No. 17, August 18, 2009

The roots of fundamentalist rage

Displays of rage, even hysterical rage, were seen at recent U.S. town hall meetings where Democratic congress members sought to put forward the case for President Barak Obama’s healthcare reform proposals.

Angry people showed up at these meetings to scream about the health care plan because it would allegedly set up “death panels” to eliminate the elderly and infirm, and they compared Obama with Hitler.

According to the media coverage, most of them were white and working class. Most are also probably fundamentalist or evangelical Christians.

Where did such an obviously false idea come from and why are people willing to believe it?

Frank Schaeffer has an answer for that – he says he himself helped start the myth 30 years ago as part of the campaign against abortion rights.

In an article posted August 12 on Alternet, Schaeffer describes himself as having been a Republican far right activist and evangelical from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. He was involved in the formation of the evangelical-led wing of the anti-choice movement.

Movement propaganda claimed that legalization of abortion would lead to legal infanticide and euthanasia, and pointed to the Nazis’ killing of the disabled and mentally ill on eugenics grounds.

“We successfully (and as it turned out completely mistakenly) linked legalized abortion to a ‘slippery slope’ that would inexorably lead to an American Holocaust against the elderly and infirm,” writes Schaeffer, now a supporter of Obama and healthcare reform.

The lobbying groups, the insurance industry and the far right wing of the Republican Party have now seized on these ready-made arguments with “cynical cleverness” to frame their “anti-healthcare reform tirade,” he states.

The anti-healthcare furor in the U.S. is fuelled by other particular elements such as the pervasive American distrust of government, along with the pressures of job losses, home foreclosures and debt resulting from the economic crisis.

But this kind emotionally charged, religiously based politics is also to be found elsewhere in similar social contexts. The point is made by American scholar Barton Stein in The History of India (Blackwell 1998).

“Communalist politics in India, like fundamentalist politics in the Middle East and the United States, reflect the interests and fears of the large segment of the lower-middle class whose economic and social security is ever at hazard and is so perceived,” he writes.

Members of the lower-middle class or working class are one the hand in danger of being crushed by the forces of modern capitalism, Stein states, while on the other hand they are threatened by the demands of the poor for social justice.

“The lower-middle classes in India, as everywhere else it seems, wrapped the vulnerability of their economic position in religious symbols – saffron, here, black there. In India, in Iran and in Texas, these symbols signify conventional righteousness and the preservation of things as they are.”

Politicians in India, Iran and elsewhere exploit these sentiments with the same “cynical cleverness” that those in the U.S. are demonstrating, and outbursts of savage violence can be the result. Schaeffer acknowledges that the anti-abortion movement’s rhetoric has led to murders of doctors and acts of violence against clinics, and fears what might follow.

No. 16, July 14, 2009

Keyboard in Dongba hieroglyphs

The Naxi are an ethnic minority people, about 300,000 strong, who live mainly in China’s Yunnan and Szechuan provinces. Their language, of the Tibeto-Burman family, is partially written in a script called Dongba, which is pictographic or hieroglyphic – it uses stylized pictures of objects to represent them and related concepts. A Wikipedia contributor states that it is “without doubt the only mainly pictographic script used today.”

Now Zmnsoft has released Edongba v6.00, a Windows application that enables users to create documents and messages using Dongba hieroglyphs, using them in text editors, word processors, and graphics programs.

According to a Zmnsoft press release, “While Egyptian hieroglyphics tell us about a fascinating culture, they talk only of an unreachable, vanished past. By contrast, Dongba is still evolving and adapting. It tells us who we were, in human stories and wisdom that is centuries old. It also tells us who we are, in a smooth, unbroken line from the earliest writing to today's unprecedented transformations.

“The Naxi language is expressed in a combination of Dongba hieroglyphs and Geba symbols. Edongba makes it easy to select the proper symbols, and build messages in the program's unique Dongba font. The font includes 1,561 Dongba hieroglyphs, 661 Geba scripts, and a 50-character international phonetic alphabet for the Naxi language.

“It's fun to use Edongba's character selection tools to select hieroglyphs and symbols. The program pronounces each character aloud, enabling you to become familiar with the spoken version of Dongba.”

