Leap In The Dark

How often do we consider the implications of the words we use in everyday conversation? Probably not at all. The most any of us try to do with language is communicate some sort of message to another person. We use those words that are accessible and able to convey our meaning.

But sometimes a word will carry a hidden meaning or connotation beyond it’s simple requirement of fitting into a sentence. In Going Nucular Geoffrey Nunberg talks about the way he sees words demonstrate our changing ideas and sensibilities; one word replaces another, an old word is adopted to a new point of view, or sometimes it’s just the way little words like and or of are used.

“Words usually have something to hide—you have to shake them until the top pops off and some revelation tumbles out, an insight into some attitude that it would be hard to put your finger on by any other means.”:Going Nucular Geoffrey Nunberg pg.xiii Public Affairs 2004, 2005.

Like a detective revealing clues in a mystery novel, Nunberg creates his case through the republication of essays that examine and cite different examples of his search for hidden meanings. While light hearted in tone, and quite funny at times, his topic is far more serious.

Unlike his fellow linguist, Chomskey, he isn’t looking for some massive conspiracy which he can blame on somebody or other. Instead he shows us something equally as insidious; that manipulation of thought and emotions can be carried out with just one word.

In building his argument he examines the different environments that words function in: politics, business, media, technical, and culture. He also broaches areas slightly less definable; how words are used within the context of symbols, warfare and in society in general.

The book is divided up into sections that correspond(as in agrees with not writes to) to the above categories. Nunberg than looks for and cites examples of each of his three ways words reflect changing ideas and sensibilities. By this means he is able to build his case one layer at a time, and establish the pervasiveness of the problem.

He is primarily concerned with American society and the English language. Although he does examine some of the texts from bin Ladin’s telecasts and speeches by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas their inclusion is only due to their relevance to the United States today. Those words which either have been replaced or received a makeover are given a historical background to emphasise the significance of their metamorphosis, but only within the confines of America’s internal political strife.

For international readers this is important to keep in mind because Nunberg is only representing one side of a political argument, and is basing his observations on a body of knowledge derived from a specific place within American society. A person from the other side of the political spectrum would no doubt refute the findings presented in this book. Those who had their awareness shaped differently than Mr. Nunberg, whether through economy, education, or upbringing, would probably offer views differing from those presented in Going Nucular.

That being said the point of contention would not be his overall thesis, rather the examples cited. Even then the examples themselves wouldn’t be the problem it would be the values placed on them. What Nr. Nunberg criticizes others might laud.

Although I personally am in complete agreement with the views expressed in this book, the author is in some ways doing exactly what he decries. By his shaking up words to see what pops out as a meaning or implication he is manipulating opinion to reflect his values by discrediting their current usage.

What difference is there in George Bush’s deliberate mispronunciation of the word nuclear in an attempt to sound like “plain folk” and Mr. Nunberg’s pointing out of the foible? Each man is manipulating opinion to their point of view.

In his introduction Mr. Nunberg makes very clear where he stands:
“If changes in words are often the sign of changes in values and attitudes, then we can deplore the first by way of condemning the second” Going Nucular Geoffrey Nunberg. pg.xv Pulbic Affairs. 2204-2005.

When reading these types of books I often wonder who they have been written for. Whether conservative or liberal in point of view they are not going to win any converts to their cause. Primarily they seem to just add more kindling to the bonfire of political discourse. Something new to inflame the invective of the opposition and fire up the believers.

Each new salvo serves to delineate divisions rather than restoring harmony. There comes a point when preaching to the converted stops serving any constructive purpose for society as a whole. No matter how valid or worthy the topic would not all of our intellectual energy be put to better use looking for ways in which to bridge gaps and not make them deeper?

I’m sure that when Mr. Nunberg wrote his columns, or when he compiled this book, he did so out of a genuine interest and passion for his topic. He could not write so thoughtfully and comprehensibly on this subject otherwise. Dealing with a subject that has the potential for the language of academia he is able to maintain a high level of accessibility without ever sounding condescending.

By never stooping to finger pointing or blaming, just describing and explaining, he manages to smooth the sharp edges from his criticism. He lightens the tone even further with his gentle wit. He comes across more like a kindly schoolmaster remonstrating with students than a political columnist.

As a person with a fascination with words and how they are used and abused(I’ve even written on the subject myself)I personally enjoyed reading Going Nucular and was in total agreement with all he said. On the other hand I’m sure that George Will and Rush Limbaugh would not share in my evaluation.

This book is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but even if you disagree with Mr. Nunberg’s evaluation of the results of what’s occurring with language, if you are interested in the evolution of word meaning and implication Going Nucular is worth picking up. Who knows, you may end up finding you have a word or two in common and it’s not too great a leap from there to a conversation.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:20 AM | Permalink

There are some days when you wonder if getting out of bed was such a wise idea. This morning I opened my email to find myself being accused of hatemongering in a comment left on one of my posts. Considering the source I should have just let it roll off my back, but those are the type of comments that really suck the soul right out of you. Thankfully an antidote had arrived in yesterday’s mail: Heartaches & Highways: The Very Best Of Emmylou Harris

It was early in the morning so not wishing to disturb anyone else I plopped the disc in my disc-man, covered my ears with headphones and immersed myself in the soothing sounds of soul restoring Emmylou. From the opening bars of her duet with Gram Parsons on “Love Hurts” to the final notes of the previously unreleased “Connection” this disc is an ideal tonic for a troubled heart.

Heartaches & Highways is a compilation of songs encompassing Emmylou Harris’ entire career. After Chris Hillman of Birds fame saw her singing in a folk club in New York city he hauled his old buddy Gram Parsons out to see her. One month latter Parsons was on the phone to her asking her to come out to L.A. to record and tour with him.

One year and two albums later Gram Parsons was dead. But those two albums gave her all the exposure she needed to launch a solo career. It’s only fitting that the second song of this retrospective, “Boulder to Birmingham” which she co-wrote with Bill Danoff, was in part an elegy to her former singing partner.

The disc takes us on a steady progression of highlights of her career. In the informative booklet that accompanies this collection Emmylou talks about the process she went through for selecting the songs.

“It was really like a jigsaw puzzle trying to figure out how to represent all of those phases...I started working on including songs that I thought were artistically important. But I am proud of the hits too...I wanted ... a combination of them, plus..(ones)..that were...pivotal, groundbreaking,...pointed the way”

It’s easy to forget the influence Emmylou has had on female vocalists, and country ones especially. While Kris Kristoferson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings were breaking free of the constraints of Nashville and crossing over into a more mainstream audience for the men, Emmylou was the forerunner for the women. She was even steps ahead of the men, releasing a version of “Pancho and Lefty” six years before either Willie Nelson or Merle Haggard turned it into a hit on her 1977 Luxury Liner release.

The songs she has chosen for this retrospective highlight her vocal versatility, from country crooning on “One Of These Days”, “Beneath Still Waters”(both previously recorded by the original bad boy of country music, George Jones) and “If I Could Only Win Your Love” to rocking pieces like Paul Kennerley’s “Born To Run”(don’t go digging out your Springsteen albums, it’s not the same song) on her Cimarron album and Delbert McClinton’s “Two More Bottles Of Wine”.

No compilation would be complete without the inclusion of Emmylou’s collaborations with other singers. From the soundtrack of the 1980 movie Roadie comes her duet with Roy Orbison on “That Lovin’ You Feelin’ Again” and the 1987 hit album Trio recorded with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt gives us the Phil Spector penned “To Know Him Is To Love Him”

As with any artist whose career has spanned decades, and this disc tries to cover thirty years of recordings, Emmylou has continued to evolve both as a singer and a songwriter. The final third of Heartaches & Highways is culled from her most recent years output. Whether her own “Michelangelo” or Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl” these songs show a willingness to experiment that is so often lacking in contemporary music. But the highlight from this period has to be her a cappella rendition of “Calling My Children Home”

Accompanied by her band at the time, The Nash Ramblers, this song was recorded live at The Ryman Theatre in Nashville. The six voices soar and rumble through the song. Emmylou’s voice like a bird amongst oak trees, flying in and out, occasionally perching, but always on the move and prominent. It was breathtaking.

I’m not a big fan of country music, with it’s artificial sentiment or new found glitz. But as in every genre there are artists who transcend their so called labels. Emmylou Harris’ voice has long distinguished her from the rest of the pack of female country vocalists. This retrospective pays proper homage to both her song writing abilities and the unique quality of her voice.

The booklet accompanying the disc is lacking in bibliographical material beyond what is applicable to the songs, and I would have enjoyed the inclusion of a lyric sheet. But with twenty songs that probably would have doubled the amount of pages and so was probably impractical.
She’s embarking on two tours this summer, one with Elvis Costello, and the other with Buddy Miller. Either one of these concerts is bound to be wonderful. You can get tour dates and listen to songs from Heartaches & Highways here.

The disc is available in stores now. If you don’t own any of her music this is the perfect addition to your collection. If you do, you may want to buy it anyway, just to have so many of her important songs collected in one place. Take my advice the next time your feeling a little down, put this disc on and plug into a better world.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:44 AM | Permalink

So Gary Trudeau is at it again. His comic strip Doonesbury has been pulled by twelve newspapers for having a caricature of George Bush referring Karl Rove as a “turd blossom.” I confess as to being uncertain which word it is that caused offence: turd because of it’s bathroom connotations, or blossom, because of feminine associations. Probably the latter because Rove sounds like the type who would welcome being called a shit, but would be offended by anything to do with femininity.

Whatever the reason it’s interesting to see that after years of quiet acceptance from all parties that Trudeau is getting to somebody again. Oh I’m sure people will dismiss it as “toilet humour” and in bad taste. It will have nothing to do with the fact that the administration is extremely sensitive about the behaviour of Karl Rove right now.

But in the past whenever Doonesbury has been either censured by vote in State houses or Senates, or pulled by newspapers, it’s because what he has been saying has been a little too close to the bone for most people. On three previous occasions that I can think of he has never been prosecuted for libel just had his strip either criticized or pulled. In our litigious society if they don’t sue there’s usually a good reason.

The main problem is that Mr. Trudeau has a nasty habit of telling the truth, even if it is unpleasant to some people’s ears. His first major conflict with newspaper editors was in the early 1970’s during the Watergate era. It was when the accusations against various Nixon administration officials were flying fast and furious.

Former Attorney General John Mitchell(the man who ordered the National Guard onto the grounds of Kent State University resulting in the death of four university students)who had overseen Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign was being investigated for all sorts of irregularities. In one strip Trudeau had a character rant repeatedly that Mitchell was guilty.

It was amazing how many people took a comic strip so seriously. Newspapers dropped it like a hot potato. Comments like “ It’s not the place of a comic strip to find a man guilty or innocent...” appeared in editorials through out the country in explanation of Doonsebury’ssudden disappearance from the daily funnies. The irony of course is that by censoring the cartoon they increased it’s impact and audience.

When a short time latter Mitchell was cut loose by the administration in an attempt to protect Nixon and other higher ups, and found guilty Trudeau and his comic strip were elevated to a status unprecedented for a cartoon strip. Only Pogo had ever managed to integrate political commentary into a daily comic strip with such effectiveness. But the little opossum and his buddies never reached the same level of popularity asDoonesbury

Nixon and Ford came and went and Jimmy Carter proved that Trudeau didn’t just target Republicans. Billy Carter was an irresistible target for every comedian and satirist in America at the time and he was no exception. But he didn’t find himself running afoul of the authorities until the next administration.

When Ronald Reagan was elected president he brought with him his associations with Hollywood personalities. One that stood out above others was Frank Sinatra. Regan went so far as to award him a Congressional Medal of Honour for his body of work.

Now there have always been rumours about Mr. Sinatra’s ties to certain criminal elements. From the novelGodfather with it’s character loosely based upon Sinatra, his associations with convicted mobsters, and his connections to the hierarchy in Las Vegas people have commented and speculated.

When that was combined with reports of Sinatra’s boorish behaviour at the time(trying to get a dealer at a casino fired because he was losing) Trudeau couldn’t resist. He ran a series of strips dealing with Frank’s supposed dealings with the mob.

While Sinatra’s own comments rivalled Hunter S. Thompson’s “I’ll rip his lungs out”(about the character Duke who’s name is derived from an alter ego used by Thompson occasionally and loosely based on Thompson) it was the response of legislators that was most over the top. How often are motions of censure proposed for a cartoonist?

Shortly after when another series ran critical of Elizabeth Taylor and her then husband Senator John Warner of Virginia motions were proposed in the Senate calling for Trudeau’s censure again. What’s interesting is that no one ever issued outright denials concerning the content of either the Sinatra or Taylor strips.

Well those halcyon days are past. How the mighty have fallen. Gary Trudeau must be wondering what has happened to the world. Has it grown that jaded that the worst that can happen to him now is that only twelve papers out of 1400 are editing or pulling a strip where he calls a senior official in the administration of the President of the United States a “turd blossom”

Maybe it’s because people have learned two things. Censoring a comic strip usually backfires, and ends up drawing more attention to the issue than did the original offending item. Secondly that in the past Trudeau’s assessments have turned out to be correct, and you just end up looking foolish.

Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury is a liberal cartoon that appeals to a specific audience. It’s not going to change anyone’s mind about any issue. Just as Rush Limbaugh appeals to conservatives and liberals don’t watch or listen to his show, anyone is free not to read Doonesbury.

People need to lighten up and not take it too seriously. I know I don’t take Rush seriously so why can’t they do the same with Trudeau? Could it be that he’s right? No it couldn’t be that.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:19 AM | Permalink

Maybe it’s an age thing, but I seem to be waxing nostalgic these days. It doesn’t even take that much to get me thinking through rose coloured glasses about things that happened twenty years ago or more. Today’s trigger was the weird juxtaposition of two articles in the entertainment section of the Globe And Mail newspaper.

The first was the announcement of the nominees for this years MTV Music Video Awards, the second was an account of this year’s Calgary Folk Festival. Going from the corporate speak of promoting the lifestyles of the rich and vacuous(descriptions of how attendees will be able to park their yachts at the hotel or how those arriving by car will be giving personalized tours of their vehicles made me realize once again how far popular music has descended into the corporate maw) to descriptions of workshops on how to play bluegrass mandolin is enough to give your brain whiplash.

I suppose this dichotomy has always existed, but for some reason it really struck home this year. It also made me think with longing of the days when I used to attend “The Mariposa Folk Festival” when it was located on the Toronto Islands. The Festival which
had it’s beginnings in Orillia Ontario moved down to Toronto in the sixties as the folk scene moved into full gear.

For those of you unfamiliar with Toronto a little background is probably in order. In the early sixties Toronto had it’s own little bohemian scene starting. Like a miniature Greenwich Village, Yorkville was a Mecca for artists, musicians, and writers. Cheap rents and some small cafes were the main drawing cards.

On a given night you could go down to the Riverboat coffee house and see Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, or any number of Canadian and American folk artists. This was the club where so many Canadian artists got their start.

At the time Toronto was just starting to wake up from it’s sleepy provincial status and explore being a “Big City” While Montreal may have had Leonard Cohen and a host of French language singers Toronto had Glenn Gould and “The Perth County Conspiracy”. While the former is well known the latter may need some explaining.

“The Perth County Conspiracy” was the musical wing of an artistic commune located between Toronto and Stratford Ontario in Southern Ontario. It’s members were actors at the Shakespearean festival in Stratford, artists, and a variety of others. They would swoop into Toronto and perform concerts and generally liven things up.

Many of their number were involved with the formation of the first of the small theatres that began to dot the landscape in Toronto in the late sixties and early seventies. Through their efforts, and others of like mind, was born what is now one of the largest theatre centres in North America.

About a mile south of Toronto in Lake Ontario lie the Toronto Islands. A sprawling mass of four interconnected island it has long been a summer escape from the heat for Torontonians. Four old fashioned fairy boats make the trip to and fro throughout the summer months carrying families to picnics and relaxation.

What better location could you think of for a folk festival than on an island amidst trees with a breeze off the lake to beat the summer heat? So from 1968 to 1979 this became the festival’s permanent home. By 1979 dwindling audiences and competition from other summer attractions spelt doom for the folk festival on the island. Since then there were times when it looked like the venerable lady would just fade away. But now she is safe and sound again back in her home town of Orillia.

From the onset the festival has had the goal of bringing folk music to the folk. Every year they have continued to expand on what defines “folk” music to include hip hop and forms of musical expression from all over the world. They have worked out a combination of main stage performances and workshops so as to entertain and educate.

Artists from genres ranging from blues to gospel, bluegrass to hip hop, and Inuit Throat singers have all led workshops in their specialty. With as many as eight stages going at once the hardest thing was trying to decide what to attend.

Although there was a firm commitment in the early days to stay away from big name acts the festival has featured performances from Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Joan Baez. At one point Bob Dylan showed up, not to perform, but to simply watch. The crowd control problems caused by these events resulted in the return to a stricter commitment to education and less main stream performers.

By the time I attended my first festival in 1978 the stay on the island was in it’s last days. But even than it was still drawing people like Leon Redbone, Steve Goodman, and John Prine as performers and workshop leaders. Memories of those two July weekends are ones that I will always cherish.

Sunday morning gospel with the “Zion Harmonisers” from New Orleans and the sound man ripping off his headphones in amazement at the bass note throbbing in his ears from just a voice; sitting in the shade of a tree listening to five mandolins trading licks during a bluegrass workshop; Leon Redbone wandering around in his white jacket and hat, plastic cup full of bourbon looking at peace with the world; my one and only time watching Steve Goodman perform his song City of New Orleans; the walk back to the ferry docks where Morris Dancers entertained us as we awaited the trip back to the city; and that final boat ride across twilight still waters, serene reminder of a peaceful weekend.

I haven’t been to a Folk Festival since. After 1979 when Mariposa left the islands and moved into the city it just didn’t seem the same anymore. Than there just never seemed to be the time for a number of years even when the venues started to become a little more attractive then bars and pubs. Now with her located out in Orillia again the likelihood of ever going back is slim.
A younger musician friend of mine went this year and came back enthusing over everything. There were performances by Gordon Lightfoot(still going after almost dieing on stage from a stomach aneurism a few years ago)and newer Canadian and world folk artists like Sarah Harmer and Harry Manx. Aside from a stronger emphasise on concerts, it sounded not much different than the festival I had attended almost thirty years ago.

Sometimes memories and nostalgia discolour realities and distort the true image of the past. Other times they bring a sense of comfort into a world that sometimes seems less and less comprehensible. The two years 1978 and 1979 were not particularly good ones in my life for a lot of reasons, which only places the idyllic memories in even starker relief.

I have no illusions about those days being any better or worse than today, which in my mind gives my remembrances of Mariposa all the more potency. Even if those weren’t the good old days, there were some damn good days.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:16 AM | Permalink

Nearly thirty years ago a leader of a country that had been at war for the previous thirty years took the courageous stand of extending his hand in peace. That he was Anwar Sadat of Egypt and the person he extended his hand to was Menachem Begin the Prime Minister of Israel made it all the more courageous.

For the first time since the formation of the state of Israel a peace treaty between them and an Arab nation existed. One of the five countries that had sworn to drive them into the sea had reversed their stand and opened the door to the possibility of peace for the region. While there can be doubt that for both parties this involved an immense leap of faith, Anwar Sadat was stepping the furthest into uncharted territory.

Just five years after the Yom Kippur war in which Israel had once again fought off a determined attempt to conquer their land by their neighbours, neither side could be blamed for mistrusting the other. But Egypt was truly on their own in this foray. Perhaps they had tacit understanding from Jordan, but publicly every other Arab League nation condemned them as traitors.

We may never know what truly prompted Sadat’s change of heart. Probably it was a combination of realizing how crippling continuous warfare was becoming, the need to establish better relationships with the U. S., and perhaps a little of “if you can’t beat them join”. Whatever the motivations the fact remains that from that moment on they have been the one guaranteed not openly hostile Arab country within the region towards Western and Israeli interests.

Certainly there have been falling outs at times, disagreements that have threatened the fragile peace, but it has never collapsed in spite of pressures on the Egyptians from countless sources. Even the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Islamic fundamentalists did nothing to shake their resolution.

Egypt has a long history of being a secular nation, and there in perhaps lies some of the answer to the desire for peace. Even prior to the signing of the Camp David Accord in March of 1979 they had experienced outbreaks of violence similar to those that ended up toppling the Shah of Iran in 1980.

By expanding the economic opportunities available to his country through peace with the U.S. and Israel Sadat may have hopped to improve the lot of his people. The fewer people who were discontent the less chance the fundamentalists would have of whipping up discord. There is also no doubt that he clamped down very hard on those sects advocating violence against Israel and in doing so probably sealed his own doom.

