CNN just ran a clip of a decidedly lower-middle academic from something called the Royal Institute for Internation Affairs in Britain, deriding Dubya. Amongst her reasons why Bush isn't suitable to lead the world's only superpower, as CNN puts it, is the fact that he doesn't know very much about opera and European art. While many conservatives, including Dexter and Clio, have great respect for opera and art, is that really a prerequisite for leadership? Hitler was a great opera buff, and Stalin was famous for his classical music soirees. (Yes, yes, comparisons with Hitler and the Holocaust are trite, but so are most Europeans.)
And if this is the criteria by which Europe evaluates American presidents, why has it escaped the notice of the chattering classes that Clinton's taste in music tended distinctly toward the demotic, and not the mittle-europan? Furthermore, does anyone know anything about King Jean's taste in music and culture? He is seldom spotted at the National Arts Centre or the National Gallery. Perhaps he's too busy devising new ways to torture Paul Martin.
Other commentators have of course been mocking Bush's taste in culture for ages. Perhaps some of these critics should compare the lyrics for country and gospel music, which Bush is reported to enjoy, with those of top pop hits, such as Work It, Family Portrait or Dirrty. About the worst thing that is said about country is that it is naive and optimistic. Contrast this with the voyeurism and raunchiness of what passes for music for the hippest Americans, and decide for yourself who should be calling the shots with regard to Iraq, North Korea, and France.
I've been reading the excellent Modern Sex: Liberation and its Discontents which is a collection of essays by writers for City Journal. While mostly concerned with the effect on relationships and the culture of several decades of promiscuity and libertine policy, the book also has some sections on abortion and contraception, which have led me to a couple of conclusions.
The first is that the notion of "every child a wanted child", touted by Planned Parenthood and their ilk, is a good one. The way we ensure this, though, is by persuading people not to risk pregnancy unless they want one, or at least are open to one. The lesson of several approaches to sex ed is that handing children condoms and pills doesn't do this. For one thing, a 95% success rate sounds good until you realize that for ten thousand "active" teenagers on the pill, you'd get 500 unwanted pregnancies per year. For another, teenagers, like many adults, simply don't use contraception properly. The lesson they learn from sex ed isn't "if you must have sex, be responsible," it's more like "sex is good, go and do it, we'll make it as easy for you as possible." When unwanted pregnancies do occur, they can still result in a wanted child if the baby is given to adoptive parents, many of whom want and need a child desperately and will do anything to provide a good life for their child, regardless of its provenance.
The second thought is that unrestricted abortion doesn't make every child a wanted child; it makes every child a potentially disposable child. While abortion advocates can intellectualize forever about how a fetus, even if viable, isn't a person but a one minute old neonate is, and while they may even believe it, most people on an intuitive level see the incoherence of this philosophy. If we want to insist that a child is a sacred trust, who must be cared for unselfishly and loved unconditionally, we must extend this to children before they are born. It isn't coincidental that child abuse of every sort has skyrocketed since the legalization of abortion: people have internalized the lesson that convenience and satisfaction can indeed be placed before the welfare of a child.
There are some people out there, Dexter and Clio among them, who do not worry about the United States and its more trustworthy allies undertaking war against the Baathist regime in Iraq without the support of France and Germany. Such people believe that a continent as soaked in blood as Europe (where genocidal solutions were still being attempted as recently as the 1990s) has little to offer in the way of moral guidance. Those who believe that Europeans (and France in particular) retain any claim to the ethical high ground might want to ask themselves why African thug Robert Mugabe is welcome to come to a Paris conference despite an embargo against entry of Zimbabwean officials and why an EU set of sanctions against Mugabe’s regime is on the brink of collapse.
The answer to those questions is easy: racist regimes such as Mugabe’s are acceptable when they kill only white “settlers” or rob only their own people but do not trouble France’s lingering imperial pretensions in Africa. The BBC thinks that President Chirac hopes to expand trade outside of francophone countries and pose as an honest broker in Zimbabwe’s political mess while doing so. I think it has more to do with the fact that it amuses the French to watch politicians in London turn purple in apoplectic rage at their meddling in the affairs of a former British colony. Whatever the reason for European failure to isolate an evil black African regime with the same enthusiasm they brought to bear against the apartheid system in South Africa, it at least indicates a kind of crude moral equivalence at the heart of recent EU foreign policy -- they don’t care about the suffering of Zimbabweans and they don’t care about the suffering of Iraqis.
The new and instantly irrelevant leader of the always-useless NDP thinks Paul Martin is an Alliance member wearing a Liberal disguise, which he will discard upon being enthroned in the next election. I don't share his optimism, but isn't it a lovely thought? Sadly, no true conservative, and no person with a conscience, could work as closely with King Jean for as many years as has PM for PM. Still, one can always hope ...
One of the health risks of the blogging industry is SJDS, Sudden Jaw-Drop Syndrome, a sharp crack to the mandible occurring when one reads something so outrageously silly that the bottom half of one's face plunges in disbelief. I am nursing a sore jaw at this moment brought about by foolishly indulging myself in a glance at a Rick Salutin column in Friday's Globe and Mail.
Mr Salutin is a caricature of every Canadian left-wing print pundit, only somewhat more slovenly. He lives his life in a miasma of resentment over the microscopic turn to the right that Canada took under Brian Mulroney and counts every day a loss in which the Red Flag does not wave over the ruins of the White House. An examination of his recent column will reveal how tenuous the link is between left-wing perceptions and the reality of life in Canada.
According to Salutin, who shops at Mr Big and Disheveled where he never runs into Jack Layton, the three greatest worries for Canadians in January 2003 are:
(1) fear of national extinction at the hands of the USA and its culture
(2) globalization
(3) death at the hands of terrorists
Perhaps these are burning concerns down at the Death to Yankee Imperialism Bar and Grill and other low dives where Mr Salutin acquires his unhealthy pallor but even a hardened reactionary such as myself knows that they are not the principal fears that haunt our citizens. Real Canadians are worried about the wreckage that is the stock market which underpins their pension plans, crime and the unwillingness of politicians to deal with it, the decay of their urban infrastructure, the loss of purpose and rigor in the educational system, high taxes and the possibility of decent medical care when they need it. They want their kids to have a chance at a good job; they want to be safe on the street and secure in their old age and infirmity. Any political party which addresses those concerns will prosper; any columnist who thinks that cultural policy outweighs them is too silly to be published in a national newspaper outside the confines of the Morning Smile.
