brief note on word play

In making a comment on a post by Kanuk on Open Salon, I noted that "Christian charity" has become an oxymoron in the hands of the religious right or so-called "moral majority", a more mean-spirited bunch than I've come across in Lo! these many years.

That got me to thinking about oxymora (that's the plural of oxymoron) in general, & I found this fun article by Richard Lederer under the heading "Oxymoronology".

It quotes a lot of good ones, including the well known "criminal lawyer", one of my all-time favourites. I also love that the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron. How much fun is that?

I was reminded that this was a common theme used by the late, great George Carlin, a few of which I found on this little YouTube collection (for some reason, this didn't want to show up as a video link, I'll try to fix it later).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6deudS3t7E

And now, it's a lovely sunny day & I'm out of here! Got to go take care of my "low-maintenance garden".

a shameful state of affairs

I really never intended for this blog to be so political. Honest.

Some issues really do need more exposure, though, & since I have this place to vent, might as well use it.

Racism continues to rear its ugly head in Canadian life. I'm ashamed of our current federal regime, led by Harper & his band of neoCons, and of everyone (including some of my own family) who voted for them. They're doing their utmost to ruin our country's international reputation, and sadly, they're succeeding all too well. I'm also ashamed that the opposition in Parliament has been so ineffectual in protesting against their actions. What we need most is for the opposition to coalesce so that their minority government is ousted & can be defeated at the next election. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Two major cases ongoing now:

1) The federal government is appealing a ruling of a lower court that would bring home Omar Khadr from Guantanamo.

Khadr was all of 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan, after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a USAmerican soldier, and has been interned in Guantanamo Bay for the past 7 years, awaiting trial for murder, conspiracy & support of terrorism.

This man deserves a fair trial, and as a Canadian citizen (born in Toronto), it should be in a Canadian court. After so long a denial of due process, our Federal Court of Appeal ruled that his Charter rights had been denied and he should be brought home. Our mean spirited neoCon government is appealing this ruling to the Supreme Court, who have yet to decide if they will review the case. It's to be hoped they won't.
How can this one man, who was 15 at the time of his alleged actions, be considered such a threat to our national security that it warrants an appeal to the Supreme Court to keep him incarcerated in a foreign internment camp? How can our elected officials continue to bully this individual in such an ugly way?

We have jailed mass murderers & other violent offenders for a shorter time than he has already served, in what is known to be dire conditions, where torture has been a factor in treatment of detainees.

A key quote from a recent article: "In his decision, O'Reilly pointed out that Khadr is the last citizen of any Western country held at Guantanamo. Other countries have repatriated their citizens." I'm ashamed that Canada has not seen fit to do so, & continues to emulate the now (thankfully) defunct Bush/Cheney administration in their illegal & immoral acts.

2) At least 2 Canadians have been stranded for lengthy periods in African countries on spurious passport issues.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a Canadian citizen, was stranded in Kenya for 3 months because embassy officials thought she didn't look enough like her passport photo & she was accused of being an imposter. It took her insistence on a DNA test to prove her identity and get them to back down. She is now suing our federal government (i.e. the taxpaying citizens) for their negligence & failure to support her. I hope she wins, even if I'm paying for part of the settlement.

There is at least one other Canadian citizen, Abdihakim Mohamed, who has been stranded, also in Kenya, for 3 years. Clearly, the staff of the embassy in Kenya need some serious retraining, at the very least. (The "diplomat" in charge has been recalled -- it's a start.)

It's no coincidence that all 3 of the cases here involve Canadians who are also Muslims.

And this from a regime that claims it is innocent of ethnic profiling. Appalling.

celebrating a life well-lived: Muriel Duckworth

Muriel Duckworth, a lifelong peace activist, has died aged 100.



She lived her convictions, becoming a Quaker and participating in numerous humanitarian organizations & causes related to social justice.
While strong in her own views, she remained open-minded, often bringing a note of realism & compassion to her activism. She refused to mount protests during Remembrance Day celebrations, understanding that to do so would make light of the honest mourning of those dead in conflicts around the world, regardless of the underlying justice of the causes in which they had died.

Her achievements have been well-cited elsewhere, so I won't burden this post with them. If you are interested, these are good places to start:

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/women/002026-299-e.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Duckworth

http://section15.ca/features/people/2000/05/10/muriel_duckworth/

If I were arranging her wake, I'd be sure to include Buffy Ste Marie's "Universal Soldier", along with Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side" and "Masters of War". She might not agree entirely with my choices, but I think they're fitting ones. I don't agree with her religious convictions, but I admire her dedication & the causes she supported.