Actually learning the language may seem daunting, but there are other uses:

“Students can enjoy creating artwork and symbols for their clothing using Edongba's engaging characters. The specially-crafted font that comes with Edongba is in True Type format, allowing computer users to enlarge each character with no loss of quality.”

Edongba v6.00 runs under Windows NT4/2000/2003/XP/Vista/7, costs $30(US) for a single-user license, and is available for secure online purchase on the Edongba website, http://www.zmnsoft.com/edongba/En/. You can download a trial version from the same web site.

The site also includes information about the history of the Naxi people and their language.

No. 15, May 15, 2009

Los Demonios Bailan

Los Demonios Bailan

En las cavernas oscuras,
Al sonido de tambores,
Bailan las demonios,
Y rechinan los dientos.

En en rato, no muy largo,
Van a salir del oscuro,
Y con un grito tremendo
Enloquecen el mundo.

The Demons Dance

In dark caverns,
To the sound of drums,
The demons dance,
And gnash their teeth.

In a while, not very long,
They will leave the darkness,
And with an awful cry,
Drive the world mad.

No. 14, March 20, 2009

Take it easy on the tomalley

Yesterday Health Canada issued an advisory warning us about eating tomalley.
In case it has slipped your mind, tomalley is the liver and pancreas of the lobster, a soft greyish-green substance found when the crustacean’s body is cracked open.
The reason we have to be concerned about eating it? Paralytic shellfish poison.
Apparently a very small number of lobsters harvested during the late fall-early winter 2008 lobster fishing season may have levels of paralytic shellfish poison in the tomalley that could represent a health risk to consumers. Lobsters currently available on the market are likely to have been harvested during this fishing season.
There have been no confirmed cases of paralytic shellfish poisoning from consuming lobster tomalley. Good thing too, for while mild exposure produces a tingling sensation or numbness of the lips shortly after eating, larger doses can lead to headaches, dizziness and nausea, muscular paralysis, respiratory difficulty, choking and even death.
The good news is that we don’t have to give up eating tomalley entirely. Health Canada says that, except for children, we can as much as the amount from one cooked lobster per day.
You wouldn’t think that would be too much of a hardship, except perhaps for some Nova Scotia fisherman who is accustomed to spreading the tomalley from three or four lobsters on toast for breakfast.
It could be that if you are dining on lobsters with someone who doesn’t like it, you might be tempted to say, “Oh, I’ll have yours then,” thus putting yourself over the limit.
I confess that I’ve never been that partial to tomalley, although I usually wind up eating it out of principlewhen I'm having a lobster. I prefer the coral, the red roe of the hen or female lobster, which is not found, for obvious reasons, in the cock, the male.
Tomalley is often said to be “considered a delicacy,” but it could be one of those situations where that is simply because there is little of it.
It’s perhaps a similar case to that of those giant sea turtles –now endangered -- that the elite of the 18^th and 19^th centuries were inordinately fond of eating. Particularly esteemed as delicacies were calipash and calipee, gelatinous substances found nest to the upper and lower shell, respectively.
Were those “gelatinous substances” really so tasty? Hard to say, but I don’t expect to ever find out.

No. 13, March 6, 2009

Backpack in the LRT station

As I was passing through the central LRT station one morning last week I noticed a big blue backpack propped up against the wall, unattended.
That gave me a bit of pause.

The bomb in a bag or package is a terrorist staple, of course, and
mass transportation systems can be a major target, as attacks in
London, Madrid and Tokyo have shown. Transit riders in big cities such
as London are commonly warned to be on the lookout for suspicious
packages and the like.

Fortunately, Edmonton has been unaffected by the ideology of violent
jihad that produced the London Underground bombing and the Madrid
train bombings, not to speak of the 9-11 destruction of the World
Trade Center and a host of lesser outrages. The chances that we will
be in the future seem remote.

In our fair city, the risk of getting of getting blown up in the LRT
is likely quite a bit smaller than being hit by a stray bullet in a
drug gang shooting or stabbed by a random sociopath. Far less than
that of being killed by some driver running a red light.