It will be interesting to watch the career of Jack Layton, dapper new leader of the NDP. When has the left had such a snappy dresser as its front-man? When has the word "popinjay" been so aptly applied to an apparatchik of the People's Party?
In his acceptance speech Layton prophesied that Liberals were going to tremble at his victory. Probably not, but (to paraphrase the Duke of Wellington) by God, he frightens me. This is the candiate of Henry Morgentaler, Svend Robinson and the Barenaked Ladies. If Tommy Douglas were alive today he'd be rolling around in his grave.
The most effective public relations campaign in history has surely been that waged on behalf of North Americans male homosexuals in the past 25 years. To move from a despised minority associated in the public mind with inconceivable perversions performed in sordid settings to a flourishing community celebrated in the media and protected by law from public criticism in less than a generation is a remarkable feat. This triumph is all the more noteworthy because it was achieved in the midst of a deadly epidemic they were, in large measure, responsible for spreading. A tragic irony is that AIDS may have been the best thing to happen to gays since Plato's "Symposium".
Televised images of bodies emaciated and pitted by the disease, a relentless and shrewd portrayal of the homosexual as victim and an unscrupulous activist fringe combined to persuade officials to ignore public health measures that would have been normal in similar outbreaks of incurable disease and to convince heterosexual North Americans that old stereotypes had to go. After centuries of prejudice, the image of the gay man as helpless sufferer emerged and led to a new era of openness and popularity.
Little wonder then that homosexuals are reacting with horror and outrage to recent stories that indicate that a significant proportion of new case of AIDS are a result of deliberate choice. "Rolling Stone" magazine asserts that there are gay men ("bug chasers") who seek sexual thrills by attempting to become infected and others ("gift givers") who delight to spread it. This subculture which eroticizes the disease and dismisses the seriousness of their conduct may be responsible for 25% of new AIDS cases. Web sites claiming tens of thousands of registered members facilitate the union of those willing to give and those craving to receive. "Fill me with the poison seed" begs one member while others celebrate the freedom that being HIV+ can bring -- after all what more can happen to you after you have been infected? Though homosexual spokesmen have denounced the article and the statistics it quotes no one denies the existence of this particular manifestation of the gay community.
Anyone who cares to read gay and lesbian publications or has homosexual friends knows that there are some very dark corners in that lifestyle that, if widely known, might do much to dispel the positive image that is the current media and legal orthodoxy. The pressure group GLAAD has already begun a campaign to discredit the article.
I don't believe such folks have anything to fear, at least in Canada where an activist judiciary has forced legislators into advancing the gay cause and where "human rights" tribunals are tools to punish those foolhardy enough to dissent from the enforced consensus. Thanks to our splendid Charter of Rights and Freedoms those who obtain their sexual jollies from spreading a mortal disease are as protected a species as spotted owls. Should one be your child's teacher or hockey coach or, indeed, your MP, you are headed for a world of trouble and a reputation as a hate-monger should you voice a protest. As they sing at your city's annual moustache parade: they're here, they're queer, get used to it.
Nor should you look to gay groups to do the sensible thing and denounce this sort of behaviour -- the recent wide-spread denial of bug-chasing and barebacking and a plethora of other unhealthy variations will tell you all you need to know about how bad news is suppressed or even turned to advantage. "Rolling Stone" will be bombarded by protests, the Christian right will be blamed, the Victim Button will be pressed and in a week this will be all over. Next year in a B.C. kindergarten a kindly teacher will be reading to his little students from "Timmy's Daddies are Bug-Chasers".
To supplement my point that widely available abortions increase promiscuity and careless sex even amongst those who don't seek abortions themselves, see this article.
Al Sharpton's Harlem office burns down ... and somewhere, the gods of Irony and Justice are giggling with glee. Please, please let Al win the Dems' nomination.
France and Germany don't want the USA to go to war with Iraq. They reserve the right to start world wars entirely for themselves. Between them these two countries have caused more deaths this century than anything other than Marxism. Perhaps they should keep their opinions on war and peace to themselves.
And finally, with regard to Scott Ritter ... while I'm sure that not all anti-American peaceniks are also Internet pedophiles, isn't it interesting how many of them turn out to be morally bankrupt in arenas besides international affairs and foreign policy? The rationale for keeping homosexuals out of the military for years was that they were especially vulnerable to blackmail; the same logic impaired the government careers of adulterers and drug users. Surely someone who tried to seduce a 16 year old he met online should be similarly suspect when it comes to his opinions and judgements?
Frederica Mathewes-Green does an excellent job here.
As we near the 50 year anniversary of the end of the Korean War (sorry, "Police Action") a few words on M*A*S*H, that ode to early anti-Americanism, seem appropriate. While well written and often amusing, the show was packed in almost every episode with pacifist bromides, and touching scenes in which the doctors raged against the futility of the war, and by implication, the uselessness of fighting it.
In the era of its creation, this level of ignorance and naivete might be condoned. Today, however, it should be painfully clear just how noble was the cause of opposing the expansion of North Korea. As hundreds of thousands of Koreans are tortured and starved to death, and as nuclear weapons are now poised to be used against the civilized parts of Asia, we can only be grateful for the bravery and tenacity shown in Korea by Canadians and Britons (including more than one Douglas ancestor), as well as Americans.
Mike Farrell, in particular, has continued to spread the seditious spirit behind the show in his constant and thoroughly annoying campaign against military action against Iraq. The notion, repeated by Farrell both in the show and this year on CNN, that war is the result of and harbringer of hatred, is laughable to all with any knowledge of history. If you'd rather see Band of Brothers, Allo Allo, Tour of Duty or any other show that doesn't take quite such an obnoxious tone when dealing with war and politics, why not write the head of programming at Prime TV, which currently airs M*A*S*H reruns several times a week?
One of the tragedies of Morgentaler's life is that in his determination to create a safer, more compassionate world, a world in which the horrors of his youth could not be recreated, he has in fact lowered the value of all human lives, severally and together. A good number of pro-choice supporters in both Canada and the USA are quite sincere in their belief that a world with universal abortion will be a world with less violence, happier families and a better quality of life for all. This is illustrated by an article on Morgentaler discussing his clinic in Manitoba, which is not funded, despite abortions being provided at government expense in hospitals.
