Salon.com has an article on its front page on the murder of pregnant women. According to this largely unsubstantiated work, murder, not any medical condition, is the leading cause of death of pregnant American women. (Of course, to the extent that this is true, it is largely an artifact of the excellent medical care, nutrition and housing enjoyed by the vast majority of Americans -- the Third World should be so lucky as to have these problems.) Proving that even science can be made silly when silly logic is applied, the author suggests that violence be classified as a medical risk of pregnancy, in order that it get more funding and attention.
As is the usual in such work, no mention is made of the fact that there is a vast difference in the behaviour of husbands, meaning those married in a government-sanctioned ceremony, and common-law boyfriends, one-night stands, and exes. In fact the procedure of at least some organizations is to classify violence as "domestic" if the people were at one point sexual partners, a category that needless to say emcompasses exponentially more people than those legally wed. The usual alarming statistics are then regurgitated as to how often American women are assaulted (every 15 seconds, apparently) when the definition of "assault" includes raised voices, cursing, or throwing an object -- and not throwing an object at a person, at that. While we can all agree that these are disagreeable behaviours, there are very few people who survived family life without doing one or more of these things or at least strongly considering such an act.
If redefining things to get attention is the vogue, why don't conservatives and sane people in general try this: let's reclassify violence as a likely consequence of extra-marital sex, along with VD and unwanted pregnancy. Just as amassing a string of partners puts you at higher risk for the latter two, so apparently does it for the first. Teachers and doctors may well tell young women that insisting on condoms protects from disease and pregnancy (although not all the time, they will say, if they are honest) but what object will they suggest to reduce one's risk of violence? Sadly, most social workers will suggest mace instead of a wedding ring.
Pop-Hindu guru Deepak Chopra has proposed that he, the pope and the Dalai Lama get together a bunch of other celebrities and act as human shields in Iraq.
He is currently sharing his insights with Larry King on CNN. Among his many silly reasons for not going to war against Iraq is his claim that it will look to the world like settling a score. Is this a bad thing? It might slow the hand of a Third World nutcase or pan-Arabist fanatic to learn that enemies of America will be thrown against the wall not once but repeatedly, until they sort themselves out.
His other main argument, of course, is the anti-war classic: there's no evidence that Saddam Hussein has weapons, and besides, if we go to war, he'll kill lots and lots of soldiers and civilians with the weapons that we just asserted he doesn't have. This brings to mind a favourite lawyer joke:
Q. How do you stop a lawyer from drowning?
A. You shoot him.
How can you tell a psychopathic dictator is just bluffing?
It is with mixed feelings that I read this morning of the collective decision of those suing for residential school abuse to drop churches from their claim and target only the government. I don't think it right that present-day parishioners face the seizure of their churches' assets for wrongs allegedly committed in the days of their grandparents or earlier (although given that the Anglican and United churches are now at the level of farce, would this be all bad?) On the other hand I'm sure the government will roll over and play dead in the face of the lawsuit far faster than would the churches.
A more fundamental problem with the lawsuits in question is the premise on which they are based. The complaints all name "cultural genocide", that lefty term meaning "you didn't kill us but you really hurt our feelings", physical abuse and sexual abuse. These matters are not all of a piece.
Education is at heart acculturation, or re-acculturation. To be sure natives were educated with a view to instilling in them the values of the surrounding society, but this is true of all education in Canada in the past and today. Ukrainians and Asians have also been persecuted for speaking their native tongues in English schools; Anglo students in bilingual education are as I write being given detention for speaking English during class hours. Are all these people, too, eligible for compensation? Have all these people been wronged?
There isn't much question that a lot of the schools in question practiced physical abuse wholesale, by contemporary standards. There are very few teachers and parents today who sanction beating and bludgeoning children (or adult prisoners, for that matter) with whips, straps or paddles. Fifty years ago, though, this was arguably not the case. If natives subjected to (admittedly brutal) corporal punishment in church schools have a case, why not non-natives similarly treated in church school? Or non-natives paddled in any school?