Some version of this was going through my mind while I walked past the
backpack. Still, it could have contained a bomb. It?s not only
jihadists that plant them, after all. It doesn?t even have to be an
organized group.

?Mad Bomber? George Metesky terrorized New York City in the 1950s. He
planted more than 30 time bombs in public places, injuring 15 people,
because of anger and resentment over a workplace injury. We?ve got
plenty of that around here.

I wondered if I should alert some authority. Phone 911? Contact
Edmonton Transit security? Would the matter be taken seriously or
would I just be wasting my time?

I?d just gotten to this point when somebody went over and grabbed the
backpack. He looked a little shifty so it may not actually have been
his, but it ceased being my concern.

The bomb in the backpack scenario probably presented itself more
readily to my mind because of the Khan al Khalili bombing in Cairo the
previous weekend. A young French tourist was killed and 24 other
people were injured in an explosion in this historic bazaar area,
where my wife and I had spent several pleasant hours last summer.

According to Al-Ahram Weekly, the blast was caused by a homemade bomb
weighing up to 1.5 kilos and containing metal, stones and gunpowder
that had been left under a bench. The detonator was a washing machine
timer.

The Egyptian police arrested a few people but don?t seem to have any
real idea of who did the bombing. Nobody has claimed responsibility,
however there a variety of conspiracy theories are apparently making
the rounds in Cairo.

Commented an Egyptian friend: ?Truly painful to see the violence and
loss of innocent lives. Violence definitely has a louder voice than
peace, and this is the real fight.?

No. 12, February 20, 2009

Ape apes Poe

It’s not exactly life imitating art, but when I heard about the violent rampage of Travis the chimpanzee in Connecticut, The Murders in the Rue Morgue immediately came to mind.

This short story by Edgar A. Poe – whose 200^th birthday would have been on January 16 this year – is set in 19^th century Paris and introduces C. Auguste Dupin, one of the earliest literary detectives.

Dupin and the story’s narrator are reclusive aesthetes, but they become interested in the brutal killing of a woman and her daughter in a house on the Rue Morgue. The corpse of the daughter, scratched and bruised, is found thrust up a chimney, while that of the mother is found “so fearfully mutilated. . . as scarcely to retain any semblance of humanity.”

To make a longish story short, despite its puzzling features Dupin solves the case after examining the scene of the crime and applying his analytic abilities. The women have been killed by an orangutan that has climbed in through their window after escaping in an agitated state from the sailor who brought it from the East Indies.

In the actual incident, one woman was left with severe injuries to her face and hands rather than two being killed, but it can be imagined that the frenzy involved in the attacks would be similar. In the story, the orangutan is safely recaptured and winds up in the Paris zoo, as opposed to the unfortunate Travis dying in a hail of police bullets like John Dillinger.

What is quite different, and suggests John Collier’s His Monkey Wife: or married to a Chimp in reverse rather than The Murders in The Rue Morgue is owner Sandra Herold’s relationship with the 14-year-old chimp.

Her beloved companion, he rode around in cars, ate top-notch meals at the table and drank wine out of long-stemmed glasses – which prompts the question of whether he preferred red or white. According to some accounts they also had baths together and slept in the same bed -- which isn’t so much different than a lot of people treat their cats and dogs, but because chimpanzees are human-like but not quite there it makes people queasy.

Mackenzie Porter, a columnist for the Sun newspapers in their early days, used to rail against widespread anthropomorphism – attribution of human sentiments to animals – as being a sign of the decadence of contemporary. Of course Porter pretty much saw everything as a symptom of societal decay, but it can sometimes be dangerous.