In this article the reporter muses, in a manner more appropriate for an editorial than for a front page news lead, that a province with as high a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome rate as Manitoba has should be embracing abortion for all who want it. The reasoning seems to be that if women only carry pregnancies they want, they will be less likely to do things that unnecessarily injure the fetus. On the surface this isn't an unreasonable supposition -- but it is one that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, or to the light of the past few decades of experience. A culture that permits and indeed promotes the casual destruction of pregnancies for the sake of convenience is not creating an ethic of concern for the welfare of any fetus. As ready abortion makes casual and unprotected sex increasingly consequence-free, it becomes less and less likely that young mothers will have the caution, foresight or self-discipline to take even rudimentary care of themselves and their children, either before or after their birth. There is ready evidence in the USA that the availability of abortion actually increases promiscuity and decreases the use of contraceptives, even by those who do not have abortions themselves.
There is also a logical contradiction here. If a fetus can be killed for the sake of convenience, why can it not be poisoned for the sake of an evening's fun? On what basis do we declare it permissible to inject poison into a fetal heart but immoral and unacceptable to let alcohol or cocaine cross the placenta into its system? As premature babies survive more and more often, and as prenatal imaging becomes more common, it grows clear to all willing to open their eyes that the notion of a moment before which a fetus is disposable tissue and after which it is a member of society with rights is untenable. We cannot assert an interest in the wellbeing and future of only those fetuses carried to term, while consigning the aborted to the category of medical waste.
Morgentaler and editorialists are right that a world with filled with atrocities and FAS must reconsider its attitude to abortion. They are wrong about the direction in which attitudes must move. The key to reducing cruelty and carelessness is to elevate potential human lives to a level at which they must be nurtured and nourished, and then to sustain that respect and compassion as long as possible. The fact that so many intelligent, well-intentioned people believe just the opposite -- that harmony will come when babies are disposable -- is a measure of how far we have slipped.
Mark Steyn thinks not. When reading histories of Canada prior to the 1960s, I'm seized with the conviction that this is a marvellous country blessed with not just bounteous geography but also extraordinary people. Then I read the headlines of the 1990s and 2000s and think that all Canadians of good will should apply for refugee status in the US. Soon we'll be Cuba without the beaches or the rum.
Like many of my generation I smoked marijuana while at university. Unlike Justice Minister Martin Cauchon I stopped before it damaged my brain.
Though there are any number of legal issues plaguing Canada the one that the dopey Monsieur Cauchon is hastening to deal with is easing the access to marijuana. Apparently believing that the country has too few substance-abuse problems the minister is musing over plans to replace jail time with fines and allowing the herbally-hooked a hefty baggie full for personal use.
Here is a BBC report which should encourage Cauchon and others who inhaled too deeply to reconsider. According to Australian researchers who studied marijuana use in identical twins, those who smoked up before age 17 were two to five times more likely to use other drugs or to develop alcohol or drug abuse or dependence.
Instead of sending the signal that marijuana is a benign recreational choice our Justice Minister should be helping local governments deal with inner-city ethnic gangs, reining in out-of-control judicial activists and finding an answer to juvenile crime. Solving these problems is not as glamorous as being elected a life member of the Cheech and Chong Bong Brigade but it might pay off when the smoke clears.
Hang on to your top hats, bloated plutocrats, the Wobblies are back! The dreaded Industrial Workers of the World -- proponents of the One Big Union and the overthrow of the profit system; fierce opponents of all labour skates, scissor-bills and Yellow Socialists -- are back to haunt the dreams of the Canadian ruling class. Once thought a species extinct since the Depression and merely the stuff of left-wing legend, these storm troopers of class warfare have re-emerged to strike fear in the hearts of capitalists everywhere. And what global corporation have they arrayed themselves against today? What massive juggernaut of greed and evil will they sacrifice everything to stop so that widows and orphans may look forward to a brighter future? Why it's Stella's Cafe and Bakery of Osborne Village in Winnipeg of course!
A dozen battled-hardened veterans of labour warfare picketed the bakery yesterday insisting that its management force world capitalism to surrender power to the workers, create a socialist utopia, cease making war on Iraq and replace the current 20-minute paid break with a 30-minute unpaid break. No word yet on whether the owners have caved in to these just demands, thus bringing about the long-awaited era of global peace and social harmony.
In a love letter masquerading as a newspaper article Heather Mallick asks "Why doesn't this man have the Order of Canada?" Can you guess which national luminary is thus touted for our pantheon? A great scientist? An inventor? A humanitarian? A world champion? No, silly! It's abortionist Henry Morgenthaler who has snuffed out the lives of more Canadians than Adolf Hitler.
If you have a strong stomach please read that article in the Globe and Mail. It not only explains how Morgenthaler believes that killing the unborn prevents them from being killers themselves but also reprints the infamous justification for abortion given by Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson --already a winner of the Order of Canada.
Yet more reasons to celebrate the Order of Canada. Former talk-show hostess Adrienne Clarkson announced today the appointment of 100 new recipients of our nation's highest honour. High on the list were Stephen Lewis, leftist politician who has whined for and against his country in numerous world venues, and leftist actress Shirley Douglas, daughter of the immortal Tommy, who was named in the Order's Annoying Women category.
Historians may justly claim that today's date witnessed a number of significant events. In 1493 on this date Christophr Columbus returned to Europe from his accidental discovery of the New World. In 1604 the Hampton Court conference called for a new English translation of the Bible which resulted in the publication 7 years later of the magisterial Authorized (or King James) Version. In 1919 Prohibition was ratified in the United States. In 1969 Jan Palmach set himself on fire in patriotic protest against the Soviet invasion of his native Czechoslovakia. But for lovers of the absurd January 16 will be forever sacred to the memory of heavyweight boxing champ and dental fashion-plate Leon Spinks who in 1981 was mugged and robbed of his gold teeth.
Operation Desert Storm began. After six months of build up as Operation Desert Shield, the first President Bush finally took the necessary next step. Months later, of course, he declined to take the subsequent logical step, which is why Saddam Hussein has enjoyed twelve more years of weapons development, financing terrorism, and slaughtering Kurds and dissidents.
If the current President Bush, who is by most measures outperforming Poppy, is serious about stopping this once and for all, he needs to act sooner rather than later. Every time he gives the UN inspectors yet longer to look around, and every time he kow-tows to world opinion, or hosts BBQs for Saudi kleptocrats, he takes away from the substantial momentum that had been built up in 2002.
