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October 31, 2006
Spit, rinse, repeat
I share Margaret Wente’s confusion about the media treatment of the Vancouver conjoined twins, which amounted to a giant “awwwww” when "pity and sorrow," in her words, might have been more appropriate. I certainly do not share her contention that “we need to face the fact that not all babies are worth saving, even if we could afford to do it.” We can afford to, just for starters.
She starts out reasonably enough:
Ten out of 10 people interviewed for this story said that, if it had happened to them, they would have terminated the pregnancy.
From time to time, I've argued against the growing trend of terminating pregnancies because of minor fetal defects (such as deafness or a club foot). The sharing of a brain is not a minor defect. Sure, some conjoined twins, when separated, do quite well. But craniopagus twins are different. …most such people — mercifully small in number — are destined for (truncated) lives on the margins of society.
This distinction between preventive abortion for deafness or club feet and that for “a shared brain” is obvious, though unquantifiable. But I lose the plot somewhat here:
Did anyone suggest to Ms. Simms [the twins' mother] that, for the sake of her family, proceeding with the pregnancy (she learned of the twins' condition at 20 weeks) might not be such a hot idea?
Instead of being portrayed as feckless (a reasonable interpretation, under the circumstances) [yikes -ed.], Ms. Simms has been depicted as a model of maternal love, courageously prepared to take on whatever fate has in store. Except that she won't have to. That will be up to the state, which will inevitably step in when she can't cope. The state will also pick up the bills.
And completely here:
Developed nations around the world are wrestling with the ethics and stunningly high costs of trying to save seriously premature infants, who (if they survive) have a high chance of developing severe mental or physical handicaps. They're God's children, too. But, sometimes, it's more merciful to let nature take its course.
What we have here is two totally separate issues. The choice with “seriously premature infants,” as Wente puts it, is between exhaustive medical procedures with little chance of success, and either passive or active euthanasia. Ceasing all medical treatment save anesthesia can reasonably be viewed as letting nature take its course. You could do the same with the conjoined twins.
But Wente was previously drawing a distinction between abortions for different kinds of “defective” fetuses. To put it bluntly, going in for an ultrasound, finding you're carrying two fetuses joined at the head, and then vacuuming those fetuses out and disposing of them is pretty much the exact opposite of letting nature take its course. I think Wente should probably have just stuck with "I do not think that anyone in authority had the right to tell Ms. Simms what to do," a point she did actually make in the midst of this otherwise unfortunate piece. This would have avoided her suggesting that two newborns in a very perilous situation might be much better off dead.
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 29, 2006
No guarantee
Thrilled by my discovery of The Housemartins on YouTube, I've been searching out all sorts of other childhood musical nuggets. Particularly since it's such easy filler, I think I might do a few of these. Number 2: "Rat Race," by The Specials, live from Japan.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2006
Homohypocrisy
The New York Times has a pretty devastating editorial on the Republican stance on gay marriage, which concludes thusly:
If the last month has taught us anything about the Republican Party, it is that homophobia is campaign strategy, not conviction. Congressmen who trust their careers to gay staffers vote for laws to enshrine second-class citizenship for gays in the Constitution. Gay appointees and their partners are treated as married people at official ceremonies and social gatherings. Then whenever an election rolls around, the whole team pretends it’s on a mission to save America from gay marriage.
Mr. Bush and his faithful acolytes seem perfectly willing to stoke fears that create division and sorrow in a country that doesn’t need any more of either. The president has just a little more than two years left in office. You’d think that for once he’d want to consider devoting his time to making things better instead of worse.
Posted by Chris Selley at 04:37 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
October 26, 2006
Line of the day...
... goes to Borat at his London premiere: "I have brought here with me my 11-year-old son, his wife and their new-born baby, who I am hoping to sell to singing transvestite Madonna."
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Even stupider
I wish I could say this was absolutely unbelievable, but such is the Age of Idiocy in which we live. Canada’s New Government did indeed “stand up for Canada,” and its ambassador to Washington has lodged a prototypically hypersensitive complaint about this ad, which is potentially offensive for many reasons but does not, in my considered opinion, insult Canada.
(What it does do, if anyone cares, is insult the idea that an American politician would leave North Korea to Canada because we’re not busy. This is funny, though considerably less edgy, for the same reason that David Cross can get away with saying: “The other thing that really pisses me off and makes me angry… is niggers.” He’s playing off the ridiculousness of the idea that someone like him would actually say or think that in this day and age. But I digress.)