The final issue of sexual abuse is of course in a different league. In light of the past few years of revelations about the American church, very few would argue that priests have never molested their charges. In native residential schools, moreover, such criminals had a captive group of children with no immediate recourse to their families or others who might take their side. There is no question that the guilty who are still alive should suffer for their crimes to the maximum provided by the law. If it can be demonstrated that superiors in the churches were aware of the abuse and didn't stop it, then the issue of compensation should be examined.
Those who suffered sexual abuse in these schools should receive the apologies of the institutions that caused their suffering and the full support of all Canadians. Those who claim cultural and physical abuse, though, should be treated with significantly more skepticism. Also worth remembering is the valuable contribution that good schools and teachers made to the lives of many young native children who would otherwise have led a life of illiteracy and paganism. Douglas Cardinal, a prominent architect who was severely beaten along with his brother by the priests at his school, nonetheless acknowledges that he would never have had the life he has led, with all its achievements and recognition, without the education provided by the government and the Catholic Church.
This week three men who go to work in funny hats made plain their objection to a war against Iraq. These gentlemen, Pope John Paul II, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, presumably made their cases based, at least in part, on the ancient Christian concept of “a just war”. While all Christians value peace, few of them are philosophical pacifists; most recognize that there are occasions in which it is not only justifiable to take up arms but also times in which it is morally obligatory to do so. I make so bold here as to dissent from the findings of the three clerics and to assert that the use of violence against the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein would be an act of justice and charity.
Christian just war theory began in the early fifth century with the writings of St Augustine of Hippo, developed further in medieval canon law and Scholasticism (especially in the work of St Thomas Aquinas) and was given a Protestant interpretation during the religious wars of the sixteenth century. In summary, the justice of a declaration of war would depend on whether it was made with the right authority, for a just cause, out of a right motive. Moreover, a just war would have to be waged with a reasonable chance of success and of achieving a high proportion of good to evil done. Finally, a just war is always waged as a last resort. On the basis of these criteria does the war to oust Saddam Hussein possess the proper jus as bellum? Let us consider.
Is this to be a war waged with the right authority? There are those who would say that in order to prevent chaos and unilateral declarations of war that the United Nations Security Council is the only legitimate arbiter of rightful violence on the international scene. This position has a number of drawbacks. Firstly it gives five particular nations a veto against taking action and thus makes peace-making a hostage to geopolitical ambitions. At the present moment the hypocrisy of Russia (which reserves the right to wage a bloody war in Chechnya), France (which reserves the right to intervene militarily in West Africa) and China (occupiers of Tibet and protectors of North Korea) is manifest. Secondly, the UN has a horrible history of futility in preventing aggression and genocide. The list of its failures is long but can be seen recently and most plainly in places where they actually had troops on the ground who failed to protect innocent lives: Srebrenica and Rwanda. Clearly the UN is helpless as its League of Nations predecessor and cannot claim to be a credible source of legitimacy for the justice of a cause.
What then is the solution? In the absence of a superior collective power, individual countries or regional alliances of nations may act to wage war justly in certain cases. St Augustine (City of God, XIX.16 ) states that “as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at the risk of his falling into greater sin. To be innocent, we must not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by his experience, or others be warned by his example.” Few dispute that Saddam needs to be restrained from sin and punished and if the UN Security Council will not act, then a “coalition of the willing” has a moral obligation to do so in a proper cause.
Suitable causes include defense against aggression; the correction of injustice; the establishment of a more perfect political order; and the securing of a long-term peace. Inasmuch as the current crisis stems from Iraqi aggression and its unfulfilled promises of disarmament, and as the prospect of a regime change would have the effect of replacing a tryrannical regime with a democracy the war would so far seem to be a just one.
But would it be waged with right intent? If this were just about oil, as many claim, it would not fit the definition of proper motives. I have not seen, however, any plausible case made for the oil theory. If the US and Britain wanted cheaper oil the obvious solution would be to step back from war, eliminate the sanctions and watch Iraqi wells pump millions of new barrels on to the market. Spending billions of dollars on this war seems a foolish investment for a commodity which is not in short supply. If, on the other hand, it is really a conflict to produce the end of an evil regime and the dawn of a secular democratic Middle East I am not going to quarrel.