This is the time to finally cut through the waffle and get the job done. Iraq is a poisonous dictatorship that is a threat to Iraqis, American allies like Turkey and Israel, Americans themselves and most of the civilized world. (Note that I do not include the French here; they fare far better with SH in power, through the wonder of illegal sales.) No further reason is needed to justify going to war against Iraq. If he does not currently have WMDs at hand, all the more reason to strike before they are developed and ready to use.
The inevitable Iraqi civilian casualties are regrettable, as were the deaths of hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese non-combatants. The prospect of these deaths though should no more stay Bush than it did Churchill. Well meaning Iraqis have three options: rebelling themselves, with little hope of success and high risk of death by torture at the hands of Hussein's lackeys; complicity in the dictatorship; and liberation at American hands, with the accompanying risk of a war and invasion. It seems clear which is the best of three admittedly poor paths ahead.
In startling news from the world of sports, ESPN is reporting that the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League have fired head coach Steve Mariucci over "philosophical differences".
While this is undoubtedly a tragedy for Mariucci and his family, Dexter cannot help but take this as a good sign for society. In an industry where ego, greed and ambition are the cause of ceaseless travail, one sports team has decided to act out of more elevated reasons and to part company with a successful coach for reasons of "philosophy".
It is my understanding that Mariucci was an Ockhamist, unconvinced that the Aquinian synthesis could produce any real knowledge of God but willing to use faith to bridge the gap between man and an essentially unknowable deity. The 49ers, on the other hand, were post-Heidegerrian ontologists seeking to locate the origins of conscience in performative structures that might be said to constitute normative responses. Considering how far apart the two sides were on issues of Derridian deconstruction, Foucaldian transgressiveness and the hermeneutics of the saftey blitz from a 2-deep zone package on third-and-long, it is to their credit that the relationship had endured for so many years. Good luck to Mariucci, the 49ers organization, and incoming coach Hannah Arendt who is, I understand, less pessimistic about the whole Enlightenment experiment and is prepared to give modernism another shot.
Motor-mouthed Lebanese ambassador Raymond Baaklini has slightly modified his earlier statements that Zionists controlled 90% of Canada's media and were responsible for Ottawa's actions against Hezbollah, the Islamic terror group. After sober reflection, the loose-lipped Levantine has now added "Christian fanatics" to his list of Canadian opponents. Proof positive that Baaklini is a regular reader of our website. Castorblog.com: just another brick in the wall of Judaeo-Christian civilization.
For those seeking to avoid productive work, channel surfing is hard to beat. How else can I explain watching most of a VH1 documentary about Eminem? The majority of the critics seem to be torn between admiration for his lyrical prowess and disgust at his behaviour and attitude. It's certainly true that his lyrics, even if you hate them, stay stuck in your head for an inordinate amount of time. On the other hand, this is also true of commercial jingles, and we don't award them Grammies. (The snack, that smiles back -- Goldfish!)
Eminem's music is utterly bereft of the ability to soothe, inspire, stir or delight, all attributes of most even competent music of past centuries. This is true of most radio hits today, though; they are at best entertaining and worst titillating. One area in which this particular specimen has excelled is in public relations, but then too much of the credit goes to those who vigorously protest against him. The ought to know by now that by picketing awards ceremonies and testifying for the Senate, they are providing exposure that publicists can only dream about buying.
One particular group of protesters stands out in my memory, though. Spokes-entities for NOW and GLAAD (furious feminists and stylish sodomites, respectively) decry the violence and provocation of Eminem's songs (which are pretty obviously parody and posturing) as being a bad influence on children and teenagers. The intended audience, they assert, is immature, easily influenced, and lacking in sophistication and judgement that might enable them to reject violence, misogyny and gay-bashing. This is true; teenagers are not known for their ability to filter information and make rational choices in the face of peer pressure and propaganda. The fact that NOW and GLAAD recognize this makes clear their agenda in pushing abortion-on-demand and copious information on deviant sexual practices upon high school students.
In a sane world, people who have palpitations at the thought of exposing students to music that might make them say rude words to women and homosexuals would take more seriously other sources of danger to young minds and bodies. They might speak out against presenting abortion as a safe and sensible choice, and ask that we instead discuss the sanctity of life and the danger to all of society when we treat a potential life as an unsightly mole. They might advocate abstinence and sexual continence, instead of assuming from the outset that promiscuity is just another lifestyle choice. They might teach the real dangers of early pregnancy and disease, instead of teaching the correct way to use a prophylactic when performing acts not as nature intended.
Of course, such behaviour would be predicated on a desire to strengthen social bonds and to protect and nurture young adults. It grows increasingly clear that, if these goals conflict with NOW and GLAAD's desire to promote sexual omnivorism in a consequence free environment, the young can fend for themselves.
It has long been the tactic of terrorists and their supporters to blame their victims for the violence they are forced to suffer. When the sociopaths of the IRA killed Ulster shoppers or London children playing in the park a chorus of Irish nationalists would arise to wail and lament the long history of British atrocities in stretching back to the days of Oliver Cromwell. When Islamic zealots hijacked planes and flew them into office towers the Arab press was at pains to point out that these glorious martyrs would not have been forced to act if America had only pulled out of the Middle East, abandoned Israel and converted to the Religion of Peace. When North Korea decided to publicly pursue the possession of atomic weapons, they claimed to be pushed into it by the harsh words of George Bush who dared call them part of an "axis of evil."
None of this posturing is surprising, but what has been truly disheartening is the willingness of many Western intellectuals to find these excuses plausible and to blame civilization for provoking the barbarians. "Let's not be beastly to the Muslims" is the cry, nor should we seek to be judgmental toward the Fenians or the robotic hordes of the Asia's Tiny Perfect Dictator.
Now a new low in blaming the victim emerges from the mouth of one Willard Oxtoby, a retired religion professor at the University of Toronto. Responding to the murder of aid workers in Muslim countries Willard contrasts the "aggressive" behaviour of modern evangelical interlopers with the low profile taken by the Coptic and Orthodox minorities which has allowed them to survive centuries of Muslim "tolerance." "It is wrong to proselytize among people who have a religious faith," says Oxtoby. "No one has the moral right to tell someone they can't find salvation without Christianity."
Moral relativism has always been the curse of the academic world. If an educated person says he cannot distinguish morally between one religion which provides free medical care to people of a different faith and one which murders charitable people of another religion, that's his trouble. But even such a lackwit should not give aid and comfort to killers by suggesting that proselytism (which, in any case, Christian aid workers are taught to avoid) justifies grenade attacks on churches or hospitals.