President Mubahrek has continued this hard line against fundamentalists while working to build on the peace process started by his predecessor. He walks the tightrope between keeping his Arab allies happy and maintaining ties with both Israel and the U.S. He was a key player in prodding the Palestinian leadership away from terrorism and into recognising the right of Israel to exist as a nation.

His ability to do nothing and keep his Arab allies in check has prevented escalations of retaliatory actions. His refusal to allow the fundamentalists any sort of toehold within his country, mainly due to self interest, has served as a bulwark for the region against the more radical elements.

Mubahrek and his government have been fighting the war on terrorism long before George Bush thought of it. Next to Israel they have been the favourite targets of suicide bombers and other acts of terror. For more then a quarter of a century they have been under these attacks and have not once wavered in their commitment to the peace process.

Hundreds, thousands even, of civilians have been killed. The armed forces and the police devout themselves to the prevention of attacks and rounding up potential threats. But what recognition do they ever receive from the west?

During the last two weeks bombs have exploded in both London and Egypt. When the bombs went off in London we were inundated with pictures and stories. The brave Londoners carry on with business as usual; personal stories of some of the victims; statements of outrage; and avowals of revenge.

When the bomb went off in Egypt killing eighty eight people and injuring hundreds more we got the story. Nothing else. To their credit George Bush and Tony Blair’s government both issued statements of support and condolence. No other world leaders said a word. No condolences, no personal stories, no guarantees of support. Nothing but silence.

It was the same people doing the bombing, or at least people with the same motivations and interests. Yet it was treated as having nothing to do with us. Egypt has been on the front lines of the war against terror for twenty five years and nobody acts as if it matters.

If you were an Egyptian and compared the reactions of the Western press and leadership to the bombings of London and the most recent killings in Egypt how would you be feeling right about now? I think I would be pretty pissed off. It smacks of indifference of the worse kind.

I don’t believe in coincidences. The people behind both bombings knew what the reactions would be like and they’ll use it against us. “Look, why are you doing anything for them, they don’t care about you” they’ll say. They’re is already enough distrust for us in the Middle East that it wouldn’t take much turn more people against the West.

Anger and emotions are dangerous and easy to manipulate. There will be enough people willing to listen to that kind of talk that it is dangerous for us to take it for granted. The Egyptian government has a hard enough time as it is without us compounding their difficulties by giving short shrift to attacks on their people.

While Tony Blair may be George Bush’s buddy in the occupation of Iraq and he feels obligated to make a big display over the terrorist actions in London(as well he should)Egypt has been working for peace in the Middle East for close to thirty years. They have been on the receiving end of countless acts of terrorism including the assassination of their leader. Hasn’t that earned them some sort of standing in our eyes?

Without Egypt the Middle East would be in a lot worse shape than it is now. Our reaction, governments, press, and individuals, to the events of the past week there have been shameful. We can not continue to display indifference to our allies in the Muslim world. That just plays into the hands of the terrorists.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:17 AM | Permalink

While I wait for my copy of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince to be delivered I have had plenty of opportunity to witness the reactions of a variety of people to the phenomenon that is Harry.(No this is not a week late in being posted: I’m a weird bibliophile and have ordered my copy from Bloomsbury Books in England. I prefer their publications, the binding is better and the paper is higher quality)From the new pope’s condemnation, (if he can’t tell that this book teaches between right and wrong it certainly explains a lot of the Catholic Church’s moral stands)to treatises on declining sales of books written for adults.

It’s funny how the publication of a new Harry Potter always brings about soul searching on the part of so called serious writers. They ponder and pontificate about the state of the novel, and how sales are down with a few obvious exceptions. Like Hollywood moguls discussing diminishing box office returns they comment on the new competition for the entertainment dollar and other societal factors. But they all seem to be ignoring a key factor in their considerations. People don’t buy what they don’t like.

After reading one heart rending article by a writer wondering what would happen to his books about urban life, they sounded sort of like field guides to thirty some things of the eastern sea board, I began to wonder if the problem wasn’t with the public but with the people producing the product.

A new hardcover book in Canada will set you back $40.00 with %7 tax. Even a mass market paper back can be as high as $9.99 plus tax. That’s quite an investment to ask anybody to make. To ask them to make it on the speculation that they might like what’s being sold is quite the risk.

The number of times that I’ve dished out thirty to forty dollars and been disappointed is probably equal to the times I’ve been satisfied. I hate to say it but invariably the books that seem to fall well below my expectations are those most heavily touted by critics, or the ones on everyone’s best seller lists. Very rarely now will I go out and buy a book on the recommendation of something I’ve read about in anybody’s book section.

I usually end up trolling through the aisles seeing if anything rises to the surface and takes my hook. A cover, or even a flash of colour from a cover, catches my eye. I’ll scan the back or the fly leaf, look at the author’s picture(many the time a book has been rejected because I’ve taken an instant dislike to the author because of their picture)and a quick scan through the book in an attempt to discern style.

Far too many writers seem to be under the impression that the more oblique their writing the better. As if incomprehensibility is something to be achieved. Any book that makes vague promises about structure and perception is rejected almost immediately. I don’t need to read any more books about three generations of poor Irish farmers told in a stream of conscience from the cow’s point of view.

Why does everybody thing they are either the new James Joyce or Virginia Wolfe? This whole post modernist deconstruction of the novel has gotten tired. It had very little appeal to most people in the first place. It always seemed like an in joke for tenured English Professors anyway. Now it’s just boring.

The books I find myself being attracted to are the ones which promise the best stories. For me that is a combination of the events portrayed and the characters who are propelled through them. I’m not looking for so called realism or escapism, although they might be considered both. Real characters in unreal situations makes as fine a story as any you’d read anywhere.

If you look back on the original purpose for story telling it was primarily educational. Sitting around the fire at night the story teller would pass on the information that was important to the tribe. They would tell the stories of their history, the beliefs, and that exemplified the qualities needed to lead a good life.

Story tellers seem to have been universally important throughout our history. Repositories of wisdom and information they were held in high esteem and excused from all other tribal responsibilities. I seriously doubt they would have offered up a post modern analysis deconstruction of that day’s hunt to the assembled folk around the fire.

People want to hear stories, or read them. The problem is that very few writers seem to know how to tell a story well anymore. The only ones who do nowadays are primarily thrown into the science fiction of fantasy category. Not that very many of them have anything to do with space or even science, nor do they deal with the elves and little people’s associated with fantasy.

“Real Novelists” seem to look down on their story telling contemporaries. They are not allowed to share shelve space with them, as if they had some sort of disease. But if they ever got off their high horse long enough to check out their neighbours they would discover something. That these are the people who are recreating the story teller role in our world.

These books sell because they strike a chord with their audience. The more universal the chord the more they sell. While it’s easy to dismiss these books as “light fiction” or other pejorative labels, it’s not as easy to deny their success.

Why would so many adults of all backgrounds read the Harry Potter books if there wasn’t something in them that was missing from so called serious novels? Sure they are escapist to some extent, but so are a lot of things which don’t attract that large an audience. It wouldn’t be because they are well written and talk about things which we can all identify with would it?

Novelists need to look at themselves and what they are writing if they want to answer the question of why aren’t we selling books. Sure there might be more competition for the entertainment dollar these days then before, but as J. K. Rowling has proved, if you write it(a good story)they will read.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:00 AM | Permalink

Four Fifths of The Band: Richard Manuel(sitting)Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, and Levon Helm.

It’s funny how time flies even when your not having as much fun as you’d like. My wife brought me home a present last night, a copy of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz. I flipped over the DVD cover to check out the rest of the package and saw the date: 1978, 27 years ago.

I guess somewhere in my mind I knew that it had to be that long ago, but it was still shocking to do the math. I still think of “The Band” as one of my favourite groups and to realize that they had stopped officially playing that long ago sort of took me by surprise.

You see that was the premise of The Last Waltz. The guys were burning out from being on the road for close to twenty years and this was going to be their final hurrah. They had started playing back in the late fifties with Ronnie Hawkins at the old Nickelodeon bar on Yonge St. in Toronto. Four Canadian kids, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel plus one Arkansas ex patriot Levon Helm.

They had been promised not much money but “more pussy than Frank Sinatra” by Romping Ronnie as enticement for playing in the juke joints of Ontario and New York. Initially they were called the Hawks as have been all bands ever since that play with Ronnie, but that was changed to “The Band” when they began playing with Bob Dylan in 1965.

They called themselves that because that’s what they were, the band that played behind the front man. They went from being Ronnie’s band to Dylan’s band. Robbie was the lead guitar player, Rick bassist, Garth was on organ, Richard Manuel piano, and Levon Helm drums.

They were the band on Bob Dylan’s infamous 1965 tour where he was booed off stages across England and North America for plugging in a electric guitar. (a person I know who was at that Newport Folk Festival in 65, says the problem wasn’t that the people didn’t like the music, but the sound system was so bad that those not sitting in the first two rows only heard a garbled mess of noise) Here they were on their first big break playing for more than drunks in bars and they were getting booed at every show.

It’s funny how we now think of albums like Highway 61 Revisited as classic, but it was the material from that album that was the cause of all the fuss. People wouldn’t even listen they were so irate. It seems the only good that came out of that British tour, if rumours are to be believed, was Dylan smoking up with The Beetles.

It was on their return to the States that The Band first began recording their own material. Part of the reason being that after Dylan nearly killed himself in a motorcycle accident he went into seclusion and they were at loose ends. It has been suggested that perhaps the accident was not nearly as severe as has been thought but he played it up to get away from the madness that had been spawned by him going electric.

No matter what the reason they were without a front man for the first time since they began playing together. As accomplished musicians they must have always felt some desire to “do their own thing” but the opportunity had never been there until now.

So they rented this funny pink house up in Woodstock New York and the rest, as they say, is history. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “The Weight”, “Crippled Creek” and other classic rock tunes were written in that house. Dylan joined them and the resulting tapes were bootlegged for a while, than they edited them up and released them as the great Bob Dylan and The Band double album The Basement Tapes.

Interestingly enough that was one of only two albums ever officially released as Bob Dylan and The Band, the other being a double live album featuring one disc of The Band and one of them backing up Dylan. They wouldn’t appear in public together again until The Last Waltz.

That’s what the concert and the movie were about after all. A chance for them to get together with people they played with and some of the friends they had made over the years. Sing a few songs, and be “The Band” for some famous front people one last time before packing it in and going their separate ways.

From their very beginnings there was Ronnie Hawkins clutching his heart and bouncing around the stage. Joni Mitchell elegant and cool, singing on her own, and than sitting backstage harmonizing with Neil Young on “Helpless”. The sound of his eerie falsetto and her soprano mingling as they sing about Northern Ontario still sends shivers up my spine.

There are moments of absurdity: Neil Diamond looking like some lounge lizard who got lost on his way to Las Vegas, and moments of awe: Muddy Watters singing “Mannish Boy”, Eric Clapton’s famously starting a guitar solo and his strap breaks and Robbie Robertson picks up the solo without missing a note. But no matter who’s playing in front of them “The Band” relentlessly proves they were the best at what they did.

On occasion Scorsese takes the cameras away from the live concert and onto a sound stage. Emmylou Harris joins the boys to sing “Evangeline”, her sweet voice providing a delicate counterpoint to Rick Danko’s gravel. “The Weight” becomes the gospel tune it was always meant to be when The Staple Singers bring their soulful presence to bear and let their voices soar.

Back on stage things are starting to draw to a close with Bob Dylan making his long awaited appearance. Looking relaxed and at ease he runs through “Forever Young’ smiling and nodding at people in the audience who he knows. Then suddenly it’s over. Everyone comes on stage, with Ringo and Ron Wood putting in appearances to help out, they join together to sing Dylan’s anthem “I Shall Be Released.”

“The Band” was definitely a group that was the sum of all it’s parts. Of all of them only Robbie Robertson has enjoyed the kind of success as an individual performer that he did as a member of the group. Richard Manuel ended up committing suicide because of depression, assumed to have been brought on by the dissolution of his career. Every so often some of the survivors attempt to reform for a gig or two, but usually it’s without Robbie Robertson.

This has to be one of the best concert movies I have ever seen. One thing that was of interest for me was that the last time I saw the movie Woodstock I happened to notice the name of the 1st assistant director; Martin Scorcese. He seems to have a history of being involved with notable concert films.

In September of this year on P.B.S. his three hour plus documentary on Bob Dylan will be airing. Interestingly enough it focuses on the years 1961- 1965. So we will get to see footage of “The Band” hard at work doing what they became famous for. Making others look good.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:39 PM | Permalink

There’s a lot of things that most of us take for granted. The eight hour working day, child labour laws, overtime and workplace safety. But if you were to leave North America you would find that outside of western Europe and one or two other countries we are the exception not the rule.

”Where do you think these came from... generous and benevolent bosses?... Utah Phillips Fellow Workers

In Canada, United States, and Europe the last couple of decades of the 19th century marked the real shift in economic life from agrarian to mass industry. The process had started before that, but it wasn’t until after the American Civil War that it really began to flourish. This was the time which saw the formation of most of the countries of Europe as we know them today, and the first real period of extended peace for most of the industrial world.

The invention of the steam engine had made the Atlantic crossing easier and international markets more accessible. When it was combined with the proliferation of rail across the United States and Canada the domestic markets were now only days apart. For the United States the timing couldn’t have been better.

The Civil War had devastated the country in a lot of ways, but it had also hastened it’s industrialisation. Both sides had utilized the new technologies available during the war for the production of arms, the movement of troops, and for battles on the water. Rail lines had been laid for troops which now could be used for shipping, and the steel hulled battleships had proved effective enough that steam and steel would soon be replacing wind and wood in the shipping industry.

But the work was dangerous and dirty. There were no rules governing how an employer treated the workers under his control. In a lot of cases conditions and jobs were little less then indentured slavery.

Small children were employed to go into the mines which were too tight for full grown men. If you got sick you lost your job. If you were injured working you were doomed. There wasn’t even any guarantee that you’d get paid. Sometimes if you were unlucky enough you could end up owing your employer money.

If they supplied you with a shack to live in and gruel twice a day it would be docked from you wages. If you were being paid on a quota system and for some reason, anything form equipment failure or bad weather, you fell short of your mark you wouldn’t get your full pay and couldn’t cover the cost of your board. It could take a person months to work out from under that debt. If you didn’t pay you could get arrested.

It was against this background that the first unions were formed. These weren’t like the unions we know today where the heads look and talk just like the head of corporations. They hadn’t gone to school and studied management techniques, they were coal miners and lumber “beasts”(so called because in those days they didn’t have cabins they just slept on the floors of the forests like the beasts of the woods)factory workers and stevedores.

They were people who were tired of risking death every time they went to work, who wanted to be paid fair value for their labour, who wanted a future for their children, and wanted to do more than just work all day long. They wanted quality of life, they wanted bread and roses.

Of course the heroes of American industry, Rockafeller, Carnegie, and the rest of the “Robber Barons” as they came to be known were not all that keen on sharing the pie with others. They used every means at their disposal in an effort to keep the workers under their thumbs. If you thought that modern day corporations have the ear of the governments, well it’s nothing to what it was like back then.

In Colorado the state legislature had passed a law guaranteeing an eight hour work day for the coal miners. But it turned out to be one thing to pass the law and another to enforce it. When the mines owned by Rockafeller refused to comply the state government did nothing.

When the unions went on strike to try and make the companies obey the law, the militia was sent out to bust up the strike. Not by the government but by Rockafeller who owned the state militia. The unions were fighting against a deck that was heavily stacked against them.

Pinkerton’s security was created as a private police force by Rockafeller for the sole purpose of violence against the unions. They would beat up organizers, burn down the homes of striking miners, and shoot striking workers. If the unions fought back at all, or a Pinkerton’s man was hurt in retaliation, they would be arrested. But the Pinkerton’s men were allowed to get away with murder, literally.

To prevent organizers from speaking in public, ordinances would be passed prohibiting free speech. Any time someone would get up to talk about workers rights he or she would be arrested. When one town tried this the union got together 4,000 workers, some who could speak no other English than “My fellow workers”, and had them all try and give a speech. After they were all arrested the people of the town refused to pay to feed all of them in the variety of jails that had to be created, and the law was repealed.

In spite of the heavy odds against them the unions fought on and through sheer perseverance and numbers they began to win their fights. In the end it would usually come down to the bosses realizing that paying the workers a little more, and working them a little less was still more profitable then not having them work at all.

These brave men and women who fought and died so that people who work in factories today are safe and paid fair value for their labour are largely ignored by the histories of our countries. If they are mentioned it’s only as dangerous people who precipitated acts of violence like the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 which descended into a riot when the mounted police were ordered to disperse the marchers.

We write up and idealize the men who tried desperately to ensure that people would be treated like cattle and slaves with no rights and dignity. Even the term “Robber Barron” is used in affection. They’ve left tokens of their benevolence bearing their names for posterity: Carnegie Hall, The Rockefeller Centre and so on.

Edifices that were paid for with the blood and sweat of thousands of men and women who died from black lung and exhaustion in their twenties, from inhaling the dust in the weaving mills, and being shot on the picket line. These aren’t places of culture and beauty, they are tombs to the unknown soldiers in the wars for the rights of workers.

Maybe unions aren’t what they used to be. Maybe some of them are now as corporate and corrupt as the people they are supposed to be fighting. Some of them are probably even in cahoots with management to swindle the people they supposedly represent. But don’t let that diminish the work of their predecessors.

The next time you hear some corporate type slamming a union for forcing him to close his plant, or Wal Mart closes a store rather than let it’s employees unionize. Ask yourself what are they trying to deny the people who work for them. More and more the workers in North America are facing the real threat of seeing their jobs disappear out form under them as corporations close factories and reopen them where there are no laws governing their behaviour.

Unions are still being made out to be the bad guys just as they were a hundred years ago. Take a look at what was happening then and tell me who was the bad guy. Maybe we should be asking the same questions about today’s circumstances. Too many times unions have given concessions on salary in exchange for job security only to see the factory closed and the jobs moved anyway.

A fifty something year old person who has worked in the same factory for most of their life facing the prospect of starting all over again has entered into a personal version of hell. Most of these new jobs being created pay far less than what they had previously made and are primarily in fields in which they have no experience.

Since no one else seems to care about them or their situation it is falling once again to the unions to fight for the rights of workers who are being tossed aside like dead wood. What’s so villainous about trying to guarantee security for people who have worked hard all their lives? Isn’t there some possibility that the blame could lie with those closing the factories? Think about it.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:25 AM | Permalink

You are paralysed from the neck down. Your mind is filled with the agony of half alive nerves screaming in their attempts to work. You have no control over any of your bodily functions so you are constantly filling the diaper you wear and smell like shit to yourself. There’s a feeding tube stuck down your mouth and oxygen going up your nose.

You sit tied into a wheel chair otherwise you and all your wires would slide onto the floor. You are kept in a semi coma state from the amount of pain medication prescribed. You sit in your chair and drool. As you retain control over your face muscles occasionally you’ll exert the effort to suck it back into your mouth. You call that exercise.

Any time you receive a visitor you sit and stare at each other. You look into their eyes and see your agony reflected back at you. You know they are suffering in their own way just as much as you are. You love them and want to help.

When a doctor deigns to come look at you inevitably he will let you know what a miracle it is that you are alive. If it wasn’t for the latest in technology there would be no means of keeping you here. You want to curse the person who invented the stuff but the effort is too much.

The nurse comes in three times a day to change your diaper, check your feeding and breathing tubes, and makes sure all your wires are properly connected. They wouldn’t want anything going wrong now would they? The easiest way to change your diaper is to run a hoist under your armpits and lift you out of the chair to dangle in mid air. They check on the catheter attached to your penis, and clean up the excrement that has puddled in the seat because the diaper doesn’t completely keep everything in.

The two things you can still do are feel pain and embarrassment. Even though the nerves can’t send a signal through the mess of your spinal column strong enough for even the smallest of involuntary twitches they still feel pain. Damaged nerves cause an increase in pain because of their efforts to work. Like a signal from a broken amplifier the harder they work the greater the distortion, or in your case the pain.

Sometimes as you hang twisting slightly in the harness and listen to the nurses talk about you and their lives as if you were not there. Which of course your not really. You feel like a side of beef anyway, waiting on its hook to be hauled into the next phase of slaughtering.

How “there” can you be if all you can do is drift in and out as the ear in a conversation? You have no response to make save for staring at the other’s face. Sometimes you are able to manage a gurgle that could be taken as an affirmative or a negative. No one is quite sure.

You try to remember whether you had said to anyone what to do if this ever happened. Hadn’t you said something about a non resuscitation order. But the doctor’s had explained to you, in one of your lucid moments, that it only applies to a person in your situation if you were to stop breathing. All this gear was post-operative, you have yet to stop breathing, have heart failure, or experience anything that would hasten your demise. What all that means is that anybody who unplugs anything could be charged with murder.

If you could laugh you would. Murder. Of what? Murder implies that there is a life to be taken. Slabs of meat waiting for butchering don’t have much of a life. Hell at least they have the benefit of being life giving. You just feel soul destroying

Your own soul dies a little more each time someone sees you for the first time. You see their pity, fear, and revulsion staring into your face from their eyes Why is this alive?

The ones you love and who love you wither and harden like pieces of dried fruit baked in the sun. They feel guilty because they can’t love you like this; they barely even know you. Once by accident, some happened to be visiting when a doctor stuck his nose in. They gathered in a corner whispering, the doctor shaking his head emphatically over and over again.

When he finally escaped their circle he fled less they corner him again. Someone standing behind your chair mutters under her breath: “It would be a mercy” You want to turn around and shout out yes, but of course you can’t. You stare at the wall and suck in some drool.

Currently the state of Oregon in the only locale in North America that has a form of “right to die” legislation. George Bush’s administration is seeking to overturn that law in the Supreme Court and have filed suit already. This should come as no surprise after their efforts to intercede in the Shiavo case.

What is surprising is how someone who boasts of how many people he had executed while governor of Texas can justify denying anyone the right to die. But he’s just a reflection of the double standard that’s so prevalent today when it comes to so called “moral” issues.

People who have no problem supporting or ordering the deaths of thousands of other people through the deployment of high explosives and weapons quail at the thought of someone choosing to die with dignity. They call it murder. Those who are proponents of allowing people escape from their suffering are considered not to far from being murderers.

In Canada where suicide is legal a man who was still able to control his own destiny took his own life by pushing his head into a plastic bag until he suffocated. He had previously phoned the police to notify them of his intentions, so that none of his family could be implicated. He also decided to use himself to publicize the issue, and to let the world know that if it were allowed he would have preferred to wait a little longer.

But doing so would have left his family open to murder charges because they would have had to assist him. As it was his family had the legal obligation to call an ambulance after his suicide attempt, or they could have been charged with being accessories after the fact.

The horrors that family must have gone through waiting for the ambulance to show. Hoping and praying their loved one would be sufficiently gone so that resuscitation would be impossible. Can you imagine their agony of having to relive all of this again in if he had survived?

As a society it is time for us to grow up when it comes to dealing with the terminally ill. Not only do we let them suffer needlessly by not providing adequate pain medication we force them to stay around long after they have any desire to be here.

After life what greater gift can we give our loved ones than an easy death? What right do we have to deny their desire to end their suffering? If we claim to have any compassion as a people we would find a solution to this problem. Isn’t there enough pain in the world as it is without us denying succour to those most in need?

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:31 AM | Permalink

When I first started blogging I had in mind doing a weekly bit on the environment. I even got as far as giving it the catchy, to my ear anyway, title of Enemies of the Environment. Just jumps out and grabs you doesn’t it?

I would pick some business or product to write about each week and point all the ways it was harmful to health of the planet. After two weeks of this it dawned on me that everything I was going to write about had one key element in common. It’s obvious isn’t it. I mean if George Bush can spot it why couldn’t I have?

Oh well as Hunter S. Thompson used to say in reference to Hubert Humphrey: “Even a blind pig will find an acorn once in a while” So it is with our George. As he so succinctly admitted a week or so ago, human’s cause pollution.

What’s the use of itemizing all the different ways in which we do pollute the world if we’re not willing to step up and admit that without us around there would be none of the current worries about global warming, water pollution, air pollution, deforestation, loss of animal habitat and so on. Every single environmental problem on the face of the earth can easily be linked back to something we’ve done or are doing.

Sure there have been attempts to deflect the blame on to others. Ronald Regan referred to fallen leaves as pollutants, but since he also considered ketchup and relish as vegetables he’s probably not the most reliable of sources. But when you come right down to it, who else is there.

Who else pours goodness knows how many tons of carbon dioxide into the air from internal combustion engines, coal burning electrical plants, and the smokestacks of thousands of businesses world wide? Who else dumps massive amounts of raw sewage, chemicals, insecticides, fertilizers, and whatever else comes to hand into the rivers and oceans?

Is there any other creature on the face of the earth who will wantonly destroy whole forests to create grazing land for a fast food companie’s cattle? Does anybody know of one other species who will poison their own food supply by feeding herbivores the brains of another animal or growth hormones?

What kind of a species are we that we think nothing of a company spending millions of dollars to invent pills that will make it easier for men to get an erection and women to increase their fertility when our population has become so huge that we are running out of room to put them all. Even our self culling projects like war and genocide can’t keep up with our rate of reproduction.

Well part of the answer is: dreadfully selfish. When that is combined with short sighted, impatient and greedy everything becomes easier to understand. All of our decisions are made on the premise of providing a quick bang for the buck with no thought of any long term consequences. Not only do we have no regard for any of the species we share the planet with, but we ignore the peril we leave for our future generations.

The impression I have(I’ve been known to be wrong before, but this time if I am it will make me feel good)is that everyone of the world’s major religions condones this attitude, either by implication or directly. All the children of Adam and Eve were given dominion over the natural world. Most Christians, Muslims, and Jews have over the years taken this as carte blanche for doing what ever they want with the resources at hand.

While the Buddha may have sat perfectly still out of reverence for all life; not wanting to risk treading on even one ant, the indifference practiced by those seeking reincarnation out of this plane amounts to benign neglect. What do you care really what happens here on earth if your trying to leave?

Take a careful look at a bonsai tree or a Zen garden sometime. If that isn’t a denial of nature’s spontaneity and wildness what is? The expression of domination comes in all shapes and sizes, but the end result is still the same. Destruction of all that isn’t is human.

When man was just another species fighting for survival alongside everyone else we considered ourselves no better or worse than those we depended on for existence. Whether hunter gatherers or farming communities the impact we effected on the world was reflected in the laws governing society. Who was hunted and how planting was done were controlled by the need to ensure the requirements of tomorrow’s generations as well as the present.

Fields were allowed to go fallow so that soil could regenerate. Certain animals were not hunted during their breeding seasons, and pregnant females were spared to ensure continuation of the food supply. The relationship between man and nature was considered a partnership. The latter provided us with the means of survival so we treated her with respect and honour.

With each advancement in science, with each step on the road of civilization, we have distanced ourselves from the means of obtaining food and living in partnership with world around us. The words: “A boon for all mankind” have become five of the most dangerous words in their connotations for every other species.

When have we ever considered the effect of our actions on the rest of the world’s life forms? Hell some of the time we don’t even stop to consider their effect on ourselves. So many pharmaceutical companies rush drugs onto the market without considering complications that can occur even five years down the road. How can they without waiting to see what happens to someone who takes it for five years?

Hypothesis, precedent, and good intentions can only guarantee so much before it all becomes guess work. It’s probably expecting too much of a species that doesn’t even care enough about itself to demand safety measures for it’s own good to care about those they feel superior to.

Each new “boon” comes with a price. Usually revolving around what do we do with the waste once we are done with it. Nuclear energy, p.c.b.s used as coolants, mercury used in the manufacture of paper, and pesticides to name a few all hang around long after they’ve done their job in one form of another.

Our world is only so big, it can only take being treated with no consideration for so long. I’m not suggesting a return to the stone age, or giving up on our technology, but we have to stop thinking of ourselves only. We need to remember that no matter how far we travel in our technological advances we are still dependant on the good health of the world we live in.

Food, water, and oxygen have not changed all that much from 10,000 years ago. Only the way we treat it. If we want to keep enjoying them maybe we should start considering what boons we can grant them.

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:49 PM | Permalink

For the past couple of years my wife and I have been unable to share a bedroom. Due to both of us having a variety of health issues are sleeping patterns are such that it would be torture for anyone sharing a bed with either one of us. As a loving husband I thought it my duty to ensure her some sort of compensation for her loss of companionship.

On the outer side of my bedroom door, which when placed on a particular angle she can look at from her bed, is a large full colour poster of Johnny Depp in complete Captain Jack pirate regalia. Each night as I go to bed I have the reassurance of knowing that someone is looking out for my wife. She of course gets to fall into dreams of dashing pirate’s whisking her away on adventures.

Johnny Depp is one of the few actors around who could have rescued a mediocre Disney movie like Pirates of the Caribbean through the strength of performance and personality alone. Like Viggo Mortensen in Hidalgo, without him it would have just been another formulaic flick that had no reason for existence save making Disney a few more bucks. I still wish I could have seen the frozen grins on executive’s faces when they saw the first dailies of good old Jack. Oh to have been a fly on the wall that day!

Some people may not be able to appreciate the good Captain properly so maybe a little history lesson is in order. If you go back in time about twenty five years ago to the end of the eighties and earlier, to the first days of Fox’s intrusion onto the public airways you’ll remember, or not, the teen hit Twenty-One Jump Street. Young hip cops infiltrating high schools to break up trouble.

Sort of a Just Say No to Drugs version of the Mod Squad it featured a very young Johnny Depp in the lead role. He was being moulded into a forerunner of Jason Priestly and Luke Perry by producers desperate for the publicity a teen idol can generate. Covers of “Tiger Beat” and “Teen” featured his brooding face for the run of the show as they tried to define his career for him.

But in 1990 he took the step that would set him irrevocably down a path from which there would be no return. He took a roll in the John Waters movie Cry Baby satirizing the very pretty boy-tough guy image that the studios had made for him. Once you play opposite Divine there’s no going back. There would be no more “Tiger Beat” covers for Johnny.

After a couple of roles in The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise he was again in the spotlight for his first teaming with Tim Burton in Edward Scissorhands. His depiction of the strange puppet creation of Vincent Price marked the beginning of what has become the distinguishing mark of his career: the ability to make the outlandish outsider sympathetic and acceptable in our eyes.

No matter the character, no matter the situation, there is never the slightest hint of him stepping out of the role to share a wink with the audience at the expense of his creation. There is a feeling that Mr. Depp would, if the opportunity presented itself, upon meeting these people on the street, treat them with the utmost respect and deference. This turns what could have been a caricature into a human being.

If verification of this is wanted one only need look to the time he portrayed a real person in Blow. Our stereotyped vision of what a big time cocaine dealer is supposed to be like is dealt a severe blow in Johnny’s powerful portrayal of George Jung. He takes us behind the facade of wealth and parties, pretty woman and luxuries that the script depicts.

In the hands of a lesser actor this could have been just a tamer version of Scarface. Drug lord starts out, drug lord makes big, drug lord falls. Instead we see the human being behind the shades. As the realization sets in that his marriage is a loveless as his parent’s was, and all the money and power won’t change that, we see something wither in his eyes.

In an interview included on the DVD version of Blow Jung talks about seeing himself warts and all on the screen. He thanked Johnny for not glamorising the life, and for having the integrity to not judge while depicting him, but just playing it straight. The audience are left to make their own decision based on Johnny’s abilities as an actor.

Someone once said of Gene Hackman that no matter what kind of creep he was playing in a movie he would always find a way to love his character. This ability allows him to offer the most honest of portrayals possible. Johnny takes this trait and adds the caveat of “there but for the grace of God go I”. With the possible exception of Edward (and even there maybe) his characters all suggest the potential exists for any of us to have turned out the same given the circumstances.

When we saw Pirates of the Caribbean in the theatre two summers ago and Johnny Depp made his first appearance on screen my wife’s voice could be heard ringing out across the audience: “Holly F...” The titters of laughter that echoed in response was more than enough to signify that he still maintains the ability to turn heads with his looks and magnetism.

But unlike others he resisted the temptation of the easy route of becoming a “star” Ironically it was this very refusal that has led to him becoming one of today’s more celebrated actors. As his depiction of J. M. Barrie in Finding Neverland proves he does need the outlandish to create a unique individual. Even more unusual is his ability to made the outlandish into an universal that all will find familiar.

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:50 AM | Permalink

Roald Dahl was a prolific writer. Short stories, full length novels, plays and poetry. It seemed that during his lifetime(1916-1990)he made forays into all the means of written expression at his disposal. But in the end he is best remembered as a writer of children’s fiction. To this day James and The Giant Peach and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory remain two of the best know English language books for children.

Of the two the latter seems to have had the more lasting appeal. What could be more compelling than the image of children set loose in, not just a candy store, but a candy factory. All our wildest dreams of childhood come true.

But that’s the thing about Dahl, he had a way of twisting dreams and showing some of their darker side. Always stopping well short of turning them into nightmares, but impinging them with enough reality to let some of the air out of the balloon.

Who better for directing a new adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory than the man who gave us Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton. Dreams and myths twisted and made strange are his specialty.

In this instance he faced the massive challenge of not only adapting a beloved story, but competing with people’s memories of a previous, cherished, film version of the same story. Not only would he face the obvious comparisons to the forerunner, the very notion of the need for a remake would be questioned.

Faced with such an imposing task some people either would quail and walk away with their tails between their legs, or even worse play it safe and produce a staid copy of the original movie. Instead of either of these Mr. Burton has gone back to the original source and mined Dahl’s darker imagery for his inspiration.

Adhering almost religiously to the story line of the original movie, he has judicially pruned in places and padded in others. Gone are all the saccharine moments of sentimentality that peppered the original movie. Nobody, save for the Oompa, Loompas, bursts into song, and their songs have taken on a darker, more ominous tone than before.

He also gives Willie Wonka a back story of a tyrannical dentist father(Christopher Lee). Only Tim Burton could stand two movie conventions on their heads in one short flashback. When young Willie finally finds the courage to stand up to his father and declare his intention of becoming a chocolate maker, he’s warned that he can go but his father won’t be there when he gets back.

We are next treated to the usual montage of a person travelling; flags of various countries whirling past. But then young Willie is shaken from his reverie by a security guard to tell him the museum is closing; he hasn’t travelled at all, just been in a museum looking at flags. On his return home, Dad has made good on his promise. Not only is he not there but the whole house has been torn from the row it stood in, leaving a large gap like a missing tooth in a smile.
Everything about this movie reflects Tim Burton’s macabre take on the world. From the sheer massiveness of the factory and the opening montage of the machinery at work making and packing the chocolate bars, to the magic edible tropical wonderland through which the chocolate river runs.

While everything is still fantastic and awe inspiring, one just can’t picture anyone breaking into song about it. There’s a hint of sadness, or some other shadow, that hangs over everything within the factory. While it maybe everyone’s childhood fantasy to live in a candy factory, a grown man living all by himself in wonderland, is made to look a little pathetic.

Pathological is probably the first word that comes to mind when the assembled children and parent figures meet Willie Wonka for the first time. The wrap around shades, artificial looking complexion, forced laugh and high voice put me immediately in mind of another troubled man who lives by himself in a make believe wonderland.

Johnny Depp has created a Willie Wonka both strange and appealing. He has no social skills what so ever. The only time he ever seems to act with spontaneity are the occasions where he shows flashes of anger or sarcasm directed towards either the parents or children. The emotional shield that he has built around himself is reflected in his almost plastic appearance and stiffness of movement.

It’s Charlie(Freddie Highmore once again giving a stellar performance opposite Johnny Depp) who first starts to breach Willie’s defences with his innocence and honesty. The man who can’t even say the word parents or family finds an innocent question about whether he can remember his first piece of candy bringing back a flood of memories from childhood.

Burton flirts dangerously with sentimentality at times in the movie, but manages to always step back from the brink just in time. Mostly this is due to Johnny Depp’s consistency in portraying Willie as a real child in a man’s body. After playing the man who created Peter Pan, he’s showing us the flip side of the boy who wouldn’t grow up.

He’s desperately searching for the love he missed out on as a child. Never having been allowed to be a child he latches on to the superficial trappings of childhood for pleasure. His creations are all reflections of a child’s version of an ideal world. Waterfalls of chocolate, wild rides, a meal in a stick of bubble gum and ice cream that will never melt are all the things that any child would die for.

Of the five children who enter the factory as winners of the contest only Charlie has learned enough about life to know what is important. When he rejects Wonka’s offer to move into the factory if it means he must abandon his family, Willie is stunned. How can there be anything more important then candies?

But on his return to the factory he falls into a funk and so does his candy. He returns to Charlie who then reunites him with his long lost father. Again Burton defies sentimentality by having father and son’s reconciliation hug be offset by the refusal of either party to doff their latex protective gloves.

It is the measure of an artist’s capabilities as to how they respond to a challenge. Neither Johnny Depp or Tim Burton have shown themselves to be ever easily intimidated. This production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a fine example of their ingenuity. Neither settled for simply recreating what had previously been done. For that reason this movie far exceeds it’s predecessor in both quality as a movie and faithfulness to the original book.

I gather there has been much debate about whether there was a need for a new version of this movie. To mean that is a pointless question. It is sort of like asking is there a need for more then one painter to paint a picture of an apple. Just because the object is the same does not mean there can only be one view of it.

In any case this version of the movie is far superior in my opinion to the previous one. The script is better, the acting is better, and on the whole it is more reflective of the spirit of Roald Dahl’s original story.

The difference between the two movie is like the difference between eating a commercial chocolate bar and a hunk of Belgian bitter sweet chocolate. While the first was a nice confection, it was sort of bland and indistinct from other similar products. The new version was dark and rich with enough flavour to set it off from any other so called children’s movie on the market.

I highly recommend it to children of all sizes.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:14 AM | Permalink

There is an issue that plagues the life of people who work at crises hot lines. What to do about suicide attempts? Everybody has got a different approach to dealing with the person on the other end of the phone line who has so little hope that they want to end their life. But no matter what the intent is the same; try and prevent the person from carrying out the threat.

Some people advocate a contract system. The person in crises agrees they will do nothing for a certain period of time. The reasoning behind this approach is that for most cases the impulse for suicide is a momentary plunge into the depths of despair. Hopefully the urge will have passed by the completion of the contract, whether it be for a few days or a week.

The drawback of course is what happens in those incidences when the urge is still just as strong as it was in the first place when the contract expires. Of course during the term of the agreement you have been in constant contact with the client, trying to help them, trying to find out the reason for their sense of hopelessness. But sometimes that’s just not enough.

There comes a time for some people when there are no more reasons that you can give them to continue. There is no answer to the question why should I live. What can be done for those people?

Legally speaking they have to report all such incidences to the police. Suicide is illegal and allowing it to go ahead unimpeded would probably be construed as aiding and abetting in the breaking of a law. But for some case workers, or other individuals, it’s not so cut and dried.

Some people have lived through so much damage, have been hurt so much, that they will never recover to be able to live life without pain. I’m not talking about the teenager who’s feeling alienated or anything like that. These are mature people who have been trying for years to battle their personal demons and just can’t keep it together anymore.

When attempts to save them are tried who is it being done for? Not them. They’re lives are nothing but pain. What king of favour are you doing by continuing their misery for another day. When someone is truly determined to die they will and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it, save from tying them down, keeping them drugged all the time, and force feeding them.

There is a certain air of sanctimony about anyone who says that we must do everything in our power to ensure someone stays alive. That just doesn’t sound like having the best interests of the client in mind. Everything within reason should be done to point out to a person what a waste it would be for them to end their life prematurely.

But doesn’t there come a time when we just have to let someone go if they want to so badly? Aren’t they going to anyway. What right do we have to interfere with someone who is so far gone that they will never come back? Like I said unless your willing to watch them twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, there is nothing that can be done to prevent a suicide from happening.

It’s almost like we take suicide as a personal affront. Nothing that we hold dear is good enough to keep the other person here. That could be understandable coming from the immediate family, but why should society as a whole condemn suicide?

Setting aside religious beliefs, because that’s a different and a more legitimate matter than any other objection. The rest of the time I think people find suicide abhorrent for a couple of reasons.

The very idea of trying to kill oneself is so far removed from most people that they can’t even begin to understand how a person could even be driven to that extreme. “They looked so happy” is such a common response to someone’s suicide because we only see what we want to see.

Nobody wants to think of somebody they know as suicidal. At most they’ll say George is a little down these days isn’t he. It’s such a rejection of everything that we hold dear. How can there be nothing worth living for? They had a great this or that. What greater rejection of a lifestyle can there be when nothing in it can prevent a person from killing themselves.

When a person commits suicide it represents a failure of our society to provide something for them. Whether a place for them to fit in and feel comfortable or the help they so desperately needed long before they reached this point. The person who commits suicide feels that there is no place for them in the world.

They could feel alienated by their sexual identity, or anything that distinguishes them from the mainstream. With our tight rules of how and who people should be it is far too easy for someone to become the outsider. When your forever on the outside looking in the view can become very depressing.

People have an aversion to things they don’t understand. To the majority suicide ranks up there near the top of the list in deviant behaviours. How often is it put down as being “The cowards way out” Implying that the person is to scared to deal with living.