Prospect of success? Extremely high. Good to evil ratio? Very high if the war is not delayed until weather makes it impossible. But is this war undertaken as a last resort? This does not mean that all other means must be tried first, only that one must realize that no other way will work. Can one consider without laughter Bill Graham’s assertion that another couple of months of tidying up the language of Resolution 1441 will suddenly concentrate the mind of the Butcher of Baghdad wonderfully? Will sending in UN troops to guard sites already inspected produce results? Does anyone believe that Saddam will bow out peacefully? Therefore....
The relentless drive to make the Canadian armed forces into a living joke continues. The administration of the Royal Military College has forbidden its cadets to take part in a re-enactment of a nineteenth-century hockey game because they might get hurt.
The cadets who play this game, dressed in nineteenth-century garb with rules and equipment that hearken back to 1886, are honouring the invention of Canada's national obsession by our soldiers of the Victorian era. It's true that this match is part of a much-loved tradition that pits RMC against Queen's University and the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. It's true that this game has been played without injury for 34 years. It is true that no physical contact is allowed. But, as spokeswoman Joane Thibault, it's against the rules to play hockey without helmets and protective padding.
Many readers will share the sentiments of Peter Dawe, who will lead a replacement team of former cadets, average age "about 65". This doughty oldster remarks: "I find it ironic that the mission of the college is to train people to lead troops in combat ... and then we shy away from playing a game of shinny."
For those of you who have been wondering why Iraq hasn't accounted for the thousands of weapons and tons of nerve gas, mustard gas and other illegal toxic agents, it's not because they are being hidden for use at some later date. Oh no. Our minister for foreign affairs, whose intellect is more powerful than a speeding locomotive, feels it is because UN resolutions haven't been specific enough! There, now you know: it's our fault.
Our beloved Bill Graham is calling for another two months of inspections because
the last Iraq resolution was not clear enough on what "serious consequences" meant and that the term would have to be "fleshed out" in a detailed new resolution. I can just see Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz nodding enthusiastically in approval. "Of course", they cry in glad agreement, "we are genuinely confused by the tricky wording of the 14 resolutions we have been called upon to obey since 1991. Please take all the time you think you need to make them clearer. We'll be over here gassing Kurds until you get back to us."
What a pair of moral cripples Graham and Chretien are. What a nation of fools they make us appear. Surely this sorry episode cannot have its equal anywhere in Canada's diplomatic past. Even arch-weasel Mackenzie King, who thought well of that nice Mr Hitler until he invaded Poland, would not have been moved to blame unspecific language from the League of Nations for the failure to halt Nazi aggression. Help me here. Can any reader think of a more shameful moment in Canadian history?
A flood of spunky replies has poured from East European countries in response to President Chirac's warning that opposing France by supporting US policy on Iraq mighty result in their being black-balled from the EU. A Latvian commentator was particularly pointed in his reply: "All right, Monsieur Chirac. Perhaps we are poor. Perhaps we were not raised properly. We do not know about fine wine and the various directions of avant-garde art. But we do not repay with ingratitude those who have helped us and who continue to help us." Ouch.
This notion of gratitude to those who have been helpful may well be foreign to the French character but they have seen it in action. When American forces came to the rescue of France in 1917, their leader General Pershing announced "Lafayette, we are here", a reference to the French aristocrat who had fought on the side of the American Revolution over a century before. Contrast that graciousness with the actions of another general, Charles de Gaulle, who repaid the tens of thousands of Canadians who died for French freedom by coming to Canada in 1967 and urging the separation of Quebec.
Perhaps the problem is linguistic. Is it significant that my English-French dictionary ("The Collins Pocket Reference") does not have an entry for a French translation of "ingratitude"? It does however contain terms for coward ("le lache") and appease ("apaiser", "calmer") and is loaded with words that mean surrender ("le reddition", "la capitulation", "se rendre", "capituler".) Such a rich language, French.
Sami Al-Arian, the Florida professor who has been dogged by pesky Zionists and ultra-conservatives who want to know just why he keeps yelling "Death to Israel" and raising money for Hamas (but only for their cookie drives) has finally been arrested.
Winnie Mandela announces desire to be a human shield in Iraq.
A robust anti-French article spoiled by a slight historical error on the nature of the territory claimed by Lothar.