I hate drunks and I hate drunk drivers so I am having a hard time mustering much sympathy for B.C. Premier Gordon Clark who was arrested in Hawaii last weekend for impaired driving. Despite his childhood having been marred by an alcoholic parent Campbell seems to have been an enthusiastic drinker -- until his mug shot appeared in newspapers across the continent. Alcoholism is not a disability or a disease; it's a bad habit, especially for politicians and grievously hath Campbell paid for it in lost credibility.
On the other hand I find I can't agree with the pressure group Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the provincial NDP, both of whom have called for Campbell to resign. The test I use here is to ask myself "what would Svend do?" Would I expect Canada's most nauseating public figure to step down if he were caught in a similar situation? Svend Robinson has willingly broken the law in the past and has not found it necessary to resign, though it seems to me that deliberately flouting the authority of society is a more serious offence than not being a good judge of one's blood alcohol content.
The premiership of British Columbia is clearly a poisoned apple. Its past four incumbents have either had to resign in disgrace, been charged with bribery, been paralyzed for life or been forced to walk a straight line while holding one's finger to one's nose. So drive on, Mr Campbell, if you dare.
It is January 13th -- do you know where your Christmas tree is? All across the Swedish-speaking world it is St Knut's Day, a day for one final injection of Christmas candy into the kids and the time to take the tree down. That muffled thunk you heard was the sound of conifers hitting the street and being dragged to the recycling depot.
The resident beavers of castorblog.com would be remiss if they did not today acknowledge the 188th anniversary of their nation's founding father, Sir John Alexander Macdonald.
Though cheerfully corrupt and disgracefully alcoholic, he was, more than anyone else, responsible for the creation of Canada in 1867. As the country's first Prime Minister (1867-73; 1878-91) John A. went on to serve his country faithfully, if not always wisely, until his death in 1891. He master-minded the construction of the transcontinental railway which ensured that his country spanned the continent. He provoked, and then crushed, two aboriginal rebellions. He developed the National Policy that led to over a century of protectionist trade practices. He founded the North West Mounted Police and Canada's first National Park. When he died the Liberal politician Wilfred Laurier said: "the place of Sir John A. Macdonald in this country was so large & so absorbing that it is almost impossible to conceive that the politics of this country will continue without him. His loss overwhelms us."
Here's to you John. Who's like you? Damn few and they're all dead.
Nobody ends up looking very good in the latest round of public statements on the Canadian decision to ban Hezbollah. The Lebanese ambassador Raymond Baaklini accused Canada of bowing to pressure from a "Zionist party" that controls 90% of our media and indicated that Canadians in the Middle East would be advised not to advertise their nationality on t-shirts. His remarks made him look a fool and didn't win him or his government any friends here.
On the other hand I always cringe when Bill Graham, our Foreign Affairs Minister, purses his lips and brings his plus-sized head closer to the microphone to represent Canada. His prissy manner reminds me of a small-town librarian about to defend Judy Garland against rude remarks he overheard at the curling rink. He is a man born to lecture others about their intolerance and, sure enough, he announced he found Ambassador Baaklini's remarks to be anti-semitic and not to be tolerated.
At this point behold Izzy Asper who leapt toward the camera and trumped Mr Graham's outrage by stating he found Baaklini's words "sickening". The bilious supremo of the National Post denied that his CanWest corporation, the country's largest newspaper chain, was the omnipotent "Zionist party" in question and demanded that the Ambassador be sent packing for his impertinence.
Instead of acting like a busload of virgins who have been dropped off at the strip club instead of the flower show, I wish Graham and Asper had reacted with a little more dignity. In place of hymns to our tolerance followed by threats to the man who made disagreeable statements, they might have made some simple assertions of fact.
Asper could have said "It's true that I'm a powerful shaper of opinion in this country, commanding the public stance of many media outlets and, as a generous donor to the Liberal party, I have access to the ear of the government. It's also true I am a Zionist and proud of it. On the other hand neither I, nor anyone else, has the clout that Mr Baaklini attributes to me. Here are the names of the newspapers and networks that have consistently been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Note that Canada's largest-circulation paper and the omnipresent voice of the publicly-funded CBC have demonstrably never been pro-Zionist. Next time you speak, have the facts and you won't be an embarrassment to Lebanon."
Graham might have said, "The Ambassador gives Zionist pressure too much credit. He should be aware that many senior civil servants and Ontario Liberal MPs are not friends of Israel, which is why the Canadian government was so slow to react to the danger from Islamic fundamentalism. He should go home and tell his countrymen that it is the actions of Muslim extremists and their irresponsible spokesmen that have turned our sympathies away from the lamentable plight of Palestinians."
Zionism is not a dirty word; it is a badge that can be worn with honour in Canada. Its opponents should know, however, that linking it to a vast conspiracy is not a tactic that will work in this country and its supporters should know that it is more effectively defended with fact than demands to suppress speech.
I'm sorry, but the more I read about the parade of "human shields" flocking to Iraq the more irritated I become. The stench of self-righteousness rising from their leader Ken Nichols O'Keefe is positively palpable, as one can detect in this "Guardian" article and on his "Universal Kinship Society" website.
The inescapable fact is that O'Keefe will be doing nothing to rid the Iraqi people he professes to care so deeply about of their oppressor. In fact, he will be doing everything he can to prolong their agony. He is, in effect, saying "I and my friends will just pose here in front of the al-Jazeera film crew so that the nice Mr Saddam can continue his rule unimpeded."
O'Keefe is not stupid but he is not a well man mentally. Genuine paranoia is evident in his melodramatic renunciation of American citizenship, his accusations of evil forces experimenting on him, his delusions of secret societies and the New World Order, and his declaration of allegiance to the Nation of Hawaii.
Those who follow him, however, don't have the luxury of blaming bad brain chemistry for their actions. They are simply enemies of civilization, posing as pacifists at the same time O'Keefe's organization pays tribute to those who were willing to use force to achieve their ends, such as the late and unlamented Malcolm X or ecoterrorist Paul Watson. I do hope that many of them make it to Iraq, not in time for them to be blown up real good but just after the Allied victory so that they can see what a free Iraqi populace will have to say to them. I don't imagine it will be "thank you".
I believe John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy. Up until today I believed it was Palestinians who were behind the suicide bombings in Israel.