I could attach all sorts of adjectives to this complaint — whiny, neurotic, childish — but in a way I think “Canadian” encapsulates them all quite nicely. (E.g.: "Man, that Thom Yorke is so Canadian. He needs to chill out!)
“Is this what Canadians should be expecting as the outcome of cozying up to Mr. Bush by the prime minister and his Conservatives?” asked Liberal MP Omar Alghabra.
“I have a question for the prime minister. Will he call his mentor, President Bush, and demand this insulting ad be pulled from the airwaves immediately, and stand up for Canada, but for real this time?”
The Canadian House of Commons, ladies and gentlemen. Plenty of room in the public gallery… anyone? Hello?
Look, I know the Conservatives are just trying to placate Canada’s humourless urban hang-wringers, but it won’t work. They are by nature unplacatable. And this isn’t a particularly strong effort anyway:
Although the Conservative government enjoys a warm relationship with the Bush administration, a Canadian official* wasn’t shy about condemning the ad.
“We would like to remind the Republicans that Canada is playing an important role in rebuilding Afghanistan,” the official said
“(Wilson) reiterated that only with positive exchange can we rebuild a strong relationship.
“Insulting one another does nothing to improve it.”
* Flashback to Star Public Editor Sharon Burnside’s Saturday piece: “The Star does not quote unnamed sources who make critical comments about others — and that's as it should be, since readers would have no idea who the sources are, nor if they had motive for mischief-making.”
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:38 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
October 25, 2006
Fun, fun, fun
For some reason, when I was a kid I had an inordinate number of babysitters with really good taste in music, Britpop especially. I don't think I'd heard The Housemartins' "Five Get Over Excited" for about 20 years, but it used to be one of my favourites and I love it all over again. Mad props to whichever babysitter had the LP.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Freedom for the non-existent
I’ve argued ad nauseum that the same-sex marriage debate is very different than the polygamy debate (to the extent one exists). One of the key differences is that while same-sex marriage augmented the rights of a group of law-abiding people whose lifestyle the state had no official quarrel with, polygamy is a matter of whether to officially accept a lifestyle that has until now been criminal. Personally I see few parallels between the two debates, especially since so few people would benefit (and only then from ceasing to live every day outside the law) from striking down the law against polygamy and since, to my knowledge, not a single actual polygamist is petitioning for such a development. At the very least the debate is premature — as premature as same-sex marriage would have been in 1968.
Marriage was working just fine, for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's a coarse aggregate in the concrete foundations of Canadian society. And after all that time, its definition was suddenly and significantly altered (not for the first time) after the briefest tornado of rhetoric, misdirection and both homophobic and human rightsy high dudgeon. If the government does indeed have a role to play in setting the generally accepted definition of “marriage” — something existential, that is, not just the granting of various rights — then it owed Canadians a far more serious examination of those foundations.
(For the record: I don’t think government does have such a role no matter how fervently it believes it does. I also think homosexual couples should have all the same rights as heterosexual ones, which is why I have no problem with SSM as it’s now enacted even though I loathed the terms of the debate.)
Today’s Ottawa Citizen editorial, entitled “Three may not be a crowd,” proposes the same superficial treatment for polygamy:
Canadian legal experts say it's time for the government to crack down on conjugal relationships with more than two partners, but their argument rests on the dubious proposition that practices that are often bad must always be forbidden.
Well, their argument also rests on the law. Not all “often bad” practices must “always be forbidden” (though that is certainly the current guiding principle of Canadian government), but clearly at some point Canada, and the entire western world, decided that polygamy was, in fact, always bad.
Oh phooey, says the Cit:
The international agreements are meant to stamp out polygamy (the term for the general situation of more than two people in a relationship) and polygyny where it's used deliberately to subjugate women. Yet to the Canadian researchers, cultural context is irrelevant. Polygyny, they suggest, is inherently degrading to women, in each and every case. They offer dozens of examples of degrading polygynous situations, but the examples are inextricable from the societies in which they occur.