For all their posturing about the Enlightenment and their role in inventing human rights, the French have never been terribly fond of free speech. During the Terror they issued the Law of 22 Prairial which mandated the death penalty for criticizing the Revolution and which forbade accused the right of self-defence. This week the leader of that nation which still genuinely believes it embodies all that is noble and wise in human form found time to lecture Eastern European countries about the dangers of speaking honestly.
Jacques Chirac has just announced that the price of admission to the European Union for those nations who were once under Soviet domination was the acceptance of French leadership in foreign affairs. He criticized Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary for siding with the United States on Iraq, complaining that they "had missed a good opportunity to keep quiet."
One might have thought that a land which had suffered through so many German occupations would have sympathized with others seeking to be free from tyranny, but no. Throughout history few countries have been as honest about their bullying ways as the French. Their inability to conduct a principled foreign policy has been as grand a symbol of their nation as the Eiffel Tower, wine diluted with antifreeze or their aversion to personal hygiene.
For those who love their conspiracy theories served up hot and rabid London's left-wing newspaper "The Independent" offers the following analysis by Robert Fisk. Scarcely pausing to wipe the foam from his lips as he writes, Fisk lays the blame for the impending war against Saddam on a Jewish cabal in the Bush administration. These "sinister men" wish to deprive Iraq of its atomic weapons [Dexter's note: I thought Iraq didn't have any] so that Israel can maintain its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and colonise the Arab world.
Now that Fisk has ripped the blinkers from my eyes I can see clearly the hand of international Zionism in this -- and in many other cases that have baffled scientists and my own mental health professionals for years. The sinking of the Titanic, the murder of Paul Wellstone, the otherwise inexplicable fame of George Clooney: it's those pesky Jews. They invented AIDS; they have covered-up the connection between Martians and the Oklahoma bombing; they have denied me the lucrative career in taxidermy which I so richly deserve. It's the Jews who broadcast the instructions that Americans receive subconsciously through the fillings in their molars. Luckily for Planet Earth, Fisk and a few brave men are too smart for them; they have wrapped their heads in tinfoil to block the messages and conduct their gallant war of resistance against the Zionists and their alien lackeys. It's the Matrix I tell you! It's real! But the voices.. . the voices...
1. As part of the settlement at the end of the First Gulf War in 1991 the Iraqi Baath Socialist regime of Saddam Hussein agreed in writing that it would divest itself of certain weapons -- arms that were in no way defensive and could only be used to destroy other countries with atomic radiation, poison gases and illegal toxins. For twelve years it has lied, procrastinated and evaded this obligation, refusing UN inspectors access for years at a time.
2. The cost of this evasion has been the continuation of United Nations sanctions that have cost Saddam nothing personally but has harmed his people a great deal. This situation has suited Saddam and countries such as France and Germany who have profited from economic deals with the Iraqi regime.
3. Only the threat of force wielded by the United States and its "coalition of the willing" has permitted the UN to resume its inspections. Security Council resolution 1441 stated Iraq would face "serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations."
4. Inspectors under Dr Hans Blix state that Iraq:
• has not shown it has rid itself of 6,500 chemical bombs
• has not shown it has rid itself of 30,000 other special munitions
• has not shown it has rid itself of 2.2 million pounds of chemical weapons agent
• has missiles with a longer range than allowed
• possesses warheads it has not declared
• has given untrustworthy information about its production of nerve agent VX
• has given untrustworthy information about its production of anthrax
• has obstructed efforts to conduct confidential interviews with scientists
• has hidden nuclear weapons documentation in private homes
5. It is clear to even a spineless Swedish bureaucrat that Saddam has not fulfilled his obligations to disarm after 12 years and has thus justly incurred the "serious consequences".
6. What is the world waiting for?
Our Prime Minister Jean Chretien was in the United States the other day and gave a bold speech in which he extolled the virtues of our nation and criticized the U.S.A. He hinted again that the Americans have only themselves to blame for the mess they are in and contrasted their imperialistic approach with that of harmless cheese-eating Canada. I can't imagine what he thought he was going to accomplish with this rudeness -- his government finds it intolerable when Bush officials comment on our levels of defence spending -- but such is the behaviour of a man never in doubt of his own moral superiority. It is one thing to announce that you are regretfully declining to follow an ally's lead in foreign policy, it's quite another to deliver a sermon of self-praise while you attack your host in his own country.
I have never thought Chretien to be a man of tact or grace so this kind of boorishness isn't surprising but I did think that among his vast staff of handlers he would have had a speech-writer with a rudimentary knowledge of history. Announcing that Canada had always been a supporter of multilateralism he rapped the Americans for contributing to the failure of the League of Nations to curb aggression in the 1930s. "We must remember," smirked our Maximum Leader, "that the League of Nations was mortally wounded because the United States was not a member." That's true as far as it goes but it ignores the fact that Canada was also a prime saboteur of the League and that the Liberal government of Mackenzie King played a shameful role in the appeasement of tyrants, a role that Chretien seems now to want to imitate.
After World War I when hopes for the new League of Nations were high Canada fought any suggestion that we should put our troops under the command of a foreign peace-keeping force. We resisted Article X in the League's covenant which called for collective security. The Quebec Liberal Senator who was our spokesman at Geneva proclaimed with great smugness that Canada was in no danger as we "lived in a fire-proof house far from any combustible materials". When a later Canadian diplomat at the League supported mild sanctions against fascist Italy after its invasion of Ethiopia he was sternly repudiated by the Liberal government. Mackenzie King was a fan of appeasement even after Hitler's 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia; he opposed Winston Churchill's return to the British cabinet and believed that Hitler could still be reasoned with long after any sane leader in the West had given up that hope.
Chretien's decision that Canada should join the Axis of Weasel and side with France, Russia, China and Germany against the United States, Australia, Great Britain, Spain, Italy and the liberated countries of eastern Europe is a sad moment in our history. We need a Churchill, we've got a Chamberlain.
This story illustrates at least three basic problems with our current approach to immigration and border security. First, it shouldn't need to be said that if a couple of Jamaican robbers can easily wiggle through the tight security provided by Customs and Immigration civil servants, it would be no challenge at all for terrorists funded by, oh, say, Saudi Arabia (not that they do that sort of thing.) Second, continuing to allow criminal behaviour on the part of men like this provokes unfair but inevitable backlash against the majority of Jamaican and visible minority immigrants, the vast majority of whom are not armed and dangerous, or repeat offenders. Third, in a country with limited resources, clowns like this are effectively taking the place of refugees with genuine complaints and/or immigrants with a real contribution to make. Until we get serious about who is allowed to come to this country, and what kind of behaviour we will tolerate, we don't deserve to be taken seriously by either the USA in terms of security or by illegitimate immigrants and refugee claimants.
Once again a group of deluded Canadians have hit the airwaves, broadsheets and internet news with their plans to move to Baghdad, in order to cushion a genocidal maniac from the consequences of his actions. If they would but think for a minute, they would realize that they themselves are providing a clinching argument for the superiority of Western Civ. to the Middle East.
Would they have acted as human shields in the WTC on September 11, had they known ahead of time? Would they flock to cafes in Tel Aviv to act as human shields there? Would they volunteer to protect with their own bodies the women marked for death in "honour killings"? Of course not -- they know, as we do, that Peace Loving Moslems would never let a few more innocent deaths stay their hands.
The act of interposing oneself between lethal force and its intended target has meaning only if the side wielding that force has the decency and respect for life to minimize death on both sides; otherwise it's simply suicide. Only the West would hesitate from killing at the sight of civilians nearby; only the West makes intricate plans to carry out bombings at times and places that will minimize enemy casualties. If that isn't reason enough to support the USA against Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria and all the rest of the UN superstars, what is?
What more can be said? Chretien has many, many, many faults; shrillness is not one of them. Perhaps we can rectify that lack in our next PM. Clio shall slink off to a cave in Saskatchewan to await the apocalypse if this comes true.
A search in Amazon.ca's "Children" section (12 years old and under) for books on homosexuality yielded 70 results. Searching the same section for books on morality gave 6 titles. The four books that were turned up by a search on children's books with the key word "chastity" were more than balanced by the 136 that discuss sexuality for the preteen set.
Did they sell books online in Gomorrah?
In the next edition of Heather Has Two Mommies, perhaps Mommy One can bust stereotypes by going hunting while Mommy Two can make a fry-up of non-free-range eggs and bacon. The PC point balance will then tilt in the other direction and the number of parents trying to ban the book will be greater than the number supporting it.
Any thoughts that the inmates are not running the asylum are banished by news today that the Upper Canada District School School Board has removed the word "gun" from all spelling tests after a single parental complaint.
"I realize people hunt in this area", said outraged pacifist mother Amanda Sousa, "but I still don't think that warrants teaching the word to my daughter or any other child."
Dexter is all in favour of parental interaction in public education, no matter how misguided. He supports the right of Ms Sousa to demand that her child not be taught any words referring to metal tubes which emit missile-like objects with great force as the result of contained explosions. He supports the right of vegan parents to shield their children from words which refer to the eating of the flesh of all mobile life-forms or products derived from such life-forms' ovarian or lactationary processes. Fundamentalist parents may in turn demand that their offspring be denied any knowledge about words which refer to people of other religions or that there may be terms to describe those with no religious faith at all.
What stuns Dexter, however, is that the professional "educators" in charge of an institution of public learning should pay such protests any heed especially in such a way that other children are made to suffer from the idiocy of one fanatic family. At this point words fail him.
In the eyes of African leaders it seems to be no sin to run a racist, murderous regime that suppresses human rights. The presidents of South Africa and Nigeria have decided that the temporary suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth must be lifted. The regime of kleptocrat Robert Mugabe had been subjected to a one-year hiatus in membership in one of the world's most ineffective multi-national forums but his fellow-African leaders have decided that the poor fellow has suffered enough and Zimbabwe should be readmitted to the fellowship.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who was the other member of the three-country panel to consider the ban, disagreed and wanted further steps taken against Mugabe. Radiating compassion from every pore, Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo begged to differ, saying that Zimbabwe could not be helped "if we become unduly and unnecessarily critical and antagonistic".
Heaven forfend that rigged elections, jailed opposition leaders, a censored press and an overt policy of ethnic cleansing should bar a country from sitting around the table with such ornaments of democracy as Pervez Musharraf, Yahya Jammeh or Sam Nujomo.
The fanatics of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have a saying: "A cat is a rat is a dog is a boy." From this we are to infer that human exploitation of the animal world for fun, food or profit is wrong because all life-forms are equal in moral value. There shall be, in the peacable kingdom that PETA will form, no eating meat, wearing fur, holding one's pants up with a leather belt or testing cancer cures on mice.
In fact the moral universe of PETA is rather more insidious. In the mind of such activists all carbon-based life is not equal; humans are of less worth than beasts of burden. Consider the letter written by PETA spokesbeing Ingrid Newkirk to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat when she heard that a terrorist bomb aimed at Israelis had resulted in a donkey being sent to The Great Pasture in the Sky.
"If you have the opportunity," the tender-hearted Newkirk begged the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Arafat, "will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?"
When asked if she had tried to dissuade Mr Arafat from supporting bombings that killed people, the moral blindness that affects such zealots prompted her to reply: "It's not my business to inject myself into human wars."
There has been much discussion on the Web about the possibility that ecological correctness contributed to the disaster that overtook the space shuttle Columbia. The theory is that a switch from ozone-depleting CFC insulating foam to an eco-friendly PC foam resulted in more parts of the craft's exterior flying off and causing damage. A 1997 post-flight inspection apparently revealed 308 hits, some 15 inches long and up to 1.5 inches in depth. Over 100 tiles were damaged beyond repair, well over the normal count of 40.
I'm not going to claim any expertise in whether one variety of foam is better than another for protecting a space craft from heat damage but I will say this: I think it's foolhardy to repeatedly send up a piece of machinery containing live humans knowing that it regularly disintegrates as it ascends. When hundreds of parts fly off a vehicle repeatedly and this does not excite undue comment from engineers, it's time to ground the whole program and find scientists who share my belief that there is a fundamental link between safety and structural integrity. The Challenger disaster should have taught us that NASA is quite capable of doing stunningly stupid things at the cost of people's lives. The willingness of brave and adventurous men and women to go into space should not over-ride our knowledge that this technology isn't safe enough and requires serious rethinking and updating.
In light of Bush's announcement of $150 billion to go to AIDS treatment in Africa, Canada's AIDS problem is worth revisiting. Despite the hysterical cries for more research money, Canada is very lucky, especially compared with Africa (and it appears soon China) with regard to infection rates and death rates. This story from late last year though strikes many of the usual alarm bells, without backing them up at all. The director of the Canadian foundation for AIDS points out that there are 42 million people worldwide infected, and that nobody predicted such numbers when AIDS was first brought to light.
Actually she's right, but not in the way she think she is. The initial predictions were for a plague on the order of the Black Plague or the influenzas of early last century; many predicted a billion dead worldwide. A decade or so later it's becoming clear that it simply isn't a significant problem for Canadians. Giving millions of dollars to research for a cure or a vaccine is politically appealing, but isn't an appropriate distribution of money, either for Canada's purposes or for those of the Third World.
It is easier to avoid AIDS than to avoid almost any other medical disorder. The steps one must take to avoid AIDS are simpler and less arduous than the programmes people adopt to avoid cancer, heart disease, or arthritis; the social behaviours to avoid AIDS are comparatively straightforward (basically don't practice sodomy or use needle drugs, and even then if you're careful you can get away with a lot) especially when compared with what one would have to do to avoid other viral diseases, like the flu or West Nile viruses. In the early days of the disease, before people knew how it was transmitted, there were many cases of people infected by blood transfusions, or doctors infected by their patients or vice versa. That is seldom the case today. In a system with very strained financial resources for health care and research, money ought to be directed toward those diseases that strike at the most people, and that are the hardest to avoid.
In Africa the situation is a bit different. Suffice it to say that cultural attitudes there toward sex must be radically different from those over here, which is saying a lot. As well, many doctors theorize that the most common strains of the disease in Africa are more contagious than those here. For whatever reason, there are in fact countries in Africa where AIDS is the leading cause of death. There is no doubt that funding could do something to slow transmission (although not by teaching condom use, a la Europe, but abstinence, a la Uganda) and provide comfort for those afflicted. The solution campaigned for by most African governments, though, of free or highly discounted drugs, isn't the way.
The regimen of drugs for HIV is very strict, and relies upon carefully timed doses of drugs that must be kept in controlled climates. The utility of providing such drugs, even free of charge, to people with no refrigeration and no clocks, is dubious. Far more helpful both to the infected and to their communities would be clean water and fresh food. Of course, the provision of these basics rests less upon the receipt of foreign aid and more upon the removal of the kleptocrats and the installation of democracy.
It’s official. I’m now convinced that the average Canadian is in more danger from judges and lawyers than they are from criminals. Consider the case of four residents of British Columbia: Bahadur Singh Bhalru, Sukhvir Singh Khosa, Dan Geller and Linda Loo. Two of the four were street racers whose cars exceeded 120 km/h in a 50 km/h that night in November 2000 when one of them lost control and killed a pedestrian. Last October Bhalru and Khosa were found guilty of criminal negligence causing death and this week they were to be sentenced by Judge Loo.
What do you suppose the penalty was for ending the life of Irene Thorpe? The law allows for a sentence of life imprisonment and attorneys representing the people of British Columbia asked for a sentence of 4 to 7 years for the killers. Despite the fact that an epidemic of street racing has wiped out 20 lives in the lower mainland of BC in the past few years including an RCMP officer Judge Loo decided that any jail time was too harsh a sentence for these men whose age, clean record and hard work impressed the distinguished jurist. Instead they were grounded for 2 years, though they could of course leave their homes to go to work or to school. Loo claimed that she sympathized with the victim’s children and siblings who were naturally upset by having their mother and sister killed but, she told them, the harm caused by law-breakers was but one of many factors in determining what the judge called a “just sentence”.
The sentence provoked anger in many. Where was the fairness, they asked, in such a paltry penalty for the most serious of results, the ending of a human life? Enter Mr Geller, lawyer for the young hard workers on whom Judge Loo had smiled. This sterling representative of the legal profession brushed away such criticism. The sentences, he said with a straight face, were onerous. "Anybody here who had to be home except for work … would consider that a form of imprisonment." Ms Thorpe, sadly, was not there to dispute this contemptible remark, having earlier been killed by his clients.
Street racers are a menace to society but the real damage to the social fabric is done, not by criminals, but by members of the legal profession who repeatedly bring the very notion of justice into question. Thoughtful citizens have every right to be angry over such decisions and statements. They know that the primary duty of the state is to protect the lives of the innocent. If you don’t want vigilante justice; if you really care about reducing the number of lives lost to bad drivers; if you don’t want to enflame racist sentiment (most of the more shocking cases of death by street racers have involved Asian youth); if you don’t want to bring the judicial system into disrepute then, please, just enforce the damn laws.
The fate of the Columbia is tragic, especially for the families of the astronauts and for the two nations who looked at this launch as symbol of resilience and hope. For the astronauts themselves it is a premature end to seven heroic lives. Based upon my knowledge of the mindset of pilots and adventurers, though, the seven themselves would probably choose accidental death while exploring space to death by traffic accident, say, or heart disease. They spent years hoping and training to go on this mission, and were fully aware of the risks involved.
This is why we do them a disservice if we wail and gnash our teeth excessively, and most especially if we use their deaths to call for an end to the space programme. Mourning in a pre-CNN world had connotations of dignity, a quality entirely lacking from journalists' current "how do you feel about this?" assaults upon the bereaved and those who found rubble in their backyards. With the world so clearly divided between light and dark, the death of each brave soul from our side does indeed diminish us individually. We honour and redeem them, though, not by flogging their remains (figuratively but also literally, before eBay came to its senses) and growing maudlin, but by girding ourselves to continue their mission.
A lot of heroes are going to die in the next few years, I suspect. Some of them will be elite soldiers who are trained for and to some extent accept this risk; some of them will be victims of circumstance, the first thousands of whom died over a year ago, in this particular war. Americans and their allies will find themselves paralysed if each death triggers multi-day special features on the news networks, shutting down the day-to-day life which in the end is what best distinguishes us from what we fight. The memory of the seven astronauts and all the others who die trying to better all the world is best served by pausing and grieving, and then continuing to raise our children, do our jobs, offer kindness to our neighbours, and love our families and friends.
Let those who go off to parts of the world we all try to avoid in order to save not just us but also them know how we'll respond in the event that they pay for their efforts with their lives. We'll be resilient, and all the more determined to further that for which they fought. We will honour them not by grinding to a standstill of sobbing on national television and questioning their purpose, but by continuing to build in their names: families, communities, companies and nations.
A not entirely irrelevant poem:
HOW DID YOU DIE?
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way,
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day,
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only, how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
Its nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce!
Be proud of your blackened eye.
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts,
But how did you fight and why?
And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?
-- Edmund Vance Cooke
So spoke Ophelia about Hamlet and so might speak any admirer of the once-great Nelson Mandela. It is impossible to read his recent intemperate and racist remarks about American policy toward Iraq and not wish they had been uttered by someone else -- an Idi Amin, for example, a Robert Mugabe or a Joseph Mobutu or any other of a host of demagogues that Africa has spawned in its post-colonial period.
To my dying day I will honour Mandela for being who he was in the 1990s when he led South Africa into democracy: wise, restrained, forgiving and statesmanlike, trusted by all races as a model of what black leadership might bring to a wounded country. To be sure, he was married to the odious hate-monger Winnie but he did manage to distance himself from her policies and get a divorce. He was a bit too cozy with the African and Communist dictators who had supported the ANC in its rebellion but that might have been attributable to a sense of gratitude. When he stepped down from the presidency (as few of his fellow black rulers ever did voluntarily) he had a world-wide reputation for good judgement which endured until the last couple of years.
Since then he has twice called the President of the United States a racist, accused him of mental incompetence and claimed that Mr Bush was desirous of plunging the world into a holocaust because of a greed for oil. Such remarks are not worthy of someone of Mandela's lofty stature; they serve only to reduce him to the level of leftist pygmies such as Alexa Macdonough or Noam Chomsky. The usual remedy for senility is to have a loved one ensure the dotard never speaks in public again. Someone close to Mandela should undertake that role very soon.
As from the pow'r of sacred Lays
The Spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling Pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The Dead shall live, the Living die,
And music shall untune the Sky.
-- John Dryden "A Song for St Ceclia's Day 1687"