Fortunately "Klaus232", writing to "The Independent" newspaper's internet forum, has set me and millions of other deluded fools straight. In a new low for conspiracy theorists Klaus offers the following analysis:
"Suicide attacks are as useful for the Sharon regime as 9/11 is for the warmongering leaders of the United States of America. Considering the lack of evidence and serious informations and asking "cui bono" (who ist profiting?) the question of who really stands behind this kind of terrorism yet has to be answered. .. As they are counterproductive to the Palestinian cause it doesn´t make sense to blame them on Arafat or anyone having the well being of the Palestinian people in mind."
People who have hopes for peace have been saying for years that Palestinian terrorism was counter-productive. Now we know that we were only partly correct. How foolish of us not to see that the Mossad and the CIA was behind it all. With Klaus having exposed the charade can a settlement in the Middle East be far off?
Just when you thnk sanity is returning to the planet, a judge is forced to apologize saying divorce is a bad idea. Listen my children, and you shall see in one little news story so many reasons why this country has gone to the bow-wows.
Last summer a negligent mother endangered the lives of her two small children -- a two-month-old baby and a one-year-old -- when she left them alone in a locked car under the hot sun. Police were forced to break through a window and take the kids, who had suffered heat stroke, to the hospital. The mother was arrested and earlier this week was in court. So far so good, right? Society has protected the helpless and is now going to do justice upon the malefactor.
In the course of his remarks to the accused and her estranged husband, Judge Al Chrumka offered the opinion that "as adults we have a responsibility to give (children) the very best that we can." Couples should therefore stay together and give their off-spring the benefit of two parents, even if they are not terribly happy with the other. Who could quarrel with such advice? Every social scientist knows that the decline of the two-parent family has brought with it a host of ills including increased crime, long-term psychological damage to the children, academic underachievement, unemployment, increased risk of sexual promiscuity and more fractured marriages later in life. (Doubters please read Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's The Divorce Culture, or Judith Wallerstein's The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce.)
So, the mother endangered her kids, the father abandoned his wife and tiny children. Who should publicly apologize? The judge, of course! Yesterday Judge Chrumka made his mea culpa for offending "some members of the public". Golly, I wonder who found such remarks offensive?
It wasn't the wife's lawyer. He said the judge "was trying to encourage the parents, more than anything else, to concentrate on the issue of the best interests of the children, rather than any issue between themselves."
Could it have been the umbrage industry, that tireless sector of the economy dedicated to being offended on behalf of other people in order to advance their own causes? Yes it was. Step forward R.H. Maclachlan, speaking for those associated with movements such as "The Equitable Child Maintenance and Access Society, the Movement for Real Gender Equality and the Children's Rights Council." R.H. pronounced him/herself "appalled" at the remarks of Judge Chrumka. Such thinking he/she said was as dead as Queen Victoria and many studies allegedly supported the notion that shared parenting after divorce was like unto heaven on earth compared to a couple remaining married for the sake of the children.
The mother, whose name cannot be uttered in public, in order to "protect the children", went home essentially unpunished. Shadowy special-interest groups get their free moment of publicity. A decent judge is forced to apologize for remarks that instead should be written in letters of gold in family court and pro-social values take another public beating. Gee, it's great to be a Canadian.
For no good reason I spent two hours reading a mediocre 007 rip off by Jack Du Brul. He mentioned a unitarian trestle table. This seemed strange, but if there are Shaker and Federalist and Rococo decors, maybe this was something esoteric and known only to Interior Design majors. A chapter later, a small shack was described as being unitarian. Then, a primitive missile was labelled unitarian. It finally dawned on me that he meant "utilitarian."
It is depressing enough that someone can be that dumb and get published. More depressing still is that his editor and copy-readers missed this. Of course, it passed Spellcheck (TM) so what's the problem? *sigh*
This is an ignoble sentiment, but how about locking up the French and Greenpeace in an arena with nothing but underarm deodorant and sharp knives, and only letting one group out alive? The loss of Greenpeace would mean the world would be short some well intentioned but dumb nuts; the loss of the French would mean a reduction in excellent pate and some adequate wines. On the whole, though, surely the world would benefit?
Below, Clio links the Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior" with terrorism. Whatever the eco-loons of environmental activism have done with vessels of that name cannot, however, be compared with what agents of France did in Auckland Harbour in 1985. Let us review these unhappy events and ask ourselves again why the French have a veto on the United Nations Security Council or why anyone should bother seeking their approval to move against Saddam Hussein.
In July 1985 the "Rainbow Warrior" was docked in New Zealand preparing to lead a small fleet of vessels into the South Pacific to protest a forthcoming nuclear weapons test by the French, who are only too happy to conduct such environmentally unfriendly acts in someone else's neighbourhood. On the night of July 10 two underwater explosions blow a hole in the ship and killed a photographer, Fernando Pereira, who had been aboard. Investigations revealed that this act of terrorism had been conducted by an 11-member squad of the French secret police, two of whom, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, were quickly captured.
At first the French denied that any nation who venerated Jerry Lewis could have been responsible for such an act but soon they admitted their responsibility. But here is where their real shameful behaviour begins. France wished their agents returned unpunished and began to threaten trade sanctions against New Zealand for putting the two on trial -- after all, they had been, in a phrase familiar to France's masters in Berlin, only obeying orders. A deal was worked out that would save New Zealand's exports to Europe. The murderous couple would plead guilty to charges of manslaughter and wilful damage and be sentenced to 10 years imprisonment BUT would in fact not serve jail time. They would be placed under house arrest in French Polynesia for three years. (The sort of living hell that tourists pay thousands of dollars to endure.)
Alas, even this was too harsh a fate for the loyal soldiers of the Republic. Before long, France sprang their terrorists from their resort, returned them to Europe, promoted them and, in a calculated sneer at the tiny democracy they had invaded, awarded the leader of the killer squad the title of Grand Master of the Legion of Honour. Vive la France!
Psychology textbooks still contain references to long-since-discredited theories that linked authoritarian personalities with social conservatism. However, anyone whose work ever brings them on to a post-secondary campus knows that universities are the least free environments on the continent and that the overt repression always seems to come from the left.
Not only are the Green parties not mainstream, they are friends with groups that are openly practicing terrorists. How else to describe the antics of the Rainbow Warrior, or the destruction of labs? (Footnote: the suffering of animals in medical experiments should be taken seriously. So must the suffering of those with diseases that researchers are trying to cure.) People who attack abortion clinics are roundly condemned, but how is it better to attack medical labs for the sake of freeing animals, if human lives are endangered in the process?
There is something faintly suspect about those who are so deeply troubled by making coats out of rodents in a world where children's arms are hacked off if they don't support African dictators. It is also peculiar that Berkeleyites and their ilk rattle their mugs in protest about fair coffee prices, while taking holidays in Cuba and soaking up the ambience of a junta that relies on torture and fear. The existence of one evil doesn't mean that lesser evils should be ignored; nevertheless, people's finances and energies are finite, and those causes to which we devote these resources should be prioritized.
Proportional representation means that any looney tune who can muster up a third of a percent of the population in support gets a seat. In Canada, that would mean most likely a seat for virulent racists, as well as some for the PLMs. (Po-tay-to, po-tah-to?) While it would indeed be lovely to see the Liberals greatly reduced (in next to last election they took 99% of Ontario's seats with well under 50% of the votes) the cost would be too high.
The two most prominent countries with proportional representation, Italy and Israel, also have the most unstable governments to be found in the democratic world. To hold power there for more than a year is commendable, and to hold it for less than a month is common. The result is a huge proportion of time and money being spent on the mechanics of elections rather than on governing. Small parties also hold inordinate sway when they are all that stands between the ruling party and a no-confidence vote.
There are some countries that blend proportional representation with other methods to damp down the influence of extremists. In Israel for instance a party must have about 5% of the popular vote before being able to hold a seat, which ensures that the real crazies are left out. In Germany, some seats are allotted to PR while others are differently allocated. Australia I believe also uses a combination of the two. Pure proportional representation, though, is a recipe for corruption and stagnation. Wait -- how would we tell the difference in Canada?
In a National Post article today on the virtues of proportional representation the following bizarre sentence appeared:
"Proportional representation would greatly enhance the ability of single-issue groups such as the Green Party to win seats, though it would also allow extremist parties to suddenly get representation in Parliament and therefore gain an important platform."
The implication here is that the Green Party is not extremist. Since when? Here are a few of their policies which will help ensure that the Greens remain on the fringes of political discussion for the foreseeable future:
(a) enacting a bill of inter-species rights which would guarantee all species native to Canada the "right to exist in at least one geographical location without human interference; and their "right to access to food, clean water and clean air"
(b) a defence policy that would reduce military spending by 50% and "establish a civilian-based national defence program that would train citizens in unarmed national defense initiatives ... organized civil disobedience and other non-violent tactics is probably the only effective way to deter and repel an invading force." The Canadian Armed Forces would be converted to "perform treaty verification, territorial monitoring, peace-keeping, Search and Rescue, and ecological reclamation." Instead establish a Ministry of Peace and Security "would research and publicize peace programs; educate the public about non-violent social defense; conduct disarmament initiatives; and administer peace facilitation teams."
(c) granting Quebec considerably more powers including a consititutional veto
(d) controlling immigration only by making the Third World a nicer place to live (which would include discouraging international trade since the industrialized nations make profits by doing so)
(e) not waiting for scientific proof before banning products or practices
(f) a health policy that emphasizes naturopathy, alternative healing, herbalism and "traditional healing" and thinks Romanow's Report didn't go nearly far enough in adding to the list of tax-paid health-care providers
Unless you think that guaranteeing rats the right to food is main-stream, or that drum-banging shamans should be able to bill Medicare; or if you think that countering terrorism with non-resistance and mass renditions of "We Shall Overcome" is a defence policy that meets your needs, then wouldn't it be fair to place the Green Ones a tad toward the extremist end of the scale?
"Rael found that his baggy white suits, his medallions and his topknot of hair -- which he claimed was an antenna for receiving extraterrestrial messages -- made him a laughingstock in France. So he moved to Canada."
Mark Steyn on this and more. From now on I shall refer to the Steyn principle: all Canadian events seem like "part of some massive leg-pull by an unseen hand."
Jonah Goldberg has a funnier than usual, and very important, G-File this week. In it he takes aim at those who criticize movies that are clearly based upon fantasy and fiction for playing with "real" stereotypes (ie the Orcs are Arabs, Jar-Jar is Jamaican, Ferengi are Jews, etc.) If it is no longer politically correct to dehumanize Orc armies that are, yes that's right, not in fact human, what's left? All fiction will very soon end with the armies of light and darkness coming to a better understanding of each other. The readers and filmgoers of the future will finally see that the evildoers have been oppressed by the imperial forces of good, leaving them with no choice but to build breeder reactors and blow up airliners and cafes.
A similar tactic used by similar people is to take a phenomenon of our culture to which they object and suggest that it is analogous to something utterly beastly in another culture. In her 400 page whine The Beauty Myth, in which she concludes that people like prettiness more than ugliness, Naomi Wolf laments the frequency of liposuction in America, comparing it to female genital mutiliation in the Third World. Huh? Last time I checked, recipients of liposuction were consenting adults, not children pinned down, screaming; they signed up for and paid for the procedure, instead of undergoing it on pain of death; and if they are to be believed, their sex lives are improved by it.
Similarly, after saying that it is inappropriate to compare other things to the Holocaust, she does just that, saying that bulemics and anorexics "invariably" recall the horrors of starvation camps. A victim of these diseases, she states firmly, is in a one woman concentration camp of society's making. Mark Steyn has already pointed out the absurdity of claiming that our culture is simultaneously responsible for record levels of childhood obesity and also for the wave of anorexia. As well as magnifying her numbers even more than a Liberal budget estimate, though, Wolf neglects all the research of the past twenty years into eating disorders, which suggests that they aren't the result of a rational if misguided desire to slim down, but rather of a chemical imbalance resulting in obsessive behaviour. Her logic would also tell us that it's the fault of those accursed Ivory soap people that some obsessive compulsives wash their hands 45 times a day; in this relentless culture of hygiene and cleanliness, do they really have any choice?
One can only wish upon Naomi Wolf a long career advising hyperdiaphoretic Democrats on how to appear calm and yet passionate, masterful and yet humble, all the while putting their hands up their wives' shirts on national TV. I now add her to my dream ticket for 2004: Hilly Clinton and Revvum Sharpton, counselled by Naomi Wolf, Jesse Jackson, and, why not, Louis Farrakhan. Go Dems!
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars:
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, & flatterer...