Cultural context is irrelevant to the authors of this editorial, too. They hardly even address the single polygamous culture in Canada — Bountiful, BC, led by the now-incarcerated Warren Jeffs. Bountiful is home to what might be the single group of people who are the most extricable, and extricated, from Canadian society, but the Citizen sees it more like Nelson or the Gaspésie — a little different, sure, but still just another part of Canada’s vast bumbleberry pie. “Women have an array of legal remedies available if they are defrauded [? –ed.] or otherwise abused,” they burble, which is true. It’s also true that tragic numbers of educated metropolitan women who fall victim to abuse fail to avail themselves of those remedies. Can we expect fuller participation from poorly educated women and girls who live under an oppressively paternalistic and (the Cit’s word) “cultish” religion, who “marry” in their teens, who live entirely and deliberately apart from Canadian society?
The Citizen then comes about violently and suggests that “the fact that it [polygamy] is illegal means that when it does happen, those who do it necessarily do it illicitly, without protection if things go wrong.” Wait, what happened to all those legal remedies?
Stories have emerged from Bountiful of young girls brought up in this cultish environment being married off to much older men against their will. Where such crimes are committed, they should be prosecuted.
But that’s exactly the point. They aren’t being prosecuted because British Columbia is too afraid of the Charter to go in and investigate, not because it’s impossible or unethical.
This Charter terror is usually phrased in roughly the terms the Citizen uses:
But if more than two genuinely free, mature people -- men or women or any combination thereof -- choose to share their lives, can the state legitimately tell them no? The whole argument in favour of same-sex marriage rested on the premise that consenting adults have the right to enter any relationship they like.
…
If "adult" and "consenting" are the key words, then it would be contradictory to turn around and outlaw polygymous arrangements that were freely entered into.
Sounds reasonable — so why is polygamy illegal across the entire civilized world. Inter alia, because the ideas of freedom and consent, to say nothing of social stability (which is one of the primary goals of governments’ historical promotion of monogamous marriage), have long been held to be incompatible with polygamy.
As I’ve said before, when one Canadian man and three Canadian women who do not live in Bountiful, British Columbia decide they want to get married, then let them mount the Charter challenge. It is madness to suggest striking down a law on behalf of hypothetical people when, as the Citizen admits, very predictable and very troubling social problems continue to emanate from the only known people in Canada currently running afoul of the legislation.
I could probably live with legalized polygamy if I knew that young women weren’t being trafficked across North America to be the wives of men they’ve never met, that young men weren’t being left penniless and unloved by the sides of highways, that everyone was free to leave if they so wished. All the evidence suggests that none of those conditions currently exist in Canada, which is bad enough. But the worst part is that we don’t even have the stones to go in and find out for sure. This is certainly not the time to soften our stance on this lifestyle.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:09 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
October 24, 2006
You're cut, pint-sized
An interesting finding: “More than 75 per cent of [hockey] players who made the Canadian national under-18 teams in the last five years had birthdays before July.” The implication is that coaches of age-based teams are weeding out late birthdays because of a bias towards bigger, stronger players. Off the top of my head, I can't see a solution to this disparity: older players aren't just bigger and stronger than younger ones — they're better, too. That said, 75 percent seems remarkably high even for such a limited sample, and if the disparity filters up to pro hockey then it stands to reason that somewhere along the line at least a few talented players have been unfairly left behind.
It does seem to filter up to the NHL, as it turns out. Based on a less-than-exhaustive analysis of the forwards and defensemen listed on nhl.com (which include some retired players and don't account for a few foreign-born players who are really Canadian), I can report that the bias towards pre-July 1 birthdays is in the mid-50s and pretty constant across players of different nationalities: overall (921 players) 57.8%; Canadians (488 players) 59.2%; Americans (167 players) 56.9%; and those (mostly European) who are neither (266 players) 56.4%.
It strikes me that this is something that's probably been studied before, and that might logically extend to other sports and even non-athletic endeavours as well. Still, there's no logical reason to be happy with this phenomenon.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:30 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
So very, very stupid
A Republican attack ad stirring controversy in the U.S. mid-term elections does a drive-by smear on Canada, suggesting America's northern neighbour is a do-nothing country on world affairs.
...
Produced by the Republican National Committee, the ''man on the street'' ad features a hefty man wearing suspenders and a ball cap, commenting sarcastically on his view of Democratic foreign policy.
''Let Canada take care of North Korea. They're not busy,'' the man says.
For the love of god, it's a joke. It's a bad joke, but it's not at Canada's expense. If anything the good old boy's sarcasm implies that Canada is busy. Behold:
The Post continues:
Just how Canada got caught up in the mid-term mudslinging remains a mystery. The Republican National Committee did not respond to calls from CanWest News Service. [Laughing too hard at Canada, perhaps -ed.]