Thanks, Muriel, for a life well-lived. We need more like you.

what price honour?

A few weeks ago, there was a bizarre news item telling of the drowning deaths of 4 women, three sisters and their aunt, who were found in their car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal, near Kingston Ontario. It seemed especially odd since there were no signs of how they could have gotten there, past various barriers, without leaving so much as a skid mark.

Today, the papers are full of the arrest of the girls' parents & brother, supposedly while attempting to leave the country:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/family-members-charged-with-murder-in-submerged-car-case/article1228868/

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Family+members+charged+with+first+degree+murder+Kingston+canal+deaths/1820277/story.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/23/canal-arrests023.html

While the reports vary a little, it appears that the "aunt" was in fact the father's first wife, unable to have children & so supplanted by the second wife.

This is the kind of incident that makes many average Canadian citizens scratch their heads over immigration policies that foster a very broad interpretation of multiculturalism, in that this enables extremist views that would have been well left in the country of origin when emigrating to a country with clearly different mores & standards. Some of our own more extreme elements would have immigrants attest that they will abide by Canadian laws & social customs when living here, & given the above I'm sure there will be more calls for such. Tolerance can, after all, only go so far.

We don't tolerate polygamy, purdah, so-called honour killing or suttee. What makes some people think that they can bring such traditions here, or worse yet, start cults that do such things? This is not exclusive to Islamic extremists, although this particular case is illustrative of the reasons why sharia law will never be adopted here and there is so much resentment about the attempts to do so.

Canadians would, on the whole, are pleased to embrace most multicultural novelties. Food, literature, art, music, philosophy, & certain aspects of dress come to mind as crossing cultural borders. However, when it comes to systematic marginalization of women by extremist groups, whatever their origin, we draw the line. We tolerate headscarves, but not burqas. One may be a fashion statement, the other is clearly not. Adult women have a right to self-determination & independence. Children have a right not to be molested or otherwise abused by their families or others in the community. These are the compromises that OUR culture demands of immigrants. These are the things that should be left at the border of the country of origin.

Sadly, these 3 girls and their aunt/step-mother will never have the opportunity to benefit from Canadian culture, because the culture of their parents' homeland was applied to abrogate their rights.

As for the supposed honour, does the classification of one of the girls as "willful & rebellious" in any way justify her death? Not here. We have no room for such distorted conceptions of honour.

health care insurers obviously desperate

For those who have been following the machinations of the USAmerican health care "industry" to stave off public health care reforms, and who may have heard some horror stories about how poorly served Canadians are by our public health care system, you might be interested in reading this article, with associated links & comments:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/21/shona-homes-health-care.html

I'm sure some of you have seen this (conservative funded) spot, which forecasts dire consequences if the USA were to introduce "Canadian style" publicly administered health care. The woman in this story claims to have solid evidence of how horrible our system is, & how much better the current USAmerican system is.

While I'll be the first to agree that our system isn't perfect, at least we don't have a bunch of corporate bottom line feeders running (ruining?) our health care system. Although we need to keep a close eye on our current neoCon federal administration, so that we won't have them in future. Most of us are hoping that the arguments against public health care (which I remember from when I was growing up) have been concluded, in favour of the public, and health care. That element of our social safety net is still in place. True, improvements could be made. That's true of any system, isn't it?

There is some 2-tier medicine here already. For example, dentistry, unless it requires hospitalization, is a private-care system. Some of us are fortunate to have access to inexpensive dental insurance (note here that the dental plan insurers sure act a lot like HMOs when it comes to in-office dental surgery, giving us due warning of what that system would be like if implemented for medical as well).

Most of us carry supplementary medical insurance, but that's to give us a higher level of hospitalization (semi-private or private room) plus cover about 80% of our prescription costs & appliances such as glasses & hearing aids. And since we have a lot of generic pharmaceuticals (most made by the original pharma group but packaged by the generics, so of equivalent quality) we aren't being gouged for drug costs either. I'd like to point out here that supplementary medical plans neither cost a fortune nor are based on denial of service without a lengthy fight. The term "pre-existing condition" is essentially unknown here. We find it ludicrous that the very fact of becoming sick may lead to you being denied reimbursement by your insurer, and can't comprehend why there hasn't been an effective grass-roots rebellion in the USA against such corporate thievery.

I'm personally irked by some of the restrictions on legitimate therapies under our system, like the classification of joint replacement as an "elective" procedure (obviously the plan's administrators have never suffered extreme joint pain), but the fact is that the surgery wait times are usually not extreme for non-life-threatening illnesses. However, I'm quite willing to believe that there are others in greater need than myself. We do need more & better hospital facilities. But at least we're all triaged under the same system when it comes to hospital care.

The woman in the story is by no means unique. Just as in the USA, those who have or can find the money to get their treament faster may choose to do so, but generally speaking they do so off-shore, because Canada's sytem isn't governed so much by the almighty dollar as it is by need. True, mistakes do happen, and lives are lost unnecessarily. However, not as frequently as in a system where so many are denied even basic care because of inability to pay.

Perhaps we don't have all the latest & greatest bells & whistles when it comes to surgeries or therapies, either. However, you're unlikely to undergo either an experimental or inappropriate treatment here just because you can pay for it. Can the same be said in the USA?

If the USAmerican HMO system is so great, why do we pay more than twice as much for travel medical insurance when visiting the USA than when I go anywhere else in the world? And why does nobody I know feel comfortable going across the Canada-USA border for as much as 5 minutes without such insurance?

I'm sure nobody would be surprised to learn that the woman in the story was handsomely reimbursed by her interviewers...say, to the tune of USD 100K? Plus a bit for her trouble, of course, & to salve her conscience, if she has one.

one good book leads to another

(update of an earlier post)

The queue of books by my bed is getting bigger again. It's not quite the leaning tower of death I had a few years ago, and I've got most of them on a chair that's far enough away from my pillow not to crush my head if they fall, but between the books I've bought over the past few months and the ones I keep getting out of the library it comes to quite a stack.

I have this distressing habit of not being able to pass a bookstore without going in and almost always end up buying something. You could call me a bookaholic, & I have no intention of entering rehab, either. If this is a vice, it hurts nothing but my bank account.

Another part of the problem is my habit of surfing our library's web catalogue, where we can order as many books on reserve as we like, and have them delivered to our local branch. It's a wonderful system, but it can get out of hand. My tendency is to search out every book on a topic I get interested in, and either order it or put it on a wish list for later. I keep thinking I'll run out of "enthusiasms", but there always seems to be a new one around the corner.

Right now, I've got several topics on the go, including travel guides to Jamaica & New Zealand, consulting handbooks, archaeology & anthropology tomes, some mystery series whose authors I came across recently (Alan Gordon's Fools Guild series is one, Stieg Larsson's Millennium a second, Yrsa Sigurdarsdottir's & Arnaldur Indridasson's Icelandic-set mysteries yet others), and songbooks from the 60's and 70's.

It's not too hard to understand this grouping. I've recently retired, thus the consulting handbooks since I'm starting up a small consulting business. We'll be travelling to both places for pleasure & to keep in touch with former colleagues, and also to escape some of our usual abysmal winter weather. New Zealand has become our favourite winter getaway. A bit distant, but a wonderful place to go. I'll have to post some of my pictures from previous trips one of these days.

I've always been interested in the distant past, and there have been some excellent texts and syntheses published in the field lately, which I've been devouring as fast as our library can get them in. Added to which we have recently participated in the Genographic Project, adding our bits of DNA to the effort to establish ancient patterns of human dispersion around the globe, something I only learned about via a library book!

The songbooks are to get more material to work on with my voice coach (I take singing lessons for fun), and the novels are pure relaxation. OK, I also have aspirations to write mystery fiction, so it's good to keep up to date in the genre. I also like to alternate fiction and non-fiction, more or less, so that I have something to learn & something to read before I turn out the light.

Our local public library system is fabulous -- I can't speak highly enough of them. We have access to books from across our entire region, both urban & rural libraries participate. They have DVDs and music CDs as well. We are very well served.

However, I still have that queue waiting for me to make my way through it. I'm sure I will, eventually. Given that it's a rainy summer, I'm making steady progress.

I wouldn't mind getting more book recommendations, though. One good book leads to another.

is it just me?

OK, I'm as sad as the next person when someone dies. Especially someone I know personally, but also when I hear of someone noteworthy for their achievements in life. And there's nothing like a good wake to celebrate their passing. Just last weekend I was at yet another memorial for a friend.

What I just don't get is the insatiable thirst for a final piece of the action around celebrity funerals. Are these people not hounded enough during their lives? Death should have an intrinsic dignity, but these days it just seems to unleash the rumour mill to an even greater frenzy.

Frankly, it looks to me more like vultures gathering around the corpse than sincere sorrow. And what's the point of exposing children as participants in public spectacles of grief? It reminded me so much of the public response to Princess Diana's death. Not in a good way.

Obviously I'm referring to today's lamentable media circus around the remains of Michael Jackson. I suppose you could see it as a giant wake, generously shared with his innumerable fans.

All I see is a lot of crocodile tears.

So, am I the only one?