No. 11, February 13

It’s Valentine’s Day all over

Irked by your favourite restaurant pushing a pricey special dinner menu for Valentine’s Day? Consider Le Bristol. The grand hotel on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris is offering a Valentine’s Day special in the Restaurant Le Bristol Paris.
Lovers can dine either in the winter restaurant, a former private theatre with Regency-style Hungarian oak panelling and Baccarat crystal chandeliers, or the summer restaurant, which features views of the hotel's magnificent garden.
Head chef Eric Frechon, who is expected to be awarded three stars in this year's Michelin Red Guide, has devised a menu comprising: cauliflower mousse with a sherry-infused red onion jelly and haddock foam; stuffed macaroni with black truffles, artichokes and duck foie gras, gratinéed with mature parmesan; sole "from the sand" stuffed with chanterelle mushrooms in a fishbone essence with vin jaune; pigeon glazed with honey and lemon, with a compote of cumin-flavoured onions and fennel and sauce diable; sparkling mango with lemon sorbet; Meringue soufflé with raspberries, coconut milk and ginger elixir; petits fours and chocolates; and coffee.
The price is 350€ ($556) per person, sans beverages; or just about $80 for each of seven courses (unless you include coffee as a course). And then there is the cost of the Champagne . . .

Back to the future with the A.P.P.?

From 1917 to 1932 the A.P.P., Alberta Provincial Police, took care of policing in the province, outside the major centres. The RCMP have performed that role since then.
Does Premier Ed Stelmach now want to do away with day-to-day RCMP policing in Alberta and bring back the A.P.P.?
Recently some former RCMP duties in some areas have been taken over by officers from the provincial Sheriff’s Branch, prompting speculation that this may be the first step toward replacing the Mounties.
On February 13, Kent Hehr, Alberta Liberal shadow solicitor general and shadow minister of justice, called on Stelmach to publicly state if he intends to replace the RCMP.
“By removing RCMP officers from traffic-related policing duties in selected areas, the government is causing Albertans to wonder if the province is gauging public reaction to the move. Is this the first step to creating a provincial police force?” said Hehr.
He pointed to a letter written in 2001 by Ted Morton, now a member of the cabinet, advocating an end to the RCMP policing contract and creation of a provincial police force.
Hehr: “Has Ted Morton swayed the Premier into getting rid of the RCMP? Come clean premier, are you intending to replace the RCMP?”
He stated he will oppose any move towards granting the Alberta sheriffs additional powers of arrest.

Hard times indeed

Getting a loan to finance a boat purchase is much tougher in the U.S. these days, according to recreational boat owners group BoatU.S. Many banks have dropped out of the market and “gone are the days of ‘relaxed guidelines’ and ‘no documentation’ loans.” For would-be boat buyers in tough times the group provides tips on getting loans that include ensuring their credit is good, having enough cash for the down payment and filling out the loan application properly.

World o’ beans

It’s a blast of nostalgia for the UK, where Heinz is running a TV advertising campaign for its canned baked beans that features the return of the “Beanz Meanz Heinz” slogan that was hugely popular in the 70s. According to creator Maurice Drake he came up with the slogan “after two pints in a pub in London.” More than $600 million worth of canned baked beans are sold annually in the UK, where beans on toast are a national staple and beans are an essential part of the full English breakfast (along with eggs, bacon, sausage, baked tomato, sometimes mushrooms and black pudding, and toast or fried bread).

No. 10, February 2, 2009

A brief note on memoirs

Everyone should write a memoir. In setting their experiences down, people are liable to examine them and their motives. This provides a chance to make more sense of their lives, and may act as a spur to future personal growth. That's one aspect of it. There is also the sense of accomplishment that virtually everyone will feel about accomplishing such a task. Perhaps they will find writing satisfying and go on to do more.

Certainly not everyone is going to produce an account that will be of great interest to others because of the important roles they played on the stage of life or because their lives have been full of exciting events and incidents. The interest for others in accounts of quieter lives will be a close observation of what it was like to be living in certain places at certain times -- which could bring to the surface little-known or forgotten facts, important observations and so on -- and the ways in which people responded to their experiences. It may be best when writing to focus on a portion of life that has been particularly interesting or unusual, rather than attempting a complete autobiography.

While publication is highly unlikely, if the completed memoir is ever removed from the desk drawer it may find more readers than expected. The story of anyone's life can be very interesting. It's easy if the life has been full of events and excitement -- anybody could write it. To really make something of the life story of someone whose experiences have been undramatic, it may require a master. However that doesn't mean that people shouldn't make the attempt for their own benefit at least.