But the ad fosters stereotypes about Canada's engagement in international affairs that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has tried hard to dispel.
Meanwhile, Canadian Cerberus decided he'd use this to partisan advantage:
The Republican ad, which apparently makes all of the nasty Liberal and Conservative ads from the last election look like playschool (including the obligatory sexual innuendos against the Democrats' candidate), shows the Republicans are willing to stoop to any low level, even risk an international incident, just to win a few votes.
Which raises the question: Is Prime Minister Harper going to just take this from the Republicans or is he going to stand up for Canada?
Cripes. Well, at least we still have thicker skin than Kazakhstan. Whoops, no we don't.
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Extra!
The Star’s got all your news right here, pal: “No free tacos for Canadian baseball fans.” This article was written by a computer, an ESL student, or someone in an extreme hurry:
Taco Bell, the U.S. fast-food-chain that serves Mexican morsels, is promising a free, seasoned, beef crunchy taco to everyone in America if either a Detroit Tiger or a St. Louis Cardinal hits a home run into the left-field or centre-field stands during tonight's World Series Game Three.
As Canada is not part of the United States of America, Canadian baseball fans won't be able to collect if someone happens to hit such a homer.
There are even graver implications:
While Taco Bell has already scored big with free publicity, the corporation has seen similar promotions in basketball go woefully wrong.
The Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association were accused of running up the score in a 2001 game after the taco-maker promised fans coupons for 99 cent chalupas if Dallas scored 100 points in a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
A shoving match broke out when Cleveland players objected to the Mavericks’ hunger for points and their fans' hunger for free Mexican food.
…
Pizza Pizza offers free slices to fans attending the game any time the Toronto Raptors score more than 100 points.
Unlike the United States of America, there is never any trouble in Canada.
Well, not since 1812 anyway.
Posted by Chris Selley at 07:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2006
Talk local, act global
"I'm shocked, utterly shocked as a Torontonian, as a proud Canadian and as the mayor of Toronto, that there's even an argument about this [untendered subway car deal]," Miller told a lunchtime rally organized by the Labour Council of Toronto and York Region.
"I think it's shameful to play politics with people's families, lives and jobs. Thunder Bay's a great city in our province. It needs this plant, and if the people of Thunder Bay are going to be able to live in decency and dignity, it needs the high quality jobs there, the high-tech jobs, and it needs Toronto's business."
…
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and a federal government representative also signed off on the Bombardier deal. Miller noted that the federal and provincial governments will pay much of the contract's cost.
"If I as mayor stood up and said 'We're going to take $500 million from the federal government and the provincial government and we're not going to use it to create jobs in Ontario — we're going to use it to create jobs in China — the federal and provincial governments would never give us another nickel for public transit," Miller said before the final vote was cast.
"It’s time to allow landed immigrants to vote in municipal elections," Miller told the Star’s editorial board in a question and answer session today.
"We allow people who don’t live in Toronto to vote, simply because they own property here," Miller said.
"It’s not like a national election; you’re not determining issues of what this country should do or shouldn’t do," he said. "You’re determining issues that directly affect people’s lives."
Posted by Chris Selley at 07:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 22, 2006
"Quote"
It makes for enjoyable trashy reading, and it's all eminently believable, but something tells me the News of the World took a few liberties with Nick Carter's testimony with regards to Paris Hilton.
She's lousy in the sack:
She was a drunken prude who as far as I can see did not really like sex. She relied on drugs and drink to give her confidence in the bedroom and was more often than not too wasted to even perform. I lost count of the nights I had to pick her off the floor and drag her to bed passed out.
She's a drug addict:
He claims she was so hooked on the drug she'd even smuggle it on to aeroplanes — in TEDDY BEARS.
"If she was going overseas she'd cut a hole in her teddy and stuff it with cannabis," he said.
"She had to have her own private stash with her at all times regardless of the consequences."
She's a slut (and he's an idiot):
"She made it clear she wanted to have sex and couldn't keep her hands off me," he said.
"At the start she loved to tease me by saying she wasn't wearing any pants. But because I know Paris is used to getting what she wants when she wants, I was determined to make her wait, which drove her wild with desire.
"In fact I held out for three weeks before I had sex with her.