Condemning it in this manner only conveys both our fear and complete failure to understand. When we see someone commit suicide for what seems no apparent reason, a fear is planted in the corner of our heart that perhaps not everything is as right with our world as we had thought. We lash out in an attempt to hide our own misgivings.

There was a horrible two week period in my life when I felt close to that point of no return. I had been clean and sober for a year and half, and had just returned from my sexually abusive father’s funeral. What should have been a momentous occasion worth celebrating(dancing on his grave) ended up emphasising all that had been wrong and abnormal in my life.
You never feel lonelier then at 2:30 in the morning sitting by yourself in a darkened living room smoking cigarette after cigarette. Replaying memories in your mind’s eye of all the things done to you, or done by you that make you feel worthless. It’s so quiet that all you can here is the sound of your cigarette burning as you suck in another lungful.

It was the first time since I had reclaimed my memories of the abuse that the impact and the reality of the events hit home. It hurt. Horribly. I didn’t want to live with myself anymore. The only reason I did was because I was too stubborn to let the bastard win.

I was eventually able to recognize what was happening to me and to stop it. I did small things that helped me re establish my own sense of self worth. Easy tasks that I could work on and accomplish making me feel like I had value. When you hit bottom you only have two options: either use it as a trampoline to bounce back up or fall and smash yourself to bits. I was able to choose the former.

I have no doubts that I made the right decision but for some people the latter one might be the right choice. As I have said to someone who is very dear to me that if that is your choice I will understand it, I won’t like it and I will miss you horribly, but I will understand it.

There are plenty of people out there who are not going to agree with me, who think that I’m some sort of sick individual for saying that someone has the right to chose to commit suicide, and that’s their prerogative. But just as nothing I could say would convince you, I’m certain there are precious few arguments that could be brought to bear that would change my mind.

I’m not saying that you don’t do everything in your power to change someone’s mind. A life is too special to just let it slip away. But I know how hard the fight can be, and how tired you can get. Some people have been so badly damaged that they will never heal, no matter what we do or say.

They will never know peace of mind or the comfort of calmness. I could not find it in my heart to force them to stay. Is the solution of locking them up in a psych ward, medicated and restrained any better? Is that not also a form of death?

It would be nice to think that we can save everybody who has been hurt or damaged emotionally by circumstances and situations. Crisis workers, social workers, and therapists do the best they can with tools at hand but sometimes that’s not enough. Until we can ensure that no child is raped by their parents, no woman is abused by her partner past endurance, and no one is ostracized for being different we will not be able to prevent suicides from occurring.

If you genuinely want to prevent suicide than work to ensure that none of the above can happen. Tell governments that women and children are important enough to have money spent on protecting them. Tell them you don’t care what race, creed, colour, or sexual preference a person has, that we all must be treated equally. Tell them that subjecting people to lives of poverty by slashing welfare programs and denying them funding for higher education is a crime. Tell them that stigmatizing people because of health issues or life style choices is divisive and dangerous. Then, and only then will we see a decrease in suicide.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:34 AM | Permalink

Have you ever gone back and tried one of those things you really liked years ago and come away disappointed? Like picking up one of those pieces of candy you had thought so much of as a kid, and finding it tastes nothing like your memory tells you. You ask yourself whether you’ve changed or has the product changed. Sentiment and nostalgia do have a way of clouding the mind.

That’s what happens to me whenever I pick up a copy of Rolling Stone magazine. Each time I pick it up I find myself wondering if it’s always been this garish and trivial. Am I really that out of tune with “pop culture” that I find almost everything they talk about irrelevant? Maybe I’m just no longer their target audience?

When I first started reading the it, more then thirty years ago, it was considered counter culture. It was the newspaper of the alternative in music and ideas. It was where you went when you wanted to find out the truth about what you read in the mainstream press, be it music or politics.

No fluff pieces on Donny Osmond for The Stone but interviews with Keith Richards talking about life in Rock and Roll and all it’s bittersweet truths. It was considered almost subversive to carry a copy around with you. It was a sign of your hip ness that you could say things like. “I read it about in Rolling Stone.”

Hunter S. Thompson headed up the “National Affairs Desk” reporting on the sleazy underbelly of American politics that nobody had dared talk about in public before. Other journalists were terminally jealous of the freedom he enjoyed in being able to say anything he pleased about anyone at all without editorial constraint.

When Dr. Hook came out with their version of Shel Silverstien’s Cover Of The Rolling Stone it became de rigour to learn at least the chorus to sing along with. Everyone knew how much it meant to get your picture on the cover and buy five copies for your mother. It wasn’t until much later that the satire of the song started to sink in, but at the time we took it for the gospel truth.

Maybe I need to look no further than that song. How important was that magazine in the first place? Was it just serving as some sort of validation of lifestyle choices? Did it genuinely offer an alternative to the mainstream? Or did it merely glamorize a bunch of coke snorting assholes like the ones in the song and make them appear special?

At first there was that connection to be made between the magazine, the music, and the changes that were happening in society. It was the only magazine that made sense to people under a certain age. It talked about the people they admired, told the news from a perspective more in tune with their view, and had an editorial policy more in keeping with their intended audience than any other magazine on the market.

But all news pretensions aside it was and is a music magazine. A magazine of popular culture. As the corporate world began to understand the money that was there to be made from the rock music that was at the heart of the scene it began to exert more control over the product. Smoothing out the rough edges and making it more palatable for middle America.

With the birth of People magazine and others of that ilk, Rolling Stone lost the distinction of being the only pop culture magazine. Their move from San Francisco to Madison Ave. in New York City was the beginning of the separation from the hipster reputation to becoming a more main stream product. As the alternative became corporate so did they.

That’s not a judgement rather an observation. They had always been no more than a reflection of what was out there, and so they had to move with the times. As the seventies turned into the eighties and the just say No campaign began they attempted to be a voice in the wilderness, but it wasn’t the same.

More and more you are just as likely to find the same starlet gracing their cover as the one gracing the cover of People or Us. Slick glossy pages filled with the same big adds that adorn fashion magazines, gossipy content, and the glorification of the star system seems to be the content of the day.

Sure buried in the middle pages might be a news story that’s adventurous, but how many people are actually buying it for that content any more. When there’s a picture of a partly naked Brittany Spears on the front cover I sincerely doubt it.

Memory and time do play tricks on you. Movies that you once thought great turn out to be a bore twenty years latter. We all grow old and change. Maybe it’s not fair to judge a magazine that’s geared towards youth culture by one’s memories of years gone by. But every time I pick up a copy of Rolling Stone Magazine and glance through it, I shake my head and sigh.

There’s something missing and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s something missing from society too. But they used to be the ones who pointed out what it was that was absent. Now they blend in with the rest. Selling the brand without questioning the content.

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:42 AM | Permalink

I’ve ranted about the wanton devastation of the English language that occurs on the internet. Words being truncated far beyond accepted contractions, and so on. But there are far worse offenders lurking else where.

"This session is aimed at altering your general thought process when implementing national security and corporate investigative and intelligence techniques. Attendees will be challenged to think above and beyond their own perceptions and taught to embrace a mindset that will allow them to deter possible threats more efficiently and effectively.”

Lifted straight from the pamphlet of someone who’s name is Tyrine Fairman who gives lectures on how to conduct yourself on public transit due to potential terrorist threats. These are not sessions geared towards specialist agents working for the government, but the general public.

What purpose is served using language like that? Does he, or whoever he had write it, think that it makes him sound more impressive? Or is he simply trying to disguise the fact that he’s not saying anything original? I’m not sure because I can’t seem to work up the energy to try and understand what it means.

What kind of people refer to introductions as “an identity affirmation exercise”? Usually the people who run those oh so popular team building workshops that the corporate world used to, and maybe still is for all I know, be so keen on. You know the ones, middle management types are taken out and dropped in the bush, or other isolated location.

There they go through a program of workshops ranging from the embarrassing to the ridiculous, all with the aim of increasing productivity back at the home office. The usual result was more likely to be resentment at being deprived of a weekend, or simply from having to do the damn thing in the first place.

It’s Friday evening after a hard week at the office and instead of sitting at home in relaxing your standing in the foyer of some hotel with a bunch of people you sort of know listening to this:

“What is about to be engaged with here is essentially a paradigmatic prospective assemblage intended to render a dynamic orchestration of employee energistics across multiple vertices.(pause for breath)Through a system of non-apparent motive vehicles, we will seek to initiate from within the disintegrated participatory constituents an innovated focus-drive generating a core-gravity that will channel exertory critical impulses along complementary and bi-reflexive vortals”..

There are actually three words in there that Microsoft’s dictionary couldn’t recognize. Now to be fair the above is from a novel by one of my favorite Scottish authors, Christopher Brookmyre, called Be My Enemy. But any of you who have had any involvement with these human resource types will recognize that it’s not to far removed from reality.

Is there a purpose served by this bizarre manipulation of language, aside from confusing the hell out of anyone listening? The only thing I can come up with is that it is a type of mass hypnosis. Everyone listening, or reading this stuff, is tuning out and shutting down, making themselves susceptible to suggestion. How else could you explain a group of middle management types hoping up and down like bunnies singing rhymes about their fears and ambitions?(I just made that up, but I’m willing to bet something similar has been experienced by participants)

I don’t know how many of you have had the opportunity, or misfortune, to hang out with a group of new age types. Unfortunately there have been occasions where I have been forced into those very circumstances. You can’t be involved in the practice of complementary medicine and not swing the proverbial cat without hitting one.

I have yet to figure out which is worse; their oversimplification of the answers to all of life’s problems, or their means of expressing it. What exactly is the “healing effect of the white light of love and goodness”? Or “go to the light?” Are they telling me to stand in the middle of a dark highway and walk into somebody’s high beams?

I can’t tell you the number of times I have wanted to grab one of these people by the shoulder with one hand and slap them across the face with the other in a attempt to bring them back to reality. They pick and choose little bits of any and everybody’s religion, without any comprehension of what it really means, and spout it like it’s some amazing secret that has revealed only to the chosen few.

The resulting babble is not only incomprehensible but downright insulting to anyone whose beliefs they are co-opting that week. I think a lot of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, to name just a few, would have trouble recognizing their religions after these people have gotten through with them.

But it’s when you enter the field of politics that you meet the real pros. The spin doctors, the media relations people, the speech writers, and the politicians themselves. Never have so many people conspired to say so little with so many words. Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote about fooling the people, some of the time but never all of the time, says nothing about making them not care about what you’re saying.

Nobody’s trying to fool anybody anymore because there is no point. Information is so readily available that the chance of hiding anything from anyone is next to impossible. The trick today is to make sure that either no one cares, or be so incomprehensible and obviously contradictory that it just becomes too much work to argue.

These people learned the lesson that every high school student that didn’t study for an exam lived by: if you don’t know something baffle them with bull shit, so well that they don’t even have to think about it.

An art form whose first real proponent was John Ziegler, Richard Nixon’s Press Secretary during the Watergate years, has evolved beyond anything he would recognize. He at least would have the decency to say on occasion that he had been “Misinformed” about something when he would be caught in a lie or contradict himself from one week to another.

Today’s people seem to count on nobody being able to remember what they said last week, and are amazed when somebody has the audacity to bring it to their attention. I have actually heard someone say “That was then, this is now” as a justification for reversing themselves. As if a statement’s truth rests on circumstances not fact!

The really scary thing for me is how many of us seem willing to accept this conduct from everybody. Is it because they wear expensive suits and use big words and stand behind a podium with a symbol on it? Unlike the guys who run those human resource events who could jeopardized your employment, the only reason the person up on that stage has power is because we gave it to them.

Either directly or indirectly. If we hadn’t voted for his or her boss, he wouldn’t be standing there blithering on about nothing. I made a conscious choice not to hang out with new age types anymore because they were driving me so crazy. We can make a conscious choice not to accept that kind of behavior from anyone.

It’s easy. Just don’t vote for anyone who refuses to speak English that everybody can understand. Eventually they might get the picture. There are too many ways in which miscommunication already causes damage in this world. We don’t need it from our political leaders anymore than we’d want it from our husband or wife.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:07 AM | Permalink

I did a “news” article this morning for the music section of Bogcritics.org and I’ve been thinking about it for most of the day. It’s not that it was just a rehashing of a press release(hence the quotes around news)that bothered me, rather the underlying reality about what was being reported on started to give me a problem.

I still couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I dropped in on the epicIndia.com group run for readers of Ashok Banker’s work. A thread had been started about a project Ashok is working on concerning the history of India. It’s not so much an individual work, but that each series, The Ramayana for example, takes place in a particular time period in Indian history. Through them he is attempting to re tell the complete history of India via the eyes Indians.

There’s a novel idea. Someone from a culture writing a history of it, or at least recounting it’s history through the stories that tell it. How many books have been written about the Indian uprisings of the 1800s by British authors as compared to Indian? How many African’s have made movies about the incident depicted in the British movieZulu. Precious few I’d wager.

Down through the ages history has been told by the winners. In his book Homage to Catalonia George Orwell said that he had heard rumours spread by the fascists of Russian tanks fighting on the side of the republicans, even though there were actually no Russians what so ever in Spain. But, he continued, he wouldn’t be at all surprised that when the histories were written that and the republicans lost that those tanks would feature prominently.

How many years was the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek referred to as a heroic battle before the truth came out? In Canada we always read about the brave missionaries and the challenges they faced trying to convert the heathen savages, but we never read about blankets infected with small pox or the residential school system.

Today we don’t even have to wait for history books to be published for the history to be re written. It is being created before our eyes at press conferences, on talk shows, and in the releases handed out by spin doctors. Faithfully inscribed by the press these facts are carved in stone with barely a word spoken in dispute. They are what will become the accepted point of view on the events of the day to be put into the text books of future generations.

Such is the way of the world, everybody wants to read things that reaffirm their glory. It’s so much more comfortable that way. You never have to deal with uncomfortable facts or worry about your conscience.

Everything justifies the means. Our way is the right way spills from the mouths of leaders in every spot on the globe. Our suicide bombers are martyrs, theirs are terrorists. But if they win, yours will have turned out to be the terrorists, while theirs had been freedom fighters.

It may seem that I have digressed away from where this all started but there is a connection. The classification of certain types of performers in a “World Music” category is an extension of this attitude. To an Indian Ravi Shankar is simply a musician. Maybe he would be classified as a player of ragas, or a sitar player like we would designate someone a guitar player or a jazz musician.

Would we dream of calling Bruce Springsteen anything but a pop musician? Not bloody likely. But to someone in Nigeria what does his music have to do with what King Sunny Ade does? In their eyes Bruce is in the World Music category while King Sunny would be a pop music star.

Amazon.com plunks people like Edith Piaf down into the world section to rub shoulders with Ravi Shankar, The Gypsy Kings, and others who have nothing in common with each other except their not from either Britain or North America. What’s even funnier is seeing Native American’s lumped into this group when they live on the same continent as us. What world are they from?

It only serves to add insult to injury when we package them as an experience. It feels like a Disney ride or a National Geographic special. Look at all the neat native people in their natural surroundings, aren’t they fascinating. I’ve tried to imagine a package like that featuring European/North American style pop music: do they really represent everything about us and our culture?

It is so condescending on our part to think we can reduce civilizations that have existed for, in some cases, millennia longer then ours into commercial product. I’m beginning to believe that our arrogance knows no bounds. Do the people who produce these items even stop to think how a person in India or Nigeria might feel to know that someone’s impression of their country has been formulated by these sorts of things.

Isn’t it about time we start letting people write their own history, and present it how they would like it seen to the rest of the world. What does it matter if it doesn’t fit into our conception of how the world should be. We are not the be all and end all, and the sooner we can figure that out the happier a lot of people will be.

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:36 PM | Permalink

Have you noticed how a word’s meaning can change over time and with usage? There are some real obvious examples like “gay”, but there have also been some subtler changes. How about a word’s implications becoming different?

Certain words have had certain connotations attached to them. Almost like meanings by association. Then all of a sudden they start meaning different things, or the connotations have changed concerning their usage. Sometimes this happens without any transition period at all.

In some case this abrupt change is deliberate in an attempt to co-opt the words previous inference. This is usually done by politicians who are seeking to make actions more palatable or lend them an air of legitimacy. It’s also a very effective means of disguising a true agenda.

One word that has gone through just such a switch is “reform”. Before ploughing into this potential mine field let’s start with basics. Here’s the definition as supplied by Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary:

reform:(transitive verb) To make better by removing abuses, altering, etc. 2. To improve morally; persuade or educate to a better life. 3. To give up sin or error; become better.
reform:(transitive and intransitive verb) To form again

Well that’s straightforward enough. It either means to makes something better, or to rebuild it. But for most of us the meaning usually falls into the first camp with all the moral and social baggage that it carries. That of course is where the trouble begins. There are a few differences of opinion when it comes to matters making things better.

Going back in time to Martin Luther is an example of one of the first moral based reform movements. They even named the time period “The Reformation”. Starting in the early 1500’s and travelling into the 1600’s it refers to the establishment of Protestant faiths.

Martin Luther was a Saxon born scholar who became disgusted with what he saw as the corruption of the Church. He is most famous for nailing a list of 96 reforms to the door of a church as an act of defiance. What his hammer blows set in motion would affect the course of European history for hundreds of years to come.(Incidentally creating the circumstances for the migration of the Mayflower 100 or so years latter)

He saw a need to change the way in which the Roman Catholic church conducted it’s business. But when they refused to reform their, what he considered, misconduct he decided to reform the church under a new name and with a different set of rules. Hence the Lutheran church.

The reformation took hold in many countries for a variety of reasons. Some out of the desire to reform what they saw as a corrupt system to one that better served it’s constituents. It also the beginning of an upsurge in nationalism, as some countries, and states, were more then happy to get out from under the thumb of the Catholic Church and govern themselves according to civil codes rather than the laws of the Vatican

Henry the eighth was one of those. When the pope refused to approve an annulment for a failed marriage, he decided it was time for a change. He created the Church of England, which would be headed, as it still is, by the Crown of England.

The reformation is seen as a time of liberalisation from the oppressiveness of the Catholic Church. Previously scientific research had worked within the constraints of doctrine. The potential for being burned at the stake has a way of influencing what you publish. The success of this reform would lead the way for further changes in other areas of life.

World events that were occurring simultaneously were giving rise to a new class of people. The continued expansion of trade routes and the opening of new markets birthed a new moneyed class who had not been born to wealth. As merchants and others gained clout they demanded reforms in governance that would allow for more public say in the rule of countries.

This began the onset of political reforms that were to mark the next two to three hundred years of European and world history. The English civil war was both political and religious. The Parliamentarians led by Cromwell were seeking more say in the running of the country as well as a decrease in what they saw as undue Catholic influence on British life.

Both the American and French revolutions of the late 1770’s were driven by a need to reform systems deemed unfair by the populace. In America the heavy taxes imposed upon the colonists by Britain to fund her wars were seen as an insult to the people who had worked so hard to secure the land for the Empire.

When Britain continued to ignore their demands for fairer taxation, self rule became the obvious conclusion for obtaining the desired reforms. As with the French a complete rebuilding was required to achieve results. While America was successful with it’s attempt in building a republic, France was not so lucky. It wouldn’t be for another hundred years that they would be able to complete their reforms.

With the middle class firmly entrenched in the political system, and the move towards more representational government on an unstoppable path, social reforms began to take precedence in the minds of people. The first target was the slave trade.

Reformers calling themselves abolitionists pressured governments through a variety of means up to and including armed insurrection as in the case of John Brown in the U. S. By the 1850’s they had successfully stopped the trading of slaves and with the exception of states in the southern parts of America ended the practice of slave ownership.

The end of the 1800s saw the birth of the next great wave of reforms that would carry over well into the twentieth century. This was the fight to establish better conditions for the people that toiled in the factories and mines that had fuelled the Industrial Revolution. At first just the province of liberal minded individuals within the ruling class who worked to alleviate the suffering of individuals who dwelt in the slums of the cities, it gradually spread into all areas of society.

Unions sprang up to organize workers to ensure safe working conditions and decent wages. Pressure was brought to bear to ban the use of child labour and create a standardised work day. It was also during this time that the suffragette movement was born. With the increased role women were taking in society they wanted more say in how things were run, which meant being awarded the right to vote.

Two German thinkers, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engles, were busy at this time devising a system of government which called for the redistribution of wealth to allow for the proper rewarding of the people who worked in the factories. The Communist Manifesto became the blueprint for the failed attempt at reform that was Communist Russia, and other states that would refer to themselves as worker’s paradises. The majority of which seem to have been less liberal in their reforms then so called Capitalist states.

The twentieth century has continued the tradition of liberal reforms. From Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to the Johnson and Kennedy “Civil Rights Act” the social safety net was strengthened and equality under the law was ensured. Other countries around the world have followed suit in guaranteeing their citizens a certain quality of life.