... William Blake, "Jerusalem"
If you think I'm impatient with the attitude of the Koreas read this piece. You will also learn something interesting about the role of spears in present-day high-tech warfare.
Following an editorial published recently in the Jerusalem Post, today's online National Post has a commentary on the rise of antisemitism in Canada. It is in general well written, and makes some interesting points. The author does not, though, pay sufficient attention to the three main sources of antisemitism in Canada today, two of which are comparatively recent.
The first, and most longstanding, is the suspicion and dislike of Jews felt by those who don't know any better. These are generally people from rural Canada, who often reach adulthood never having met a Jew, and who draw upon their ignorance, folk religion and family tradition to arrive at a banal sort of Jew-hatred. These are the people who say "he Jewed me down" to describe a client who struck a particularly stingy bargain, and who are convinced that Jews are miserly and have funny noses. While this brand of antisemitism is the oldest in Canada, it is also inconsequential and leads more often to social embarrassment than to violence or malevolence.
Then there is the phenomenon of the followers of the Religion of Peace, who make up an ever increasing proportion of Canadians, due almost entirely to immigration and birth rate. (Very few Canadians convert to Islam, and the Nation of Islam in the USA has no parallel here, thank heaven. The majority of conversions in Canada tend to be of women converting upon marriage to a Moslem.) Importing not only cutting edge fashion and cuisine from the old country, Canada's Most Peaceful Immigrants bring with them a collection of hatreds against pigs and monkeys (aka Jews and Christians, or vice versa) rooted both in religion and tribal culture. It is no coincidence that antisemitism rises fastest and most violently in those centres that boast a high share of Islamic immigrants. While this form of Jew-hatred does bleed into the popular culture, it doesn't do so rapidly.
The third form, and the most dominant amongst the chattering classes and fellow travelling elite, is the same form of antisemitism that marks much of Europe these days. It sometimes expresses itself in the form of criticism of Israeli atrocities and colonialism (forgetting that the vast majority of human rights accusations are totally unfounded, and that the Arabs who live in Israel are more wealthy, healthy and free than those who live anywhere else in the Middle East.) It is most commonly found among socialists and more moderate lefties, who are invariably terribly concerned with the environment, supportive of Kyoto, and deeply committed to multiculturalism. In short these are the people for whom the gospel of the New Left has replaced any form of religious belief. Almost all these people were baptized Christians as babies or very young children; virtually none of them have their children baptized. This is significant.
Underlying the obsession with the environment is a hatred of science and development. Beneath the advocacy for the poor and the constant cries for more government spending is a rejection of capitalism and prosperity. And multiculturalism is really a fancy term for the renunciation of Europe, its civilization, and its heritage. In short, the legacy of Western Civilization, crafted over millennia, is currently out of favour with a sizeable chunk of Westerners. Those who should be the heirs to Jerusalem, Athens and Rome turn out to have more in common with Philistines and barbarians.
It is this fundamental rejection that explains so much of the Jew-hatred of today's upper classes, and NDP, Liberal and Democrat voters. By spurning military might and international commerce they cast off the legacy of Rome; by reducing public education to pablum and allowing barbarians to set curriculum they divorce themselves from Athens; and by utterly eschewing sexual morality and respect for life they neatly sever their connection with Jerusalem. But while there are no people who identify themselves as classical Greeks or Romans, the Jews are still with us, a living reminder of the legacy of monotheism and morality that made civilization possible, and it is for this that they are currently hated.
Of course, practicing Christians (which for all practical purposes excludes Anglicans, United Church members, and the left wing branches of Catholicism and Anabaptism) are equally heirs to and embodiments of biblical morality and the divine commandments. At the moment, though, they are not a sufficiently small minority that they may be assaulted and their houses of worship burned, although they may be mocked with impunity and forced to sacrifice their beliefs on the altar of political rectitude. Religious Christians should team up with those Jews who aren't firmly in the Abraham Foxman camp in order to assert the primacy and importance of the Judeo-Christian and classical traditions before it is too late. In Holland, for example, that moment has passed; those few churchgoers who still exist in that poor country are merely at a rest stop on a highway that leads either to socialist atheism or fundamentalist Islam.
It appears that Koreans are getting their collective knickers in a twist. In the North the regimented masses who worship the Boy Despot Kim Jong-Il are chanting their defiance of the US and praising the impoverished country’s decision to spend billions on a nuclear arsenal. In the South the regimented masses who forget who it was who saved their ancestral butts from Stalinist tyranny are calling for the withdrawal of American troops from the peninsula. In both the North and South tender feelings have been hurt by the last James Bond film which makes the unbelievable claim that a Korean, unlike an inhabitant in any other nation on the planet, might behave badly.
As a Canadian I have a minor stake in these debates. Canadian soldiers left behind hundreds of dead comrades after they had finished helping repel an invasion by Korean and Chinese Communist forces in the 1950s. (Those selfish American imperialists lost 34,000.) Since then we have sent gazillions in aid, bought their crappy tin cars and fostered democracy and independence in a people long subvervient to the Chinese and then Japanese empires.
And what did we get? Well, in return for our sacrifices, we got to enjoy the many contributions of Korea to civilization: their great novelists, the fine examples of Korean-inspired architecture that grace our cities, their wonderful inventions and cures for dangerous diseases, the heart-warming dramas and rib-tickling comedies that pour out of the peninsula on to our tv screens and their marvellous cuisine. In short: nothing.
If Korean nationalism is so strong that they are ready, no matter the cost, to reunite with their starving robot brothers across the 38th parallel, then let them. Withdraw the American trip-wire protectors and see what happens next. Either the South will subdue the lunatics in the north and create a united, modern country or the North will conquer the southerners and create a larger Marxist hell-hole and millions more grass-eaters.
I’m all in favour of the one-salvation-only rule. We protected Korea once in 1950-53 and that’s enough. Having saved the French in 1914-18, I believe that Canada, the U.K. and Americans should have been off the hook for their protection in 1939-45. Unfortunately, at great cost to us, we had to slap the Germans around yet again. We preserved Western Europe from Russian imperialism for 45 years and still had to intervene in the ruins of Communist Yugoslavia. Certainly I will never support a single Canadian life being lost to save anyone else on that blood-stained continent again. Fifty years from now when the young zealots of the new Islamic majority in Europe are burning down the Vatican and blowing up Gothic cathedrals, Venice and the Louvre I hope my grand-children have the sense to stay at home and smell the maple syrup.