"We'd flown to the Bahamas and I wanted everything to be perfect. But Paris got completely wasted and the sex was distinctly average as we were both too drunk to really enjoy it. It was just a blur of Jack Daniel's."
However the pair were so besotted, Nick had her name tattooed on his wrist and she had his inscribed on her bottom.
More of the same:
"Night after night we'd just get utterly wasted and Paris can't take her drink. I'd be pulling her off nightclub floors, with her wearing next to nothing, and putting her to bed totally off her head."
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:34 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
October 20, 2006
Bottoms up
"If Canadian society was any less strong and more caring it would swoon dead away in a puddle of tears," says Christie Blatchford on a variety of topics. I'm sympathetic to this complaint, though her beefs run too broad a gamut from banning tag in school playgrounds (so intergalactically stupid that the people who came up with it should be summarily fired), to mandating one seatbelt per passenger (pure common sense, and I can't believe it wasn't the law already).
Also on Blatchford's wide-ranging agenda is the new move to allow Ontarian barflies to take their drinks with them to the loo, which should cut down on the unknown number of women who get drugged in bars and nightclubs. I think this is likely a good idea — the current prohibition always struck me as silly — but I wonder if it's been thought through. It is true after all, as Blatchford says, that we have little idea just how often "date rape drugs" are used in bars. But as long as the current prohibition against drinks near toilets was drawn up for for absolutely no reason, then this is a 100 percent no-lose proposition. If not, time will tell.
That Globe & Mail article contains a few howlers, incidentally. Howler #1:
Vancouver [Vancouver? -ed.] rape crisis worker Daisy Kler called the strategy "misguided."
"This move is really still holding women responsible for their attacks," she said. "Now, we not only have to watch what we wear, and where we go out, and what time it is, but we are having to police our drinks and take them with us wherever we go in bars."
The perfect defeats the good in a TKO.
Howler #2, I present without comment:
Although [Ryerson student] Ms. [Lisa-Marie] Bahrey knows a woman who was the victim of a date-rape drugging, she believes efforts are better directed at funding rape-crisis centres.
"Look at the centres that are available for young women who are sexually assaulted, maybe put more money into that … instead of allowing women to take their drinks into bathrooms.
And Howler #3 is a rather crucial detail parachuted in near the end of the article:
The proposed legislation, which will be introduced on Thursday, does not make it mandatory for bars to allow patrons to carry their drinks into the bathroom.
"That's kind of annoying," said Vanessa Santilli, a first-year Ryerson student.
Indeed. This story has a severe factual deficiency, and it's sustained only by the ghastly phenomenon at its core.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Tardy to the party
For some reason I never get in on phenomena like Lost on the ground floor. But I decided to come back from New York early, and it was far cheaper to do so by train than to change my plane ticket, so I decided I'd engineer a somewhat entertaining 13-hour day for myself. Which is to say I: (a) bought a "business class" Amtrak ticket for just over $100, which gets you a power port at your really quite luxurious seat; and (b) dropped by the Virgin Megastore in Union Square and picked up Season One on DVD.
I must have been bleeding from the eyes by the time we reached Niagara Falls. I mean, holy frigging Christ, how good is that TV show? Charlie thinks he's addicted to smack? It's 1:30am, I just queued up Season Two, and I'll fly a Beechcraft into anyone who tries to mount an intervention.
Posted by Chris Selley at 01:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 19, 2006
Not to be deterred
I'm as suspicious as anyone of the motives behind Vic Toews' modified "three-strikes" legislation, and I'm sure it will have all sorts of unintended consequences that haven't been thought through because of the less-than-pure motives I'm so suspicious of. But if it is in fact constitutional, the simple idea of reversing the onus, forcing someone convicted of three violent offences to explain why they shouldn't be locked up indefinitely — which isn't to say forever — doesn't strike me as unreasonable. Much of the criticism suggests it won't work as a deterrent, but I don't imagine anyone would care if the new system kept dangerous offenders in prison better than the current one.
Posted by Chris Selley at 05:15 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Thurston Howell on public transit
Okay, National Post, we get it. Jacob Richler doesn't like the TTC. If you guys feel the need to provide your readers with his juvenile little snarks so often, maybe you could put a permanent link to his anti-TTC manifesto on his columnist page. Here's the background to the latest tragic story: Comfortably ensconced in Yorkville, the Post's resident gastronome for some reason takes his car in for service "in the vicinity of Laird and Eglinton." (This itself is bizarre — I mean, you wouldn't find a ripe brie for blocks.) This is Richler's complaint:
I realized I hadn't a clue how to get from a Yorkville restaurant to the vicinity of Laird and Eglinton, where my repaired ride was waiting.