Since the 1500 hundreds the word reform has denoted acts of liberalization. In the minds of most people when they hear the word reform they think of making things better for society as a whole in a liberal manner. But in the late 1980’s something happened and reform became the byword of conservative politicians and thinkers.

Reforming Welfare didn’t mean making sure it kept up with the inflation and the increases in the cost of living, it meant slashing the amount of money given to those who were unable to find jobs. Health care reform in Canada meant de listing procedures that were deemed non essential, firing nurses, closing hospitals, and generally reducing the quality of care.

Reforming education meant increasing class sizes, closing schools, cutting extras like music, theatre, and special education. It also meant reducing funding to universities which forced them to increase tuition, while the government was also eliminating educational grants for low income earners at the same time.

Across the board reform meant turning back the clock on gains made in the past thirty years that had made society fairer and more just. Programming that had been implemented to level the playing field between those born with financial advantages and those not were now considered non essential. The rights of workers and tenants were eroded in favour of landlords and employers.

Technically speaking the word hasn’t changed. It still means exactly what the definition says it means. But now when someone says they are a reformer you can’t be sure what they mean. The spirit of the word has been changed from what hundreds of years of usage had defined it to something else. By using the word reform a link was implied to the actions of our ancestors that does not exist. They may believe that their actions are for the betterment of society, but it appears to only benefit a few, not the common good.

That’s not the spirit of reform as I understand it, nor as history has defined it.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:47 AM | Permalink

The summer of 2005 seems to be one for back stories. We’ve had the origins of Darth Vador and Batman in Star Wars lll and Batman Revisted and now we have Zorro the novel by Isabel Allende. We could call this summer Men In Black 3 or the Birth of Mask but the copy write implications would be staggering.(I also think the pun police will kill me for it)

Isabel Allende is probably the best known female writer to come out of South America. While House of Spirits remains one of her best known books(also made into a movie featuring Winona Ryder) she has written a number of novels, memoirs, and a young adults trilogy. On her web site freely admits that the majority of her work is semi-autobiographical.

She is not a stranger to personal tragedy and injustice. In 1972 her uncle Salvador Allende’s government of Chile was overthrown by the C.I.A. backed coup led by Augusta Pinochet. Both her political leanings, she wrote feminist articles for magazines, and her family connections forced her into exile for thirteen years. Settling first in Venezuela she then travelled through Europe for a while before returning home to Chile.

Perhaps because of her tendency towards the semi autobiographical, her life at times resembles her novels. She presents a larger than life figure, (down to the author’s photo in Zorro where she has represented herself as a line drawing dressed as a female version of her book’s hero)with her world travelling and her family connections.

Even the death of her daughter took on the proportions of myth in her memoir simply titled Paula. For the year that she lingered in a coma Isabel remained at her daughter’s bedside debating with herself about her own life; examining her own contradictions.

”I'm lost, I don't know who I am, I try to remember who I was once but I find only disguises, masks, projections, the confused images of a woman I can't recognize. Am I the feminist I thought I was, or the frivolous girl who appeared on television wearing nothing but ostrich feathers? The obsessive mother, the unfaithful wife, the fearless adventurer, or the cowardly woman? Am I the person who helped political refugees find asylum or the one who ran away because she couldn't handle fear? Too many contradictions...”

In Zorro she seems to be deliberately displaying the contradictions of her character while having an incredibly good time. The characters abound with silly romantic ideals while all around them reality is bleak and ugly. Allende seems to be purposefully bursting the balloons of nobility, heroism, romance and idealism in telling the tale of a wildly romanticized hero.

Our heroes’ father, Captain Alejandro de la Vega has been sent with two soldiers to protect a Catholic Mission in California from a local uprising of Indians. After fending off the attack and capturing the leader, Chief Grey Wolf, Captain de la Vega’s life takes a strange turn. It seems that Grey Wolf is actually a woman, and de la Vega finds himself hopelessly smitten with her charms.

Toypurnia, Grey Wolf’s real name, turns out to be the half breed daughter of an Indian medicine woman, White Owl, and a Spanish sailor who had deserted his ship and lived with the Indians until his death. Equally enamoured of the dashing Captain she agrees to marry him three years latter when he has finally overcome his fear of the social repercussions of marrying a mix blood.

So even before birth our hero is marked as different. The quintessential Romantic hero, mixed blood, connections to strange native rituals which will give him mysterious powers, and that little bit of the outsider that is so fascinating to women everywhere.

But he is also the son of a Spanish nobleman and thus has to be prepared for life properly, which means he has to be sent to Spain for schooling once he is of age. But before that three events occur that are to play formative roles in the development of Zorro.

Along with his milk brother Bernardo(Diego’s mother had almost died in childbirth so he had been nursed by an Indian women who had given birth simultaneously and he became irrevocably tied to her son)he discovers a secret network of ancient Indian caves that back up onto his father’s hacienda. It’s here that the men of White owl’s tribe would go for their initiation rites; to discover the mysteries of the universe.

Just as importantly they discover a tunnel that leads into a room in the hacienda. It turns out that in the planning of the house Diego’s mother had deliberately chosen it’s location to allow for that very purpose.

It’s also with Bernardo that Diego first bears witness to the injustices of the world. Since the time of their settling California the Spaniards have been gradually eroding land away from the Indians. The boys come across a group of neighbouring ranchers “liberating” some territory by destroying a small village. They kill the men, hang an elderly chief and scatter the women and children to starve in the wilderness

Just before the boys are to set sail for Europe White Owl comes for the boys to take them on a vision quest. After eight days of ritual and fasting they were turned loose in the wood to quest for their spirit animals. This of course is where the name Zorro, the fox, comes from.

It is on the long Atlantic crossing that the costume for Zorro is born. Easily bored Diego has taken to telling the crew stories about monsters and demons to entertain himself and terrify them. Given the superstitious nature of sailors in those days this is an easy task. After frightening them with tales of wandering spirits who travel the oceans looking for souls to steal, he garbed himself completely in black, including a mask, and popped up in the shadows. Those crew who caught an occasional glimpse swore that evil spirits were at work.

It is in Europe where Diego complete his transference into the dual personality of Zorro the hero and Diego the foppish nobleman. Spain of the early 1800s is occupied by Napoleon’s armies. Like most countries the Spaniards both resent the foreign leadership but rejoice in the freedoms from despotic kings and in Spain’s case the dreaded Inquisition.

Diego and Bernardo’s host is no exception to this rule, and even takes it further by maintaining close relations with the head of the occupying forces. But it’s his eldest daughter not his politics that captivates Diego. Juliana is considered one of Barcelona’s beauties and Diego quickly lost his heart and reason to her.

When not trying to think of ways in which to win Juliana’s affections Diego was receiving the training that would stand Zorro in good stead for years to come. Initially taken on only as a fencing student by an esteemed master, Diego gains the man’s confidence sufficiently to be admitted to the secret society La Justicia.

A small group of men who are dedicated to fighting for justice and right wrongs, they had tirelessly worked to help victims of the Inquisition flee Spain for years. It’s under their tutelage that Zorro becomes fully realised. He is introduced to the Circle of the Master as an instrument of training and reaches his potential as a swordsman and fighter.

It would seem that Isabel Allende has set the stage for a great romantic hero. He will win the heart of his true love and live happily ever after. But instead of going down that well worn path she throws in twists to confound expectations.

Juliana delights in the role of romantic heroine. She has read extensively on the subject and is determined that her life should follow the path laid out in novels and tales. This predisposition allows Allende the opportunity to poke fun at the genre and herself in the process.

The mysterious masked hero fighting for truth and justice has become one of our more beloved figures of romantic fantasy. Diego’s physical appearance, his mixed blood, and the mysterious rites undergone with his grandmother and La Justicia combine in elavating him to that status.

But just as she has built him up Allende can whittle him down. His adoration for the vacuous Juliana, his vanity(the mask serves a dual purpose: a disguise and a means for covering his protruding ears)and his penchant for bold proclamations combine to make him a figure somewhat ridiculous to our eyes.

All good romantic heroes need an adversary and Allende provides one in the name of Rafael Moncada. His desire for Juliana drives him to deeds that guarantee a heroic response on the part of Diego, and hastens the evolution of Zorro. It is Rafael, by having Juliana’s father arrested, hoping she will turn to him as a last resort, who ultimately sends Diego back to California.

Spurned by Juliana one time too many he threatens to arrest her and her sister Isabel as the daughters of a traitor if she does not accept him. Diego insists they should flee back to his father as that is their only chance. Selfishly he also figures having Juliana to himself for the whole journey will finally weaken her resistance and send her to his arms.

The return journey is full of pirates and adventures. Juliana at last finds happiness in the arms of the ultimate romantic ideal; a charming and roguish privateer. “To steer a sinner down a good path is an irresistible project, and Juliana set her goal with religious zeal” is the description given to describe her happiness at the marriage. She will live out her days like her romantic heroines. Her love a beacon of saintliness for her previously wayward husband.

Before Zorro is can take up his mantle there is one more obstacle to be removed. Rafael has managed to beat him to California. He has used his influence to imprison Diego’s father and oppress the populace. Zorro rises to the occasion and sets right the wrongs and sends Rafael back to Spain vowing vengeance.

At points throughout the story there are interjections provided by a narrator. Progressively this disembodied voice makes itself conspicuous through asides and editorial comments. It speculates out loud on the motivations of characters, but confesses to ignorance, or even an unwillingness, to talk about certain details.

Given that the narrator obviously has Zorro’s permission and full cooperation, Allende has both bridged the gap between reader and subject and invested the material with a touch of realism. Although fantastical in places, and romantic in others, the off stage voice puts the blame for that squarely on the shoulders of the characters not the story.

A myth is created both by events and the people who lived through them. Everything that happens in this book has the potential for reality, there are no exaggerations in the telling. Those occur within the reactions of the characters and their manner of retelling situations. Allende has given us a lesson in the process of myth making.

The off stage voice provides us with the reality that serves as the basis for the embellishments and exaggerations that have gone into the creation of Zorro the character beyond the confines of this book. We get the real explanations for where he came from and how he became the figure we recognise so immediately today.

This book can be read as a wonderful story full of adventure, fun and romance. But if you choose it can also read it as an allegory of how we all create myths about ourselves. Like Diego many of us create alter egos for a variety of situations; work, public, and private. Usually not as extreme as in the case of Zorro, they all serve the same basic purpose of allowing us to carry out a task behind the protection of a mask.

Allende shows us that while what’s behind the mask may not be as thrilling, it is a lot more interesting then imagined. Maybe we should all try letting our masks down a little more often. Who knows what we will find.

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:41 AM | Permalink

The more I wade into the world of the internet, specifically, but not confined to, blogging, I’m continually amazed at the prevalent naivety concerning identity, privacy and safety. People seem to believe that some sort of immunity has been granted them from the consequences of what they write on the internet.

Libellous statements, personal revelations, and intimate details abound with little or no attempts to disguise ones identity. While some may use a pseudonym for their publications they still leave enough information that they can be traced if anyone were willing to make an effort.

Hackers are pretty much able to go almost anywhere at will these days, making even so called private profiles unsafe repositories of personal data. But the majority of time that level of work wouldn’t be required due to the number of people who leave sufficient data in their public profiles to allow anyone with a little determination the ability to find them.

I include myself among those folk who didn’t realize the potential for malice that’s out there. It wasn’t until I started to receive threatening comments, for what I thought was an innocuous story, left on my blog site that I even considered the ramifications of leaving my real name and city location public. I have since rectified that situation.

In the Globe and Mail today there was an article dealing with people who keep personal blogs and the potential for details to come back and haunt you. For instance you write about some wild party or sexual exploits that may or may not have been real, and you apply for a job only to find the potential employer has searched you on the web and read that same report. What does that do for your job hopes?

How many political candidates in elections ten years down the road will find indiscretions revealed in “private” blogs coming back to haunt them? These and other scenarios are developed in the article. It’s well worth a read.

You would think that everyone knows about the dangers of internet chat rooms by now. Predatory people preying on unsuspecting children. Lying about their ages, making promises, doing anything possible to entice their “prospects” to come and meet with them.

But children are still falling victim to these stalkers. Just recently a man was arrested in Kingston Ontario for trying to lure children into meeting him. Only an observant mother stopped him from succeeding. To her credit she agreed to help the police, and in a carefully organized sting they were able to arrest the perpetrator.

These people are able to avoid being traced through the simple means of utilizing used computer equipment and software which have outdated personal information embedded into them. If no one is willing to participate in a sting type operation, it is almost impossible to trace a piece of equipment to it’s present owner. So many computer sales are cash transactions that sales records are virtually anonymous.

Every so often I still receive emails inviting me to help someone invest their family’s wealth. For some reason or other they are unable to get it safely out of the country, usually some small African nation, so I’ve been selected to invest it for them. I only need to send them my bank account information....

The awful thing is that they must be having some success or they wouldn’t be continuing to do this ploy. It’s sad when you think about somebody falling for this and finding their bank account drained. If this offer had shown up in the mail or someone had phoned would they have been so ready to acquiesce? Or is it something about the Internet that lends these requests an air of legitimacy?

There are a number of so called political sites on the web which seem to serve no other purpose to libel people on the other end of the political spectrum. Casting aspersions on one’s opponent has become standard fare for politicians, but they always manage to restrain themselves enough to not cross the line into slander during their speeches or libel in their ads.

Web loggers seem to have no such scruples. There seems to be a lot of confusion among them about the difference between free speech and lying. Taking their lead from the gossip magazines of, the more salacious the better, they not only take political discourse to an all time low, but create such an atmosphere of mean spiritedness that hopes of reducing the polarization of our society continue to dim.

Whether they are repeating unsubstantiated rumours or simply making stuff up it makes no difference in the eyes of the law. Why do they think themselves immune to prosecution? The internet is as public as any other medium subject to these laws. Their intent is to have other people read what they are saying, or why else would they be doing it, so they can’t use the excuse of it being private in any sense of the word.

I can only hazard the guess that they still don’t see the internet as “real”. Unlike newspapers, the television, and radio there seems to be a prevailing misconception that what’s published on line will not be treated as “news” and be governed by different standards. No other explanation is possible.

Unfortunately for them it’s fast becoming obvious that web logs are becoming an integral part of the media. The first reports and photos from the terrorist attacks in London were generated by bloggers with the capability to shoot pictures and post reports to the web from their phones. These intimate and immediate first hand reports provided on the spot reporting long before any papers or networks were able to get on the scene.

As technology develops the potential is there for all of us to be reporters in the right circumstances. The difference between factual reporting and blogging is blurring quickly. Blog reports are being treated seriously and increasing in influence. As this happens there will be an increased need for all information to be substantiated.

It may have been the case previously that no one really paid attention to what was being said in the blog realm, but that’s not true anymore. Political figures, media stars, and other celebrities will be having the blogs scoured to try and sniff the wind and get a sense of the mood of the public. But they will also be on the look out for anything that makes them look bad. If they find it most of them have the resources to make a bloggers life very difficult to say the least.

Unlike science fiction we are not yet able to transmit simulations of our bodies in the net. and travel through virtual space. But we are able to send our words, thoughts and concepts to represent us. Just like the real world that can be more than enough to get us into trouble.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:27 AM | Permalink

I live about a half drive away from a different world. Just to the west of Kingston Ontario is Tyendinaga home to this regions United Empire Loyalist Mohawks. It’s nothing special, not much bigger or smaller then the other reserves that spot southern Ontario, but you can tell you’ve crossed a boundary the moment you get out of your car.

The Ganeagaono(The Flint Based People, hence all the place names around here either beginning Ga as in Ganaoque or Ka which is pronounced Ga)or Mohawks are part of The Six Nations, The Iroquois Confederacy, (Iroquois is an Algonquin word meaning enemy)or as they refer to themselves The Hau-de-no-sau-nee, people of the long house. They were originally from upstate New York(Mohawk Valley)but had stayed loyal to the British in the revolutionary war of 1776. They, along with other Loyal subjects hence the name Loyalist, were awarded land in Canada.

Although it was Captain John Deserontyon, a Mohawk serving in the British army, who led the original twenty families, the reserve was named for his more famous fellow officer, Joseph Brant. Tyendanegea(the actual spelling of Brant’s name)literally means placing the wood together, and was chosen for the symbolic reference to gaining strength through unity.

The original deed of 1793 was for land the size of a township, approximately 92,000 acres. The actual size of the reserve now stands at 18,000 acres. The official Tyendinaga web site refers to land alienations and surrenders as being the cause of this reduction in size.

It was long thought by historians that Tyendinaga was the first Iroquois settlement in this area(they never seem to ask those who might know: the Indians themselves)But cartographic evidence and recently found remainders of long houses date villages back more then a hundred years prior to the Loyalists arrival. If you want more history and info check out

Although at first glance it just looks like any other rural community the differences are there if you look. The obvious ones are the faded signs warning you that you’re on Mohawk territory. Old, tattered, and with paint faded by the years, they still carry a certain authority. Letting you know you’re in a different Canada now.

Then there’s the fact there is no town. No collection of houses gathered around a general store or congregation of people. The closest thing to a population centre are a couple of small housing developments consisting of rental units for people who want to move back to the reserve. Although in theory each band member is entitled to a tract of land, there just isn’t the land left for that contract to be fulfilled.

Some families over the years have lost their inheritance through one means or another, so when they move back there’s nothing for them in the way of housing. Others are children of people who gave up status back in the sixties to gain the right to vote. Recent changes in the Indian act have allowed their families to reclaim their status. These people move back to take advantage of the favourable tax laws and cheaper rents to be found on the reserve and because they want to be closer to their people in the hopes of reconnecting to their culture.

There are also the cars of disappointed tourists who show up with cameras looking for Indians. Unfortunately for them they have to settle for taking shots of the strip mall of tourist shops selling plastic Indian artefacts made in Japan. Ironically the only “Indian” sights are transplanted totem poles and faux plains nation’s regalia.

Driving around the territory gives you hints at the poverty that pervades. Although Tyendinaga is better off then some, it still has limited economic opportunities. The few steady jobs available are controlled by the Band Council, and there have always been rumours of nepotism not far from the surface on the reserve.

Although the political climate seems somewhat less antagonistic then in former years, it was as recent as 1994 that the council offices were occupied by dissatisfied band members. Throughout the nineties allegations of misappropriation of funds were levelled at the Chief and his council more then once. In this small community of 2,000 people(more than twice that amount live off reserve)where everyone knows everyone it’s hard to keep anything a secret, and so even a whisper of impropriety gets blown up to the size of a mountain.

One of the loudest voices on the reserve is the independent newspaper, The Mohawk Nation Drummer. With no government subsidy, tribal or otherwise, they feel free to speak their minds on any issue. Local, national, and even international tribal news is prominent.

Picking up a copy of the Drummer emphasises that you’re in a different world. Aside from the predominance of ads whose sales they depend on, the similarities between it and other newspapers are slim. The news items are all related to native issues. Not once are any of the stories that so predominate our papers even mentioned.

How many community papers do you know that publish excerpts from the laws that govern their chiefs(though it may be a good idea if we followed that example and published excerpts of our constitutions on a monthly basis.)Or supply you with such historical facts that the honey bee is not native to North America?

The Drummer not only serves it’s community by keeping it up to date on news, but it acts as a repository of history and culture. As the oral traditions have died out, they are stepping in to fill the role of story teller ensuring that important information is kept in circulation. It’s one thing for the children to learn about it the schools, but another altogether for it to be a daily way of life. Reminders such as those offered by The Drummer instil life and relevance into their people’s ways and past.

To visit the Drummer follow the link

and continue your education in all things Hau-de-no-sau-nee.

I have a friend from the territory who I haven’t seen for years, but it’s not a good thing to be asking about him when I go out there. He and his family have been thorns in the side of the Chief and his cronies for too long. I’m a stranger there and I don’t know who’s who on the political debate side of things. When your just visiting the territory to buy cheap cigarettes you stay out of those matters.

My friend works hard at being as traditional as possible, while fighting for his people in the modern world. He always consults his grandmother, who is his clan chief, on important decisions; refers to bleached flour and tea as two of the biggest poisons brought over by the Europeans even though they have become “traditional” foods; is periodically thrown in jail for occupying places he shouldn’t be; and has standing in courts across Canada to speak on native issues, even though he’s not a lawyer(He got a group of Mohawks arrested for setting up camp on Parliament Hill off on a minor trespassing charge by arguing that since the Supreme Court of Canada had recognised the land underneath the Parliament buildings as belonging to the Algonquin, and that they had permission from Algonquin elders to be there what right did the police have to chase them away?)

