human Rights Commission. In 1959, everyone understood what it meant when someone said, "In this country they've got to obey our laws, our way of doing things". But today? What are "our laws"? What is "our way of doing things"? It's a permanent state of flux, awaiting the next band of aliens who can squat their butts down on Canadian soil, and immediately claim the right to remake "our laws" and "our way of doing things".

Canada is not a permanent place; it's just clay waiting the next set of hands who can grab it and mould it into something new. Hunting Jews with machetes wasn't "our way of doing things" in 1959, but bring in enough people who like to do that and sure enough, now it is. Murdering daughters for wanting to drive wasn't "our way of doing things", nor was importing child brides or having multiple wives at public expense, but guess what? If enough people who feel like doing those things can get a toe in the door, before you know it all those backward, worthless traditions have also become "our way of doing things".

Whatever "our way of doing things" is today, you can bank on the fact that by next year it will be different. It reminds me of a line from an MST3K movie: as the zombie steadily advances on the police, they shout "Stop where you are!" "I can't, I'm not there anymore," is the riposte. In the same way, Zombie Canada keeps mindlessly lurching forward into a void with no clear idea of where we came from or where we're going, just the certainty that we can't stop moving.

Translation options

2010-03-30T21:47:00.000-04:00

I'm working on my translation of "Sortileges", and came across a little passage that left me with a choice of translations. The scene is a traditional feast day in a remote French village, time not specified, but I suspect it's the early 19th century. In addition to music, dancing and eating, there are some carnival-style attractions, including a "target shooting" event. Now, this is a bit gross, but remember, these are earthy peasants: the event consists of two chickens tethered to the ground, while contestants hurl stones to try to hit them! A skilled marksman can hit a chicken and kill it with one blow, while the less gifted...well, an onlooker refers to it as "un vrai massacre des innocents!" Of course this isn't just sheer cruelty - the winner gets to keep the dead chicken, and naturally would find it a valuable prize, as it would go into the pot for a nice supper. And the winner would be interested in getting a nice clean kill, instead of a mangled heap of feathers!

There's a barker drumming up business, and he chants "Deux pierres, deux coups, deux sous/Visez le coq et le coq est à vous!" and I tried to get as close a translation as possible. I came up with two possibilities:

Two stones, two shots, two sous;
Hit the bird and it belongs to you!

and

Two sous, two shots, two stones;
Hit the bird and take it home!

Which is the best one?

Technically, the first is the most accurate: it follows the exact word order and is a nearly literal translation. As it also rhymes, it would work fine for a subtitle.

The second one, though, has something the first one lacks; it has the real sound of a barker. "Hit the bird and take it home!" sounds like something a carnival barker would say. You can almost hear it in your head - it sounds like something you might have actually heard. Not a barbaric contest like this, but maybe a wishing well: "Hook the fish and take it home!" "Hit the prize and take it home!" Translation tries to give more than just the bare meaning of words; it tries to reproduce the same effect in the reader or hearer that the original passage produced in its original audience. And the original audience - in the movie and in the theatre - heard a carnival barker trying to draw and excite a crowd. That's why I think the second effort is the better one, event though it adds in some words that aren't in the original.

The Writhes of Spring

2010-03-22T21:14:00.005-04:00

When you want to impress people with how up-to-date and progressive you are, showcase a fakey synthetic reproduction of primitive fertility superstitions:

Saturday officially marks the first day of spring, being the day of the spring equinox.

Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village.

Saturday's event is open to all faith traditions, said Byron Ballard, wiccan priestess and a member of the temple. Mother Grove “isn't a wiccan group, though some of us are wiccans,” she said.

Well, that's cool, because the Episcopal "Church" isn't a Christian body, though there are some Christians in it.

But considering how close their "mission statements" are, this sounds like a match made in, ummm, Gaia?

“Mother Grove is an outgrowth of the work of several people in the goddess/earth religions community,” Ballard said. “Its goal is to create a permanent sanctuary, where people of all faith traditions may openly and safely celebrate the divine feminine, the goddess.”

At least the local bishop didn't first select a successful, thriving parish, wrench it away from the dirty Christians infesting it, and hand it over to a bunch of pagans. Like Nosferatu, the witches were invited in.

Jill Boyer is a co-founder and priestess with Mother Grove. She says she looks forward to celebrating “with my celebrants and community, having time to celebrate something that is very important to me and the ritual aspects themselves.”

Boyer believes people have an ancient and human need for ritual and celebration in groups, and to acknowledge the changing of the seasons.

Just herding together in groups is important, no matter what the purpose. And the "rituals" are hopefully picturesque and quaint, with colourful props and costumes.

Actually, I've heard that, in the spirit of ecumenism, Mrs. Schori is going to show up for this event, and she's even had a new set of kick-ass vestments designed for the occasion:

(Hat tip: Stand Firm)

The man with no nation

2010-03-17T16:02:00.000-04:00

Interesting article by Robin of Berkley, describing Obama as "a stranger in a strange land". This is what you get from feckless, selfish parents, spawning kids that get in the way of their oh-so-important journeys of self discovery. A sluttish mother with her train of exotic bed partners produced a kid with no parental figure to respect or bond to. Dragging him after her like a leashed pet produced a rootless cosmopolitan with no country to call his own. His attempt to construct his own "family" just resulted in a larger pool of misfits like himself. Nor did it work - as we have seen, there is no one that he will not abandon when convenient; his "attachment" has never been real.

Unlike Moses, the original "stranger in a strange land", who was rooted in God and his people, though physically tossed about, Obama reminds me of the character of Lt. Francis Farewell in Shaka Zulu - a chameleon perpetually on the make, who compulsively deceives everyone in his quest for self-advancement. At the end of the story, Farewell finally must face the rejection of Shaka and the devastating summary of his own empty character: "You are a man with no nation." America has now discovered that they were like the monkey in the story, baited with "something shiny" - Hope and Change - they put their hand in the gourd, and are suddenly trapped.

A pity this clip ends just there. They don't give the answer to the question. Farewell asks, "Go? Where? Where shall I go?" and Shaka answers "Where I have been" - into the howling hell and wilderness of despair.

You can't stop it

2010-03-16T15:02:00.000-04:00

This was on the editorial page of the Ottawa Citizen yesterday:

The Citizen editorial board ran a small test the other day, to see if ordinary laundry (shirts and towels) dries on a clothesline in early March. It does. It took one sunny afternoon, though at this time of year it's helpful to have a little breeze blowing; laundry doesn't dry as fast in still air.

Pffft. Johnny-come-latelies. I've been drying clothes on the clothesline for over two weeks! I started when the back deck was still 4/5 covered with snow, and I can dry TWO loads of towels in one day! This is why I don't think I need lectures on "green living" from politicians or their wives. If I were to visit the White House, would I see Mr. Obama's underwear hanging from a clothesline, waving in the breeze? I thought not.

Other signs of spring are appearing: two Canada Geese flew over the house this morning, though I've yet to see or hear the big Vs of returning flocks. We're in a very pleasant warm spell right now, and the back yard has lost almost 3/4 of its snow cover! By next week, it should be all gone. No big buds on the trees yet, but I see two rhubarb buds poking above the ground, as well as some peony shoots and the first purple bleeding heart fringe coming out. Can't wait to see how that rhubarb I transplanted last year does this spring.

Next, pawn the silverware

2010-03-15T08:03:00.002-04:00

St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Paterson, NJ, is considering selling its dozen Tiffany stained-glass windows to keep afloat.

Roughly two dozen church members gathered in the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Saturday morning to discuss the future of the stained-glass panels.

A private collector has offered the church vestry $2 million to purchase the windows, donated by church members and designed by Tiffany Studios sometime between 1890 and 1898, according to the Rev. David B. Wolfe. Church officials are not revealing the collector’s name because he has requested anonymity.

They also would not comment on the church’s finances.

Or demographics. But never mind, reading that "Roughly two dozen church members" turned up to discuss liquidating a genuine treasure like 12 Tiffany glass windows tells us pretty much all we need to know.

On Saturday, parishioners voiced mixed emotions about selling the windows — some supportive of the idea to remedy the church’s financial needs, and others saying the move would snub the church’s benefactors.

A private collector has offered the financially struggling church vestry $2 million for the windows, to mixed feelings. "It betrays the memory of families and people that gave us those windows," said church historian Delores Most, 80, of Paterson.

A pity their "church" didn't think of that when they were busy selling off all the other things those "families and people" gave them, like orthodox Christian belief and discipline.

It may not be the fault of this particular parish; they're in a poor neighbourhood, and for all I know, may be staunch Anglo-Catholics. But it doesn't matter. They're part of a useless organization with nothing to offer the world, and so they're stuck in a starving parish with a leaky roof, crumbling stonework and a decaying hall, and having to pawn their valuables just to survive. No future, like their denomination.

New pastime

2010-03-13T13:46:00.001-05:00

I have a new pastime, which is keeping me busy these days. Back in December, I was invited to join an online group of rare movie collectors. It's because a few years ago, I translated from French to English the title cards for Ivan Mosjoukine's 1926 film, "Michel Strogoff". I'd corresponded with the movie collector who'd sold me the film (he's a great Mosjoukine fan) and since he had only a French-language print of the movie, I offered to translate it for him, so he could add the English as subtitles. A member of the movie group eventually discovered that I'd done the translation, and invited me to join the group, which works on a bitorrent file-sharing basis. They have the most amazing collection of silent movies, but it's not restricted to that; basically, it's ANY rare or important film right up to the present that's added to the collection.

I was thrilled to discover this site, but I'm not that good at file-sharing. With 4 computers in the house all running from a wireless router, there are so many firewalls to get through, it's really difficult to share files with anyone else. I can download for myself, but other people have great difficulty downloading from me. And since you have to maintain a positive ratio (download to upload) to stay in this group, I wasn't sure how long I'd last.

Until I realized that I have one "marketable" skill: translation. There are hundreds of French-only movies on this site, begging to be translated into English so they can reach a wider audience. And it so happens that points are awarded for people who can translate and subtitle movies. So I found a good subtitle program (DivxLand Media Subtitler) and taught myself how to make .srt files, and got started.

It's worked out wonderfully! So far I've translated and subtitled the following movies:

Mauprat (1926) - a silent film by Jean Epstein, based on a novel by George Sand. It's sort of a "Wuthering Heights"-type story, but not nearly as morbid.

Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune (1930): The Mystery of the Yellow Room, based on the novel by Gaston Leroux (who also wrote 'The Phantom of the Opera). This was a classic "locked-room" murder mystery, and it's been very popular in France - they've made several film adaptations of it. The sound was difficult to hear, as it was an early talkie, and there's a fair bit of humour in it, which is very fast and hard to translation (I swear, one actor, Léon Bellières, was adlibbing his dialogue half the time!)

Le Parfum de la dame en noir (1931): The Scent of the Lady in Black, sequel to "Chambre Jaune", with the same cast and director (Marcel L'Herbier). This one had even worse sound, but the most stunning Art Deco sets. I read the novels both these movies were based on - this one departed a fair bit from the original story, but actually improved it. Leroux's plots were nothing if not far-fetched.

La mille et deuxième nuit (1933): The Thousand and Second Night. A Mosjoukine film! One of his few talkies, because his heavy Russian accent ruined his career in French film once movies went to sound. This is a rather frivolous Arabian Nights-style movie, where Mosjoukine plays the good prince who fights against the evil Sultan, and loves the beautiful blond Sultana. Sound was atrocious, and the film itself has deteriorated badly, maybe even too much to restore. But with English subtitles, fans of Mosjoukine can at least follow the story.

Le Drame de Shanghai (1938): Shanghai Drama, by G.W. Pabst. Pabst was a German director (best known for the silent "Pandora's Box), but he went to France during the '30s, as so many German film people did. (Oddly enough, he eventually went BACK to Germany before the war!) This is an espionage story, set in Shanghai as China and Japan were edging into war. It has the great Louis Jouvet in it, playing a Russian assassin working for the Japanese. He's hard to translate, because he has his own way of speaking French - very fast, and his inflexion goes up and down, sort of like a sewing machine changing speeds, or a boat bobbing up and down on the waves. Very unique, but with a resonant baritone voice that makes it very hypnotic.

Now I'm working on Sortilèges (1945): The Bellman, a very weird movie about a bellringer in a remote mountain village who turns to murder and robbery, with a fair amount of black magic thrown in. The photography is deliciously sinister.

I'm very happy to have discovered this work, because I was actually trained as a French-English translator in university, but never worked in the field. In Canada, the demand is really for English-French, and the main employer is the government, so I was out of luck. If I'd ever thought of translating movies, I'd never have wanted to do anything else! But it's only now, because of computers, that this sort of thing is now available to people outside formal studios. Now anyone with a computer can do it at home; 25 years ago, it would have all been done in a film production company. Just like the internet, with blogs and Twitter, have blown up the old-fashioned news and opinion distribution industry, it's moved another industry from tightly-controlled professionals to amateurs.

The way I work is probably not the most efficient, but it works for me: after I've watched the movie on TV a few times, I do a rough first draft straight from the TV, while the dvd plays. Then I make a .wav file of the soundtrack, and go back over my rough draft, carefully listening to and altering the sound to pick up the parts I missed the first time. I slow down the tempo, change the pitch, remove background noise - anything to clarify the spoken dialogue. Then I type it all up in a regular .doc file, and set about turning the translation into subtitles.

Special rules govern subtitles: they can be no more than 2 lines on the screen at a time, and each line much be 40 characters or less. So often I have to compress the translation to match it to the spoken words - a viewer has to be able to watch the movie, and not just read text non-stop. So there's a fair amount of pruning and editing to eliminate the extraneous, but still leave the meaning and create the same effect in English that was in the original French. Oh, and the subtitle should not be on the the screen more than 6 seconds - 8 at the absolute outside, because any more and the viewer starts to feel uncomfortable.

When that's done, I open DivxLand Subtitler, plug in the .doc file, open the .avi file, and the fun begins: I play the movie while slotting in each subtitle so it matches the spoken dialogue. This is where having watched the movie over and over helps - you don't want to anticipate the spoken words (especially in a mystery movie!), but you also don't want to have words on the screen when the actor has finished speaking if you can possibly help it. So timing is essential. It's a bit like conducting a symphony, only with words.

So this has been keeping me quite busy. In return for this work, I've downloaded a number of very interesting old movies, and I've also become acquainted with more French film than I'd ever seen before. My interest was chiefly in German silent movies, but the French were very good filmmakers, and that's quite apart from Mosjoukine. Right now, I'm using my ratio to acquire all the seasons of MST3K, as they are all on the tracker. I'm being disciplined, though; so far I've got seasons 9 and 8, and I will go on down the list as I can afford them. One day, I will have them all, but who knows how many translations it will take to pay for them?

The Age of Faith

2010-03-13T12:51:00.000-05:00

Awesome essay by Wretchard over at The Belmont Club. As we have seen in miniature in the Anglican Church, it's Africa and Asia that are the fertile fields for Christianity these days, and there's something more:

In a process largely unnoticed in the West, billions of people in Asia and Africa have swapped out their indigenous faiths for either Christianity or Islam. And to an even greater astonishment of Western intellectuals most have chosen Christianity. Now the equalization of numbers has caused a fault line to appear through the Third World at about the tenth degree of latitude where the two aggregations face each other “at daggers drawn”.

The word “Christian”, associated in the 19th and 20th centuries with the missionary enterprises of Europe, has now come to mean something different in political terms. Today Christianity is a religion of the Third World. Europeans have largely converted to some soft and watered-down variation of the West’s only indigenous creed, Marxism, as represented by John Lennon’s “Imagine” song. Christianity can no longer be associated largely with the West. Ex oriente lux a phrase which once described the belief that all great world religions rose in the East is now truer than ever. With Marxism shrinking to the margins of the Guardian, the monotheisms have reclaimed the field at least in raw numbers.

The feeble remnants of the West are deluded by their own experience into thinking that Islam is a vital, lively, growing religion. Of course it looks stronger than the dried-out husk of Marxist materialism, which is its main alternative in places like Europe. But the "vitality" is that of termites chewing through dry-rotted timbers. Islam has no future. Once it's finished eating up Europe (if there's no Christian renaissance to throw them back), that place will collapse into the same sterile squalor that characterizes Islam wherever it reigns. There will be no "takeover" of Western riches, no return to the age of Muslim glory - just Muslims and the degenerate, deracinated nihilists left behind by the departure of Christianity, sinking together into the same mud.

I read a Theodore Dalrymple essay, years ago, where he stated that Islam is incapable of surviving a real contest with the modern world. It's brittle and ready to snap right now; Islamic terrorism is not the energetic outburst of a new, vital creed leaping into action. It's the jerks and spasms of a paralytic, trying desperately to deny the truth about his own impotence. It's almost like a dare in the face of Allah: "We're doing all this for you - now PROVE that you exist, and that this hasn't all been just a meaningless nightmare!"

Globally, as Jenkins sees it, the existential threat to Islam comes not from the declining number of Europeans indoctrinated in the quasi-Marxist “Imagine” creed, but from the burgeoning millions of the Third World. Whether Muslims are impressed by the secular belief system captured so succinctly in John Lennon’s song is open to debate. But the attractions of Christianity to the populations of the Third World apparently is not. Whatever the appeal of Islam in London might be, it is less so in Africa. “One factor driving Islamic militancy in many nations is the sense that Christianity is growing. Outside of the West, evangelism and conversion are two of the most sensitive issues in the modern world.”

"And then the music gets hopeful..."

2010-03-12T14:22:00.001-05:00

If you never saw any of the Academy Award winners for this year, last year, or the last 10 years, then watch this, and you won't ever have to:

The more I watch this little film, the more brilliant it appears. Of course the satire is funny and true, but it strikes me as significant in an entirely different way.

Last year, Mark Steyn wrote a number of articles about the sudden obsolescence of the newspaper industry. Until just 10 years ago, to operate a newspaper required big money - big physical plant, tons of paper in rolls, giant typesetting machinery, big unionized workforce. An individual just couldn't do it, and that's why newspapers became the businesses we grew up with.

The same thing could be said about the movie industry: to make a film that looks like a film, you have to spend millions of dollars on sets, technicians, trained actors, and only a multimillion dollar studio can do it. Well, along come these two guys at Britanick (rhymes with "Titanic") - http://www.britanick.com/index.php, and they produce this hilarious little video spoofing the products of those multimillion dollar studios.

And what gets me is that this little film looks so good! Look at the sets, the lighting, the camera work, the acting. I would easily buy that these "scenes" came out of a real Hollywood movie. This looks real, and yet the guys making it didn't need Warner Brothers' giant superstructure to produce it.

Could this be a harbinger of the end of Hollywood, just as the blogs pushed aside the MSM? For a few years, it's been predicted that people would be able to produce movies on their computer, and Hollywood would become obsolete. I thought, "Well, maybe for animated movies", but I didn't really think it could happen for "real" movies, because I've read about how complicated they are to make. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you DON'T need a cast of thousands in the background to make a movie. Maybe you can do what these guys did - once you're educated in the techniques (obviously they're not just amateurs with a video camera in their living room), you can buy the equipment and do it yourself, and the results will be convincing.

Just as blogging demystified the "profession" of reporting, this may be the end of the mystique of acting and directing. Maybe it isn't something that only a rare few professionals can do; maybe with enough practice and perseverence, lots of people can look as good as (Academy Award Winning Actor) and (Academy Award Winning Actress).

(Hat tip to American Digest)

The Anglican Church of Canada has a master plan

2010-03-09T12:54:00.001-05:00

Amid all the talk about "diversity" in the Anglican Church there is one liberal sacred cow that has been a little neglected recently - education. Well, fear not, the ACC is dusting off this oldie but goodie for its grand plan to fix problems in the church. The solution is to improve training of clergy, and the man in charge is none other than the Bishop of Ottawa, John Chapman.

This should be unobjectionable, until you look at just what sort of training clergy will be undergoing, and what tasks they will be enabled to do.

Ottawa Bishop John Chapman, who is leading the initiative, believes a savvier clergy would help bridge the church's current bitter divisions over issues such as gay priests.

Those are serious problems, no doubt about it. How is education going to help? Let's start with a little obligatory spin:

"The genius of the Anglican Church has been its capacity to live in difference," Chapman said in an interview

Yeah, yeah, "living in tension" and "middle way" and all that. In other words, when you look at the burned-out shambles that is the ACC today, don't let your lying eyes fool you; nothing has changed, we've always been this way, it's always worked for the last 400 years, so it will keep working because WE HAVEN'T CHANGED AT ALL, got it? Cranmer would feel right at home if he dropped in on the homosexual couple being "married" at the Church of the Blasted Fig Tree by the rainbow-vested lesbian "priest", and don't let any conservative troublemakers tell you otherwise. (They're all secretly gay, anyway.)

But first, a little journey into the past, to congratulate ourselves on how much better we are than earlier generations:

As much as the church is badly divided these days, at least people care, "and that's not what I remember as a child. I don't remember people working up that kind of energy about anything. It was still the club; it was the social life. You found yourself there every Sunday and you weren't even sure why some times.

"I can't imagine my childhood church getting worked about human sexuality," said Chapman. "These are one of the most exciting times; there is a passion for faith."

Yes, as Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye who travail and are heavy-laden, and I will give you an exciting, dynamic thrill ride into the fashionable and the up-to-date."

And they didn't get worked up about human sexuality, for some reason! (Nice of him to limit the topic to human sexuality, but isn't that a bit narrow? Oh, well, give him another 10 years or so, and who knows what "exciting times" may bring.) Not like people today. Maybe there was a reason why they weren't worked up about it. I'd say it's the same reason Bishop Chapman isn't "worked up" about the possibility of having human feces for dinner tonight. Because he doesn't consider it within the bounds of sanity or decency. But that just goes to show that he's as narrow and unimaginative as those earlier Anglicans he's so proud to have left behind. If a determined group of coprophragiasts should start loudly demanding that their exotic gastronomic tastes be included during Communion, I think Bishop Chapman would be surprised to find how quickly he'd find himself getting "worked up".

But on to business. How is this turmoil to be eased through education? The answer is unsurprisingly sketchy:

But pastors need new skills in calming congregations at war over sexuality or steering communities through traumatic change like closing a church. "There is quite a variety of need ... that has exploded in last 25 years and we have not, in terms of a common standard ... kept pace with that."

Ah, there we have it. The goal is to "calm" people who are upset - even though he's just finished boasting about how wonderfully exciting all this turmoil is. The clergy have to be taught how to administer the right doses of reassuring lies to keep people from bolting and taking their money with them. And, coincidentally, they also have to be trained as hospice workers for dying parishes. Once again, how to administer sedatives to people in pain so they won't lash out and do something regrettable. I wonder if this is being discussed up front with people entering the clergy: "Your duties will be to supervise the closing of dying parishes." Is that really how divinity students visualize themselves when they first think of going into orders? As bankruptcy managers and liquidators?

Most of Chapman's enthusiasm is for "diversity" training:

"The crux of the problem is to find ways of training people that are culturally appropriate.

"How do we be faithful as Christians in the marketplace ... in the public forum, for example? And that would be different for someone in northern Ontario and someone in Toronto."

Naturally, there is the obligatory reference to "First Nations", as if the Anglican Church is outfitting missionaries for remote outposts where they can convert the natives. In fact, most native Indians are ALREADY Christians; they were converted generations ago, work which modern up-to-date Anglicans like Chapman are pretty much united in deploring and apologizing for. The "culturally appropriate" training is not going to consist of better Bible knowledge - it's more of a marketing tool as the Anglican Church gives up on the outside world and tries instead to merely hang on to their traditional constituency.

Woe is me

2010-02-15T08:02:00.000-05:00

Disaster last week: James flushed my green iPod nano down the toilet. I didn't actually SEE him do it, of course, but I left it in the charger, intending to take it out and put it away before supper, then I just forgot and when I went back upstairs it was gone. I immediately suspected James of doing something funny, so I called him over and said, "Where's green music?" After repeating it a few times, he led me to the bathroom, stopped and pointed at the toilet, and then laughed. I knew that was it. And I was quite sure when the toilet clogged a day later.

Why does he do these things? Why? I especially bought the iPod so I could load it with videos to entertain him in the bus on the way to school! Actually, that's probably the clue right there. There's often a weird logic to James's actions; he probably associated the iPod with going to school, ergo, if there's no iPod, maybe Mom won't be able to send me to school!

So I lost the cost of the iPod, plus we had to pay for the plumber to come and unclog the toilet (we told him what had happened, but assured him we didn't need him to retrive the iPod!). It was an 16gb one, too. Now I know better; never bother getting a large capacity mp3 player, because it will be lost or destroyed long before I can ever fill it up.

Welcome to the 2010 Indian Olympic Games!

2010-02-13T10:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I watched about half of the opening ceremonies. I can't help it; I'm still a sucker for the pomp and circumstance, or at least, what I remember as pomp and circumstance from my childhood. The Olympics were a big deal in our house when I was young, and I keep hoping that it will be like that again, though by now I should know better.

I gave up after an hour and 15 minutes - just too tired, being 3 time zones later than Vancouver, and it was too boring to make the effort to stay up until the end.

The whole thing was dominated by the multiculti version of Canada's "official" culture, which comes down to exotic feathered Native performances. You know, the culture 95% of Canadians never experience from one year's end to another, unless the government decides to administer it to us in some "official" setting. (And bigshot Anglicans at their meaningless palavers - having stripped their Christianity naked, they try to clothe it in borrowed feathers from pagan spirituality. What the hell, nobody believes in it anyway, but it's pretty!)

I didn't mind it when it appeared at Calgary, because it was one part of a smorgasbord of cultural performances. Incoherent, but not altogether fake. This was fake. Native culture is a minority culture, and that isn't cancelled out by being older than the majority culture. No wonder foreigners have a stupid idea that Canadians live in isolated shacks, and encounter bears on our daily walks - what else should they think, if they're paying attention to what we say about ourselves? They must believe that we all know about Indian star constellations, when I'll bet hardly anyone in that auditorium had ever heard of The Wolf, The Bear, The Eagle and the other one. I'd never heard of them.

The only tip of the hat to the real Canadian culture was when the Mounties brought in the Canadian flag. Guess they didn't dare enlist 8 Mohawk Warriors for that, out of fear that they'd set up a blockade in front of the Parade of Nations.

I shut it off after the "Spirit Bear" floated up and then floated down - was it perhaps supposed to do something? The commentator said it was supposed to move among the tiny knot of people wearing paper turkey leg garnishes on their heads, but it just stood there then went back down.

I can't say I liked anything at all about the opening ceremony. OK, it was pretty when they did the swimming killer whales and red salmon with trick lights on the floor - nice.

I missed the torch-lighting, but I'll catch it today sometime on the repeats. I gather one of the prongs failed to come up (shades of Spinal Tap!) but mere mechanical failure doesn't bother me that much. I just sighed when I discovered that the great mystery of Who Will Light The Torch was revealed to be 4 people. Good God, can't we just pick ONE person we think is worthy, like normal people, have done with it? No, we have to muddle around satisfying constituencies and making sure everyone has a share (except in the cultural stuff - that was pretty uniform) so we send a crowd up there. (I thought it was dumb the year the Americans sent their whole hockey team up to do it, too, just to be clear that I'm not being hyper-critical of my own.)

Naturally, this inspires a quote from G.K. Chesterton, describing the angst that arose when his little village wanted to erect a War Memorial at the crossroads.

One lady wished to have a statue of a soldier, and I shuddered inwardly, knowing what such statues can be; fortunately another lady, with a nephew in the Navy, called out indignantly, "What about the sailors?" Whereupon the first lady said with hasty but hearty apology, "Oh, yes; and a sailor as well." Whereupon a third lady, with a brother in the Air Force, proposed that this also should be included in the group, and the first lady with large and generous gestures accepted all and every addition of the kind; so that this magnificent sculptural monument was soon towering into tanks and toppling with aeroplanes.

In Vancouver, where there was room to construct something that would combine lots of unrelated elements, the 2+ hour 'cultural segment', we were treated to the narrowest slice of Canadian life, completely divorced from the real life of the people of the country. But where simplicity was demanded - when the focus would be on one point at one moment for one act, the organizers fell apart and started heaving in more and more bodies so the effect would be confused and incoherent. It seems right that that was the moment even the physical props fell apart.

Rubbing out romance

2010-01-24T22:01:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't you just hate to have a mother like this?

There's a princess in my house. I know she's a princess, because she wears a purple fun-fur-and-silver-glitter tiara, changes her clothes five times a day, and issues regular commands in an imperious voice.

She's 31/2. I ask her what, exactly, a princess is. She says it's a girl who wears pretty dresses and a crown and can fly.

"I'm beautiful, aren't I, Mommy?" she asks when she dons one of her many dress-up dresses, most obtained for $3 at a thrift store.

Her favourite colours are purple, pink and yellow.

I am slowly but surely trying to instil my feminist values into her -- to absolutely no effect.

Oh, don't worry. St. Ignatius Loyola said "Give me a child until he is 7, and I will give you the man", so even though you're working on indoctrinating a girl, that expert would tell you you've still got half the term left to make the grade.

Sometimes we have breakthroughs.

I was reading Snow White one day when we came to the point where the prince sees Snow White in the glass case and instantly falls in love with her.

"Why?" she asked. "Why did he fall in love with her?"

I was stumped. "I guess it's because she's pretty," I said. "But maybe he won't like her so much when she wakes up. She's kind of boring."

So don't try to be pretty, kid. Only ugly women are interesting. God forbid that at this tender age, a girl could have her mind clouded by thoughts of "love at first sight" or "it was meant to be" or any of the other formulas we use to try to convey something mysterious and otherworldly.

"These stories teach girls from a very young age that the prime purpose of life is to attract and keep a mate, not to find a career or a way of life that brings them any interests beyond consumerism."

Interesting that she equates "consumerism" with the mere act of love and marriage, and NOT with "finding a career", which, with its invariably mercantile side, is explicitly linked to a consumer society. Who gets the salary, the wife and mother or the career woman? And what is a salary but money? And what is money for but buying things?

I don't know why the writer picks on the Disney princesses; Ariel and Belle were deliberately created to be unconventional heroines, and they're hardly the passive plants complained of in more traditional fairy tales. Belle is literate and Ariel is daring; both of them are resourceful and adventurous. I'm not really much of an apologist for Disney, but it's just ridiculous not to notice that they've changed the pattern for their fairytale heroines from the days of Snow White.

I'm so glad my mother didn't hang over me like a vulture when I was reading. I pretty much was left on my own to read anything I liked. The only time she interfered was when I was about 12 and got hold of a copy of 'The Godfather' (out of HER room, mind you!) She must have thought that was a bit strong for a kid (probably the sex scenes) and it quietly vanished from my room before I finished it. I didn't make a fuss; it was her book, after all, and I wasn't enjoying it much anyway. But I don't ever recall her horning in on my Sherlock Holmes or Bobbsey Twins stories to deliver lectures on how inferior their world was because it didn't match up with her ideals. It would have rather defeated the point of reading altogether to keep insisting that every page be graded for political correctness.

More on Doctor Who

2010-01-22T11:52:00.000-05:00

I was surprised and delighted to get an email from a friend in Chicago who'd read my Doctor Who post; I thought the show had a strictly British/Commonwealth following. It's great that Americans know about it too. Though when is one able to view it? We have fancy HD cable, and the only time it comes on is at about 3:00AM on the BBC 'foreign service' channel. If that marathon hadn't come on, I wouldn't have seen it at all.

Anyway, I ambled by Andrew Rilstone's blog and was excited to see that he'd posted something on the 2009 Doctor Who finale I'd just watched. I've read his blog off and on for years, but I'm forever bookmarking it because of some zinger post, and then furiously deleting the bookmark a week later because of something outrageous - he's that kind of writer, very polarizing and contradictory. But the guy really knows his Doctor Who. Go and read his post on the episode itself, which goes on to discuss how the writer (Russell Davies) has mangled and garbled the Doctor Who universe by grasping after the shiny baubles of effect and sensation, sacrificing a coherent mythos in the process. Then follow the link at the bottom to the rest of his Doctor Who writing. (The topic had seemed to have gone dormant for about a year, which is why I was so pleased to see the new essay today.)

He's also just put out a book of collected blog essays, with the stimulating title, "Where Dawkins Went Wrong". Check out the preview section to get a sample of his writing on Dawkins - he's realy a very clear-headed critic. I'm sorry to see it doesn't contain his essays on Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' movies, which was where I first discovered him. But maybe that will appear in some future volume. Anyway, I've ordered the book, fully aware of the risk that I will react furiously to half of it, the way I do to his blog, but the brilliance of the good stuff is worth the risk.

I'll take 'Things Ending in '-oscopy'' for 100, Alex

2010-01-17T20:42:00.000-05:00

One of the delights of passing the magic age of 50 is that your doctor will suddenly sign you up as a candidate for all sorts of new tests. I am scheduled for a colonoscopy tomorrow morning at 8:30. Why? Because I'm the right age for it! It's just a way of screening for colon cancer, which is a good thing, of course, but it's not the easiest thing in the world. But I figured, why not do a thorough check the first time around, and then if everything is OK, I can probably get by with annual specimen samples.

There is a multi-day preparation involved, starting on Wednesday, when I stopped eating anything with seeds, including tomatoes and cucumbers. Supper last night was my last solid food until this is over, and I had to take two Dulco-Lax tablets before going to bed. I'll vouch for the "-Lax" part; a little less emphasis on the "Dulco", though. Nothing but clear liquids today and tomorrow until the procedure is over. That's not so bad, but I've also got to take 2 packets of something called Pico-Salax, dissolved in water. This works the same way as Dulco-Lax...only more. I had the second dose of the magic elixir at 6:00, and if this keeps up much longer, my colon is going to be inside-out. I think I'm going to head to bed soon, and hope I can get through the night without interruptions.

Doctor Who

2010-01-08T22:39:00.000-05:00

We had some interesting TV on New Year's Day: a Doctor Who marathon. Marathons are very popular over the holidays: I saw a Mayday marathon on the Discovery Channel, and there were marathons of Parking Wars, Police Women of Broward County and several other such shows. But I was surprised to see Doctor Who, because it doesn't seem to be THAT popular here, despite the old British connection to Canada. Nothing to compare with Star Trek, that's for sure.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, I decided to watch it, and realized that it was the final episodes of the last season. My, it's changed a lot. The Doctor has changed, of course - he's changed several times since the last time I paid attention to the show, which was when Peter Davidson was the Doctor. Actually, I left off watching the show after he became the Doctor; he was just too "Tristan Farnon" for me, and I could never adjust to him in the new role. The last Doctor I really connected with was this guy:

The best Doctor, without a doubt.

The last fellow, David Tennant, was alright, though I got a bit sick of his glaring and bellowing, but then, the stories were vastly more melodramatic than the old classic series, so there was much more scope for scenery chewing. (I'd love to see Rifftrax take on Doctor Who, come to think of it!) The special effects of this reworked Doctor Who are a LOT better than they used to be, but the season finale had to go and throw in a gay pickup in a bar, which spoiled it for me. "Oh, we've got THAT now. I see." I guess this sort of thing plays well in England these days, but it'll probably date modern TV and film faster than anything else.

But one thing I can't fault the show for is its theme. The best sci-fi show theme ever; maybe even up among the best TV show themes of all time. It's been rattling around in my head since New Years: oooOOOOOooooooo! OOOOOO-oooooo! I don't even mind the modern reworking of it, with an orchestral setting; the original was pure synthesizer, but this is good too. To contrast the two, here's the theme I remember from the Olden Days when I watched the show, and the new one. The logo is different, but you can't beat that tune.

And this is the new version. A bit more hectic, but still good:

A very small tail wagging a very big dog

2010-01-08T21:48:00.000-05:00

The news today is that New Jersey's senate has become the latest state legislature to vote against homosexual "marriage". I haven't been by the Swan of Newark's digs lately, but this sounds like it will be sure to inspire a three-hanky pastorale very shortly.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I saw this interesting map of the U.S., which puts the furor on this boutique fetish into perspective:

The map appears to be from 2007, but it depicts places where the issue has actually been voted on, rather than where it's been imposed by legislative or judicial fiat. And what's more interesting, is it shows the vote by percentage of "intensity" in individual districts across the U.S., so you can see where interest for and against is strongest and where it's just tepid. Opinions don't change that much in just 2 years, and what changes have occurred might well have tilted the map further into the red (such as California last year).

Any thinking person will have to be struck by just how TINY the committed pro-homosexual marriage camp is. They are holed up in a few tiny green fortresses, almost swallowed up by the vast ocean of distaste that prevails in the rest of the country. And yet these insignificant misfits have succeeded in barking their fetish onto every television screen and newspaper in the country, and hogging attention far out of proportion to their puny cause.

It's a true case of a grown man being led around by his...well, nose I suppose is the standard cliche, but I think it would be more accurate to refer to a different, though similar-sized organ.

When you sup with the Devil, you need a long spoon

2009-12-08T10:20:00.000-05:00

Bolivia's government sells out its women - cheap:

Good: The Iranian Red Crescent paid $1.2 million to build a hospital in the Bolivian city of El Alto.
Not good: The Iranian government is requiring that the hospital’s female employees, who are mostly Christian, all wear Iranian Muslim-style hijabs. As might be expected, El Alto’s doctors and nurses are livid.

According to local paper La Prensa (Spanish, English translation here), the hospital told potential female applicants that they would be required to wear the hijab during job interviews.

The South American country is in the middle of a national debate over the hospital’s policy. Lourdes Millares of the opposition Podemos party called the hijab-only policy “an assault on the dignity of women” and criticized president Evo Morales for “submission to the rules of another government.” Popular Bolivian television host and gay rights activist Maria Galindo criticized the hospital’s rules as well — she considered it a step backwards into the medieval era.

A lot of prestigious American universities have similarly been gobbling down free food from Muslim tables; how long before we read about dress codes for students enrolling in courses of study bankrolled by Saudi-donated "chairs", or maybe quietly-enforced entrance barriers (i.e., no Jews allowed)?

False advertising

2009-12-05T09:04:00.000-05:00

Winter may be just getting underway, but I have something to help me get through the dark months ahead: the first spring seed catalogue has arrived!

My Dominion Seed House catalogue came in the mail a few days ago, and yesterday I finally settled down to examine it. I usually order something from them every year - they're the source for Chaleur seed potatoes, and I'll probably get some multicoloured swiss chard seeds from them this year, as well as the usual Morning Glory (oh, faint hope!) which I try to grow every year.

We're going to cut back on the potatoes this year, in keeping with garden hygiene; you're not supposed to grow potatoes year after year in the same spot, because the soil can end up harbouring diseases particular to potato plants. So this year, we've decided to try growing corn. My aunts in Victoria grow corn, so I can consult them for advice, and the farms around Ottawa grow lots of corn, so I know the climate is suited to it.

Yesterday I turned to the Corn section in the catalogue to see what varieties we might go for, and as my eye travelled down the page, I stopped at a certain entry. Here it is in the online catalogue: http://www.dominion-seed-house.com/en-CA/ProductList.aspx?CatID=838&PL=1. Looks nice, eh? "Best early variety. High yield. This variety of white pop corn is the one that is best adapted for our northern climate..."

But in the printed catalogue, THIS is what you find:

I don't know if Dominion Seed House is quite prepared for all the orders they're going to receive from Las Vegas and the San Fernando Valley, nor for the complaints that are sure to follow: "Hey, I swallowed them and I inserted them, and nothing happened! I want my money back!"

Chesterton on ClimateGate

2009-11-24T12:09:00.000-05:00

Well, what do you know? It looks like the Global Warming hoax has exploded in the sky like a supernova instead of lingering on for decades as its credibility trickled away. I remember when "scientists" began talking this up in the 90s, and thought, "Well, nobody'll ever fall for THAT!" To my astonishment, I was wrong - after enough repetition, people began to believe it, and then to believe it fervently. The current scandal is progressing at a satisfyingly fast pace; dumping that much information on the public at once was the way to go. If the incriminating emails had been cautiously dripped out, the bogus "science" community would have been organized and determined enough to rub out the trail the moment it appeared. This has caught them flat-footed, with their corruption on display for all to see.

One person who would NOT have been surprised by this turn of events was G.K. Chesterton. In "The Thing: Why I Am A Catholic" I came across this passage:

Even in those things he [Sir Arthur Keith] betrayed a curious simplicity common among such official scientists. The truth is that they become steadily less scientific and more official. They develop that thin disguise that is the daily wear of politicians. They perform before us the most artful tricks with the most artless transparency. It is like watching a child trying to hide something. They are perpetually trying to bluff us with big words and learned allusions; on the assumption that we have never learnt anything - even of their own funny little ways. Every leader-writer who thunders "Galileo" at us assumes that we know even less about Galileo than he does. Every preacher of popular science who throws a long word at us thinks we shall have to look it up in the dictionary and hopes we shall not study it seriously even in the encyclopaedia. Their use of science is rather like the use made of it by the heroes of certain adventure stories, in which the white men terrify the savages by predicting an eclipse or producing an electric shock. These are in a sense true demonstrations of science. They are in a sense right in saying that they are scientists. Where they are perhaps wrong is in supposing that we are savages.

But it is rather amusing for us who watch the preparations for giving us an electric shock, when we are seriously expected to be shocked by the shock. It is rather a joke when we, the benighted savages, are ourselves not only quite capable of predicting the eclipse, but capable of predicting the prediction. Now among these facts that have been familiar to us for a long time is the fact that men of science stage and prepare their effects exactly as politicians do. They also do it rather badly - exactly as politicians do. Neither of these two modern mystagogues has yet realized how transparent his tricks have become.

The dummy sciences that Chesterton was dealing with in 1926 were Darwinism, spiritualism and eugenics. One thing he didn't foresee was that the following 80 years would erode his healthy skepticism and result in the elevation of "science" by credulous post-Christians to the level formerly occupied by religion. This must be the explanation for our willingness to submit without a struggle to anything with the imprimatur of "Science" slapped on it. This scandal makes me hope that we may be finding our way back from our superstitious veneration of "Science", to something healthier and saner, as Chesterton observed a few years later in "The Well and the Shallows":

Scores and hundreds of times I have heard, through my youth and early manhood, the repetition of that ultimatum: "You must accept the conclusions of science." And it is that notion or experience that has now been concluded; or rather excluded. Whatever else is questionable, there is henceforth no question of anybody "accepting" the conclusions of science. The new scientists themselves do not ask us to accept the conclusions of science. The new scientists themselves do not accept the conclusions of the new science. To do them justice, they deny vigorously that science has concluded; or that it has, in that sense, any conclusion. The finest intellects among them repeat, again and again, that science is inconclusive.

He's done it again

2009-11-14T21:34:00.001-05:00

Seeking to top the Grovel Heard Round The World, Little President Fauntleroy scrapes and bows before the Emperor of Japan:

Seriously, where did this guy get his ideas on how to behave before royalty, from watching "The King And I"?

Hot Air Pundit has an interesting series of photos showing other heads of state and government meeting the Japanese Emperor; compare and contrast.

I wish to add that the Prime Minister of Canada knows how to behave properly:

as does our Governor General:

Birthdays approaching

2009-10-31T11:37:00.000-04:00

Thomas and James both have birthdays in November - James's comes first, on November 12 (Dean was so relieved that we didn't have a baby born on Remembrance Day). He doesn't care much for cake, except to demolish it - I've gone on a cake- and pie-baking hiatus right now, because James was getting obsessed with destroying the lovely smooth surface of a new cake or pie by plunging any nearby available object into it. I decided to wait a few months before making anything new, so that he could get that little quirk out of his system. It's very demoralizing.

As for presents, it's usually quite easy to get things for both boys - any Thomas the Tank Engine video or book is sure to be a hit, and this year there are more cartoons available on dvd that they'd like: I saw a collection of Scooby Doo episodes, which would probably be very unpleasant for the rest of us, but Thomas or James would LOVE them.

But this week James has gotten into a few fights with Thomas, and yesterday he decided that all his problems would be solved if only he could get a Death Ray. Since I mentioned birthdays next month, that's what he's been asking for. "Oh no! Death Ray Thomas goodbye - oh nooooo!" Despite precedents....

I think he had in mind something that would be a little more personally hands-on, like the famous Death Ray in 'Chandu the Magician':

But what I think I'll probably get (if it can arrive in time) is something called "Magic Dust". James has been obsessed with a picture of this barbecue spice rub for months. Something about the colours and the arrangement of the font. He really just wants the bottle, so we'll take out the spice mix and give him the empty bottle, which should make him very happy.

Betrayed

2009-10-26T20:35:00.000-04:00

The Captains of the Outlands

2009-10-24T17:22:00.000-04:00

The best opinion piece so far on the Pope's audacious invitation to the believing Catholic remnant in the Anglican Church has come from The Belmont Club.

Andrew Brown of the Guardian called the Roman Catholic Church’s offer to admit disaffected Anglicans “the end of the Anglican Communion”, describing the 1/7th of the clergy which its believes will jump ship as a death blow. If so, it is the coup de grace. The Anglican Communion has long been hemorrhaging members, fleeing from a church which many of its members believe has abandoned its traditional beliefs. Most of those who were expected to take up the Catholic Church’s offer to convert are described as social conservatives who think their community has gone too far toward embracing openly gay bishops and women priests. The Daily Mail put the indictment against the Archbishop of Canterbury plainly: he’s no longer a divine, but a politician and those are dime a dozen. “If our Archbishop spent less time fretting about climate change, he might notice the pope is about to mug him”.

Many are echoing Andrew Brown's speculation that this will turn out to be a sort of Trojan Horse manoeuvre, and that by bringing in Anglicans, Benedict will (unwittingly?) import the virus that will destroy priestly celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church. I think this too-clever-by-half conspiracy theory will come to nothing. First of all, I don't think the Holy Father does ANYTHING 'unwittingly'. His enemies perpetually use any excuse to drag out their pepier-mache puppet Pope and try to get people to throw rocks at it, chanting accusations of "clumsy" "out of touch" "undiplomatic" "gaffe" and anything else that will get people excited. He's none of those things. We're just repeatedly surprised to find that his priorities are not the world's priorities, and he won't cower and hide when they are in conflict.

If the Pope really thought that clerical celibacy should go, he wouldn't have to stage this rigmarole to do it. The anti-celibacy propagandists remind me of the Scots in an old Goon Show called 'The MacReekie Rising of '74':

RED HAIRY MCLEGS:
Tonight we march north to England!

SECOMBE:
But England's south!

McLEGS:
Aye, we're going to march right roond the waarld and sneak up on them from behind!

They seem to think that married priests will behave like Tribbles: just get one on board, and before you know it, they'll be tumbling out of overhead chasuble cupboards and purring in the choir stalls. It's not going to happen. Nor will the Church be somehow tricked or trapped into "logically" having to extend the married priesthood beyond the narrow confines of the Anglican Colony. They will always have the last word on who gets to be a priest, and I don't think that it should even be assumed that every Anglican priest who wants to cross over will automatically be handed a comp ticket - married priest couples, for example, where the husband wants to convert but the wife doesn't, would be a scandal to the faithful. In fact, I would think that any married priest whose wife doesn't also convert would probably not be allowed to be a priest in the Catholic Church. I've no evidence for that, just my own gut feeling, coupled with the logic of how Catholic marriage has to work.

Everyone says that "the Catholic Church thinks in centuries" but they don't have to bother when dealing with the Anglican Church. There will be no "precedent", because in another generation, there won't be any more Anglicans to convert. The Catholic Church can read the demographic tables as well as anyone else. There won't be a steady stream of Anglican priests coming to Rome; this generation is it. If Rome decides that future ordinands must be unmarried, then when this generation of priests dies, the brief anomaly of married Catholic priests will die with it.

The thing that seems to be missing most from the commentary about this Anglican Outreach is the question of whom Benedict is really reaching out to. Everyone fusses about the priests and the bishops, and how soft a landing they can make when they parachute out, carrying all their luggage. I don't think the Pope is doing to this to make life easier for Anglican priests. I think he cares about the little nobodies in their little pews, trying to live Catholic Christian lives. THOSE are his flock. For such an intellectual, Benedict XVI has a deep love and reverence for the simple faith of the common man. I think that they were also the reason for his demarche towards the SSPX. While the press were shrieking with outrage about the solitary "shiten shepherd", Benedict was looking at the "clene shepe" - the thousands of lay Catholics who follow these clergy in search of spiritual food. Should THEY remain forever stranded on a flooded knoll, when they could be brought to safety?

TThe principal attraction of the Roman Catholic Church, at least to conservative Anglicans, lies precisely in that it hasn’t been eaten out by socialist/communist faith to the degree that the Anglicans have been. It’s not that they love Rome, they’re simply seeking shelter within its walls.

That’s not to say that Roman walls are safe from the same relentless attack of secularism which did Canterbury in. Given enough time, Rome too will go under; and Benedict knows it is only a matter of time until some ecclesiastical Barack Obama mounts the pulpit to warn in a honeyed baritone against Climate Change and extol the virtues of Islam. For that reason Benedict is picking up stragglers, having judged the Anglicans already shattered. But its real foe, upon which Rome’s eyes are fixed, are the socialist/communists. Osgiliath is driven in and the orcs are hard behind. Roman Catholic Archbishop Nichols, the primate of England, put it bluntly.

He claimed the Pope had made the decision because he wants worshippers to unite in the face of increasing secularism rather than form numerous smaller churchers. … Quoting the Pontiff, he said: “As he has written: ‘In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God.’ “

One part of 'The Return of the King' not shown in the movie was the arrival of the Captains of the Outlands, marching up the south road to Minas Tirith, to join in its defence. The little principalities down the river and along the coast, taking their part in the battle of Gondor against the Enemy. But Gondor was not just the biggest policeman on the block; it was also their mother, the civilization that planted them and made them thrive.

And so the companies came and were hailed and cheered and passed through the Gate, men of the Outlands marching to defend the City of Gondor in a dark hour; but always too few, always less than hope looked for or need asked. The men of Ringlo Vale behind the son of their lord, Dervorin striding on foot: three hundreds. From the uplands of Morthond, the great Blackroot Vale, tall Duinhir with his sons, Duilin and Derufin, and five hundred bowmen. From the Anfalas, the Langstrand far away, a long line of men of many sorts, hunters and herdsmen and men of little villages scantily equipped save for the household of Golasgil their lord. From Lamedon, a few grim hillmen without a captain. Fisher-folk of the Ethir, some hundred or more spared from the ships. Hirluin the Fair of the Green Hills from Pinnath Gelin with three hundreds of gallant green-clad men. And last and proudest, Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth, kinsman of the Lord, with gilded banners bearing his token of the Ship and the Silver Swan, and company of knights in full harness riding grey horses; and behind them seven hundreds of men at arms, tall as lords, grey-eyed, dark-haired, singing as they came.

And that was all, less than three thousands full told. No more would come. Their cries and tramp of their feet passed into the City and died away.

Medals for suicide?

2009-10-20T10:18:00.000-04:00

A new first for Canada: now we will be giving out medals to soldiers who commit suicide.

Soldiers killed in service-related accidents or suicides will now qualify for a newly created medal intended for military casualties, the Canadian military announced Monday.

The Sacrifice Medal was first unveiled in 2008 to recognize only those killed and wounded by hostile action.

The Department of National Defence said Monday it expanded the criteria to include all service-related deaths after concluding a review this month, which was launched in response to criticisms from the families of slain soldiers and peacekeepers.

There's no indication that this will be for cases of "altruistic suicide" - where a soldier heroically flings himself on a grenade to save his comrades. No, this will be when a guy gets depressed and offs himself - but because it happened while he was engaged in military service, we are now going to consider this deserving of a medal.

I don't want to increase the pain of the families left behind by such suicides, but this whole approach is just wrong. It's an example of the "therapeutic approach" to life which is seeping into everything. Now we no longer give medals because a man's actions are intrinsically admirable; we give them in order to "mean a lot" to the families - to make them feel better, in other worlds.

Medals used to be to acknowledge GOOD things - heroism, bravery, skill. Now they're to be consolation prizes for people who have been victimized by their experiences. If they hadn't gone to a combat zone, this wouldn't have happened, so now Canada has to make it all better. I'm sure there are sad and pathetic stories behind each military suicide, but the same thing is true of EVERY case of suicide. We help nobody by pretending that there's no difference between dying at the hands of an enemy and taking one's own life. The first is endured, even though it's the last thing a soldier wants, for the sake of a greater good. The second is sought out, at the price of rejection of every other good. G.K. Chesterton wrote the definitive description of suicide, and why we must harden our hearts and reject it, no matter how compelling the sob-story that accompanies it:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the crossroads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes--for it makes even crimes impossible.

About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some freethinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin; the other wants everything to end. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because h has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe.

I notice that Chesterton contrasted the suicide with the martyr, not the soldier who falls in battle. Because this was written in 1908, he was closer to an age where war was regarded as a common hazard of life, and was not sentimentalized. Today, in Canada, not only do we want to honour suicides, some want to give medals to everyone who has the bad fortune to die:

"I have always felt that all soldiers that have fallen in Afghanistan should receive it," he said. "It certainly means a great deal that this will be received."

And another person is quoted as saying

"If a person has forfeited his natural life expectancy in the aid of his country, recognition should still be there."

So now the "All Must Have Prizes" mentality has crept to the point where medals are to be routinely given just for the bad fortune of dying. I'm sure in a few years, we'll have the "Participation Medal" for those who just packed a suitcase and had to leave home for a few months. Why should "recognition" be withheld from those who left friends and family behind, even if they eventually came back?

Entropy

2009-10-18T20:43:00.000-04:00

The Anglican Curmudgeon has a good post up about the entropy overtaking The Gay Church. As happens with many (perhaps all) institutions, it carried on for a while on a surge of original energy, but today we see it falling to the inexorable Second Law of Thermodynamics.

In the same way, institutions can for a time defy the Second Law. They accumulate people and energy, and flourish and spread and thrive. Some can maintain their health for centuries, or even millennia. But if the flow of energy out begins to exceed the amount that is taken in, eventually the institution must succumb to the Second Law if the process cannot be reversed.

The Episcopal Church (USA) is no exception to the Law. I submit that all of the outward signs point to a draining from it of people and energy which at the moment is very much greater than what it is managing to attract to itself.

Being purely mortal, the Episcopal Church is sharing the fate of all purely mortal things, which will also be the fate of our governments, cultures and civilizations in time.

But let us not be too downcast. The topic gives me a chance to post a YouTube video by Flanders and Swann, giving a musical physics lesson. I have to say, this little song has worked for me over the years. If someone mentions the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, I immediately hear the syncopated verse in my head:

HEAT - cannot-of-itself - PASS - from ONE - body-to-a-hotter - BODY."

And while we're at it, here's another Flanders & Swann song - 'The Gasman Cometh', animated with Lego figures. This is one of my favourites, and I have even learned to play it on the piano!