I suppose for the sake of efficiency you would travel underground for a while. So from Avenue I would have traipsed over to Yonge-Bloor Station, home to North America's filthiest public loos, then headed north to Eglinton, then boarded an eastbound bus to Laird, then waited for another one heading south -- if there is one.
Two subways and a bus — oh, the humanity. I realize he's trying to be funny, but there isn't even a shred of a real beef here. He's essentially complaining that the TTC hasn't somehow implanted an innate knowledge of the system in his brain (or perhaps that the transit boffins haven't yet recommended a Pangaea-to-Speedy Muffler express bus). If he'd bothered to check a map (available on the internet!) he'd have found any number of options — all of which, sadly, are indeed slower than the taxi he ended up taking. But it also would have cost him about $25 less. That's like a quarter of a casual Tuesday night dinner for one!
Posted by Chris Selley at 04:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 14, 2006
Woo!
Cheers to Mats Sundin on making his 500th NHL goal a shorthanded overtime winner. Jeers as usual to the refereeing and even moreso to the TV personalities who insist that there's nothing at all wrong with it. Which brings me to Cassie Campbell's colour commentary. Just... wow. Dreadful. Her insipid, nervous delivery combines with Bob Cole's advancing senility to form a merciless, man-eating beast of bad television. It must be stopped.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:40 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack
October 13, 2006
69 Ripoff Lane
Took in the Leafs/Devils tilt last night at the Soulless Hulk in the Swamp, where a plastic bottle of Bud Light goes for $7. I have nothing to say about the Leafs' unbelakable collapse (the term was coined in the second period), but I was heartened and amazed to hear that "The Hockey Song" (aka a "clap-along song with a chorus about 'the good old hockey game'") has jumped the border. The half-full home opener crowd was into it! (The Devils certainly seem to have a dedicated fan base, just not a big enough one. It's a family atmosphere, which bodes well for their future -- well, except for the guy who kept calling the Rangers "fucking scumbags", and insisted that "that fucking scumbag Tucker" be bodychecked at all opportunities. He left part way through the third, the poor sap.)
Administrative note: It's been a bit dead around here of late, I realize. I'm in New York until early next week, so posting might be a bit light until then. I plan on having things of enormous import to say afterwards...
Posted by Chris Selley at 06:06 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 10, 2006
So rofty, and roftiry arone
Scrolling around downtown Pyongyang on Google Maps, I came across this skin-crawling piece of satellite imagery. It is justifiably referred to by this guy as "the single most unsettling structure ever erected by the hand of man." It is the unfinished, altogether insane Ryugyong Hotel. Can you imagine being inside that thing, like on the 98th floor? This could be a new tourism venture, surely.
Posted by Chris Selley at 11:20 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Straw men
It was not the first time I had conducted an interview with someone in a full veil, but this particular encounter, though very polite and respectful on both sides, got me thinking. In part, this was because of the apparent incongruity between the signals which indicate common bonds - the entirely English accent, the couple's education (wholly in the UK) - and the fact of the veil. Above all, it was because I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone "face-to-face" who I could not see.
So I decided that I wouldn't just sit there the next time a lady turned up to see me in a full veil, and I haven't.
Now, I always ensure that a female member of my staff is with me. I explain that this is a country built on freedoms. I defend absolutely the right of any woman to wear a headscarf. As for the full veil, wearing it breaks no laws.
I go on to say that I think, however, that the conversation would be of greater value if the lady took the covering from her face.…
I thought it may be hard going when I made my request for face-to-face interviews in these circumstances. However, I can't recall a single occasion when the lady concerned refused to lift her veil; and most I ask seem relieved I have done so. Last Friday was a case in point. The veil came off almost as soon as I opened my mouth. I dealt with the problems the lady had brought to me. We then had a really interesting debate about veil wearing. This itself contained some surprises. It became absolutely clear to me that the husband had played no part in her decision. She explained she had read some books and thought about the issue. She felt more comfortable wearing the veil when out. People bothered her less.
…The husband chipped in to say that this matter was "more cultural than religious". I said I would reflect on what the lady had said to me. Would she, however, think hard about what I said - in particular about my concern that wearing the full veil was bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult. It was such a visible statement of separation and of difference.