It will be people like him who will bring about a better life for his people. One of their biggest heartaches is fighting the inertia that can set in when a people have been down so long. Each victory no matter how trivial is one more thing to be celebrated. After so many years of defeats they are important, if only to show that victories are possible.

On sale in one of the gift shops this time when I went out there was something a little out of the ordinary. It caught my eye as being different. Spread out on a table were four plastic covered documents with signatures scrawled across them. They were autographed copies of a judgement from the Supreme Court of Canada. It was the case the gave full status rights to the Metis(mixed bloods)of Canada.

There’s a sense of pride that wasn’t there even ten years ago when I last visited the territory. Instead of catering to the tourists by wearing plains Indian buckskins, photos from last years powwow show people in Mohawk regalia. The Iroquois Confederacy flag now flies on every flag pole when before it was rare to see. Still missing though is the flag of the Mohawk people.

The braves head in the yellow circle on the red backdrop was misrepresented in the press as a warrior cult flag when they saw it at Oka in 1990. During that standoff between police, the army, and individuals from that Mohawk reserve connotations were put on the flag that makes it unhealthy to fly it. Now associated with rebellion instead of the nation, too many people are nervous about displaying it openly for fear of repercussions.

I don’t get out to visit my neighbours down the highway as much as I used too. It’s a healthy thing to do, get a different perspective on the world. See it from the eyes of the people who were here before us. If you go to a territory don’t expect anything much in the way of excitement or “Indians”. Take your time and look closely, the signs may not be obvious, but there can be no doubt that you’ve crossed over into a different world.

Enjoy it, and hope that it continues to survive, and maybe soon start to thrive.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:29 AM | Permalink

I guess it was a just a matter of how long. I don’t even know why I feel any surprise or disappointment now that the moment is here. Yep Hollywood is mounting it’s first major motion picture based on the events surrounding 9/11.

I can probably write the script, or at least do the treatment. Our two heroes start the day at home. We follow them to the penultimate moment,.20mins top can’t leave the audience waiting. Then we will get about an hour of disaster, their struggle to survive buried under the rubble, and the final desperate search to find them. Then a final 20 minutes of sentimental, emotional manipulation.

The movie is being based on the story of the last two police men to be rescued from the rubble. These two genuinely brave gentlemen had spent the time after the initial crash and explosion searching, rescuing and shepherding survivors to safety. During the collapse of the tower they became trapped and had to wait for rescue themselves.

All very good fodder for the mill that is Hollywood. Who am I to complain if the gentlemen in question have decided to sell their stories to the highest bidder. Hell after the trauma they’ve been through and the state of disability pensions, and any other support programs, across our continent, I’m sure they could use every cent.

But there is just a feeling I get about the whole process that something is being exploited. That the heroism of the people who were there on that day is being cheapened. That the memories of those who died is being tarnished. Maybe it’s because judging by Hollywood’s record I have no faith in them doing justice to the subject matter.

Why does it feel like it will be the Towering Inferno meets Airplanemeets The Posiedon Adventure? Disaster in a big building when an airplane crashes into it and then people have to climb from the bottom up to the top to be rescued.

Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve only announced one actor when the story is about two men. Haven’t they got permission from the other person who was involved in the incident to tell his story? I noticed that only one of the two individuals issued a press release about the movie. Since when did police officers issue statements to the press?

It all sounds too People magazine for my comfort. Glossy photos and sensationalistic copy. The fact that the king of sensationalism, Oliver Stone, is directing does little to ease any of my fears. I can’t see the man who has given us such over the top movies like Nixon, J.F.K.and Wall Street showing any degree of subtlety.

Then there’s the ultimate question. Why? Do we really need a movie depicting those events? Was it not horrific enough to have to live through them without someone recreating them for us all over again? Once was quite enough for me thank you.

What of all the people who lost loved ones that day? Maybe the scars are finally beginning to heal over, and even if they don’t go see the movie, just it’s existence will serve as a constant reminder of the hole that has been left in their life.
Like December. 7th 1941 or November 22nd 1963 , September 11 2001 are dates indelibly burnt into the minds and conscience of our society. Each generation will tell you that those dates can trigger memories for them even now. Where they were and what they were doing when the planes bombed Pearl Harbour, or when the bullets struck John F. Kennedy, and finally when that plane flew into the first tower closely followed by the second, are imprinted forever down to the last detail.

Any movie made of these past events only seems to trivialize that which has become part of our collective unconscence. Everybody shares that moment already. Whether it had a direct impact on our lives or not it is a moment in which we all participated by living through.

Crossing all the artificial boundaries of race, gender, class, and status that we erect to give ourselves definition, it unified us as humans. The horror and grief were the same no matter who and what we are. For those first hours, before the events could be filtered through the spin doctors and pundits, we were one in our experience.

For each of us there is an image that sticks in the mind from that day which we will carry to our graves. A piece of film that plays over and over that can never be matched by any recreation or re enactment. As so called reality T.V. shows have nothing to do with our lives, a movie about 9/11 will have nothing to do with this day on a meaningful level.

When looked at in this context the only reason for making a movie about this subject comes down to a simple factor. Money. A chance to make lots of it by exploiting a horrible event. The only motivation driving this project is greed.

Hollywood exists to make money so it’s not to be surprised that they have seized on this opportunity. Maybe they hope by using the guise of telling one particular story we won’t notice what they’re up to. The lame excuse of “it’s important this tale is told” doesn’t wash, because it was told and retold in the media.

Most movies are made to be larger then life. The “stars” who appear in them have little or nothing to do with our realities. Intentionally or not any depiction of the events surrounding the terrorist attacks of 9/11 run the risk of being glamorised just through the nature of the medium. It is one of those cases where the reality of the situation could never be matched by the fiction of a movie without it feeling trivialised.

I will never forget the image of the plane ploughing into the second tower as captured by someone’s video camera. The certain knowledge in my head that I was watching the death of hundreds of people in that instant was almost too much too comprehend. As the horrors of that day piled up, each worse than the one before, it became impossible to comprehend the actuality of the devastation. It was overwhelming.

Maybe I’m in a minority, but I have no desire to relive those moments, feel those feelings, or watch those images again. Once was more than enough.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:47 AM | Permalink

There are a lot of misconceptions about anorexia nervosa that should be addressed. I'm not saying corrected because I'm a layperson and can only offer opinions and observations culled from living with a person with post-eating disorder anorexia.

Anorexia has long been identified with body image. A woman feels inadequate because of how she looks compared to the images presented in the media. To be accepted she must somehow assume the shape or size of those she sees presented as the ideal.

The presumption is that from this motivation alone the person will begin starving herself. But this leaves too many holes and doesn't cover all circumstances. Yes body image and media examples play a role in encouraging starvation, but something else has got to come into play to cause a person to loathe themselves to such an extent.

This theory does nothing to explain why some people stop eating as young as five. In other words they are almost born anorexic. A controversial, but successful, practitioner Peggy Claude St. Pierre, who works with anorexics in Victoria B.C Canada, was the first person to reveal that there was more at work then simple body image. In one interview she was accompanied by a five year old boy who had stopped eating.

With his limited communication skills it was hard to decipher what had caused the ailment, but it eventually came clear that he was suffering from a surfeit of guilt. From what little he said those treating him understood that he could not bring himself to eat while he knew that others were going without. What made him better that he should deserve to eat when someone else wasn't able?

The full story of that young boy was never revealed, except to say he was recovered. What had destroyed his self esteem to that point of degradation wasn't said. Perhaps he was being sexually abused, or ignored by his parents. Or it could just have been as simple a case as he claimed. As young people we have not yet built up shields to defend us from the horrors of the world, and sensitivity to another's plight could become over exaggerated in the mind of one so young.

As a teenager the woman I love was starving herself to death; she had stopped menstruating, her heart rate was stopping, the full deal. She had the strength to pull herself out of that hole and carry on. But there has been more to her recovery then simply starting eating.

We were both getting on in years when we got together, at least by today's standards, thirty-five, so we had already ruled out the prospect of children and decided on a life for the two of us. Neither of us had had what could be called easy lives up to that time and we looked on each other as safe havens in what had been stormy waters. This is what precipitated the events that followed, events that have led the two of us to understand how a so called eating disorder is far more then that.

When you have spent your whole life running, looking over your shoulder for the next horrible thing to happen to you, and you finally can stop and sit and catch your breath, you start to think, and you start to remember. We had a lot of sleepless nights those first few months. She would wake up crying, or not even be able to get to sleep, from the whirring of her brain. Gradually a picture began to appear, a portrait of a person in pain.

It was not pain caused by the others wounding, rather pain from others wounds. Her empathic nature is such that she feels other people's hurts, they leave scars on her soul. She has been like this as long as she can remember. With this sensitivity comes the desire to make better, to take away the pain and make everything alright. When she can't she feels guilty, and it becomes her fault that this person is in pain. That's only the beginning.

You take this person and place them into a dysfunctional home: her parents were nineteen and seventeen respectively when she was born. Her father is an alcoholic, and her mother ignored her. Whenever there were problems in the home, which there were on a weekly basis, they became her fault. She was not the cause, but because she could not fix the situation it was her fault.

It was when the inevitable happened and her parents split, that she entered the eating disorder stage of her anorexia. She must pay the ultimate punishment for her failure. She did not deserve the nourishment necessary for survival. Ironically it was only guilt feelings about abandoning her mother that saved her. It was not self preservation that started her eating again but the same feelings that had made her stop in the first place.

To assuage the guilt of that first failure she spent the next twenty years looking for people to heal, people to save from themselves. In the process she was beaten, raped, and emotionally abused. Through it all she felt guilty. She must be doing something wrong in order for people to treat her so bad, otherwise how else could you explain their behaviour.

Even if they were bad people it was her fault because how could she have been so stupid as to have gotten involved with them in the first place. How could she have listened to the voice that told her that she should try and help these people, even if they were beyond help. What was wrong with her? Who did she think she was anyway believing she could heal everybody?

Those were a few of the things the voices in her head were saying. Some of which people on the outside were only too glad to reinforce. Looking at the abuse they would question her judgement, thus they perpetuated her feelings of inadequacy and guilt and drove her deeper into herself. Maybe they were right and her desire to help people was wrong, and so she questioned that which motivated her whole being.

We can say that her initial motivation for healing was selfish, i.e. to make her home life better as a child. But how can you blame a child for wanting to have a happy house? How can you blame a child for wanting to stop her father hitting her mother? That is not selfish but self-preservation. What happened was that instead of looking for people who wanted to get better she kept looking for chances to heal her broken family, and thus searched out those who were least likely to respond in her endless quest to heal her parents.

After years of trying to fix everyone else's problems she started to help herself. She's had to retrain the way in which she thinks, learn how to tell the subconscious soundtrack in her head to shut-up whenever it gets out of hand, and replace it with positive thoughts.

Coming to respect and like herself was the first and most important step in the healing process. From there it became a matter of going beyond adequacy and getting back to having a life, for the first time ever, that was based on what she felt and wanted. Not on her misconceived notions of what she should do for others.

When we went looking for assistance there were few books out there at the time which offered any help or insight. Few people had published anything that offered the care giver a course of action to follow to assist those afflicted.

There don't seem to be any hard and fast theories on how to treat anorexics. In fact the different courses of treatment are as much a controversy as the disease itself. The afore mentioned Peggy Cloud Pierre has often been at the centre of this because of her tendency to ignore conventional wisdom and at the same time achieve remarkable results.

The first thing that she advocates is complete separation of the client from her family(As this is still a disease that primarily effects women I will use the feminine pronoun throughout). Clients come and live in her facility, and until the staff decide, they are allowed no contact with relatives.

Since the family situation usually has played a significant role in the generation of the illness it is considered essential for the client to be free of all potentially negative influences. Families had to agree to this at the onset of treatment as a condition for acceptance into the program. Not surprisingly this is was what caused most of St. Pierre's problems, families complaining they were not being allowed to see their children.

Too many people are still unwilling to believe that a mother or father can be the problem in a child's life not the solution. Having heard some of these parents or read quotes of what they have said, I have come away feeling that there are good reasons for the child to be apart from them. Their words were never about worry for the child, but about themselves and how they felt.

When someone says things like "It's a Mother's role" or a "Parent knows their child", and that same child has been starving to death for three years you question what role that mother played or how well she knew that child. If that truly were the case why did you need to turn to someone else for help in the first place and agree to their terms? In my mind these people sound embarrassed: initially by the disease and now by the fact that they are being seen to be responsible for the illness to some degree.

Those motivations are the precise reasons that separation was deemed essential. A person who is willing to let herself starve to death has to really hate themselves, or think so little of themselves that they don't care whether they live or die. How can that be countered? Pierre and her staff would counter with unconditional love.

No matter how they acted or what they did and said they would be continuously told they were worthy of love and affection. That's not to say they would be allowed carte blanch in their behaviour and get away with everything, but they were treated with respect and dignity. Everything and anything possible was done to ensure the restoration of their self respect.

While this may sound overly simplistic in its methodology, in practice it's another story altogether. To break though the walls that an anorexic has built around herself takes patience and perseverance. Years of self belittlement and guilt must be chipped away slowly and carefully. Pushing too hard and showing the slightest impatience will spoil any hope of establishing the trust so essential between care giver and client.

The first step is to build the client back up to a place where they are willing to fight for themselves. There comes a point when they must be willing to try and fight the impulses that cause the symptoms and to start seeking out their root source. But that will only happen when they believe they are worthy of living. Even then it is essential that positive reinforcement be a continual part of their lives. Without it the chances of relapse are high.

Due to a high number of complaints from parents, testimony of fired and vindictive staff, the British Columbia medical board rescinded Pierre's license to run her facility. The pity of it is that she of anybody working with anorexics had the highest rate of success without relapses of any facility or doctor on record.

I never knew my wife when she was in the throes of her eating disorder, only when she had started dealing with the mind set that caused its onset. I witnessed the struggles she went through and still goes through these days, and am grateful for the inspiration that Ms. Pierre provided and still provides us. Without the key she gave us through her example we may never have unlocked the door that had prevented my wife from living the better life she has now.

My wife and I liken being an anorexic to being an alcoholic; everyday is a struggle against the compulsion to fall back on bad old habits and beliefs. But everyday your clear of it is another step closer to freedom. There is more to this disease then a desire to look like a fashion model, although their example feeds the self loathing, and the sooner we start treating it for what it is the better.

It's a pity that the woman who was doing the most good for people was closed down over the belief that family is the be all and end all in our society. Too often the cause of anorexia rests in the home, not the pages of a magazine. Until we wake up to this fact there will be too many young girls continuing to starve themselves near on to death.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:20 AM | Permalink

Well another group of cowards has struck. Three bombs were exploded in the London rush hour killing at least 40 people on a double Decker bus, and in two underground stations. A terrorist group claiming affiliation with Al-Qaeda has taken “credit” for this latest attack.

Using the excuse of British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan they unleashed the worst carnage on London since the bombing raids of World War two. Even at the height of the I.R.A. bombings of the sixties and the seventies the citizens of London have never had to deal with such a horrendous event.

World reaction has been quick with denunciations coming thick and furious from all of Britain’s allies. These have been quickly followed by announcements of beefed up security in all G8 countries who have troops involved in either Iraq or Afghanistan. From Toronto to Washington, and Rome to Sydney(which although not G8, Australia has been one of America’s biggest supporters in Iraq)all mass transit systems are being scrutinized for potential threats.

As the countdown to the G8 meetings in Scotland this weekend continues it is certain that security restrictions around the site will be increased even more. What this will mean for the demonstrations planned to coincide with the conference remains to be seen. Already there have been clashes between protestors and police at the barricades and fences surrounding the Gleneagles Hotel, and this latest act is bound to increase police worries about the potential for any type of violence.

The British author Christopher Brookmyre in his book A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away refers to terrorists as “wankers without the balls to face a man with a gun”, or at least words to that effect. For all their brave talk about fighting for one cause or another they never have the courage of their convictions.

The bravery involved in sneaking up behind somebody and hitting them in the back of the head with a hammer while their sleeping is all that these so called freedom fighters are good for. It is very rare for them to ever take on combat soldiers in any kind real engagement.

There was a time when guerrilla groups were actually fighting units. From the original Spanish partisans who fought Napoleon,(the word guerrilla comes from the Spanish word for war not from a member of the ape family, similar to the French word guerre.)engaged in hit and run tactics against supply trains and other lightly armed troops. Their simple objective was to make life as miserable as possible for the forces occupying their country.

Guerrilla war fare and partisan actions were incredibly dangerous with repercussions for those waging it far worse then regular troops. If captured they did not receive the same treatment as regular soldiers, and were guaranteed a painful death and torture. There was also the good chance that any near by civilians would be punished for their actions.

Today’s killers of civilians only worry is the amount of publicity he can generate for whatever cause they are purporting to represent. Their actions usually have the opposite effect that they claim to be seeking. Instead of breaking a people’s resolve it invariably stiffens, due to a desire to not surrender to cowards(In the case of Spain the majority of people in the country had been against the war in Iraq. The government which had committed troops was defeated in an election based on that very issue. It was not the terrorist attack on Madrid that caused the supposed turnaround. There can be no turnaround when the policy was not supported in the first place)

The real danger of any terrorist attack, aside from the obvious destruction and death, are our reactions to it. How much we let blind panic govern us in the immediate aftermath gives almost more satisfaction to the cowards that originated the attacks then the act itself. How they must gloat when we immediately implement policies that restrict the freedoms we cherish and are willing to die for on battle fields around the planet.

Why do our governments think we who they trust to fight and die for freedoms of others would not be willing to do the same at home. True we have little or no defence against suicide bombers willing to fly a plane into an office building, like we would armed and equipped on the field of battle. But as the war in Iraq has shown us even armed soldiers have no defence against those willing to sacrifice themselves as human bombs.

In his song “The Harder They Come”(from the movie of the same name)Jimmy Cliff sings: “I’d rather die a free man in my grave, then living like a puppet or a slave...” As an act of defiance against those who would intimidate us through acts of terror should not that be the response? Do our governments have so little faith in us and our belief in liberty that they think we are not prepared to make sacrifices for the freedoms we so cherish.

Instead they act like we need to have our hands held and are incapable of making decisions. Have we not already surrendered to these cowards when we surrender our freedoms? How can our governments so blithely take away the rights we claim to epitomize.

Do we not have trained people whose job it is to ensure that these sorts of attacks don’t occur? What happens to the massive amounts of taxpayers money that goes into maintaining the security forces that all countries utilize for the protection of their citizens? Aren’t our governments admitting it’s wasted because these people can’t do their jobs unless we start treating all our citizens like suspects and throw away our cherished civil liberties?

In 1970 Canada was hit with a series of internal terrorist acts. The Front de Liberation de Quebec kidnapped the British High Commissioner to Quebec and the Quebec provincial Minister of Justice. The Justice Minister, Pierre Laporte, was found murdered four days after his disappearance. Then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, under pressure from the Mayor of Montreal and the Premier of Quebec, implemented the War Measures Act. The only time in the country’s history it has been used outside of wartime.
The act gave the army and the police sweeping powers to arrest anyone they thought potentially dangerous and hold them without trial for an indefinite period. Thousands of people were rounded up and imprisoned for no reason other then suspicion. That quite a few of them happened to be political opponents of the Mayor of Montreal who was facing an election at the time must have been coincidental.

This two week period in Canada’ history(The October Crises) further divided Quebec along separatist and federalist lines. Since the majority of those rounded up were members of the Parti Quebecois, a nationalist Quebec political party, it only increased their alienation from the rest of Canada. It’s debateable whether the War Measures Act had any impact on resolving the crises, but in the long run it did more harm then good.

Nationalists who may have just wanted more recognition for French language rights in Quebec in 1970, became convinced that only separation would guarantee them security from the same sort of event happening again. It may not have been the birth of the Separatist movement in Quebec, but the War Measures Act sure hastened their ascension to power. From 1970 to 1976 the Parti Quebecois went from an obscure fringe group to holding a convincing majority in the National Assembly parliament of Quebec. This in turn led to the first vote on sovereignty association.

The current situation is different in that the enemy is from outside the country. But there are still lessons that can be learned. Instead of the county’s attention being focused on the terrorists it was split over concern of the repercussions of the implementation of martial law. The same thing is happening in our countries today. Instead of all our citizens standing together against a common enemy we are turning on ourselves over internal issues. It’s gone beyond who’s right and who’s wrong. The rhetoric from both sides has become so vehement that a rift is being formed that may never be healed.

The terrorists have no need to launch any more attacks on us. Their work has been accomplished by our surrendering of the ideals that make free countries strong. Think how much more unified both the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, would be if we weren’t torn apart by divisive arguments about freedoms and liberty. If our governments had shown enough faith in us to have the courage of our convictions wouldn’t that have had more of an impact on the world then our constant bickering and false alarms.

I’m proud of the freedoms and liberties Canada grants me and I would be more than willing to die in it’s defence if we were ever invaded. By implementing laws which restrict those rights are not governments showing a lack of faith in their population’s patriotism?

I don’t want see anyone die in a terrorist attack. Attacks like today’s in London only show that we are dealing with cowards who are too afraid of fighting a war on the battlefield to pick up a gun and join their comrades in battle. Isn’t our best response to show that they can’t scare us and we will never surrender any part of what makes us better than them?

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:24 PM | Permalink

It used to be walking down the street of any major city in North America(and Europe I discovered) that people would stop you and ask if you would like to take a personality test. They promised it would reveal all sorts of secrets about you and help you make important life decisions.

It turned out that the most important decision you could make in your life was joining the Church of Scientology. They could provide all the answers for all the questions you could possibly have on your journey through life. If you became a Scientologist the world was your oyster.

What do you do if your the author of a bunch of pretty bad science fiction books which aren’t selling worth squat and you want to be famous anyway? Do what L. Ron Hubbard did and start a religion. I’m sure most of you have seen his massive books littering remainder bins in bookstores everywhere. By far the worst examples of deforestation in existence.

So I think I can be excused for choking on my morning coffee when I hear the pronouncements of Tom Cruise extolling the virtues of Scientology over that of trained practitioners of psychiatry. Now I’m no advocate of the there’s a pill for every ill that afflicts you school of medicine, but that’s not to say that certain people at particular points in their lives don’t need the assistance of medication.

Depression and other psychiatric illnesses can be genuinely debilitating to those afflicted with them. The causes of depression can be deep rooted and deep seated. Ranging from the after affects of childhood abuse to the stress of having just too many things to cope with. Medication will not cure depression, that can only be done by dealing with the issue causing it, but it can provide relief to the patient of it’s crippling symptoms.

Anyone who has ever suffered from clinical depression knows just how horrendous the experience can be. If bad enough and left untreated it can lead to suicide. It doesn’t mean that you are just a little blue or down in the dumps. It means that you have lost the will to live at all.

There’s nothing left that motivates you to do anything. In some cases the patient is so badly afflicted that getting out of bed is simply not worth it to them. Those things like family and friends that used to mean so much to you, have no meaning anymore. You neglect yourself and them because what’s the point anyway?

This lack of motivation also feeds the depression, because now you start to feel worthless. It becomes a vicious circle of: depression, not being able to do anything, and further depression. Without something to break the downward spiral a person could fall in perpetuity.

That’s where medication comes in. Not as a cure all or a panacea that will make the world a place better for the patient. Since most anti-depressants work as feelings suppressers the person using them will actually be in the position of not being able to feel any extremes of emotions. Neither sadness or joy will play a role in their lives.

While this state of mind is not conducive to living life to the fullest, it’s a lot better than being bed ridden. Once the sufferer begins to respond to the medication they must begin to seek therapy to deal with the root causes of the depression. As this can be a drawn out process with almost as many steps backwards as forwards the necessity for medication remains until the patient has shown significant improvement.

Like all medications that work with brain chemistry anti depressants can have significant contradictions dependant on dosage. In the early stages of treatment it is essential for the physician and the patient to work together closely in monitoring client reactions, physical and emotional, to the drug. Otherwise they could end up causing more harm then good.

Recovery from sever emotional trauma can take years. Sometimes after an initial couple of years of therapy a patient will feel well enough to be taken off medication and begin to pick up the pieces of their life. But some years down the road they may find that problems start to return.

Deep seated emotional scars are like an onion, with many layers waiting to peeled back until the core is reached. Our psyches are only able to deal with so much at any given time and need to take breaks from recovery. While some people find that their problems have solved by dealing with only the external layers, others need to delve deeper to find complete relief.

It’s usually some sort of other trauma, a physical injury, the loss of somebody close, or the end of a long term relationship, that triggers the onset of symptoms again. Sometimes the person who had previously suffered depression displays a different reaction, such as anxiety or panic disorders, when they relapse. New symptoms require new medication and new therapy.

The only way for these patients to obtain significant control over their lives again is to continue the process of uncovering those details of their lives that caused the symptoms to begin with. There is the danger that a person can fall into the trap of becoming dependant on analysis, or of overanalysing to the point that they lose sight of the fact that all humans have difficulties at one time or another without there necessarily having to be any hidden meaning.

There comes a point when it becomes essential that clients learn to differentiate between what is just the normal day to stress of living and what is caused by a prior experienced trauma. Unfortunately for some this point may never be reached as they were too severely traumatized to ever be able to cope with the realities of today’s world.

The pharmaceutical companies would have us believe that there is a pill for every problem. That if you only take their tablet all your problems will be solved. There are doctors who keep their patients in a continual pharmaceutical haze either because of laziness or ignorance. Any number of patients misdiagnosed are too many, and too many have ended up on the psych wards of hospitals from having been prescribed medications doing more harm then good.

In spite of this the nonsense that Tom Cruise and the scientologists are espousing as gospel is even more damaging. Mental illnesses are real and need to be treated in a responsible manner with proper support and respect. Patients are vulnerable to suggestion, and the slightest indication that their problems lack validity(are “all in their head” so to speak)seriously undermines their hopes for recovery.

People are free to believe what they want and to live there lives in any way they see fit. But advocating theories that are potentially dangerous, based on no proof except your say so, is highly irresponsible, especially for a person of Mr. Cruise’s influence. His fame is not adequate credential for giving medical advice.

gypsyman has been undergoing therapy for post traumatic stress syndrome caused by childhood sexual abuse on and off since 1994. While some may consider the matter open for debate, he feels that it has helped him significantly. He is currently in therapy and on medication for anxiety and panic disorder. “I’m much better now” :(Night Court, Judge Stone’s father played by John Astin better known as Gomez Adams in the T.V. version of the Adam’s family)

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:26 AM | Permalink

I’d like to take a quick poll of readers. How many of you remember a time when you didn’t eat grapes in the winter, checked to see where a product was grown or manufactured before buying it, or have even gone to the extreme of not shopping in a place because they did not label where items came from? Does that sound familiar to anybody?

When I was a kid that was my family. Supporters of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers union in California, enforcers of the nothing from South Africa rule, and latter from Chile. When your young it’s difficult to understand the subtle nuances of political behaviour. All it meant to me was that I never got to eat the Granny Smith apples I loved so much because they came from South Africa.

My Mother tried to explain it to me, about people being treated unfairly. The Mexican workers in California not being paid properly for their work picking the fruit and vegetables. The situation in South Africa of white minority rule.

I had asked her why she didn’t shop at a particular store, they had better candy and that was important to me, and had been told they didn’t label products telling which country had grown them. She said that if these people who were living like slaves or being treated badly asked for help by people not buying things, it was the least we could do. Giving up grapes in the winter was nothing compared to not being able to afford to feed your family.

I guess you could say that was the beginning of my political awareness. A mixture of liberal guilt and a desire to make the world better. In my innocence, or ignorance, I assumed that everybody’s family acted like ours did. So the first time I was over at a friends house and saw a bowl of grapes I said something about it. The silence that followed told me that I had made some sort of faux pas, but didn’t know what.

It wasn’t till I got home that my mother explained that not all people believed that boycotts, she had taught me what the word meant, were any good, or that some even thought that supporting the people who needed help was wrong. I couldn’t understand why people wouldn’t want to help those in trouble. She said neither could she, but there were some people in the world like that.

The years went by and the boycotts came and went. The Mexican workers in California won some rights and the impetus died, but apartheid looked like it was here to stay. New causes came up to be supported, new products to be protested. Cosmetics for animal testing, Nestles for dumping bad baby formulas on the third world, and paper products company Bunton and Reid for dumping Mercury into the English River system in Northern Ontario causing birth defects and destroying fish populations.

In the 1980’s the boycott against South Africa picked up steam with the emergence of Desmond Tutu as spiritual leader, and the latest waves of discontent boiling over in the townships where the blacks lived. In an unprecedented move at that time the Canadian government of Brian Mulroney implemented a country wide boycott of all consumer products from South Africa. He was joined in this by most of the developed world with the exceptions of the United States and Great Britain. Neither Ronald Regan or Margaret Thatcher would endorse this as a valid foreign policy claiming that it would hurt those it was designed to help. That argument was weakened by the support of both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu for the boycott.

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison and had donned the mantle of leadership he toured the various countries that had supported him and the people of South Africa. Over and over again he reiterated that the boycott no matter it’s economic cost or effect, offered the people of his country hope for the future because it showed them that people cared enough to take a form of action.

It is ironic that governments would claim that boycotts by individuals are not an effective means of working for change. What is even more cynical is for them to argue that they hurts the intended beneficiaries more than it helps. Neither of these seem to be a consideration when any of them impose embargos or economic sanctions on a nation in an attempt to effect a change in leadership.

Doesn’t the complete cessation of trade result in economic depravation for the people of the country these embargos are meant to assist? It is duplicity of the highest order to deny the effectiveness of a means of protest while simultaneously employing the same means as government policy. Perhaps by deriding it’s effectiveness they hope to monopolize it’s usage.

A boycott’s impact is greatest when associated with a movement that has a wider implications then just protest against a specific product. The boycott of Montgomery’s bus service by blacks protesting their segregation was just a part of the overall push for equal rights; not buying the products of South Africa and Californian grown fruit and vegetables was just one element of a massive struggle; and there’s more to ensuring animal rights then boycotting cosmetics.

Consumer advocates like Ralph Nadar realize that a boycott is only as effective as the numbers that support it. Obviously it is useless to attempt the effort unless there is some key issue you can tie it into. There has to be something about it that cuts across economic, social and ethnic barriers. It’s like running an advertising campaign in reverse.

There has to be a sentiment that people can get behind and support. Freedom, safety, or anything that will touch their hearts. Once that is established a boycott becomes the simplest form of protest for people to be involved in. They are able to feel like they are effecting change without having to do anything. It is probably the only direct action where inaction is the means of expression.

The beauty of a boycott is it’s simplicity. The whole concept is easy to understand, easy to implement and the results are, if not quick, at least obvious. If, for example, people decide to boycott an event for a reason, lets say a circus because of their treatment of animals, they can immediately gauge the effectiveness of their campaign. If the event normally has an audience of over ten thousand people all of sudden has only half that amount they’re probably going to rethink the way they do business. This tells you that you were successful.

A boycott is the purest expression of democracy in action that we have today. People expressing their opinions through their choices. If a majority of people, no matter who they are, offer support, they are listened to. It is a great equalizer in that a gives people who don’t often have a voice a means to express their feelings.

In today’s world the effectiveness of a boycott can only increase. The ease with which information can be disseminated facilitates an organizers ability to create an impact. Any body anywhere can start or continue the process of spreading the word and the purpose of a particular cause.

While some may argue that a referendum serves this same purpose, a boycott is the only means available to individuals beyond the control of governments to express their opinions. They cost nothing to implement and you don’t have to comply with any regulations except the laws of the land. Our power as consumers can not be underestimated. All of us have the ability to choose not to buy something. Nobody can take that right away from you.

On Saturday July 2nd organizers of the Calgary Stampede stampeded a herd of two hundred and two horses through the streets of the city to celebrate the upcoming event. When they got them to an under pass bridge which runs under a six land highway the noise of the traffic overhead caused the herd to panic further. This resulted in nine horse plunging to their deaths from the bridge. The Calgary Humane Society has called for a boycott of the Calgary Stampede. Please support their efforts and end this inhumane treatment of animals. Thank you. gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:59 AM | Permalink

At the end of World War Two the British empire was on it’s last legs. Their economy badly damaged by the ravages of two world wars and the depression they no longer had the strength to hold onto their more troublesome holdings. There were two in particular they needed to divest themselves of as quickly as possible.

Both Palestine and India were situations that even with sensitive and delicate handling were potential powder kegs. Tensions between the two major ethnic communities in each country were extreme. In India the split was along religious lines between Hindus and Muslim. In Palestine it was both a nationalistic and a religious split, between two groups claiming the same territory through historic precedent. Both Jewish Zionists and Arab nationalists had legitimate title to being original inhabitants in the narrow strip of land we now know as Israel.

Far from showing the wisdom of Solomon in either case the British decided to actually cut the baby in two and leave the two mother’s to squabble over the remains. Partition may have looked good on a map, two areas in each land, one for each group, but in actuality it was a fiasco.

Arbitrarily drawing lines on a map results in massive upheavals of individuals. One day you’re living in your house happy and content, the next you discover you’re living in a land ruled by people who may or may not welcome you. In theory Arabs in the new state of Israel were free to stay, as were Muslims in India, but in practice hardly any felt secure enough to do so.

Although Pakistan did provide a destination for India’s Muslims the prospect of uprooting oneself and running a gamut of Hindi anger from one end of the subcontinent to the other was overwhelming. Although the leaders of the new India did their best they were unable to restrain their more fanatical brethren from exacting a price on the refugees.

But unlike their counterparts in Palestine they at least had the comfort of knowing they would be building their own country at the end of the line. While there have been border disputes, skirmishes, and war between the two nations they can each claim to have established individual countries for their people’s.

In the late 19th century and early 20th the Zionist movement had been formed. Mainly wealthy Jews and intellectuals to start with, their goal was the creation of a Jewish homeland where they would no longer be the victims of another government’s caprice. As many Jews considered themselves exiles from Palestine(the ritual of saying “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the end of each Passover seder is embolic of this) it was a natural progression for most of them to think of Israel.

Until 1918 that part of the world was under the control of the vestiges of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. At the end of World War One with the defeat of the Turks the birth of many of today’s Arab countries took place. But, as the liberators, Britain decided to hold onto a narrow strip of land encompassing what is now modern day Israel so as to take control of Jerusalem.

As soon as possible after the fall of the Turks the Zionist league began to organize immigration to Palestine of willing Jews in an attempt to legitimize their claims to the land. These initial settlers were the original Kibbutz founders. They established settlements in the desert and began the process of reclaiming land for farming.

These moves were not lost on the Arab residents who brought pressure to bear on the British to limit the numbers of Jewish refugees allowed in on a yearly basis so as to maintain a balance of numbers. The Arabs were already feeling betrayed because one of the promises that had been made them by the British for fighting the Turks was control of Jerusalem.

The influx of Jewish refugees continued to mount in the years leading up to World War Two and even during the war. Those people able to make it to neutral Portugal would pool resources to purchase the risky passage across the Mediterranean trying to avoid German submarines and then the British patrol boats that would turn them away.

Of course after the war with the revelations of the camps the pressure increased for a Jewish homeland. By 1949 with world opinion strongly in favour of the Jews the British were ready to withdraw and wash their hands of the whole mess.

In an attempt to placate both sides they drew a line through the country right down the middle of Jerusalem. The Jewish state of Israel would retain the Kibbutz settlements in the Gaza and border the Red sea. The Arabs would be given the land up to the borders of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Of course this pleased no one.

Attempts by both sides were made to encourage the others to leave territories through terrorism and other acts of violence against civilians. The Zionist terrorist groups Irgun and Stern were responsible for the destruction of an entire village and a variety of other non military targets. Needless to say Arab groups reciprocated in kind.

The surrounding countries of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan saw an opportunity to take back the territory that had been promised them by the British. So instead of allowing the Arabs of Palestine the opportunity to establish a country beside Israel they invaded the moment the British mandate expired.

What resulted was the beginning of today’s mess we call the Middle East problem. When the invasion failed to destroy Israel, instead of retreating back into their own countries again, the Arab nations of Jordan and Lebanon held onto the territories that had been ceded to the Palestinian Arabs.

Fully anticipating the eventual removal of Israel, the Arab countries made little or no provisions for the refugees. They were not allowed to move from the area which was to have been their half of the partitioned land, but at the same time they had no control over their government. They had effectively become the stateless people they are today.

From that time forward there have been various wars between the countries. The Arabs intent upon destroying Israel, who in turn sought to fortify their position. In 1967 they did just that by seizing the land that had been earmarked as being for the Palestinians in the original partitioning of the land.

Most of us are familiar with this territory as being the Gaza strip and the West Bank of modern parlance. The territory that is right now on the point, sometime soon it can only be hoped, of being ceded back to the Palestinians. While Israel will retain control over Jerusalem, the border will be almost identical to that drawn up by the British close to sixty years ago.

Like India before them Israel faces a severe internal test from the more fanatical elements of it’s society. The “settlers” oppose any surrender of territory and back up their demands with violence and the establishment of illegal residences. They have already been responsible for the assassination of Prime Minster Rabin in 1995, who was on the verge of finalizing negotiations with the Palestinian authority.

Recently they have stepped up their activities by trying to provoke Palestinians into retaliatory behaviour by attacking Arabs and encroaching further into their territories. The government of Arial Sharron, after cynically using the settlers as a weapon, has finally cracked down on their activities. The army is being used to close down all illegal settlements and securing the borders of the new Palestinian state.

The irony of these settlers is that the majority of them are not from Israel. The first proponents of this activity were the followers of Rabbi Mehr Kahane, a fanatic from Brooklyn who founded the Jewish Defence league. They proscribed to a type of Jewish Nazism advocating that Israel be for those of pure Jewish blood only.

Now the settlers come from all over the world, intent on destroying the hopes for peace so long desired by the people who were born and raised as the first generations of Israel. Hamas and other similar groups who carry out terrorist attacks purportedly on behalf of the Palestinians have been labelled as outside agitators in our press. But the same information is glossed over when it comes to talking about the settlers.

Unfortunately both groups have far too much in common. For their own personal prestige and power they will manipulate and destroy the hopes and dreams of the people they claim to represent. Neither the Palestinian authority or the Israeli governments seem able or willing to control these elements within their society.

Promises have been made in the past about and from both elements either promising a respect of a cease fire, or a withdrawal of people, and been broken so often that it is hard to believe anyone’s word any more. Without guarantees from these and other parties any talk of peace is just that, talk. While the threat remains of civilian death how can either side be expected to trust the other enough to relax vigilance.

After years of stalling Arial Sharon and the Likud party are finally accepting the inevitable. But they have continually played a shell game with the settlers. With one hand they withdraw them, but with the other they’ve pushed them forward. Their latest measures to crack down on them seem like a step in the right direction. Peace for this troubled part of the world rests on their ability to follow through on this promise as much as it does on the cessation of anti Israeli terrorist activities.

India and Pakistan are proving with their current negotiations over the Kashmir border dispute that long held animosity can be overcome when both sides are willing and able to make concessions. Almost 60 years and thousands of deaths latter it would be nice to see the other survivors of partition lay down their arms.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:00 AM | Permalink

Old friends are the best friends. You can disagree with an old friend and know that it’s not going to harm your relationship. An old friend understands you well enough that explanations aren’t usually necessary. An old friend forgives your mistakes and celebrates your triumphs. There is no greater treasure then having an old friend.

The United States of America is one of Canada’s oldest friends. We’ve been side by side since before both countries were born. When we were both British colonies we fought together to unify the continent under one flag. After you seceded we fought to stay friends.

For the past 138 years we have lived a peaceful coexistence. Once our sovereignty was assured you have supported our independence and helped us find our feet. If you look at the history of other countries who share a common border our record is exemplary. We have never had a war between our two countries.(There was no Canada in 1812-1814, that was a colony in the British empire not us)

What too many of us on both sides of the border forget too often are the amazing things that we have accomplished together. For the longest time we have maintained the longest undefended border in the world, where our citizens have been able to freely cross over into each other’s countries and visit. The world being what it is I think it a testimony to our two peoples that we have been able to maintain this as long as we have.

The realities of our current world situation have forced changes upon us. No one may like them, but longer lines at the border are a minor inconvenience if they save lives. The fact that we are still trying to make the system work better, without either side behaving in an arbitrary manner over the issue, only proves the strength of our friendship.

We may do this differently on either side of the 49th parallel but we each have the same goal. To make our citizens as happy and comfortable as possible. Sometimes this will cause a dispute because our means will come into conflict, but we always seem to be able to work out our differences.

Once in a while we feel slighted because we think our feelings our being ignored. But the reality is that your concerns are not always the same as ours. But if you don’t think of us first, you always remember us in the end. Besides we always say that we are independent nations, so if you act that way, it only sounds petulant to complain.

Like any smaller friend with a larger buddy we have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to you. If a Canadian wants to become truly famous he or she has to go south with a treasured green card and then we will claim them as our own. Our small stature also explains the perverse pride we take in anything we best you in. Even if it is in something the majority of you have never heard of or understand like curling(Frankly most Canadians have no understanding of it either, but let’s keep that a secret)

Some of our rituals must seem strange to you. Saturday night hockey games, three down professional football, the aforementioned curling, and the fact that every five years or so one of our provinces tries to separate. The simple fact of the matter is that we have really long winters where there is nothing else to do. We drink our stronger beer and come up with these idiotic ideas.

Sometimes it feels like you see us as a rather idealistic younger sibling who’s eyes need to be opened to the harsh realities of the world. While we in turn look on you as our big strong brother who needs to lighten up a bit. We poke fun at your lack of knowledge of our country, while deep down we realize that since we’ve never done anything of real consequence why should you care.

There are some Canadians who feel we should scrape and bow to you. When you say jump we say how high. But that’s not been our history with each other. Like all good friends we’ve always respected the other’s right to independent thought.

If sometimes we sound harshly critical, either us of you, or you of us, it’s only because of disappointment. Oh there are those on either side of the border who may feel otherwise, who would stir up bad feelings between us, but they are such a small minority that they are insignificant. Even in times of major disagreement it’s about the current political situation not the countries themselves.

Looking back through the history of man I don’t think it would be possible to find two other countries who have created the unique situation our two have. Existing as long as we have as neighbours without conflict is a remarkable achievement that should never be taken for granted. Neither of us give ourselves the credit we deserve for being able to make this work even in the most difficult of circumstances.

The friendship between our two countries is something that should always be treasured and fought for. As with any good relationship to continue working we need to always be open and honest about the issues that are bothering us. We need to have the faith that our friendship can withstand any disagreement. It has done so in the past so there is no reason to doubt it will in the future.

At this time in our mutual history, when we seem to be having a more difficult time of it, I think it behoves us all to go that extra mile in ensuring the hand of friendship stays extended. On that note I would like to take this opportunity to wish Canada’s oldest friend and ally a happy 239th birthday. May you have many more.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:07 AM | Permalink

There's a phrase that gets tossed around a lot these days. "Traditional Family Values". It's guaranteed that you will here it said at least once in any speech by someone whose fighting against changes in the social order. Whether issues about sexuality, schooling, or even health and welfare are even relevant doesn't seem to matter. It's an emotional catch all that can be used to pinpoint a speakers place on the political map.

Three words that actually mean very little at all but that say a lot. Through inference they imply that what is being spoken against will somehow harm you and your children. Without even having to define how or what the damage will be an emotional trigger is pulled to make people rally round the flag of and pull up the drawbridge.

"Traditional Family Values" translates into, The Barbarians are at the gate. Hide the women and children because they're coming to rape pillage and burn. Visions of your teenage daughter being sold into white slavery, your son being ganged raped by rampaging homosexuals and your wife and you being forced into acts of depravity dance through your head. You thank God for the N.R.A. and head for the bomb shelter out back with the Uzi and AK47.

What are traditional family values anyway? Just whose tradition are we talking about? Well a safe assumption, given the gender, race, and class of most people who use the phrase, that we're talking about white male protestant family values. Sure there are the occasional women who have been heard saying those words, but they're usually the ones who mistook feminism for the right to act like a man instead of the freedom to be a woman.

I'm sure for most of those who hear those words and are philosophically allied with the speaker, they bring visions of Mom, Dad, two kids, a mini-van, and a house in the suburbs to their head. Dad goes to work five days a week and on Saturday works around the house mowing the lawn and other Dad stuff. Son is older and plays football, has a steady girl who he holds hands with and take out for a burger and coke on Friday nights, while younger sister has giggly friends she talks too much with on the phone. Mom stays at home cooking and cleaning and whipping up meals from Campbell Soup labels.

Every Sunday they all climb into the mini-van and go to church where they are filled with words of praise for their way of life. They hear warnings about the depredations of the world and count their blessings for the wholesomeness of brownies and milk. Depending on the time of year Dad may try and get in golf after church, or he and son will toss around the football, while Mom and sister do whatever it is they do.

The only minorities they know are the jovial fat black women who comes and cleans house once a week, and the Mexican who does the yard work. You have to keep your eye on them because they may steal, but as Mom tells daughter

"It's because they haven't had the same advantages as you and they don't know any better."

Dad and Mom will have Martinis after work and maybe cocktails on Saturdays if the neighbours come over. Sometimes there's even beer at the neighbourhood barbecue. The Dads gather in a group around a side of cow charring in various chunks over kerosene induced flames. Moms stand around a pristine kitchen making salads and dissecting those not there with knives of Christian spite. Teenage sons and daughters stand around in groups talking about each other and school, maybe the boys will throw the football around at the foot of the garden.

A life right out of a Norman Rockwell painting from the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, or a 1960's sit com come alive. In this ideal world of theirs there are no drugs, no unemployment. Illnesses are never serious and the friendly family doctor is always there to make house calls in case of flu or a cold. Everything is in it's place and all is right in the world.

The post World War Two economic boom that hit North America gave rise to the first real middle class. Prices were low, jobs were plentiful, and housing was cheap as the suburbs around major cities were developed. It was the beginning of the end of life in the city for all but the poor and the very rich.

As the fifties and sixties progressed more and more money and people moved out of the cities leaving services to degrade from lack of a strong tax base. Disparities in education and health care began to develop, and as new housing starts slowed in the inner core the cost of rents began to soar. Those who couldn't afford to move out to the havens of the suburbs were forced into worse and worse housing and confronted with less services.

Those traditional values that are so extolled refer to that brief flicker of time when the white middle class were kings. The effects of migration from the cities hadn't yet put demands on the economy by increasing the welfare rolls and unemployment insurance payouts. The war in Viet Nam was just starting and not yet dividing the nation or depleting it's young people and financial resources.

America, and Canada for that matter, were in an artificial economic bubble caused by the lack of any real competition from other industrial states. While France, Germany, and Japan were retooling and rebuilding industry in North America was the major supplier of manufactured goods. Every free market in the world was supplied with items made by the hands of workers here, and most of the dollars were floating back this way.

But by the early sixties that all started to change as both Germany and Japan entered into the fray and began mass production of high quality, cheap, in demand products. As North America's market share decreased and the cost of materials rose profit margins slimmed. Wage growth slowed while the cost of living increased. By the nineteen seventies it became harder and harder for one wage to pay the way.

Simultaneously social changes and liberations were underway. The children of the middle class left their homes for school and became aware of the inequities in the world. They looked at the lives of their parents and rejected those values as being one of the causes of injustice. This led to experimentations with alternative lifestyles and an embracing of a more accepting belief system.

Sexuality long repressed became open and issues such as birth control and abortion became relevant. With the new openness the closet door on what were formally considered deviant behaviours swung ajar a crack. Gays and lesbians took their first steps on the long road to acceptance.

Young women realized the limitations that their mother's lives offered them and wanted something more them simply serving men as their role in society. Equally educated they saw no reason why they should not be equally employed. With those demands came calls for new definitions of the relationship between a man and woman.

If they were to no longer be servants then men could no longer tell them how to live and what to do. This should extend to control over all aspects of their life including their bodies. If someone else could dictate whether or not they could have an abortion how could they be considered free?

In the space of twenty-five years huge social upheavals caused earthquakes in the status quo. Even while some people of colour remained trapped in the inner cities others managed to ride the crest of the civil rights movement and establish beachheads in business, politics and education from where they have worked to enable a better life for themselves and other blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.

It is no longer unusual for both husband and wife to be working, or to see a single mom raising a child. Sometimes the latter is a choice, often though its is forced upon her. But at least her opportunities are no longer limited by stigma and lost job opportunities. Day cares offer some easing of the burden for a single parent. Far from sufficient at least there is something offered which wasn't there years ago.

Those who call for a return to "Traditional Family Values" know today's realities and are scared of them. The erosion of values they're talking about is their position of power in the world. They know that they can't turn back the progress that has been made in the last decades, so all they can do is hope to repress it as much as possible. They may be able to change laws and temporarily steal rights that have been fought for and won, but they can't change the way people think and feel. Too many people out there have tasted freedom to let it be taken away on a more than temporary basis.

They play on the fears people have of things that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. Spurious claims are made about drug usage and crime to scare people into believing that a nuclear family will solve all society's problems.

The values that have been lost with the dissolving of the family unit are to blame for societies ills. The values of intolerance, repression, ignorance, and xenophobia are certainly ones that are sorely missed by people like the Klan and other neo nazis.

There are no guarantees that a good Christian home of Mom, Dad, son, and daughter will produce anything better then another home with a single mother or father. It's families just like these where the wife is beaten by the husband, or sexual abuse happens and is gotten away with because nobody looks beneath the facade.

How do I know? Because I grew up in one just like it and my father raped me for eight of the first eleven years of my life. When I tried to tell people they wouldn't believe me, or threatened me with reform school (that was my mother). In 1960's Toronto who is going to believe that a little boy is being raped by his father?

Now in this morally lax age we live in if a child were to tell the same tale people would listen and investigate. Which is the better world to live in? The one where because people pretend stuff like that doesn't happen it continues unchecked or the one where people accept that it happens and try to deal with it.

The people who preach for a return to "Traditional Family Values" want to turn back the clock on progress and hope. They want to pretend that the past twenty-five to thirty years haven't happened. The world has changed and they are unwilling to change with it. Let's not let them destroy what we've tried so desperately to build.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:49 AM | Permalink

One of the most “notorious women” in Canadian history is about to be released from prison sometime today. Along with her now ex husband Paul Bernardo Karla Homolka was arrested in connection with the rape murder of two young women. Although Mr. Bernardo will never see the outside of prison walls again(he was branded a dangerous offender which means he never has to be released)Ms. Holmolka received only a twelve years sentence through a plea bargain .

During the couples trial it became clear that although there was evidence to convict Mr. Bernardo on one of the crimes, it was not sufficient to see him put away indefinitely. The public outcry over the horrific nature of the crimes pressured the office of The Attorney General of Ontario to seek any means at their disposal to secure a dangerous offender conviction.

At the time the detectives investigating the crimes knew that there was a video recording in existence that Mr. Bernardo and Ms. Holmolka had made of themselves with the victims. As it was obviously not in his interest to reveal it’s whereabouts Mr. Bernardo was not about to tell where it was hidden.

Ms. Holmolka’s lawyers had already taken the approach in their defence that their client was as much a victim as the girls raped and murdered. She was portrayed as a innocent trapped in a nightmare world by an violent and dangerous man who would have killed her if she didn’t play along.

Therefore they were more then happy to be as accommodating as possible to the prosecutors, as long as there was something in it for them. Ms. Holmolka was given the opportunity to plead guilty to manslaughter which carries the maximum sentence of twelve years. She directed the police to a false ceiling in the bedroom she had shared with Mr. Bernardo.

The public outcry when the terms of her sentencing deal were announced, at least in the tabloid press, was nothing to the field day that followed the video’s first screening. The images from the video were interpreted by the press as showing Ms. Holmolka as a more then willing participant.

Aside from the usual baying for the return of the death penalty that seems to accompany almost any murder trial, the tabloids had the extra bone to chew on of Karla Holmolka getting off easy. Headlines called for the resignation of everyone from the chief of police who commanded the investigating force, the attorney general of Ontario, to the premier of the province. At the very least they demanded the plea bargain be destroyed. The response to the to the attorney general’s comment that it would be unethical to set that precedent, was who cares.

We will never know what was going on behind the smiling face of Ms. Holmolka on that video. Was she enjoying herself, or was it as she claims self preservation? Things we do know are that her family background and her psychological profile are consistent with that of a woman susceptible to manipulation and abuse.

This does not excuse her actions. She does not appear to ever have attempted to escape. But look at the statistics of how many women stay with the husband that abused them until it was too late and you wonder if she ever really had a choice or chance. Fear will make you do anything.

For the last year leading up to her release the tabloid pages have been filled with reminders of her crimes. We are constantly reminded of the tearful families of the victims and are shown the school portraits of the dead young women. No effort is being spared to whip up renewed hatred and re open the wounds of the family’s pain.

These same papers spent the years of her incarceration attempting to and succeeding on occasion, to snap illicit pictures of her and obtain any tidbit of salacious gossip they could pry or bribe from her guards. Pictures would appear, fuzzy and grainy, of her in the exercise yard, being escorted to a doctor: anything that would keep her in the public eye

There has never been any proof that Ms. Holmolka was more then an accomplice to these crimes. That Mr. Bernardo was the one who did the actual killings is unquestioned. Why then the furor and fascination surrounding her?

Obviously there is the nature of her involvement. She participated in the torture, rape, and filming of the two young women. But then there is the added titillation of her sex. No one seems to be able to get enough of that detail.

While never coming right out and saying it, the idea of same sex rape is continually implied. The constant reminders of the young victims’ innocence(I don’t know if they were ever referred directly to as virgin but it was sure hinted at) and Ms. Holmolka’s physical charms has been downright pornographic. One could almost see the drool falling from their lips as they mouthed their rancid rhetoric.

Given the tenor of the coverage one would thing that there have been no crimes so horrendous ever committed in Canada. But in the last five years one of the worst examples of mass murder was uncovered in Vancouver.

Over the course of a number of years prostitutes from the city had disappeared without a trace. After a long slow investigation, which gave many reason to believe that no one cared, the clues eventually led to the arrest of an are pig farmer. They still have not recovered all his victims who were buried beneath the mud and filth of his farm.

Unless the murderer decides to reveal details we will probably never know the exact number of his victims. Too many of them didn’t have anyone who would miss them. While the press have reported on the details of the crime, there is not the same tenor of horror to their stories.

No one has asked for impact statements from the family of these victims. No time has been spent dredging up their dreams and aspirations. Although these women were also raped, murdered and tortured they seem almost incidental to the fact that the crime was committed.

The calls for the return of the death penalty seem strangely muted in this instance. Those few people interviewed as friends seem only too aware of how they and the women killed are viewed by society. The defensive nature of their answers, the hopelessness expressed in the time before the case was solved, revealed that they knew no one really cared about them.

Even in the face of murder the scales of societal judgement never rest. If Karla Holmolka had been involved in the death of prostitutes would there have been such a hue and a cry over her plea bargain? Is it only because the victims in her case came from “decent homes and families” that the public and media care so much about what will happen to her outside of prison?

The judge who set the terms for her parole placed her under the usual restrictions for anyone who has been sentenced to a charge of murder. She must notify the police of her whereabouts at all times, she can not leave Montreal without giving thirty six hours notice, and is not allowed to associate with any people with criminal records. Due to the nature of her conviction she is also not allowed to associate with any person under the age of sixteen, her ex-husband, or the families of the women slain, and she must obtain counselling.

Any person in Canada who has received a sentence for murder is on parole for the rest of their life. A breach of any of her parole conditions could send her back to prison indefinitely. Given the amount of restrictions being placed upon her and the implied threat behind them, can anyone honestly see her as being a danger to whatever community she will be living in.

When she leaves prison she will be taken into the care of the Elizabeth Fry society who are responsible for trying to help women adjust to living outside of prison after years of incarceration. But what hope is there for her in this country.

She has been so successfully tarred and feathered in the press that she will never be able to lead a life resembling anything close to normal. Can she be expected to eventually get a job? Has she been released from a physical prison only to be sentenced to a live imprisoned by poverty?

Most people probably couldn’t be bothered sparing her a moments pity. Believing that any punishment she continues to receive is only fitting, they are content to let her suffer on in perpetuity. But surely they don’t want her to go back to a life of crime? Wouldn’t they rather her try and atone for her previous wrongs by putting something back into the society at large?

Twelve years may not seem like a long time, but one day can be an eternity in a federal penitentiary. For those who seem to mete out justice in terms of suffering, fear not. Karla Holmolka has had to live with herself for twelve years of prison, and will continue to do so for the rest of her life.

Even if she is the cold hearted murderess that the press has painted her as, the attempt has to be made to heal her. Only if she shows herself incapable of recovery should we wash our hands and assign her to the pits of hell. Otherwise we end up becoming those we claim to despise.

Karla Holmolka was convicted of a heinous crime and whether or not we agree with the length of her sentence it is now done. As is right she will never be free from the implications of that for the rest of her life. The terms of her parole restrict her life as surely as a prison sentence and she has to live with herself. Continued harassment and public reviling in the press has little to do with justice and much to do with exploitation

The families of the two murdered girls will not get their daughters back no matter what anybody does or says. Do they really need one of the people responsible for their deaths being elevated to some sort of twisted celebrity status? Seeing Ms. Holmolka’s picture on the front page of the papers is a daily reminder of their loss.

The best justice that can be served is to sentence Karla Holmolka to obscurity. If she is who the press says she is, attention seeking and vain, this will punish her the most. If she isn’t, then maybe, just maybe the principles involved in this sordid piece of history can start to pick up the pieces of their lives again.

There are enough notorious people in the world that we are not going to miss one more or less.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:53 AM | Permalink

Healthy conservatism promotes the continuity of civilization, the importance of community, the dangers of thoughtless change. It does not, or should not, assert the right of white, Christian heterosexual males of a certain age to limit the rights of everyone else. The past 100 years of social history has been dedicated, on good days, to constraining the dominance of this minority. Yesterday was a good day.John Ibbitson www.globeandmail.com Wed. June 29th.

The world moves at a pace quicker then most of us can handle. Whether breakthroughs in the science of how we understand ourselves, medical research, or the use of technology in our lives, something new is announced on an almost daily basis.
Careening along we ascend the heights of knowledge, desperately attempting to assimilate and acclimatize to the new altitudes. To a race that for thousands of years was relatively static the past hundred or so years has seen an unprecedented explosion of change.

Technological changes have given rise to societal changes. Through our advances in labour saving devices more and more people have been liberated from the drudgery of mind and soul destroying labour. With more people being exposed to education and it’s accompanying knowledge and awareness, more have craved the privileges so long confined to a few.

Demands for equal treatment in the eyes of the law no matter race, creed, or sex have resulted in massive societal shake-ups and opened the door on issues that had never been considered. The fight for equal rights for women resulted in the issues of abortion and day care to either rise from obscurity or come into existence. Before women worked en masse what need was there to be concerned about children during the day when school was done?

Traditional rules and mores that have long been held dear by so many are being discarded in the face of these new realities. It seems that although the technological changes have the potential to impact our quality of life and our very existence in some circumstances, it’s the social changes which cause the most consternation.

There are weapons that exist today that if deployed could destroy the world through explosive power and radiation sickness. Others could wipe out whole populations through the spread of decease. We have bombs that will kill people but leave infrastructures intact.

The amounts of coal and gasoline burned by our industry and private vehicles has risen to the extent that respiratory ailments are now commonplace. The effluence of industry and our inability to dispose of our own waste material has effectively turned many lakes, rivers, and streams into toilets.

Deforestation, agribusiness, and strip-mining have combined to destroy the habitats of countless species of animal and plant. Forcing the remainder into small pockets of land where they are in more danger from decease and over population thus eroding their chances of survival even further.

For some people these issues aren’t relevant. Either they refuse to recognise their reality, or they simply don’t care. Those who don’t care are usually those who are more focused on issues that they seem to believe affect them personally. Ones that they feel threaten them in some manner or another.

What’s truly puzzling is the fact that for the most part those matters that they feel most threatened by have nothing to do with them as individuals. Even though they may be neither female or gay somehow same sex marriage and abortion concern them deeply.

So concerned are they with ensuring the maintenance of the status quo at all costs that only those issues that threaten their power base, even indirectly by giving rights to others, are all that matters. They don’t worry about society as a whole, no matter what they claim to the contrary, they just worry about their place in it.
If women are allowed to chose what happens to their own bodies, and homosexuals are treated the same as everyone else what does it harm anyone else? Nobody is about to make anyone marry someone of the same sex or have an abortion.

But that’s not the issue. If they are no longer able to impose their morality on others what control can they exert on the direction society takes? What would happen to the power of the pope if no one cared what he had to say about day to day issues? Their power is based solely on what they are allowed to influence. Take that away and they are no different from the rest of us.

Claiming to speak for the good of society, they’re truly seeking only to preserve their own position. Under the guise of moral protectors they fight to keep alive an untenable position. They are entitled to their beliefs but not to the exclusion or denial of others.

Fear of the unknown makes the familiar all the more attractive. But every now and again the time comes when we have to take a leap in the dark into something new. Faith should give one the ability to enter new territory with humility and respect. Blind faith will only prevent the fulfilment of potential.

While there is no denying the need to conserve certain values in the face of the technological onslaught that we are experiencing they should not be ones dictated to the many by the few. The intent to move forward must be tempered with the need to ensure the preservation of cultures that have existed for thousands of years. There are many beautiful and precious things we risk losing if we are not careful, and it will take all of our efforts to keep this world in balance.

John Ibbistson’s quote at the beginning of the article was in reference to the passage of same sex legislation in the Canadian House of Commons. It seems that some of us have been conservatives all along and haven’t known, while others who claim to be are something else altogether. I’ll leave exactly what they are for someone else to decide.

cheers
gypsyman

--------

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:29 PM | Permalink