What Cristina Odone said Jack Straw said:
Neither mantilla nor veil is calculated as an aggressive provocation to society — quite the opposite: these are soft and feminine folds of cloth that modestly conceal a face and figure. In a mantilla, as in a veil, even raunchy figures like Madonna and Posh would come over all romantic and mysterious.
But you don't wear the veil, the mantilla, as a counter-intuitive come-hither, the entrancing whisper in a room full of fishwives' cries. Both items prove your respect for an authority other than Kate Moss, Topshop – or Jack Straw.
This show of independence does not go down well with today's Westminster control freaks. The Government, which tells us what risks to take, what garbage we can throw away and when, now wants to tell us what to wear.
…You shouldn't wear the veil, he [Straw] told the Muslim woman constituent who came to see him with her concerns. She had come to petition her representative, but received instead a sartorial diktat. The Leader of the House couldn't help her as she was, he explained: her veil made for crossed wires and bad communication; it separated her from people like him.
And then she started exaggerating!
For government to single out people because of what they wear is not just silly; it is dangerous. There are odious antecedents — think of the anti-Semitic caricatures of skull-capped men that circulated in Germany and France within living memory. If we continue in this vein, the next step will be to single out people by telling them what they must wear. A yellow crescent moon, perhaps?
While the media assure us that this business of an MP daring to speak his mind has set off an unholy row, I've seen little evidence of it. If even Tony Blair is willing to call Straw's comments "perfectly sensible," you know you have a good-sized pile of nothing on your hands. Politicians admitting they're human beings, capable of thoughts and feelings not sanctioned by their parties' PC handbooks, is a good thing.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 08, 2006
Unfit for service
The Winnipeg Free Press warns of "a growing conflict between gay rights and religious freedom":
In Manitoba, marriage commissioners who didn't want to marry same-sex couples because of their faith have been forced to resign, and a Catholic men's group came under fire for refusing to rent its hall to lesbians for their wedding.
In Ontario, a printer ran into trouble when he refused to print pro-gay brochures.
The second two can be the subject of a reasonable debate, but it still says here the first is totally nonsensical. The job of a marriage commissioner is, so far as I know, to issue licenses to all those the law allows to marry. (I can't actually find anything that explicitly says that, mind you, so I welcome corrections.) If a marriage commissioner can't do that, for any reason, it's not a matter of him being "forced" to resign. If a gas jockey can't pump gas, it's not that he's forced to turn in his oily rag and squeegee — he just isn't qualified for the job.
Ultimately, though, what's most odious about the idea of legislation "protecting" marriage commissioners (which the Conservatives claim isn't being considered, but which Vic Toews has certainly supported in the past) is that it raises the status of religiously informed opinion above other opinions. Seems to me the government has to either allow marriage commissioners to deny licenses to anyone for any reason, or insist that they certify all legally eligible couples. Anything else is pure posturing.
Posted by Chris Selley at 01:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 05, 2006
How right you are
I promise not to be so negative about the best clown-managed hockey league in the world, but this wee typo from Joe Warmington was too good to pass up:
Meanwhile, like many of the fans, nobody in Maple Leaf management was prepared last night to write off this season. In fact, quite the opposite.
They have read the predictions and heard the criticism but they seem surprisingly confident.
"There is parody in the NHL," said MLSE president Richard Peddie. "Four of the teams in the mix last year did not even make the playoffs the year before."
Posted by Chris Selley at 11:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 04, 2006
They're back!
A terrible call gives Sundin a penalty shot. The ref who makes the terrible call then proceeds to blow the play dead before the puck crosses the line, and is forced to reverse the call. A tear runs down my cheek. Man, I can hardly wait for the first video review screwup. Welcome back, New NHL!
I also see that Paul Maurice was filled in on whatever dark, terrible secret Wade Belak holds over the Toronto Maple Leafs, and was forced to start the newly re-upped (for next season) bag of useless instead of the promising, competent Jay Harrison. Belak promptly reaffirmed his status as one of the very worst players in the NHL. If he sits tomorrow then maybe I'm just paranoid, but if he dresses then it can only be the case that keeping Belak in the lineup is for some reason a contractual precondition of being coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. What diabolical power does he yield?
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Back in action
We are go for posting and commenting. Apologies for the unplanned outage.
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack