tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549623418138346182024-03-13T06:57:29.657-07:00Fat Man in Lotus LandNews and views of Victoria, BC from a conservative perspective.Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-30025208918637798222012-02-05T14:19:00.000-08:002012-02-05T15:32:29.737-08:00February flowers<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lX6Xsfw3xhA/Ty8IXUi_O2I/AAAAAAAABZQ/z9RKXlgJLPA/s1600/IMG_3336.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lX6Xsfw3xhA/Ty8IXUi_O2I/AAAAAAAABZQ/z9RKXlgJLPA/s320/IMG_3336.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705788449647180642" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OP7sACCGGfs/Ty8IW9IXOFI/AAAAAAAABZE/HtnhdDHVrXY/s1600/IMG_3348.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OP7sACCGGfs/Ty8IW9IXOFI/AAAAAAAABZE/HtnhdDHVrXY/s320/IMG_3348.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705788443361491026" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nLXW2oJ6Tfo/Ty8BozZSZmI/AAAAAAAABY4/J67ypRoGdXI/s1600/IMG_3347.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 232px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nLXW2oJ6Tfo/Ty8BozZSZmI/AAAAAAAABY4/J67ypRoGdXI/s320/IMG_3347.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705781053404374626" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hOT6Jw-JkNA/Ty8BoC0SxCI/AAAAAAAABYs/_gC6TkkWeOc/s1600/IMG_3340.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hOT6Jw-JkNA/Ty8BoC0SxCI/AAAAAAAABYs/_gC6TkkWeOc/s320/IMG_3340.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705781040364307490" /></a>If I knew how to cut back the brightness of the whites the delicate textures of these lovely little flowers would show a lot better. Snowdrops, they are called, and are the first of the new crop of flowers to show up in our New Year. From the litter of last years oaks they must draw their nourishment, which makes me think of the ancient association of the colour white with death. When the oaks turn green again, there will be no sign of these snowdrops. We've been having an Indian spring the last few days, and the crocuses must be hastening to open up to the sun. A few cherry trees are also in blossom.<div>Spring is often used as a metaphor when we want to remark on the cyclical nature of life on this planet. It's a commonplace to say that history repeats itself, and a false commonplace in my view. Looking at the history of the planet earth it's obvious that over the eons things have drastically changed. A hundred million years ago gigantic dinosaurs roamed the world. Whenever I hear some global warming propaganda all I have to do is remember that only a few thousand years ago Victoria was buried under a mile of ice. Yes, as long as the earth tilts in its orbit around the sun we will have seasons. But just as its hard to see the motion of a clock's hour hand, it's hard in a short lifespan to see the changes that accumulate from year to year and century to century, but they do nevertheless. Spring comes and goes but each spring the world is a little different. I am a little older this year, and the number of springs remaining for me to see is subtracted by one. Friends and family have died, new children have been born. "Thank heaven for little girls," goes the song, and thank heaven I am alive to see a new crop come along. I think it's only when you get old that you begin to realize what a miracle that is.</div><div>Cruise ships are another sign of spring in Victoria. They're not coming in yet except to get pulled onto our graving dock for maintenance. But there will be a spring when they don't come anymore, just as the tea clippers don't come anymore. In their heyday not many could have imagined that that era could come to an end. But it did, and now the world is a different kind of place... I mean the world of men. Seasons still come and go, but unbeknownst to those clipper captains, the seeds of their demise were already sown, and it's always like that.</div><div>At one time the city of Rome commanded a vast empire. After centuries of obscurity, it reached its peak of vigour during the time of Augustus and his successors. Not one of them would have given the least thought to a baby born in a manger in an insignificant town in the East, and no science yet known to man could have predicted that that little baby would transform the world. But he did.</div><div>One of the most important things about the Christian belief system is that every single soul matters. This is in sharp contrast to the older paganistic tradition that saw history as an ever recurring series of cycles. It was axiomatic that history repeated itself... everything was foreordained. But if you believe that then it logically follows that nothing we could possibly do could matter in the slightest. </div><div>Science doesn't admit the possibility of a supernatural creative being, but it does believe that the universe unfolds in a mechanical way. There was a Big Bang in the remote past and everything that can possibly happen was already built into the universe. That's why I think of science as a form of pantheism. </div><div>But if that's true, then what is the point of being alive? Why suffer? Why strive? Well, I don't think it's true at all. I think the Christian premise is the truth. Could it be that the ennui so evident in all our modern thinking comes from the loss of faith in that all-important Christian principle?</div><div>I do think hard times are coming. There are periods in history when all hell breaks loose. But one of the main reasons Christianity survived the destruction of the Roman order is that they knew every human life was important. That was why, unlike the pagans, they did not kill their babies. Is it so surprising that our society which doesn't value its young, has lost its sense of purpose?</div><div>But never fear. Even now, in some obscure part of the planet something new is about to be born, something to carry us a little farther than we have gone before. In the middle of the winter the days are already growing longer.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-49642149213216404842012-01-27T13:22:00.000-08:002012-01-27T14:32:00.073-08:00Virtue<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--KlCIIE8J7g/TyMdNR3XCSI/AAAAAAAABYg/yBw8CvVZMOM/s1600/IMG_3313.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--KlCIIE8J7g/TyMdNR3XCSI/AAAAAAAABYg/yBw8CvVZMOM/s320/IMG_3313.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702433667152283938" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DbaGNLTrpDU/TyMdNPKzwdI/AAAAAAAABYU/NY8sFi7tF3c/s1600/IMG_3315.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DbaGNLTrpDU/TyMdNPKzwdI/AAAAAAAABYU/NY8sFi7tF3c/s320/IMG_3315.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702433666428551634" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ybm5WCMOqw/TyMcbcZNfFI/AAAAAAAABYI/dbQ87dWgFS4/s1600/IMG_3318.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ybm5WCMOqw/TyMcbcZNfFI/AAAAAAAABYI/dbQ87dWgFS4/s320/IMG_3318.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702432810985159762" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht3X9XKiwlM/TyMca1Q32BI/AAAAAAAABX8/6bvP_RAEVkM/s1600/IMG_3327.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht3X9XKiwlM/TyMca1Q32BI/AAAAAAAABX8/6bvP_RAEVkM/s320/IMG_3327.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702432800481204242" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t4QNcrEzwxk/TyMbCcY_89I/AAAAAAAABXw/CIFxS1tnl30/s1600/IMG_3331.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 306px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t4QNcrEzwxk/TyMbCcY_89I/AAAAAAAABXw/CIFxS1tnl30/s320/IMG_3331.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702431281975915474" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ILfPzZfbZiY/TyMbCJTJ6DI/AAAAAAAABXk/kFTsu9pvm3s/s1600/IMG_3332.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ILfPzZfbZiY/TyMbCJTJ6DI/AAAAAAAABXk/kFTsu9pvm3s/s320/IMG_3332.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702431276851128370" /></a><br />Words have always fascinated me, unlike numbers which do not seem to register very well in my brain. I have some favourite words, like crepuscule and merry and jubilant. I like it that words often have histories, like families. <div>The other day I talked about charisma. Today I'd like to mention virtue. Virtue is like charisma in that its original meaning is not the same as its present, popular meaning. When we talk about virtue today- usually in some amusement- we mean something like chastity or goody goodiness, even something a little sissified. But the vir part of the word is the Latin word for man. So by my amateurish etymological reasoning, virtue must originally have meant manliness.</div><div>Now there's something that's decidedly out of fashion. Manliness now means too much testosterone. Macho, another word that has faded from common use, is a word that caricatures the male of our species. The captain of the Costa Concordia, by the looks of him, would be the perfect picture of the Macho Man. Of course it was only a pose, there being nothing virtuous about deserting his sinking ship and leaving his passengers and crew to die.</div><div>It was another beautiful day in Lotus Land, a beautiful day for walking along our working waterfront, and for enjoying a coffee on the patio of the <i>Fol Epi</i> Bakery. I also spent $8.00 for a loaf of their delicious sourdough bread. It's a busy little place and almost idyllic where young mothers (and dads, since we are so enlightened now) bring their toddlers and dogs, and watch the ducks on the ponds and the rowers in the harbour. None of them have the look of people who ever get their hands dirty except when they plant tomatoes in their balcony pots. They are all good looking, seem intelligent, and I'm sure they eat the right organic foods and cycle to work.</div><div>I would guess that I was the only one who enjoyed the sound of Lafarge Cement's gravel crusher chugging away across the water. </div><div>It used to be that women did all the hard jobs while men sat around and polished their swords while listening to tales of heroic battles or memorable hunting expeditions. In the Middle East I think that's still the way it works. In many ways a woman's status there is worse than a slave. A slave at least represents a valuable investment, but a woman is disposable. In most native American cultures women did the fieldwork, built the houses, made the clothes, cooked, cleaned, and carried away the sewage. Such work was despised by any self-respecting Arapaho warrior, and was one of the reasons they despised white men.</div><div>That's where the word virtue comes into it. Virtue came to mean a man doing his duty, even if it meant going down with the ship while the women and children got away. That's the way it worked when the Titanic sank a hundred years ago. Things are different now.</div><div>At some point in our history manliness (virtue) meant supporting a family, protecting a family from the hardships of life as much as possible... in other words, work. Of course, there have always been men who sought to escape those kinds of duties, but all evidence indicates that those who work are much happier than those who don't. Quite simply, there is something immensely fulfilling about spending your life doing useful work. </div><div>For some reason that has always escaped me, feminists have done there best to return things to the old ways, where women do those hard jobs. And it doesn't matter that it is now pretty well established that children raised in a family consisting of a father and a mother where the father has the primary responsibility of providing food and a home are happier than single parent environments, that children grow up healthier and happier, and that the whole community benefits. </div><div>We've done pretty well under that system. Too bad it's gone out of style.</div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-8494104376591755362012-01-23T17:44:00.001-08:002012-01-23T19:03:35.694-08:00Victoria in January, part II<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--vV51gZdDXo/Tx4PO0KfRRI/AAAAAAAABXY/MjgnDIvmtRE/s1600/IMG_3269.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--vV51gZdDXo/Tx4PO0KfRRI/AAAAAAAABXY/MjgnDIvmtRE/s320/IMG_3269.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701010925492847890" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SkK8x_2ITXI/Tx4POnmgagI/AAAAAAAABXM/O-Rr4MLgeC4/s1600/IMG_3279.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SkK8x_2ITXI/Tx4POnmgagI/AAAAAAAABXM/O-Rr4MLgeC4/s320/IMG_3279.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701010922120702466" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HZTu8y4F0ag/Tx4POHmAzbI/AAAAAAAABXA/ulv43kzanPs/s1600/IMG_3287.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HZTu8y4F0ag/Tx4POHmAzbI/AAAAAAAABXA/ulv43kzanPs/s320/IMG_3287.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701010913528696242" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7yFOtCtEVk0/Tx4N18AfosI/AAAAAAAABW0/hCYWgmcnwbA/s1600/IMG_3267.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7yFOtCtEVk0/Tx4N18AfosI/AAAAAAAABW0/hCYWgmcnwbA/s320/IMG_3267.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701009398590055106" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9BdJ0GRHSmE/Tx4N1q5APTI/AAAAAAAABWo/qGZ2YY4gDVU/s1600/IMG_3290.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9BdJ0GRHSmE/Tx4N1q5APTI/AAAAAAAABWo/qGZ2YY4gDVU/s320/IMG_3290.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701009393995234610" /></a>Charisma is a word that was heavily overused in the seventies and was accordingly dropped from favour. Of course, it was misused, as words usually are when they are bandied about by people who hardly know their real meanings. <div>As I watch and read the commentariat tie themselves into knots over Newt Gingrich's unlooked for win in South Carolina, it seems to me that it would be a good time to give some thought to that wonderful word, charisma. It means, quite simply, grace. But not the kind of grace that makes us think of ballerinas and such. No, this is the kind of grace that comes from above- from that higher realm I wrote about the other day.</div><div>I first started thinking about that idea when I became fascinated by the music and personality of the composer Richard Wagner. Some of the most glorious music ever written came out of his fertile imagination. It was noble, it soared, and it transformed the history of music. It was a seismic event in the music world of the 19th century. Many people hated it... and still do. That's not a bug, as they say, it's a feature. What really fascinated me was that this gift that was visited on Wagner was undeserved. Not to put too fine a point on it, by all accounts Richard Wagner was a jerk. He was not a nice man. His music was noble, but his person was petty, mean, vindictive and callous. He was especially good at using women to advance his interests and then ditching them as soon as they became inconvenient. And he didn't particularly care if they were already married, or that he was married to someone else.</div><div>Another figure more familiar in our times who had charisma was Steve Jobs. Since moderns don't grasp the ancient Greek concept of charisma, the term 'reality distortion field' was invented. But charisma was a far better expression.</div><div>Because charisma enables its host to see things the rest of us don't. While the rest of us paw over the same old bits of the puzzle, trying to arrange them in some way that will help us understand, the Steve Jobs and Richard Wagners of the world see solutions in one blinding glance. While the rest of us are afraid, they dare. That lack of fear, and the unrelenting will to advance a vision is another attribute they have that distinguishes them from the rest of us. And above all, they are able to enlist a following of devotees to become their shock troops and allies, without which they could do nothing. They are able to convince the more ordinary among us to do their bidding. The more talented and dedicated and numerous that following may be, the more likely the charismatic individual will have a major impact on the world.</div><div>But it's always wise to remember that Adolph Hitler had charisma. Jimmy Jones had charisma. Sometimes it enables evil instead of good.</div><div>At any rate, when I saw the videos of Newt Gingrich inspiring the crowds at the South Carolina debates, I knew I was seeing charisma. And if those silly commentators- even ones I greatly respect, like Mark Steyn- are still pawing over the entrails of past scandals, of various political platitudes, of political promises, etc, etc, they entirely miss the point. </div><div>Barack Obama had (has?) charisma, too. I responded in horror, just as most of the political pundits (even the conservatives) are recoiling in horror at Gingrich. He is erratic, they say, he changes his mind about things. One day he is trying to reduce the deficit, the next he is sitting with Nancy Pelosi discussing the global warming hoax. Except they weren't saying it was a hoax. But something tells me this man is the one to turn back the tide- or maybe he <i>is</i> the tide. Barack Obama may have been the high tide of statism, and he may have been necessary to show anyone willing to listen that his way is the way to slavery and oppression. The tide, the seasons, they go back and forth and all we can do is adjust and try to decide which wave to latch onto.</div><div>One perceptive writer on the Gingrich phenomenon compared him to Winston Churchill, and I wouldn't disagree with that. In his victory speech Gingrich spoke of American exceptionalism, which sounds a lot like charisma to me. Like Gingrich, America has lots of warts. In spite of the warts America has been the light of the world for over two hundred years. That's charisma. There's a lot more I could say about that, but I just turned 69 today and I tire easily. And it was a beautiful day in Victoria. It was warm, the sun shone, and Victoria looked young and beautiful again. Yes, I think Victoria has Charisma, too, as does the earth and especially the human race. Yes, environmentalists, we humans are also part of Nature... and though sometimes my faith is shaken, I really know that we are what the earth has been striving toward for all these eons. </div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-40631178798927684542012-01-22T10:48:00.000-08:002012-01-22T11:56:03.357-08:00Victoria in January<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wR6O0Ehxl8k/Txxbefqt-OI/AAAAAAAABWc/4tecLC-McO8/s1600/IMG_3259.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wR6O0Ehxl8k/Txxbefqt-OI/AAAAAAAABWc/4tecLC-McO8/s320/IMG_3259.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700531807799081186" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oi1ZfuS1gm4/TxxbdjTsZyI/AAAAAAAABWQ/hxDjVrCFz7c/s1600/IMG_3261.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 217px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oi1ZfuS1gm4/TxxbdjTsZyI/AAAAAAAABWQ/hxDjVrCFz7c/s320/IMG_3261.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700531791596381986" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-drbx1ucaxUg/TxxbdLdSarI/AAAAAAAABWE/ME2zIv1jmGg/s1600/IMG_3265.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-drbx1ucaxUg/TxxbdLdSarI/AAAAAAAABWE/ME2zIv1jmGg/s320/IMG_3265.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700531785194171058" /></a>After snow, wind. Winter the season of dark and cold, a time of endings setting the stage for renewal. Often we are urged to anaesthetize ourselves against the sense of loss we get from this time of year, or for the ups and downs of our internal seasons. I often think that there must be a higher realm, invisible to our senses, but where the core of our being lies, a place which has its own seasons, its own weather, a place with its own hills and valleys, beauties and pitfalls, its own dangers and afflictions, but a place that is more permanent and lasting. This is the realm our souls inhabit, and this world of our senses, what we call Creation, is an extrusion of that realm. Plato set forth such a theory when he tried to understand how we know things through reason. He believed that our souls were able to see things because they were illuminated by the uncreated light of pure reason which had its origin in God. I take the concept a little further. Many philosophies have looked at this same problem and concluded that the world is an illusion, or the creation of an evil being and that the rational thing to do is to ignore it. Stoicism taught that we could learn to ignore pain. It was a popular doctrine among the militaristic Romans. Since I subscribe to the view that God is good, I conclude that he has a reason for sending us out on this strange journey we call life, and so I think its wrong to try to wall our selves off from the pain we receive from our injuries. Just like physical pain teaches us about the dangers of the physical world, the deeper pains of our inner beings is telling us something we need to know and try to understand. So whether we anaesthetize ourselves with drugs or philosophy, it's a mistake.<div>The strange thing about pain is that it tells us that we are alive. Pain is feeling, and we are constantly told to get in touch with our feelings. Sometimes you have to shut them down to get through a difficult time, but if you don't have them you are just as good as dead. </div><div>What brings on this train of thought is the experience of a friend of mine who lost his mother a few months ago. "Get over it," he is advised. But you never do really... and you shouldn't. If you lose a loved one it leaves a gaping hole in your heart. It heals, but the scar tissue never goes away.</div><div>And today I read a piece about what happens to people who become bonded together in marriage and then separate. She likened it to a two pieces of wood glued together with a super adhesive. They can be pulled apart but they can never be put back together again because both halves of the union have been too damaged. When the damage occurs to a human soul it becomes an ulceration that will never heal. The writer was trying to explain why a young girl should not yield to the first seducer that comes along. She also made the point that men and women are complementary. One has attributes the other lacks. We can't be complete beings without each other. This is why gay marriage is wrong. Man with man, woman with woman, these are sterile, dead end relationships which defeat the spring. With them there is only death. There can be no renewal.</div><div>Being human we are prone to do ourselves injury, but when we do let's not blame God. Let's think and ponder as the pain of our own foolishness washes over us, and thank him instead for giving us the means of finding our way back. As for that other realm, I believe we came from there and I think we are going back. I do not believe that there is death after life.</div><div>As someone who has been permanently damaged by my own folly I welcome the winter for its role in forcing me to think about it all over again.</div><div>The streets are barren today, the wind gives the illusion of life to dead leaves and scraps of newspaper which skitter along the pavement and jump up into the air. </div><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-12452790753244805402011-09-26T13:39:00.000-07:002012-01-27T14:38:51.482-08:00Storm at the outfall<div>Clover Point is one of the sites of Victoria's infamous sewage system. Awful isn't it? In the summer the little promontory is congested with tourists, but when the story season arrives, it's Victorians who line the shore to watch the waves pound the rocks. We like to watch the ships pass by along with the odd whale or seal, and always the seabirds. Today a half dozen windsurfers skimmed the waves.</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tvNmVDn49Ig/ToDyyjsJ8-I/AAAAAAAABV8/uuhk1_BWKs4/s1600/IMG_3011.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tvNmVDn49Ig/ToDyyjsJ8-I/AAAAAAAABV8/uuhk1_BWKs4/s320/IMG_3011.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656788082365166562" /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uELvKbtc52U/ToDyyUGdAcI/AAAAAAAABV0/AQKmsG1sbmg/s1600/IMG_3017.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uELvKbtc52U/ToDyyUGdAcI/AAAAAAAABV0/AQKmsG1sbmg/s320/IMG_3017.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656788078180499906" /></a><br />When I retired I thought I would have a lot more time to spend on projects like this blog, but it hasn't worked out that way. Not having anything to do is apparently something difficult for me to handle. Oh, there are always things to do, such as wash dishes, do laundry, grocery shop, vacuum the floor and such like, but it's not quite the same as having to drag myself out of bed in the morning and get to a job I need to have in order to pay my rent. Rent is a necessity, laundry, which I used to have to squeeze in on days I wasn't working, I can always do tomorrow. <div>For someone who writes for a living, a blog would be a job just like any other. But doing a blog that nobody reads seems quite futile. Anyway, does the world need another pundit? I'm almost glad nobody reads it, otherwise it would be like being married to an ugly wife. Because sometimes you just don't feel like doing it. I read several blogs and I admire their authors for the work ethic they must have to keep it up every day, year after year. Yet they do have to say pretty much the same kinds of things over and over again and I don't envy them that kind of dedication. It requires a certain courage of conviction that I don't have. I think I'm right about a lot of things but I don't fool myself into thinking I'm some kind of expert on anything. I'm acutely aware of how limited any human being is to fully understand even the least of life's mysteries. That doesn't mean we should stop trying, but it does mean that as soon as we think we've got it all figured out we can count on something coming along to give us a shake.</div><div>Nevertheless, as a human being immersed in the world of mortals there are times when even the most reclusive of us must pick a side and run with it. Storms come along in human affairs just as surely as they do off Clover Point. Some of us run away from storms- it's probably the most rational thing to do- while others jump into the middle of them, just like the windsurfers who heard the storm and stopped whatever else they were doing to jump on a piece of plastic and plunge into it.</div><div>I think we human beings are built for struggle. While in the midst of it we long for peace and comfort, but without it we pine away. We have succeeded in building a world where struggle isn't necessary. In a developed country in my lifetime it has been pretty well impossible to starve or freeze. It can be done, but you really have to try hard. Maybe struggle is like gravity. We often wish we could do away with gravity and levitate to wherever we want to go, but it's gravity that makes it possible for us to move at all. Without the resistance of our weight against the greater weight and resistance of the earth beneath us we wouldn't be able to propel ourselves forward. We would be like an astronaut floating in space, flailing his arms and legs to no avail.</div><div>As for this blog, I'm not sure if I'm back or not. I certainly feel like that astronaut floating in space flailing away to no avail, but maybe I can learn to enjoy flapping my arms.</div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-63343934970593662322011-03-16T14:46:00.000-07:002011-03-16T16:29:25.801-07:00A Sea of Troubles.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3iFd66Swz_U/TYFHg-WMmwI/AAAAAAAABVU/CfEdk5sJmvE/s1600/IMG_2142.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3iFd66Swz_U/TYFHg-WMmwI/AAAAAAAABVU/CfEdk5sJmvE/s320/IMG_2142.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584823644733610754" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tavV9bWvSzI/TYFHgI1GILI/AAAAAAAABVM/kr1WBLuKcac/s1600/IMG_2151.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tavV9bWvSzI/TYFHgI1GILI/AAAAAAAABVM/kr1WBLuKcac/s320/IMG_2151.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584823630367695026" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GsFcVuV0csE/TYFGyTp2XHI/AAAAAAAABVE/0dyTiOEB5BQ/s1600/IMG_2180.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GsFcVuV0csE/TYFGyTp2XHI/AAAAAAAABVE/0dyTiOEB5BQ/s320/IMG_2180.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584822842999331954" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eWjhHtxUVxg/TYFGyG1geSI/AAAAAAAABU8/03uT0zgH-lQ/s1600/IMG_2187.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eWjhHtxUVxg/TYFGyG1geSI/AAAAAAAABU8/03uT0zgH-lQ/s320/IMG_2187.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584822839558568226" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MrUWOwQhUQc/TYFFzDu4EFI/AAAAAAAABU0/Gg5ctUFMhOg/s1600/IMG_2188.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MrUWOwQhUQc/TYFFzDu4EFI/AAAAAAAABU0/Gg5ctUFMhOg/s320/IMG_2188.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584821756393689170" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oN2vthxYuGY/TYFFytAimkI/AAAAAAAABUs/e4BAHNHcGM4/s1600/IMG_2191.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oN2vthxYuGY/TYFFytAimkI/AAAAAAAABUs/e4BAHNHcGM4/s320/IMG_2191.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584821750293764674" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z8Jy2Vu8IFg/TYFFIE2a43I/AAAAAAAABUk/MnWIJ-1RTAM/s1600/IMG_2192.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z8Jy2Vu8IFg/TYFFIE2a43I/AAAAAAAABUk/MnWIJ-1RTAM/s320/IMG_2192.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584821017959392114" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lbM5VEIZeUA/TYFFHwi-TJI/AAAAAAAABUc/g99GFd1xgec/s1600/IMG_2196.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lbM5VEIZeUA/TYFFHwi-TJI/AAAAAAAABUc/g99GFd1xgec/s320/IMG_2196.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584821012509117586" /></a><br />It seems a little disrespectful to Japan to think about spring, so our gloomy weather of the last few weeks seems only fitting. How can I enjoy flowers and sunshine when so many are suffering in the cold without food, water, fuel or sanitary arrangements. And they are the lucky ones, the ones who weren't swept out to sea or buried underneath the rubble. At the same time the Japanese are struggling to help the survivors, a nuclear power facility is threatening to blow up, rendering that part of the country uninhabitable for generations to come. They say that this was one of the most powerful earthquakes in history. In terms of the Richter scale, it's a straightforward, objectively measurable ranking. The tsunamis that followed were also measurable and quantifiable. But the jolt delivered by this calamity to the world is only beginning to gather force. I am not talking about the minute increase in the planet's rotation, or the movement of the island of Honshu, or the shift in the earths axis, but about the global economy. Japan is one of the most productive economies in the world, a linchpin in the structure of all our economies. The Japanese are also one of the planets most educated and civilized people, making important contributions to our common intellectual and moral capital. They are going to have a tough time recovering and the rest of us are going to miss their contributions. At this point it's pretty well impossible to guess what will happen, but with the turmoil in the Middle East threatening oil supplies, and the world's financial system already in trouble, more devastation could be on the horizon. <div>The human suffering is always the same, whether in Haiti, Chile, Indonesia and New Zealand. People alone, hungry and cold, with many of their loved ones- parents, children, friends- dead. It's hard to imagine. And yet, if poor Haiti disappeared tomorrow it would hardly make a difference on the global scale. But Japan is a giant, it will make a mighty crash heard around the world.<br /><div>Meanwhile life goes on, as the saying goes. Daffodils are finally blooming on Beacon Hill's south facing slope, and a demonstration was going on outside the legislature. </div><div>The demonstrators were university students complaining about the high cost of school, and more to the point, why they should have to pay for it. I got in a bit of an argument with one of the protestors, a reasonably intelligent young man. I asked him why he thinks I should pay for his university education, and he answered respectfully without really addressing the question. Probably I wasn't that clear at this unexpected encounter. What I meant was this. When they carry their signs around, they are asking the rest of us to buy something. It's not that I don't think society has an obligation to educate its young. The problem is, I don't want to pay for something I don't like, and I very much dislike the 'product' that our public education system sells. Schools are no longer places where students can go to learn about their heritage. Far from it. Students are taught to despise their heritage. Schools have become indoctrination centres. The young man tried to tell me that he was taught how to think at school, but all the evidence I have seen shows me that they are taught <i>what</i> to think. If he truly has a vocation to acquire knowledge and understanding he's better off to find a useful occupation and in his spare time read. Above all, read the classics. Stay away from the university at all costs. And, no. I don't want to pay for the stink hole that university has become.</div></div><div>Been watching the tantrum the union goons are throwing in Wisconsin? If so, maybe you are like me and asked yourself, "What are these people doing teaching school?" Apparently they don't believe in elections. They don't believe in peaceful discussion of the issues. They do believe in making death threats to people who don't give them what they want. They do believe in using the children they are supposed to be teaching as props. Ah, the unions. That's a rant I'll leave for another day.</div><div>Pray for the Japanese, once our bitter enemies, now our loyal friends. </div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-67959608332466730792011-02-25T13:46:00.000-08:002011-02-25T15:33:54.659-08:00Capitalism<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-splw5QSSIb4/TWg34XYCCOI/AAAAAAAABUA/fmR4tiR8Wbc/s1600/5475551377_4605451162_z.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-splw5QSSIb4/TWg34XYCCOI/AAAAAAAABUA/fmR4tiR8Wbc/s320/5475551377_4605451162_z.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577769579985373410" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-62jVZVesY8Y/TWg34CaWMJI/AAAAAAAABT4/2jzICV0NTEo/s1600/IMG_2028.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-62jVZVesY8Y/TWg34CaWMJI/AAAAAAAABT4/2jzICV0NTEo/s320/IMG_2028.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577769574357938322" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sxcygrM2o7A/TWg3axlS0II/AAAAAAAABTw/vWJmRsu3x04/s1600/IMG_2034.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sxcygrM2o7A/TWg3axlS0II/AAAAAAAABTw/vWJmRsu3x04/s320/IMG_2034.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577769071624245378" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lJNgPZaw6cE/TWg3aiOyhyI/AAAAAAAABTo/yp03FoNecxA/s1600/IMG_2037.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 233px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lJNgPZaw6cE/TWg3aiOyhyI/AAAAAAAABTo/yp03FoNecxA/s320/IMG_2037.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577769067503322914" /></a><br /><iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Xu67KPNg_iM?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><div><br /></div><div>There's a lot going on around the world right now. It reminds me of an old protest song.</div><div><br /></div><div>They're rioting in Africa,</div><div>They're starving in Spain,</div><div>There's hurricanes in Florida.</div><div>And Texas needs rain.</div><div><br /></div><div>The whole world is festering with unhappy souls,</div><div>The French hate the Germans,</div><div>The Germans hate the Poles.</div><div>Italians hate Yugoslavs,</div><div>South Africans hate the Dutch, </div><div><br /></div><div>And I don't like anybody very much.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fellow in the video reminds me of a comment made by Will Rogers to the effect that while everybody seems to know a lot, unfortunately most of what they know is wrong. And one of the things many, many people are wrong about is unions. They would whole heartedly agree with this fellow's opinion that the only reason anyone gets decent wages is because of the unions. </div><div>The tirade is part of the nationwide union tantrum in the US that started with Wisconsin Governor Walker's initiative to rein in public spending by curtailing some of the power and expense of unionized government employees. I have been following the coverage fairly closely on the conservative outlets and listened to the governor's statements, and I believe they are using the wrong arguments. The budget has to be balanced, has been the oft repeated message. But the reason for the budget shortfalls is that the economy is not producing enough to cover the bills. The protesting union members don't seem to understand that businesses will be bankrupted if taxes are raised to pay their wages and benefits. What unions do not and never have understood is that in order for a business to compete it has to constantly reinvest in upgrades. If it doesn't do that it will go out of business and then where will the jobs be. This lesson should have been learned by the unions long ago... if, that is, they really care about their members. </div><div>For a graphic illustration of what I am saying, take a look at the history of post war Britain. The unions there effectively destroyed the British Auto industry. The sickness of the auto companies in North America is also largely due to the unions, and for the same reasons. They took away money the companies needed to reinvest in new technologies and equipment. If union leaders were really concerned for the welfare of their members you would think they would be deeply concerned with the health of the industry. You would think they would be interested in seeing the industry under intelligent management. But no. For union leaders the employer is the enemy. </div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe we have a hard time understanding the principle of capital formation because we were hunters and gatherers for many thousands of years. Itinerant hunter gatherers were not capitalists. They simply took what they could from the land and when it was exhausted they moved on. They followed migrating herds, they exploited resources as they became available at different times of the year, but they since they could not carry much on their travels, possessions were liabilities instead of assets. There had to be a pretty good reason to justify lugging something around from place to place.</div><div>Farmers were the original capitalists, and seed was the original capital. It's very nice to have a good harvest so that everybody can feast and enjoy themselves. But if you want to feast next year too then you had better make sure that you save some of your harvest for seed. That's what capitalism is all about.</div><div>The conflict between socialists and free enterprisers is not about capital so much as who gets to control it. Capital is what's left over after the fundamental needs of the community are met. Over the centuries the way capital has been accumulated and allocated has changed, It seems that the first civilization based on large scale farming was the Sumerian, located in Mesopotamia, where Iraq is now. It happened rather suddenly. Primitive neolithic farming had been practiced in many parts of the world, but because of the seasonal patterns of flooding the Sumerians didn't have to worry about the exhaustion of soil. They learned that by building canals and dams they could control the water supply. This required a much higher level of organization than the kind of slash and burn agriculture that was still practiced in North America by the Iroquois up until modern times. In ancient Mesopotamia a system of absolute kingship, a priestly class, and cities organized around temples sprang into existence. The kind of farming practiced there was the first to produce enough of a surplus to support an entire class of people who did not directly participate in the acquisition of food. It was the first bureaucracy. Ever since then all bureaucracies have had a tendency to expand beyond the ability of the economy to support them. When they do that they choke off the motivation of the producer to produce, and then the culture begins to decline. </div><div>This has happened over and over in history, and it's happening now. That's really what the fight in Wisconsin is about. And Greece, and Ireland, etc. Oh, and I noticed the Alberta budget has gone into the red this year. We retirees better hope that the adults win this fight. More than anyone else we depend on the economy producing enough of a surplus to keep us in reasonable comfort. This is especially so since we have been systematically killing the oncoming generation so that there will be fewer and fewer young people to support more and more old people. </div><div>It's still cold here in Victoria, sunny and cold. Tomorrow we are supposed to get back to normal- soggy and mild.</div><div>I usually only post my own photos here, but the top one today, of the buddha in the snow, is by an acquaintance of mine who calls herself Lotus Johnson. In one of my posts I opined that maybe I was taking more pictures of Victoria than anyone else. I was wrong. In my updated reading list you will be able to access all of her wonderful photos, as well as those of Gordon Handford.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-30597641710444786542011-02-23T08:23:00.000-08:002011-02-23T11:39:58.282-08:00Snowflakes and cherry blossoms<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ci5ImkkcgF8/TWVdEI9dQ5I/AAAAAAAABTg/ol84V6KepIk/s1600/IMG_2018.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ci5ImkkcgF8/TWVdEI9dQ5I/AAAAAAAABTg/ol84V6KepIk/s320/IMG_2018.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576966039274341266" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ztMPK5Jdn_I/TWU_ljAVahI/AAAAAAAABTY/ZUJGfhvTI3o/s1600/IMG_1980.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ztMPK5Jdn_I/TWU_ljAVahI/AAAAAAAABTY/ZUJGfhvTI3o/s320/IMG_1980.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576933627852581394" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-78EDS1mjCf8/TWU_lCyY0oI/AAAAAAAABTQ/LPf5Zt2_t8o/s1600/IMG_1963.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-78EDS1mjCf8/TWU_lCyY0oI/AAAAAAAABTQ/LPf5Zt2_t8o/s320/IMG_1963.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576933619204149890" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bib-nNSmTn0/TWU_k6ffeZI/AAAAAAAABTI/T7zEwbLqYp8/s1600/IMG_1991.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bib-nNSmTn0/TWU_k6ffeZI/AAAAAAAABTI/T7zEwbLqYp8/s320/IMG_1991.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576933616977410450" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nteo1CCv_Zg/TWU_kpysUNI/AAAAAAAABTA/30gJwmWyCHg/s1600/IMG_2001.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nteo1CCv_Zg/TWU_kpysUNI/AAAAAAAABTA/30gJwmWyCHg/s320/IMG_2001.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576933612494541010" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I_I7uuL3YwY/TWU-ft31zAI/AAAAAAAABS4/KyZ9_mYHC8g/s1600/IMG_2005.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I_I7uuL3YwY/TWU-ft31zAI/AAAAAAAABS4/KyZ9_mYHC8g/s320/IMG_2005.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576932428178902018" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XSRE1Diu-6A/TWU-e3459pI/AAAAAAAABSw/lVB4oZxSWcI/s1600/IMG_2010.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 238px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XSRE1Diu-6A/TWU-e3459pI/AAAAAAAABSw/lVB4oZxSWcI/s320/IMG_2010.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576932413687854738" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VpxkrBi_Vng/TWU-erblg-I/AAAAAAAABSo/fSU5qqCDrZ0/s1600/IMG_2015.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VpxkrBi_Vng/TWU-erblg-I/AAAAAAAABSo/fSU5qqCDrZ0/s320/IMG_2015.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576932410343654370" /></a>For the past few weeks snow has been getting closer and closer to Victoria. This morning it finally got past our protective ring of hills and mountains and arrived on our doorsteps. I think this would be the perfect time to burden my audience with a sample of the author's doggerel entitled:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>That Old Dog Winter</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Ol' Dog Winter got lazy this year.</i></div><div><i>Boreas some call him, an Easterneer,</i></div><div><i>Comes prowling (that wormy mutt)</i></div><div><i>At night up on the Malahat.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Comes howling for crystal snow to chill us,</i></div><div><i>Then slinks across to the low Sooke Hills</i></div><div><i>Where he hangs around them there tall trees.</i></div><div><i>Jack Frost, his frisky pup, comes by with a freeze.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>On clear starry nights he gives us a whiff,</i></div><div><i>So our dried up tomatoes set a bit stiff.</i></div><div><i>On a winter's day all muffled in white,</i></div><div><i>Here in Victoria we don't mind that, quite.<br /></i><div><br /></div><div>I know the rest of the country finds this hilarious, but when it snows in Victoria we are virtually paralyzed. Victorians have a reputation for driving ineptitude. That may be because we have such a large population of retirees- including 1000 licensed drivers over the age of ninety, as a government official in my cab once informed me. But my own theory is that Ontarians of all ages are the problem. For one thing, they can't get used to the fact that you don't have to hurry in Victoria. It isn't that big. We have a rush half hour. Some Ontarians can never get used to that. Because they have driven all their lives in places where snow is normal they think they are experts. However, in Ontario they don't have much in the way of hills and it often comes as a surprise that a vehicle- even with four wheel drive- keeps going on a downhill slope no matter how hard the brakes are applied. It can be quite amusing to watch cars drift through the red light at Tyee as they come down the hill on Esquimault Road.<div><div>Luckily, I don't have to drive in the stuff anymore so I can enjoy it. Once or twice in the year hearing the crunch of new snow under ones feet is quite pleasant, especially with the black waters of the harbour looming out of the darkness. The ducks and geese seem as confused by the snow as our drivers.</div><div>This morning's temperature is hovering around the freezing point and I suppose it will warm up later today. But it's supposed to get colder this week, and if that happens all that half melted snow will freeze solid. That's when the fun will start.</div><div>A lot of bad stuff is happening in the world right now. While we shovel a little snow New Zealand is recovering from a terrible earthquake while the Middle East is going insane. I think the difference between how we handle things compared to them is instructive. In New Zealand, neighbour helps neighbour and the machinery in place to deal with emergencies moves into place. Victorians are out with snow shovels clearing sidewalks. In Egypt after supposedly gaining freedom from a brutal dictator two million Egyptians gather together and celebrate by chanting, "Death to Israel." </div><div>There seem to be a lot of apologists for Islam in our media, but pay no attention to them. Islam is not about peace as they pretend but about brutality. If we value our peaceful institutions and our freedoms we have to do our utmost to keep it out of our society. It's hard for most Canadians and Americans to believe, but they want to kill us, too. </div><div>An Iraq war veteran enrolled at Columbia University trie to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/the-feed/260232/disgusting">explain </a>that to his fellow students but they wouldn't listen. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 24px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family:'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><p>“It doesn’t matter how you feel about the war. It doesn’t matter how you feel about fighting,” said Maschek. “There are bad men out there plotting to kill you.”</p><p>Several students laughed and jeered the Idaho native, a 10th Mountain Division infantryman who spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington recovering from grievous wounds. . ."</p></span></div><div><br /></div><div>The media coverage of Islam is deplorable so it's understandable that average citizens who are busy raising families and going to work don't understand what's going on, but it's shocking that students from a prestigious university in New York could be so ignorant. Some commentators are a little more realistic but excuse the <i>religion</i> of Islam by saying the bombings and savagery are committed by a few extremists. That may be true as far as it goes. Most Muslims probably don't want to strap explosives to their children. Most Muslims are probably content to raise their families just like the rest of us. But all Muslims are required by the Koran to wage war against non believers. Jihad is what it's called, and it doesn't mean 'interior spiritual journey,' it means any means of destroying competing belief systems is justified. In Islam there is no crime in killing an unbeliever. On the contrary, it's a duty. These beliefs are not tangential to Islam, they are and essential feature. How somebody can go through university without figuring this out is beyond my understanding.</div><div>I rather think that we are in a pivotal phase of human history. The First World War was one of those pivotal points. Before the war Europe was still dominated by the kind of monarchical empires that had been in place since the Napoleonic Wars. There had been a century of peace, prosperity, and an unprecedented advance in human knowledge and technology had taken place. In 1815 the fastest mode of travel on land was by horseback, as it had been for thousands of years, and by sailing ships on the high seas. No message could move any faster. But by 1915 we traveled by railroad, car, steamship, and airplane, while communication via telegraph, radio and telephone was instant. Most people were still poor, but also there was a burgeoning middle middle class, and more people could become middle class than ever before. These technologies brought down the old empires. At the end of the war there was no more Austro-Hungarian Empire. In Russia the Bolsheviks had overthrown the Tsar. Much of the world map was coloured the red of the British Empire, but it was to be a relic. Republican France still had an empire but it had lost a generation of young men in the war. Neither the British nor the French had any more stomach for world domination. The second world war finished them off, but the US took on the British task of keeping the seas open to trade, and faced down the only power able to threaten world peace. Now we seem to be entering the post American age. Now it seems as if Islam, which never emerged from the medieval world, is either on its way to world domination, or is finally beginning to self- destruct. Who knows how it will end.</div><div>If the chaos keeps up it will mean a massive disruption of the world's oil production. Some are predicting gasoline at $10 a gallon in the near future. That alone will shut down trade everywhere, even locally. Envirofascists have been pushing for localism recently, and they may soon find out what it's like. </div></div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-42276590794507630812011-02-14T15:07:00.000-08:002011-02-14T16:22:11.200-08:00Valentine's Day 2011<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Zp8AWVmcRM/TVm25EBP_EI/AAAAAAAABSg/qsyTKKt1DYM/s1600/IMG_0093.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Zp8AWVmcRM/TVm25EBP_EI/AAAAAAAABSg/qsyTKKt1DYM/s320/IMG_0093.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573687105295481922" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4yBdQcR3vBU/TVm247bHN6I/AAAAAAAABSY/yYlVyXTXyDo/s1600/IMG_0094.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4yBdQcR3vBU/TVm247bHN6I/AAAAAAAABSY/yYlVyXTXyDo/s320/IMG_0094.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573687102988040098" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dNHurQoqTMY/TVm24cMhdpI/AAAAAAAABSQ/jgkJKI7SIXY/s1600/IMG_0095.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dNHurQoqTMY/TVm24cMhdpI/AAAAAAAABSQ/jgkJKI7SIXY/s320/IMG_0095.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573687094605346450" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--n0KL0gLBa0/TVm2mCLpvbI/AAAAAAAABSI/MZ53tyuH2lg/s1600/IMG_0096.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--n0KL0gLBa0/TVm2mCLpvbI/AAAAAAAABSI/MZ53tyuH2lg/s320/IMG_0096.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573686778384727474" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SrHb8rjCT-0/TVm2lntRc-I/AAAAAAAABSA/byaYC00-K6M/s1600/IMG_0097.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SrHb8rjCT-0/TVm2lntRc-I/AAAAAAAABSA/byaYC00-K6M/s320/IMG_0097.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573686771277984738" /></a><br /><div>Tomorrow I suppose the Valentine's themed display at Chapters will be taken down. I didn't make an inventory of titles but if there was anything about love I didn't see it. Unless love is just an old fashioned word for sex... because all I could see were books on sex, and how to have good sex. As opposed to bad sex, which seems to be the norm judging by the necessity to provide advice. And all directed toward women. On a table not far away from the Valentine theme were books dedicated to losing weight and shedding flab, the prime motivation being to enhance one's chances of having sex. More sex, or better sex, one infers. Come to think of it I didn't notice a single item directed at men... unless you count the boxes of chocolates in another display nearby. Maybe the fitness books are for use after the candy is eaten, and the sex books are for use in case the one who was supposed to buy the chocolates didn't, because it obviously means he doesn't love you.</div><div>Personally, I think it's a sad commentary on modern life that sex is thought of as synonymous with love. I'm not referring so much to the moral issue as the issue of lack of imagination, the shallowness and the inconsequentiality we have grown so used to. Is romance dead? Then so is poetry and depth of feeling and that hackneyed expression 'spirituality.' No wonder that the children's section is so bland. They can't have anything telling children how to have good sex, so they stick to teddy bears, and mice- anything to avoid drilling down to the core of the human soul. That's because we're no longer allowed to have souls, I guess. That would be subversive of the new world order which strives to dissolve the differences between the sexes.</div><div>Of course, it is romantic love that Valentines Day is about, and, well, the beast with two backs will never be called love, will never inspire a play entitled Romeo and Romeo. Somehow, I think men will always be inclined to fall in love with women no matter what. None of the poetry works otherwise.</div><div>Still, I can't complain too much. At least in the west it's not illegal to send Valentine's, like it is in Iran. It is frowned on in Pakistan, too, but they are making an exception for the governor of Punjab who was shot because he publicly advocated religious tolerance. But it wasn't the governor who got the valentine, it was his shooter.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 21px; font-family:Georgia, Times, serif;font-size:13px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 21px; font-family:Georgia, Times, serif;font-size:13px;">Mumtaz Qadri shot dead Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer in January while serving as a bodyguard. Qadri <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>has told authorities he killed Taseer because the governor spoke out against harsh Pakistani blasphemy laws that impose the death sentence for insulting Islam....</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 21px; font-family:Georgia, Times, serif;font-size:13px;">A small group of college students gave police flowers and a Valentine's Day card they wanted delivered to the defendant.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 21px; font-family:Georgia, Times, serif;font-size:13px;">"Happy Valentine!" read one of the banners....</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In my religious training I was taught that I was <i>commanded by God</i> to love my neighbour as myself, and to do unto others as I would have done to me. Could it be that there is something fundamentally different between the teachings of Christ and the teachings of Mohammed? Am I allowed to say that?</div><div>At any rate, there are many people who I have loved through my life- friends, family, and even a few romances (mostly unrequited), for whom I would like to wish a coming year full of love and happiness. And I'll try to pray for the souls of the Pakistanis who took so much pleasure in the death of a man who tried to bring justice to his country. That's something I was taught in catechism, too.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-91600309039547765352011-02-12T09:04:00.000-08:002011-02-12T10:13:27.982-08:00Joan Crescent<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y5BeJykOZqI/TVbL7ymyszI/AAAAAAAABR4/fbwMTMBF5Vs/s1600/IMG_1909.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y5BeJykOZqI/TVbL7ymyszI/AAAAAAAABR4/fbwMTMBF5Vs/s320/IMG_1909.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572865816974766898" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5wXx1Fa-xsI/TVbL7abKdDI/AAAAAAAABRw/aJuHmUqY1Nk/s1600/IMG_1908.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5wXx1Fa-xsI/TVbL7abKdDI/AAAAAAAABRw/aJuHmUqY1Nk/s320/IMG_1908.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572865810483541042" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X8uDDNM8cd4/TVbL62_7ZRI/AAAAAAAABRo/sbnHfdiQ1dc/s1600/IMG_1905.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X8uDDNM8cd4/TVbL62_7ZRI/AAAAAAAABRo/sbnHfdiQ1dc/s320/IMG_1905.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572865800974066962" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9bDUJQBZmk/TVbJRWnqI0I/AAAAAAAABRg/x6jqRmI5N1A/s1600/IMG_1916.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9bDUJQBZmk/TVbJRWnqI0I/AAAAAAAABRg/x6jqRmI5N1A/s320/IMG_1916.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572862888884446018" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0TNK4z71QmQ/TVbJROPmE2I/AAAAAAAABRY/2g4go3jqmqs/s1600/IMG_1911.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0TNK4z71QmQ/TVbJROPmE2I/AAAAAAAABRY/2g4go3jqmqs/s320/IMG_1911.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572862886636032866" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b5-RSVHXCsg/TVbJQoQxETI/AAAAAAAABRQ/_CjNYobYExk/s1600/IMG_1918.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b5-RSVHXCsg/TVbJQoQxETI/AAAAAAAABRQ/_CjNYobYExk/s320/IMG_1918.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572862876440400178" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KWVboJCj1R8/TVbIP5E6KII/AAAAAAAABRI/T_YWBo-tvZM/s1600/IMG_1922.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KWVboJCj1R8/TVbIP5E6KII/AAAAAAAABRI/T_YWBo-tvZM/s320/IMG_1922.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572861764262570114" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f-FYrMxA5Jo/TVbIPbkrXUI/AAAAAAAABRA/qSBahvQrRgQ/s1600/IMG_1925.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f-FYrMxA5Jo/TVbIPbkrXUI/AAAAAAAABRA/qSBahvQrRgQ/s320/IMG_1925.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572861756342754626" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ymB7SxNOL0g/TVbIPKh9_1I/AAAAAAAABQ4/g2njRqAQfY8/s1600/IMG_1927.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ymB7SxNOL0g/TVbIPKh9_1I/AAAAAAAABQ4/g2njRqAQfY8/s320/IMG_1927.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572861751767990098" /></a><br />When the crocuses start poking out of the ground it almost seems worth it to have gone through the dark days of winter. It always seems miraculous.<div>The grass and tree lined Joan Crescent is well-supplied with crocuses and makes a nice route to take to get to Government House when the bus drops you off on Fort Street. Built in the 1890's for the Dunsmuir family, Craigdarroch Castle perches at the crest of the hill where it once presided over its own pocket empire of 27 acres. It's grounds and interior are popular tourist stops. Below the castle along Rockland is Government House. The queen's representative to the province lives here. The Lieutenant Governorship is mainly a ceremonial position and the appointee is chosen by the provincial government. When the queen visits, Government House is her official residence.</div><div>I was there for a tea given for the Cancer Foundation. No, I wasn't one of the wealthy donors paying for the privilege of listening to the boring speeches. I was just one of the help and came in through the servant's entrance and was led through subterranean passages to get to my post in the ballroom. The British class system still survives at Government House. </div><div>The grounds are beautifully maintained and the views to the south are spectacular. I was surprised to see a rhododendron in full flower already. Someday I'm going to have to find out the story behind all the sequoias lining Rockland. They are easy to spot because of their great height and easy to identify because of their rounded tops. Up close in somebody's yard, they are massive, dwarfing the house. </div><div>For a visitor to Victoria, the loop along Joan Crescent to Government House and then via Rockland back to Cook Street for lunch would make for a pleasant morning walk.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, I missed the relaunching of The Quadra Queen II. By the time I looked out my window this morning it was already in the water.</div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-65835857931142918502011-02-11T18:21:00.000-08:002011-02-11T19:33:23.038-08:00Sidestreets<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nx2xCIbnN3k/TVX-a_F8u7I/AAAAAAAABQw/NkRH4XlNaZg/s1600/IMG_1876.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nx2xCIbnN3k/TVX-a_F8u7I/AAAAAAAABQw/NkRH4XlNaZg/s320/IMG_1876.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572639853507296178" /></a><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>This is where they used to hang people in the old days.<div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uWyoTGyYW5o/TVX9xEA0jzI/AAAAAAAABQo/A-UDV4CfYrA/s1600/IMG_1865.JPG"></a></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uWyoTGyYW5o/TVX9xEA0jzI/AAAAAAAABQo/A-UDV4CfYrA/s1600/IMG_1865.JPG"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uWyoTGyYW5o/TVX9xEA0jzI/AAAAAAAABQo/A-UDV4CfYrA/s320/IMG_1865.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572639133273460530" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S0vGg3WiZ4w/TVX9wixmZ0I/AAAAAAAABQg/Cw3ht0l66nE/s1600/IMG_1855.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S0vGg3WiZ4w/TVX9wixmZ0I/AAAAAAAABQg/Cw3ht0l66nE/s320/IMG_1855.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572639124351248194" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KzQXVbIHyv8/TVX9wDZhoKI/AAAAAAAABQY/r3A0XT-UKig/s1600/IMG_1886.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KzQXVbIHyv8/TVX9wDZhoKI/AAAAAAAABQY/r3A0XT-UKig/s320/IMG_1886.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572639115928772770" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FhtdqpzoZ-Q/TVX8pmhgHOI/AAAAAAAABQQ/Do4o4r-AF-4/s1600/IMG_1889.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FhtdqpzoZ-Q/TVX8pmhgHOI/AAAAAAAABQQ/Do4o4r-AF-4/s320/IMG_1889.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572637905586756834" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JxH1CJpjP7M/TVX8pAOinWI/AAAAAAAABQI/U4DeRth_XgQ/s1600/IMG_1893.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JxH1CJpjP7M/TVX8pAOinWI/AAAAAAAABQI/U4DeRth_XgQ/s320/IMG_1893.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572637895306681698" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TlCyiqMCZ94/TVX8o5lCgSI/AAAAAAAABQA/H7_YnG1vjE4/s1600/IMG_1900.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TlCyiqMCZ94/TVX8o5lCgSI/AAAAAAAABQA/H7_YnG1vjE4/s320/IMG_1900.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572637893521998114" /></a><br /><div>Frosty mornings yielded to warm and sunny afternoons for a few days in Victoria this week, taking us all by surprise. But a pleasant surprise, and a good time to take a walk along the sidestreets and back alleys. </div><div>I've never delved into the history of the city too much, but it's very obvious that at the end of the 19th century it was a budding metropolis. It was the capitol of a huge province, it was a bustling seaport, and the future was unlimited. When the railways came to Vancouver and Seattle, and steamships took over from sailing vessels, it became a backwater. You can tell just by traversing the downtown. The 20th century has come between our time and those glory days, over a hundred years ago and in that time the downtown still has approximately the same boundaries. That would be Chinatown to the north, the Empress to the south and Blanchard, or perhaps Quadra to the east. That just makes it very walkable.</div><div>Most of the buildings in the downtown were erected between the 1880's and the early 20th century so they incorporated the materials and techniques of that era. They were put up one brick at a time. There's something very pleasing about the earthen tones of fired clay brick, and the necessities of its capabilities meant that the graceful lines of arches, corbeling, weren't mere decorative flourishes but practical ways of adding strength. Gravity was used to create space and airiness. And this all comes out as beauty. </div><div>That technology also demanded craftsmanship and the kind of knowledge and lore that was passed along from one generation of mason to the next. The architect has very little to do with it. All he did was draw the conceptual lines. It was up to the craftsmen to figure out how to turn the concept into reality. </div><div>By contrast, while it may be practical and durable, there is nothing that can be done to make concrete beautiful. That may not be the worst thing about it from an aesthetic standpoint. The worst thing is that an architect can get away with just about anything. No longer limited by the constraints of gravity and brick and stone masonry's lack of tensile strength, there are few limits to his fevered imaginings. The craftsman is pretty well gone now, replaced by the engineer. It's now the engineer who has to translate a drawing into a wall. Oh, it takes experienced carpenters to build formwork but they've been relegated to bull labour. And it doesn't take long to train a new one. That's a good thing because we do not like to go to the expense of training the workforce. For years we've gotten away with outsourcing it to other countries. We raid other countries for the talent they thought they had developed for their own benefit. </div><div>When I was in the trade Europe was the primary source, but today it seems to be Mexico. It's done differently now, too. The Mexican worker doesn't come up here and apply at the construction site. He is part of a contractors crew that hires itself out to whatever project is willing to pay the freight. The last job I worked at had an Albanian crew to install the windows. It's not that good of a deal to be a construction worker anyway. True, the money is good... but construction has always been a boom and bust sort of business. There will be periods when it isn't possible to take on all the work available. Money comes in (and gets taxed away) until some financial crisis comes along, and then it all stops for a few years. By the time things get going again many of the experienced workers of the last boom have gotten out of the trade, retired, or gotten too beat up to go back. Construction work takes a heavy toll on the body. It's great when you're twenty-five, not so great when you're forty-five.</div><div>Maybe it's partly because I used to be a bricklayer that I enjoy seeing the brick buildings. I can't help think of the men who laboured on them as I pass my eyes over their work of so long ago. </div><div>While I never built a boat, it was something I always wanted to do. And there's one thing about a boat. It doesn't matter so much what the material, the ocean makes demands that never change. For most working watermen the age of sail has been over with for a long time. First came steam and paddle wheels, then the propeller, then came diesel and gasoline. So it's no longer necessary to have to balance wind against current as much as before. Just hit the ignition and plow through the waves. But boats still have the same shapes as ever, they still have to stay afloat, and so even new ships are beautiful. I hope I'll be able to get out and watch the Point Hope shipyard relaunch the Quadra Queen II.</div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-49358820830780819462011-02-08T09:29:00.000-08:002011-02-08T15:08:50.213-08:00The Victoria Street Newz and Gizmo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHG9vKXEGI/AAAAAAAABP4/DlXdF7gzGTA/s1600/IMG_1824.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 241px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHG9vKXEGI/AAAAAAAABP4/DlXdF7gzGTA/s320/IMG_1824.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571452977968255074" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHG9LiSJqI/AAAAAAAABPw/r0uJdXf1yMk/s1600/IMG_0177.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHG9LiSJqI/AAAAAAAABPw/r0uJdXf1yMk/s320/IMG_0177.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571452968404919970" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHF8ya_WII/AAAAAAAABPo/_gZmZEzD7dc/s1600/IMG_0279.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHF8ya_WII/AAAAAAAABPo/_gZmZEzD7dc/s320/IMG_0279.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571451862151813250" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHF8pVwcwI/AAAAAAAABPg/uUtEFS_T1Wc/s1600/IMG_0523.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHF8pVwcwI/AAAAAAAABPg/uUtEFS_T1Wc/s320/IMG_0523.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571451859713946370" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHFA3dVliI/AAAAAAAABPY/JfNo-y0RnxE/s1600/IMGP0375.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHFA3dVliI/AAAAAAAABPY/JfNo-y0RnxE/s320/IMGP0375.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571450832711685666" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHFAr7Ek0I/AAAAAAAABPQ/d1phl8NtRaY/s1600/IMG_1835.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TVHFAr7Ek0I/AAAAAAAABPQ/d1phl8NtRaY/s320/IMG_1835.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571450829615174466" /></a><br /><div>As I was going by Swans yesterday some of the usual suspects were sitting on the sidewalk. But Gizmo wasnt with them.</div>I see in the Newz that Gizmo has died. I can't say that I knew the poor fellow, but I have been acquainted with him for about fifteen years, ever since he jumped into my cab. Neither he nor his friends had money to pay their cab fare. Gizmo said he was expecting money soon and if I dropped back later on to the house from where I picked him up he would be able to pay me. Not expecting ever to get paid, I nevertheless was in the vicinity a few hours later and thought I might as well give it a try. I was already too late. He and his friends had come up with some money but they had already spent it. When I sidled into the half open door he and his friends were stretched out randomly on the living room carpet in their desired state of oblivion. <div>That may have been the last time he lived in a house. From then on I only saw him when he was panhandling on the sidewalk with his friends- one of them a huge pet wolf. The wolf died some time ago. </div><div>As usual in the Newz is the obligatory genuflection to the gods of victimhood. The writer of the obituary, after a few hundred words of tribute, announced, "I'm just not into party politics." And then the next few paragraphs are devoted to politics. She doesn't come right out and say it in so many words but the gist of her commentary is that Gizmo was a victim of the system. It's always the system, you see.</div><div>"I do know what it's like to be flat broke, though, facing a world where some have more than they will ever need, and others, many good people among them, left hungry and out in the cold."</div><div>Well, yes, there are inequalities, and some of those inequalities are unfair. Korky Day, another writer in the issue, opines, "Work should not be required; that's slavery. Work should not be a privilege; that's the present fatal failed system in Canada." I think these words of wisdom are intended as an aphorism. Let's leave aside the fact that the second statement does not follow from the first. Hmmm. in what way is work a privilege? Does the writer mean that just because someone is unqualified, or unwilling to work, or doesn't feel like getting up in the morning, that he should not be denied a paycheck? Maybe he means that a person should get a paycheck regardless of whether work is available. I'm not sure what he means.</div><div>But the statement that work is slavery and that it shouldn't be required is a little bit shocking. Does the writer think that food arrives on store shelves all by itself? Does he think that somebody in the government just waves a magic wand and poof, there is food? How does the writer suppose houses get built, logs milled, electricity generated, etc, etc. If people don't work, then how does he suppose things get made? "Guaranteed Jobs... a practical way to end forced homelessness," is the title of the this piece of idiocy. Later on he compares the workers paradise of the old Soviet Union where millions of people died of starvation with the inadequacies of Canada. Jobs were guaranteed in the CCCP all right, but what good is money when there is nothing to buy? In that communist insane asylum they used to say (when the secret police weren't around) "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." A neat way of saying that when a person is not allowed to keep the benefits of his own labour he is unlikely to see any point in working. This is the fatal flaw in all schemes to redistribute wealth.</div><div>This is the truth about poverty in Canada. In my lifetime, in Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, and most other western countries, anybody who is willing to participate in the capitalist, free enterprise system has done well. Many have done spectacularly well. Collectively, there has been no other place or time when people have been so free of economic distress. And if you can't find work because of some disability or temporary difficulty, then all sorts of programs are available. As someone on the street once told me, "It's almost impossible to starve to death in Victoria." But what if someone is unwilling to work? I remember going by Swan's one afternoon and some of the regular panhandlers were hanging out on the sidewalk. Maybe Gizmo was there. A young kid was there I know, maybe a recent runaway. Loudly and proudly, one grizzled old veteran was bragging, "I've never worked a day in my life." Presumably he was entirely satisfied with sleeping under bridges, smoking other people's discarded cigarette butts and fighting with the crows and seagulls for half eaten Big Macs. </div><div>Jesus is quoted as saying that the poor will always be with us. Maybe he was thinking of people like him.</div><div>Gizmo and his associates are often played up in the media as examples of how the system failed them. They are victims of our cruel society. Well, yes, they are victims all right, and of certain aspects of our system. For all intents and purposes our welfare agencies have for many years actively subsidized the illicit drug trade. I can't really prove this, but I firmly believe that without welfare the drug trade would go broke. At the root of most our 'homeless' problem is drug use. Drugs are like a cancer in our society, and that is something that is never mentioned in news reports. </div><div>Would a Robert Picton have been possible without the drug infestation? First off, he himself was a drug user. You never hear much about them, but many studies have shown strong evidence that drugs, even so-called soft drugs like marijuana, cause mental disease. My own personal knowledge of long time drug users leads me to believe these reports. So perhaps it's worth inquiring if the drugs he used helped turn him into a monster. Secondly, where would he get his victims if there wasn't a ready supply of street whores to draw on? Another unmentioned fact is that most women who sell their bodies on the streets are doing it for drugs. Their pimps are both suppliers and slavemasters to these unfortunates.</div><div>There is a lot wrong with the system, but the things that are wrong are completely ignored. Why is that? Because a suffering underclass makes very handy propaganda material for the parasites who want to lobby for new government programs to 'help the poor.' It's really sick.</div><div>I wonder if poor gizmo ever had time to look up from his never ending search for oblivion to see Mt Baker, or a sunrise over the waters of Juan de Fuca.</div><div>I'm glad this post is over with. Now I can throw that rag of a newspaper away.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-89999553027760268582011-02-02T14:56:00.000-08:002011-02-02T16:15:03.820-08:00Port of Sidney<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnlu6bj3eI/AAAAAAAABO0/3xNtHv1pDwg/s1600/IMG_1813.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnlu6bj3eI/AAAAAAAABO0/3xNtHv1pDwg/s320/IMG_1813.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569235008341925346" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnlupIJgqI/AAAAAAAABOs/VMBqgB6F7cw/s1600/IMG_1816.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnlupIJgqI/AAAAAAAABOs/VMBqgB6F7cw/s320/IMG_1816.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569235003697103522" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnj2nNm-qI/AAAAAAAABOk/rpmx12fxnxA/s1600/IMG_1783.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnj2nNm-qI/AAAAAAAABOk/rpmx12fxnxA/s320/IMG_1783.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569232941598833314" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnj2SXeidI/AAAAAAAABOc/A5VdXGjY3vE/s1600/IMG_1784.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnj2SXeidI/AAAAAAAABOc/A5VdXGjY3vE/s320/IMG_1784.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569232936003078610" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnj19ONEPI/AAAAAAAABOU/Z0gZk9XmFrg/s1600/IMG_1785.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUnj19ONEPI/AAAAAAAABOU/Z0gZk9XmFrg/s320/IMG_1785.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569232930327040242" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUni9MTgWQI/AAAAAAAABOM/sHG3Xo0v5rU/s1600/IMG_1789.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUni9MTgWQI/AAAAAAAABOM/sHG3Xo0v5rU/s320/IMG_1789.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569231955123263746" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUni8r6ATJI/AAAAAAAABOE/HUASVMpVW8c/s1600/IMG_1794.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUni8r6ATJI/AAAAAAAABOE/HUASVMpVW8c/s320/IMG_1794.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569231946426371218" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUniB8TrXOI/AAAAAAAABN8/7AH_U9LgSiY/s1600/IMG_1796.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUniB8TrXOI/AAAAAAAABN8/7AH_U9LgSiY/s320/IMG_1796.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569230937216736482" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUniBGo24FI/AAAAAAAABN0/htGjwjgE9YY/s1600/IMG_1798.JPG"></a><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUniBGo24FI/AAAAAAAABN0/htGjwjgE9YY/s1600/IMG_1798.JPG"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUniBGo24FI/AAAAAAAABN0/htGjwjgE9YY/s320/IMG_1798.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569230922810056786" /></a>Lochside Drive is even more illogical than most of Victoria's illogical streets. It begins inauspiciously just north of McKenzie Avenue off an orphaned spur of Cedar Hill Cross Road and runs for about a block...if you are driving. If you are walking or riding a bicycle, though, you can keep going because it joins the Lochside Trail. It's a very pleasant stroll or ride, especially as it passes by Blenkinsop Lake, and after about three kilometres it becomes a street again for a few blocks. Then it stops again before picking up again to parallel Cordova Bay Rd. until that street zigs and cuts it off at the junction. Lochside continues to hopscotch until it finally comes into its own as a self-respecting street at Mt. Newton Cross Rd, by which time it has almost arrived in Sidney. However, it ignominiously vanishes, never to be heard of again, just before it reaches downtown Sidney.</div><div>When I go to visit Sidney I like to get off the highway at Newton Cross so I can take Lochside the rest of the way. While the rest of the traffic hurtles in lockstep toward wherever its going, I prefer the scenic route. Likewise, when I get off the ferry I like to take the first exit and take it easy through Sidney while the poor highway tries to swallow the herd of fish disgorged by the ferry. </div><div>Sidney is a pretty little town, a good place to have a coffee, or browse Tanner's Bookstore or just park somewhere and go for a walk. Much of the part of town around the pier at the foot of Beacon Ave has been redone since I was here last and it looks quite spiffy, even if it's a little upscale for the likes of me. There is a lot of money around the north peninsula, and a lot of it is parked in Sidney's 'dockominium.' I don't have enough money in my bank account to fill the tanks of some of these floating fibreglass palaces. Personally, I'm more drawn to the lower end of the boating scale, to boats built by their owners. Myself, I can't afford a rowboat. Such is life.</div><div>One thing I noticed when I walked out on the dock was how quiet it was. I like that.</div><div>Today is this blog's first anniversary. I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but I've enjoyed doing it. According to the stats compiled by blogger I have had 756 'hits' in the last year. Not many, but it's strangely affecting to know that people from all over the world have stopped by. I wish a few of them would take a few minutes to jot down a reply.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-36404944826330750992011-02-01T14:33:00.000-08:002011-02-01T16:01:19.078-08:00Lies and damned lies<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUiemTlELSI/AAAAAAAABNE/xGEXAlkLMH8/s1600/IMG_0068.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUiemTlELSI/AAAAAAAABNE/xGEXAlkLMH8/s320/IMG_0068.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568875320171572514" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUiel0D6JSI/AAAAAAAABM8/qGsgb6OUbzI/s1600/IMG_0072.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUiel0D6JSI/AAAAAAAABM8/qGsgb6OUbzI/s320/IMG_0072.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568875311711003938" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUiel11Vh4I/AAAAAAAABM0/A_2-6k7qok8/s1600/IMG_0073.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUiel11Vh4I/AAAAAAAABM0/A_2-6k7qok8/s320/IMG_0073.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568875312186754946" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUieltFj6lI/AAAAAAAABMs/uV_Clwo9lQQ/s1600/IMG_0077.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUieltFj6lI/AAAAAAAABMs/uV_Clwo9lQQ/s320/IMG_0077.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568875309838887506" /></a><br />For the average honest, well-intentioned citizen who takes his duties in life seriously and tries to be responsible at work and in the raising of their families, it has to be difficult to grasp this nettle: when you tune into the news, when you open the newspaper, when you read a book, chances are you are being lied to. Notice I didn't say that what you read or see is merely wrong. No. I mean you have been deliberately lied to. It is so pervasive that once the realization hits you a feeling of disorientation causes feelings of vertigo. The mind reels. It's unbelievable, you don't want to believe it. You ask yourself if everything is a lie. <div>When you think about it, there isn't very much we know about the world from our own personal knowledge so we are accustomed to obtaining knowledge beyond our own personal experience through the reports of others. This type of knowledge may be of things that happened in the past or in some corner of the globe about which we know little or about what takes place in the circles of power. Very few people have personal access to this kind of knowledge. In many parts of the world, and for most societies down through history, the flow of knowledge was deliberately restricted by the ruling powers. They didn't want the little people to know anything. They wanted people to believe what the rulers wanted them to believe.</div><div>It's only been for about two hundred years that the idea of a free press began to take hold, and only in a few places. And only in the new American republic was the idea enshrined in the foundational law of the land and deemed essential to the flourishing of the democratic institutions the founders wished to establish. </div><div>As this new-fangled idea spread (in fits and starts) it took hold mainly in countries with a European heritage, most particularly those with an Anglo-Saxon heritage. And so in Canada we like to pride ourselves on a free press. That press is free to criticize the government if it wants, unlike in Soviet Russia where the press printed what it was told to print. Why, then does that free press of ours lie to us? Don't they like being free? </div><div>Unfortunately, I can't read minds so I can't answer the last two questions. Well then, you might ask how it's possible to know the truth of a matter. That's pretty tough, but the more you know, the better chance you have of separating the truth from the dross. Secondly, you have to learn how to spot logical fallacies. Since it is now an article of faith that one should trust ones feelings above all else, logic is no longer taught in school. Feelings are important but not always reliable. When I see a big slice of chocolate cake my feelings say eat, enjoy but my logical faculty reminds me that I am already overweight and therefore I should not give in to my feelings in this case. On the other hand, if I hear of a child being abused I experience feelings of outrage. These feelings are entirely appropriate. One of the signs that you are being had by a news writer is when he makes an appeal to your feelings. Thus, when socialistically inclined politicians and propagandists wish to tighten their grip on your wallet they will invariably try to make you feel guilty about something. They do this by trotting out some poor or sick individual and using him as a prop. "This is your fault," they say, "unless you give us more money for new government program xyz.." </div><div>So here's a little test. What is the oldest Canadian social program? If you answered the Department of Indian Affairs you would be absolutely correct. How has that worked out? Well, it just so happens that I have had occasion to visit some of the Indian Reserves around Victoria, and I will tell you that I know from my own direct personal knowledge that if you want to find a slum around here, that's where you want to go. The squalor is unbelievable. And this, logic tells me, as it would any person of normal intelligence, is a direct result of government trying to do something it cannot do, of sociologists, anthropologists, and other academic types using natives to conduct their experiments on, and of opportunists spotting a chance to make a few bucks. </div><div>I cite the squalor on Indian reserves, but examples abound. Let's get this straight. Government programs don't solve poverty, they create it. They have to- in order for the bureaucrats to perpetuate themselves and continue to collect their pay checks and pensions. They depend on suffering for their livelihood. It's a system that really stinks, and if there were any real reporters in Canada it would be a well known fact.</div><div><div>But I hadn't meant to get started on the fallacy of the welfare state. I meant this to be my post on the Victoria Street Newz, but it will have to serve as a preface instead. The Street Newz is so full of garbage that I'll have to save it for later. Actually, that's the best thing about it. Unlike the mainstream media, which spins its stories in fairly sophisticated ways, always preserving a patina of respectability, the Street Newz is blatantly crude and stupid.</div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-8793236434078912112011-01-28T07:43:00.000-08:002011-01-28T09:56:02.121-08:00The Carnegie Institute<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUMBKNgfAYI/AAAAAAAABMg/IU9_mNNbS24/s1600/IMG_1742.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUMBKNgfAYI/AAAAAAAABMg/IU9_mNNbS24/s320/IMG_1742.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567294839296295298" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUMBJ7tX3NI/AAAAAAAABMY/UXl8vn9oRKM/s1600/IMG_1747.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUMBJ7tX3NI/AAAAAAAABMY/UXl8vn9oRKM/s320/IMG_1747.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567294834518514898" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUMBJZkmV_I/AAAAAAAABMQ/b7G0NhCxcMk/s1600/IMG_1748.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUMBJZkmV_I/AAAAAAAABMQ/b7G0NhCxcMk/s320/IMG_1748.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567294825354909682" /></a><br />Perhaps some of my readers think I exaggerate when I compare modern environmentalism to the murderous communist movements of the 20th century. An article in today's <i><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/carnegie_institution_study_gen.html">American Thinker</a></i> makes me realize that David Suzuki's off hand comment about reducing the world's population by half is now mainstream thinking. To that end a study has been done by the Carnegie Institution. Ah, the Carnegie Institution. Wasn't that originally financed by Andrew Carnegie with the goal of building libraries in every town in North America so that the average person could educate himself? We have one of those libraries in Victoria. It's not a library anymore, but it's a fine looking building... as are all the Carnegie libraries. Plain and functional buildings were not sufficient for Mr. Carnegie. He wanted to add beauty to them as well. Philanthropy is a word meaning love of man, and Mr. Carnegie, having spent much of his life accumulating wealth reached a certain age and decided to give it all away. He was a classic philanthropist.<div>I wonder what he would think if he knew what the charity he founded was up to at the dawn of the 21st century. Philanthropists no more, the mot juste to describe his successors is misanthropic, which means hater of mankind. You see, for environmentalists mankind is a curse on the earth, a destructive parasite. And so Genghis Khan, a spiritual ancestor of Mao, whose depredations allegedly killed forty million people, is now a hero to these environmentalists. Why? Because nobody was left to till the fields in the regions he conquered and so reforestation occurred. This was much better than the Black Death (which is estimated to have killed half the population of Europe) because the Black Death happened too quickly. There wasn't time for the rotting corpses to completely decompose and stop giving off those horrid greenhouse gases. But Genghis Khan had a long career and so the corpses had lots of time to dry out.</div><div>This is the kind of thinking that comes out of our universities these days- Stanford, in this case, headed by one Julia Pongratz. You know the nice thing about about having women free to advance in the professions is that we need their warm and nurturing presence. The good news that war and death are good for the planet has quickly spread a lot of good cheer among the environmental "community." Of course, when they contemplate mass die-offs, they only imagine them happening to us little people, not to them. They, after all, are the enlightened ones, the wise guardians of the planet.</div><div>For them, the gulags, the Holocaust, the Great Leap forward, Pol Pot's regime, were all beneficial. As for the 50,000,000 babies killed since 1973, why that's just a trifle, and corpses that small don't give off much in the way of emissions. What's not to like?</div><div>One has to wonder how a totally bogus theory of climate change came to be so enthusiastically embraced by our academics and the media types who believe in them, even to the verge of advocating for the death of large swaths of mankind. The question I ask myself is if they are environmentalists (or communists or abortionists) first and develop their murderous proclivities later, or if people who are inclined to murder are opportunists who see ready made justifications in these ideologies. </div><div>This is hard for me to understand. Everywhere I look I see beauty. I was at one time attracted to environmentalism for that reason. But while there is beauty there is also ugliness and foulness, just as there is truth and there are lies. It's really important that we learn the difference.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-16667705558330104732011-01-27T13:14:00.000-08:002011-01-27T14:45:21.422-08:00Enemies of the poor<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUH031WI08I/AAAAAAAABMI/sUFisgNZQms/s1600/IMG_1732.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUH031WI08I/AAAAAAAABMI/sUFisgNZQms/s320/IMG_1732.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566999854456558530" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUH03vl1gSI/AAAAAAAABMA/guP24PjmsWo/s1600/IMG_1737.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUH03vl1gSI/AAAAAAAABMA/guP24PjmsWo/s320/IMG_1737.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566999852911788322" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUH03KyVDBI/AAAAAAAABL4/OjuD1ALpz_s/s1600/IMG_1740.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TUH03KyVDBI/AAAAAAAABL4/OjuD1ALpz_s/s320/IMG_1740.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566999843032075282" /></a><br />When I was downtown yesterday I picked up the latest copy of <i>Victoria Street Newz</i>. It comes out every month it seems, and is distributed on street corners by sad looking examples of Victoria's unemployable underclass. The only truthful word in this rag is in the top corner next to the title: "All the news that fits, we print." That is to say, its entire content consists of material that is kneaded, chopped and stretched to fit its Marxist philosophy. The poor sots who sell this nauseating mess have no idea that they are being used, nor do they have a clue that the policies and programs advocated in the paper will make them poorer not richer. The history of the twentieth century is largely a story of the contrasting fates of countries that fall under communist rule compared with countries that embrace private property, free enterprise and individual freedom.<div>Communism isn't new. Different forms of it have been tried over the centuries by differing cultures. Medieval monasticism is a form of communism, as were many of the radical religious sects that settled in North America. Hutterite communities are quite prosperous. It seems that a religiously sanctioned code of behaviour helps ensure that everybody does his share of the work. </div><div>Marxism is a modern version of communism. It is anti-religious, claiming that religion has been an instrument used to enslave "the masses." Marxists never think in terms of actual human beings, who they despise, but of the masses, who they see as a dumb herd to be manipulated.</div><div>Russia was the first nation to have the misfortune to fall under the Marxist spell. A creaking absolutist monarchy, Russia in 1917 was nevertheless a rapidly modernizing state. Public education was improving, industrialization was progressing, and the country had become an important world power. All that was to change in the wake of the First World War. Defeats on the battlefield led to civil unrest and fledgling Marxist groups were there to take advantage of the situation by taking seizing control of the Democratic government that had overthrown the Romanov tsar. After several years of fighting, Lenin's Bolsheviks emerged as victors. One of the first things they did was to hire more police to arrest anyone who objected to the dictatorship they established. But this was just the beginning.</div><div>In 1929 Stalin, who became communist party boss after the death of Lenin, instituted collectivization on the farms of Russia and the Ukraine. What this meant was that all land owned by private individuals was taken over by the state. The farms were then reorganized along communistic principles. The results of this policy weren't long in coming. By 1933 and estimated 7,000,000 Ukrainians had died of starvation on what has been one of the world's premier grain growing regions since the days of the Greeks. Some way to fight poverty.</div><div>You would think that one such example would be enough to warn the world. But no. The next Marxist triumph took place in China. Stalin's Bolsheviks were pikers compared to Mao. </div><div>The Japanese attack on China in the '30's had disrupted its society sufficiently to make it susceptible to the new disease. After the Japanese were defeated by the U.S. in 1945 a civil war in China broke out between a number of factions. The Nationalist faction, led by Chiang Kai-Shek eventually lost to the more ruthless Marxists of Mao Tse Tung. This turned out to be one of the greatest human catastrophes of all time.</div><div>"The Great Leap Forward" was the Chinese version of collectivization in the Ukraine, but Mao's results far surpassed Stalin's. Accurate figures are hard to obtain, but well-informed estimates range from 20,000,000 to 45,000,000 dead before the program ran its course. <a href="http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.html">Mao's response?</a> "When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." It's not so much different from David Suzuki's remark that half the world's population would have to die to preserve the planet.</div><div>These facts are well known. Let me emphasize- <i><b>whenever and wherever Marxists have taken power the people's paradise of their promises turns out to be the people's hell.</b></i> Why, then, are there still so many apologists for Marxism, or the Marxism-light version we know as big government? It's easy to come up with explanations but hard to say if any of them are true. </div><div>Most people would rather not think of these things. After all, what can the average person do? I don't know for sure, but at the very least we should pay very close attention to the personalities who vie for office, and especially the frauds who put out propaganda like the Victoria Street Newz. I have never been able to decide if they are motivated by malice or if they are just stupid. If it's stupidity, then it at least has to be willful stupidity. If it's malice then we have to ask why they hate the human race. If they do hate the human race, then I can only postulate that it is themselves they hate. Howe strange. They claim to represent the interests of the poor. In fact they are the poor's worst enemies. To them the poor are nothing but tools for their agenda and are completely disposable. I'll try to parse the contents of the magazine in my next post.</div><div><br /></div><div>We have had a persistently grey and dull weather pattern here in Victoria recently so I suppose it's a good time to think about these dark things.</div><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-91932517142056886842011-01-20T09:57:00.000-08:002011-01-20T13:09:06.453-08:00Indian Spring<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTikX_efj9I/AAAAAAAABLw/LLt8cLr0J4o/s1600/IMG_1691.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTikX_efj9I/AAAAAAAABLw/LLt8cLr0J4o/s320/IMG_1691.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564378071699525586" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTikXjM3KXI/AAAAAAAABLo/3FTWvr3c8bU/s1600/IMG_1692.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTikXjM3KXI/AAAAAAAABLo/3FTWvr3c8bU/s320/IMG_1692.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564378064109382002" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTikXJ3jM3I/AAAAAAAABLg/5fsm-458zdk/s1600/IMG_1702.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTikXJ3jM3I/AAAAAAAABLg/5fsm-458zdk/s320/IMG_1702.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564378057309107058" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTijQRu58NI/AAAAAAAABLY/whXMX-UXUQ0/s1600/IMG_1724.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTijQRu58NI/AAAAAAAABLY/whXMX-UXUQ0/s320/IMG_1724.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564376839649620178" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTijQMpGA_I/AAAAAAAABLQ/I_5M6PQ0oaI/s1600/IMG_1726.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTijQMpGA_I/AAAAAAAABLQ/I_5M6PQ0oaI/s320/IMG_1726.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564376838283068402" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTijO117aWI/AAAAAAAABLI/LsPt0TkElEg/s1600/IMG_1731.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TTijO117aWI/AAAAAAAABLI/LsPt0TkElEg/s320/IMG_1731.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564376814983014754" /></a><br />Indian summer is what we call a spell of summer -like weather in the fall, so maybe you could call a spell of spring-like weather in winter Indian Spring. We haven't had a spell of it yet, only a few days sprinkled here and there between periods of rain. The rain doesn't stop Victorians from getting out, especially Victorians with dogs. Dogs don't seem to care if it rains or not, and they still have to do their business on every shrub and post so all the other dogs in the vicinity will be aware of their presence. I don't have a dog or a place to keep one if I wanted to- but I am not a dog person so it doesn't matter. My attitude to pets is that they should be semi independent as they were when I was a boy. Maybe because Edmonton was still quite countrified with horses fairly common on the streets, it didn't seem at all unseemly to see evidence of their passing along with the swarms of horseflies that were an inevitable part of the ecosystem. I don't think the latter term had been invented yet. In the winter those frozen road apples made pretty handy pucks for street hockey. It all seemed pretty normal then and dogs wandered freely. One thing that strikes me about the dogs of today, especially those pathetic little creatures most women adore, is how stupid they are around traffic. The dogs I mean.<div>Due to a minor health problem I've been hors de combat since Christmas. It's been almost a year since I started this blog. I originally wanted to assiduously follow local events and try to counteract the predominant leftward slant of most commentators. But I don't have the patience to sit through council meetings and sift through the technical literature and I don't like to focus on personalities. So the blog has taken on a will of its own, becoming more of a tribute to Victoria than anything else. Not a tribute to our local politics, which seems hopelessly idiotic, but to the piece of earth whereon all of us here live whatever our beliefs or politics. Victoria has a soul and in my view it's vastly underappreciated by its denizens. Maybe our soul as a people will grow in stature and become worthy of it as time goes by.</div><div>But these are hard times for development of culture, afflicted as we are by the curse of political correctness. There can be no true art or literature unless a public exists that is receptive to plain language and plain truth to start with. The really deep ideas and understandings that humanity has acquired over the millennia are very hard to express and without a commitment to plain, well- ordered language it is almost impossible for any communication to exist from one generation to the next. Political correctness is more than anything else the perversion of meaning in language. Examples abound. Pro Choice. What does that innocuous sounding expression mean? Does it, for instance, refer to whether someone is allowed to eat peas for supper, or wear one's tie in a bow, or to buy a Toyota instead of a Kia? No. People who describe themselves as pro choice mean that they are in favour of killing babies.</div><div>How about 'gay marriage.' Never mind that what was once a fine word has been hijacked, but the word 'marriage' has been rendered meaningless. It has never meant anything other than the joining together of a man and a woman for a lifetime partnership. In Catholic teaching it is a sacrament. It has never meant two guys screwing each other in the butt.</div><div>But more than the perversion of ordinary words, political correctness has become a weapon used to attack traditional beliefs so they could be replaced with others. Has this come about by accident, or through some esoteric process of cultural evolution? No. It is deliberate. There exists a philosophical school behind it. Called post modernism, this school imbibes many flavours of ideas, from phenomenology to existentialism, to utilitarianism and many others, but they all have one element in common. They don't believe there is such a thing as truth. Ridicule it as much as you want, the adherents of these philosophies are not deterred. The post modernists such as Derrida and Foucault carried things to certain illogical conclusions. If there is no truth, and every belief is false, why then how does one decide who is right and who is wrong? Simple. The person with the most power gets to decide. And what does it matter how you get power, since all is deception anyway? So lying, perverting the language, violence are all perfectly legitimate means of getting on top. Before the 1950's these philosophies were the province of a small coterie of wing ding academics unknown to anyone but themselves, but gradually they began to insert themselves into the public debating square. Under no compunction to play the game fairly, they used any methods to infiltrate universities and the media. It all came to fruition in the '60's when they managed to whip up students whose brains had been softened by the ingestion of drugs and whose morals had been corrupted by the elevation of the pleasure principle to cult status and set them loose to riot and kill in the name of free speech and freedom. Those rioters pretty well took over campuses everywhere and have turned them into indoctrination centres.</div><div>At every turn they have used the perversion of language known as political correctness as one of their most effective weapons to destroy as much as possible the great heritage we are all entitled to, which one calls Western Civilization for want of a better term.</div><div>They are old now, these campus radicals from the '60's, and growing stiff in the joints and getting senile. They thought they had killed the American experiment in freedom and individual liberty. And now look what happens. One woman, from Alaska, a mother, a huntress, a lover of home, hearth and family, pops up from nowhere. She hasn't killed her babies. She loves her husband. She loves her country. She is smart. Worst of all, she is (gasp) sane. And she connects with the people... not because she calculates how to put on a pose, but because she is one of us.</div><div>Boy, do they hate her, as the outpouring of venom over the last few weeks has proved. I'm speaking of the aftermath of the shooting in Arizona, of course. It is the most sustained and intense attempt to promote a lie, a vicious lie, that I have ever seen. Like a tangle of hissing snakes they spit and hiss, but she is not afraid. They are.</div><div>Maybe the left wing winter is on the wane, though the winds still blow viciously. But here and there are signs of spring. A rainbow, a cherry blossom, a patch of snowdrops. For some reason this is how life on earth works. There is darkness and there is light. They alternate, but somehow in the end life triumphs over death.</div><div> </div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-12644971717410120492011-01-01T12:56:00.000-08:002011-01-01T14:39:35.055-08:00New Years Day at Ogden Pt<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-cv37UdtI/AAAAAAAABK8/ozHLoNzFPDY/s1600/IMG_1650.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 222px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-cv37UdtI/AAAAAAAABK8/ozHLoNzFPDY/s320/IMG_1650.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557332811479021266" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-cvsvpaTI/AAAAAAAABK0/YP85BybTpbA/s1600/IMG_1658.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 221px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-cvsvpaTI/AAAAAAAABK0/YP85BybTpbA/s320/IMG_1658.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557332808477272370" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-cvdgq3-I/AAAAAAAABKs/8BM7ewnqZDI/s1600/IMG_1660.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-cvdgq3-I/AAAAAAAABKs/8BM7ewnqZDI/s320/IMG_1660.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557332804387921890" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-bqSPG-SI/AAAAAAAABKk/kadzSs_coZI/s1600/IMG_1665.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-bqSPG-SI/AAAAAAAABKk/kadzSs_coZI/s320/IMG_1665.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557331615950502178" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-bqFSCkYI/AAAAAAAABKc/z5YKUSGxf-k/s1600/IMG_1675.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-bqFSCkYI/AAAAAAAABKc/z5YKUSGxf-k/s320/IMG_1675.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557331612473135490" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-bpuFsRSI/AAAAAAAABKU/RjTSai0p-dw/s1600/IMG_1681.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-bpuFsRSI/AAAAAAAABKU/RjTSai0p-dw/s320/IMG_1681.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557331606247327010" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-agAZYwTI/AAAAAAAABKM/MQpAIzusNT0/s1600/IMG_1683.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-agAZYwTI/AAAAAAAABKM/MQpAIzusNT0/s320/IMG_1683.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557330339851452722" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-af7L8D4I/AAAAAAAABKE/XpFmCpU2xwM/s1600/IMG_1687.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 253px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TR-af7L8D4I/AAAAAAAABKE/XpFmCpU2xwM/s320/IMG_1687.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557330338452868994" /></a><br />There was plenty of frost on the punkin this morning, so much that the seagulls were a little puzzled as to why they were able to walk on the Dallas Road pond. Fortified with a cup of strong coffee, I was on my way for a walk on the breakwater at Ogden Point, just like last year.<div>It's barely a week since the sun started back up north, but already the light is noticeably brighter and stronger. One thing about one of these clear winter days in Victoria is the clarity and luminosity of the air. I guess that's two things. Colours are more vivid and striking than in the summer. The mountains seem closer and more imposing.</div><div>I missed the New Year's Eve festivities. Let me rephrase that. I did not miss them at all. It's been a long, long, time since I got any sort of thrill from the occasion. Another year gone by? I'd rather not think about it. And then, how about that traditional monumental New Year's Day hangover? Did I open my eyes this morning and wax nostalgic for the days when I would wake up with a pounding skull and a mouthful of rat droppings? Strangely enough, no. I was more concerned about whether that kidney stone had budged yet. In fact all day yesterday I had to remind myself that it was a special day, the last one of 2010. And around 11pm I forgot about it altogether and went to bed. </div><div>Another venerable New Year's tradition- aside from empty promises to lose weight- is to look back on the past year with a baleful eye, now wise with hindsight. Then the wise man's brow furrows as he scans the horizon. What will the next year bring? What calamity? What human folly? What great deed? What new trend? But as the years drop away, the main thing I think about is if I will be around for the next one. So I'd better do my best to enjoy this one.</div><div>Which reminds me of Sarah Palin. I watched a few episodes of her reality show last night, and what impresses me most about her is the unabashed love she displays for her state and country and the people who live there. It's not an abstract, at-a-distance type of love that many politicians pretend to have when they make speeches, or a pose crafted at a focus group. This is her. This is the real person. It's so long since we've seen such a person many of us don't know what to think. Many are suspicious, and don't really believe her. Could that be because her critics have never loved the places where they themselves have lived? Many of them seem to think such a feeling is a sign of unsophistication, of naivete, a feeling that only stupid people have. Maybe that's why they think she's stupid. They know its not true. She has been a mayor of a town, and then went on to become the governor of a state. The area of Alaska is 591,000 square good old miles, which just happens to be almost exactly the same as the areas of France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and England combined. She is a Republican who took on an entrenched, and corrupt, Republican governor and in short order had those Augean stables spic and span. She then became a candidate for vice president in the last American federal election and was so effective that the Republican establishment quickly turned against her. It quickly became obvious that the Republican presidential candidate was not in her league. They thought they had brought a pretty face into the game, but it turned out they had a mama grizzly instead. It wasn't what they had planned. </div><div>Here then is my prediction for next year: whatever happens, Sarah Palin will be right in the middle of the action. She will turn the tables on the media. Already the public is turning against the media and the Big Hollywood image factory. They have been working overtime all last year throwing merde at her image, but this coming year they will find it has boomeranged, and they will be the ones buried in their own excrement.</div><div>Love of family, love of country, these are values the media, the social welfare agencies and the educational establishment have been trying to extirpate since the sixties. In Sarah Palin, the world finally has a someone who sees through the whole charade. Let's go, Sarah.</div><div>It looks like it will be a good year.</div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-48100468505049790492010-12-29T16:27:00.000-08:002010-12-29T17:35:06.441-08:00Snow from afar<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvYxmv85dI/AAAAAAAABJ8/ZIKDC3YBsQQ/s1600/IMG_1645.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvYxmv85dI/AAAAAAAABJ8/ZIKDC3YBsQQ/s320/IMG_1645.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556272912018499026" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvYxJULX1I/AAAAAAAABJ0/Yx3F0ALmHc8/s1600/IMG_1639.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvYxJULX1I/AAAAAAAABJ0/Yx3F0ALmHc8/s320/IMG_1639.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556272904117378898" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvX4kpz3DI/AAAAAAAABJs/B9rzn879XH8/s1600/IMG_1648.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvX4kpz3DI/AAAAAAAABJs/B9rzn879XH8/s320/IMG_1648.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556271932203326514" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvX4O6_kcI/AAAAAAAABJk/FPZMbX9HGnk/s1600/IMG_1638.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvX4O6_kcI/AAAAAAAABJk/FPZMbX9HGnk/s320/IMG_1638.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556271926369817026" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvXD8Iw-VI/AAAAAAAABJc/DYs8Mr7t-sA/s1600/IMG_1647.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvXD8Iw-VI/AAAAAAAABJc/DYs8Mr7t-sA/s320/IMG_1647.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556271027974109522" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvXDcxgfcI/AAAAAAAABJU/bRsIRyVGRes/s1600/IMG_0038.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRvXDcxgfcI/AAAAAAAABJU/bRsIRyVGRes/s320/IMG_0038.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556271019555061186" /></a><br />The daffodils may not be blooming yet, but compared to what most of the rest of the northern hemisphere is going through, it's springtime in Victoria. I should not be smug, though. Winter has just begun and anything can happen. In fact, I'm a little afraid we have entered into a new mini ice age, like the one that wiped out the Viking colonies in Greenland. It's hard to believe that anyone ever fell for that global warming gag. If only it were so! If the world were in a warming phase it would be a much better place to live. Warmer air would hold more moisture, bringing rain to dry areas. Since hurricanes and other violent storms are caused by sharp contrasts in temperatures of air masses as they come into contact, they might be less frequent and not so devastating. More greenhouse gases? Of course. Plants love carbon dioxide. If we had more of it in the air, plants would grow in more abundance. Alas, I doubt if such a thing will happen. We are still in an ice age that's been going on for an estimated 10 million years and there is nothing to indicate that it is over. It's just in remission and it will come back. Those might be the kind of interesting times I would prefer to miss.<div>We've had no recent snow in Victoria, not even in the Sooke Hills or on Mt Douglas. So when I looked around from King George Terrace Rd, I was surprised to see a hillside across the water covered with snow. As nearly as I can figure out on my inadequate maps, it can only be the west shore of San Juan Island on the US side of things. How they got it and we didn't goes beyond my meagre knowledge of meteorology.</div><div>I will say this about snow. It's nice to look at from afar, from a safe distance, not requiring heroic and perilous driving feats to view. Vancouver Island's main ski hill is at Mt Washington near Courtenay and apparently they have record amounts, to the delight of those who enjoy sliding around on the stuff. In fact, they say it has the most snow at middle elevations of any other ski hill in the world. I don't know exactly what that means, but up yours, Whistler. </div><div>As for me, when "the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful..." <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7LW0Y00kE">Listen</a> to Dean Martin supply the tune. But my favourite winter song is <i>Baby It's Cold Out There</i>, and nobody did it better than <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTNheCEUP_A">Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting</a>.</div><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-72478130491940626152010-12-21T11:20:00.000-08:002010-12-21T16:04:23.084-08:00A Christmas Greeting<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3hLcB4hI/AAAAAAAABJI/lnaz4poHttg/s1600/img159.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 194px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3hLcB4hI/AAAAAAAABJI/lnaz4poHttg/s320/img159.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553280858670096914" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3hBmCX5I/AAAAAAAABJA/Pur60d1njlI/s1600/IMG_1568.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3hBmCX5I/AAAAAAAABJA/Pur60d1njlI/s320/IMG_1568.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553280856027717522" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3EWtJaDI/AAAAAAAABI4/j6XgYFwW3fU/s1600/IMG_1576.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3EWtJaDI/AAAAAAAABI4/j6XgYFwW3fU/s320/IMG_1576.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553280363478476850" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3DyND3iI/AAAAAAAABIw/cgythu0RusI/s1600/IMG_1578.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE3DyND3iI/AAAAAAAABIw/cgythu0RusI/s320/IMG_1578.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553280353680219682" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE2TjC_4zI/AAAAAAAABIo/QZ5z7-QI2SQ/s1600/IMG_1582.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE2TjC_4zI/AAAAAAAABIo/QZ5z7-QI2SQ/s320/IMG_1582.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553279524977763122" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE2TQeJqmI/AAAAAAAABIg/O6_tusg01ws/s1600/IMG_1584.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TRE2TQeJqmI/AAAAAAAABIg/O6_tusg01ws/s320/IMG_1584.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553279519991376482" /></a><br /><div>Solstice- from Latin, sun+stopped, ie, the day the sun stops</div>Today is the first day of winter- which means the earth is positioned where the suns rays are perpendicular to the tropic of cancer. After today the earth will gradually tilt the other way so that the sun's rays begin to creep northward again. This was a big day in Neolithic Europe if the theories concerning Stonehenge and numerous other monuments are correct and they were constructed to be giant calculator/observatories to pinpoint the exact times when the seasons changed. They were the pinnacle of Neolithic lore, representing an acute knowledge of the movements of the stars, possibly even of the precession of the equinoxes. Constructed by people living four or five thousand years ago of wood and massive carved stones, they are as old as the pyramids. It's possible that traditional European fairy tales contain faint echoes of those distant times. Theories abound about the meaning of these traces. <div>In a collection of Welsh tales called the <i>Mabinogion</i>, is the <i>Song of Rhiannon</i>, wherein King Pwyll decides to sit on a magic hill one night. He sees a beautiful woman riding slowly by and sends one of his servants to catch up to her and ask her to stop. But no matter how fast the servant rides he cannot catch up to the woman. The next night another servant on a faster horse tries again, with the same result. Eventually, the King rides after her himself on his fastest horse. But as fast as he rides he keeps falling further and further behind, until at last he calls after her to wait. And then she stops. Of course, he falls in love with her, and goes with her to rule her realm. A few years later, he decides to go home, but when he arrives all the people he used to know are either dead or very old. If I remember right, that's how it goes.</div><div>Folklorists speculate that in the original version the king was sacrificed, his soul going to the underworld. The solstices were especially propitious because the underworld and our world were closer together than at other times of the year. But who knows for sure?</div><div>Some with fertile imaginations jump to the conclusion that because Christmas is close to the solstice, and that Christ was sacrificed on a tree near the other solstice, that our Christian tradition was just a newer version of an older, pagan mythology. I don't really believe that. There is much that is beautiful in the various pagan traditions, but Christianity was a complete break from the past.</div><div>Still, I can understand how someone could be enraptured by Celtic and pre-Celtic mythology. I visited Stonehenge once, and it is a decidedly spooky place, just as spooky as the unearthly beauty of Celtic poetry. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>There comes a host across the clear sea, to the land they display their rowing. Then they row to the bright stone from which a hundred songs arise, </i></div><div><i>Through the long ages it sings to the host a melody which is not sad. The music swells up in choruses of hundreds, they do not expect decay or death.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>This otherworldly character persisted into the Christian era.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><i> Delighted I think I might be in the bosom of an isle, on the peak of a rock, that I might often see there the calm of the sea.</i></div><div><i> That I might see its heavy waves over the glittering ocean, as they chant a melody to their Father on their eternal course...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Rather than viewing the living world as an endlessly repeating cycle, Christianity teaches that there has been, and will be, only one creation, a creation which will play itself out in a culminating event at the end of history. Christ came to show those who were willing to listen how to keep from having their souls destroyed when time comes to an end. The feast of Christmas commemorates Christ's entry into the world, and focuses on the miracle of birth- not just his birth, but everyones's birth. Coming to be is a miracle to be celebrated, and the goal of a life is to be worthy of attaining an eternal life of bliss. I have yet to encounter any other religion with teachings remotely like this. I have read extensively about old mythologies at an earlier stage of my life, and when I came around to look again at the Catholic teachings of my youth I was very surprised to discover how unique and unlike paganism Christian beliefs are. I'm a little sorry that I wasn't taught in Catechism about those older beliefs. If I had been I might have been less inclined to be impressed by their novelty. What is the truth? It's for each of us to decide, but according to the Church, there are serious consequences for deciding wrong.</div><div>In our age it's especially important to celebrate a day that makes birth and childhood sacred. It's such an ordinary thing for a child to be born that it's easy to forget that nothing could be more miraculous. And in the dark cold days of winter, that's something worth remembering. It's in the winter that the year dies, but also it's after the solstice that the sun begins to resurrect itself. Spring, and new life, is on its way.</div><div>My favourite Christmas poem was written by Thomas Hardy. It may be a little corny but I don't care. It's called <i>The Oxen</i>.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Christmas eve, and twelve of the clock.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> 'Now they are all on their knees,'</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>An elder said as we sat in a flock</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> By the embers in hearthside ease.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>We pictured the meek mild creatures where</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> They dwelt in their strawy pen,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Nor did it occur to one of us there</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> To doubt they were kneeling then.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>So fair a fancy few would weave</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> In these years! Yet, I feel,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>If someone said on Christmas Eve,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> 'Come, see the oxen kneel</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>'In the lonely barton by yonder coomb</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> Our childhood used to know,'</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I should go with him in the gloom,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> Hoping it might be so.</div><div><br /></div><div>The tide was high when I went by Clover Point today and the wind was driving the waves against the breakwaters and berms. Not as spectacular as during a real storm, it is nevertheless always impressive to feel the weight of the Pacific Ocean pounding the beach. Even at noon the sun is not far above the horizon and its light feels weak and pale, but it's all the more beautiful for all that.</div><div>May we all be blessed on Christmas and throughout the New Year.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /><div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-34713155376720037882010-12-06T11:08:00.000-08:002010-12-06T11:39:57.006-08:00December Blues<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP04aHnPSaI/AAAAAAAABIY/OaO-8SUT_No/s1600/IMG_1502.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 222px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP04aHnPSaI/AAAAAAAABIY/OaO-8SUT_No/s320/IMG_1502.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547652337361701282" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP04ZhF8TcI/AAAAAAAABIQ/IwTuYw8OlZA/s1600/IMG_1504.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP04ZhF8TcI/AAAAAAAABIQ/IwTuYw8OlZA/s320/IMG_1504.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547652327021497794" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03x1kqklI/AAAAAAAABII/3C6PdhEqBAQ/s1600/IMG_1505.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03x1kqklI/AAAAAAAABII/3C6PdhEqBAQ/s320/IMG_1505.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547651645324300882" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03xCKbv1I/AAAAAAAABIA/e2jB93RXB34/s1600/IMG_1507.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03xCKbv1I/AAAAAAAABIA/e2jB93RXB34/s320/IMG_1507.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547651631524069202" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03MMq8B4I/AAAAAAAABH4/ShdVDpt78Gs/s1600/IMG_1508.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 222px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03MMq8B4I/AAAAAAAABH4/ShdVDpt78Gs/s320/IMG_1508.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547650998689597314" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03LoG8cBI/AAAAAAAABHw/A9U5Jj3StwA/s1600/IMG_1523.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TP03LoG8cBI/AAAAAAAABHw/A9U5Jj3StwA/s320/IMG_1523.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547650988874952722" /></a><br /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">It's getting close to Christmas, not my favourite time of the year. Too many painful reminders of my wasted youth. Too dark. Cold. A time to endure until the days get longer again. At the same time, those gloomy reminders are a necessary spur to think things over yet again. I whole heartedly agree when somebody once said, that without music life would be a sad mistake.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Accordingly, I encourage anybody reading this to click here and watch the video. Often I feel pity for anyone who grew up during the age of rock and roll. They may never have heard real music. This is a true deprivation, a malnutrition of the soul, and perhaps worse than the more easily measured malnutrition of the body.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">A 'flash mob' is a fairly recent invention, made possible by instant messaging and cell phones. A flash mob is a group of people who spontaneously arrange to gather someplace, say a subway station, a street corner, or any well-populated public space and put on a show of some kind. Naturally, considering the age we live in, the show is of an obscene or outrageous nature. Strange outfits, nudity, shocking antics are the usual fare. No strange outfits on display with this flash mob. Just an assortment of normal looking people. Young, old, in between, male and female, but refreshingly wholesome and smiling. It takes place in a public location, a food court in a mall. The camera surveys the scene, Arbys and other outfits in the background, parents and children having a bite to eat. Suddenly an attractive young woman stands up and starts to sing. She has a fine, clear voice, and the opening bars of the Halleluja chorus ring out. Soon she is joined by another singer in another part of the room, then another, and another, and at last a whole choir is giving voice. Oh, if only such a thing would happen in Victoria… although all those references to God and Jesus might lead to their arrest for disturbing the peace. Click <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE">here</a> to see it.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">What I like best about it, though, is not so much the singing as the astonished expressions on the faces of the young children who had the good fortune to be there. Rapturous would not be too strong a word to describe some of the faces. It may have been the first time in their lives that they heard real music. Hopefully, like an inoculation, it might give them some protection from the ravages of our pervasive pop culture, the which is a disease of the soul that has sucked away the lifeblood of our culture.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This is Victoria, so even in the winter not every day is gloomy, and when the clouds go away the air is brilliantly clear in a way that it never is in summer. When the warm weather is here there is always a haze, often only noticeable because it's hard to see the mountains. On a clear winter day they always seem closer and more vividly real.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><br /></p>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-65411546424569785842010-11-22T13:17:00.000-08:002010-11-22T13:35:09.451-08:00Snow in Victoria<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOriBP9-E5I/AAAAAAAABHo/aeM_PA_uoQE/s1600/IMG_1461.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOriBP9-E5I/AAAAAAAABHo/aeM_PA_uoQE/s320/IMG_1461.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542490802527015826" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOriAvOUMfI/AAAAAAAABHg/UWQv2Q5dIi8/s1600/IMG_1462.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOriAvOUMfI/AAAAAAAABHg/UWQv2Q5dIi8/s320/IMG_1462.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542490793737204210" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrhPjK_VTI/AAAAAAAABHY/R5XNpEFMW5o/s1600/IMG_1465.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrhPjK_VTI/AAAAAAAABHY/R5XNpEFMW5o/s320/IMG_1465.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542489948688438578" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrhO9OJ5LI/AAAAAAAABHQ/8tJdUUm5wsg/s1600/IMG_1466.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrhO9OJ5LI/AAAAAAAABHQ/8tJdUUm5wsg/s320/IMG_1466.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542489938501166258" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrgrAmKk2I/AAAAAAAABHI/oBB8dQGQEoM/s1600/IMG_1467.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrgrAmKk2I/AAAAAAAABHI/oBB8dQGQEoM/s320/IMG_1467.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542489320931890018" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrgq7HtXJI/AAAAAAAABHA/ddf79Y_PjwE/s1600/IMG_1468.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrgq7HtXJI/AAAAAAAABHA/ddf79Y_PjwE/s320/IMG_1468.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542489319461969042" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrf-I79jnI/AAAAAAAABG4/frYdwouvBJM/s1600/IMG_1469.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrf-I79jnI/AAAAAAAABG4/frYdwouvBJM/s320/IMG_1469.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542488550076681842" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrf9fGMw5I/AAAAAAAABGw/n7xAeFog4_A/s1600/IMG_1476.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOrf9fGMw5I/AAAAAAAABGw/n7xAeFog4_A/s320/IMG_1476.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542488538845332370" /></a><br /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Victoria is in crisis today, a crisis of whiteness. Paralysis may ensue, depending on how long it lasts, on how deeply it blankets us. I well remember the snowfall that fell between Christmas of '96 and New Years… all five feet of it. It snowed starting on a Thursday night and continued without let up until Saturday. And on Saturday night it redoubled, going from knee deep to chest deep by the next morning. Then it stopped. The landscape was unbelievable, strangely, awesomely beautiful. And hushed. Nothing moved. You would have to go back a century to hear such an absence of sound in Victoria. You would have to be a century old to remember the last time it snowed that much in Victoria. Ever since then whenever the snow falls heavily as it does right now, I think of that year.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">There has been some discussion in the blogosphere about a phenomenon known as the Maunder Minimum. In brief, it's a term for a certain phase of sunspot cycles. Sunspots grow and diminish according to a regular series of cycles, and there is strong evidence that these variations correlate with variations in the earth's climate. When there are a lot of sunspots the earth's climate is relatively warm. The Maunder Minimum, meaning a period of little or no sunspot activity, occurs every few centuries and is strongly associated with drastic cooling of the earth's climate. The last time it happened Europe and Britain suffered from widespread crop failures. During the winter of 1779-1780 the Hudson River was frozen solid for five weeks. Severely cold winters alternated with short, cool summers. We may have entered a Maunder Minimum. You can find the details <a href="http://paradigmsanddemographics.blogspot.com/2009/04/there-are-two-paths-ahead-each-marked.html">here</a>.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I think it would be a fair bet that very few have heard of this potential scenario. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. But if it transpires the public might be forgiven for being extremely angry at the politicians and con artists who have been peddling the global warming nonsense. They might wonder why we haven't been exploring for more energy sources, and what 's worse have actively forbidden it. </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">As there is not much I can do anything about it except enjoy a white chocolate mocha by the fire.</p><div><br /></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-54390110298968541102010-11-20T12:20:00.000-08:002010-11-20T13:25:04.361-08:00Victoria election day<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg8lFq96mI/AAAAAAAABGo/nzx4qtZ6hvw/s1600/IMG_1457.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg8lFq96mI/AAAAAAAABGo/nzx4qtZ6hvw/s320/IMG_1457.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541745949354617442" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg8kwiUYDI/AAAAAAAABGg/lYolLws09i8/s1600/IMG_1456.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg8kwiUYDI/AAAAAAAABGg/lYolLws09i8/s320/IMG_1456.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541745943681196082" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg7y0sQ-BI/AAAAAAAABGY/J_C0373oJ9w/s1600/IMG_1447.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg7y0sQ-BI/AAAAAAAABGY/J_C0373oJ9w/s320/IMG_1447.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541745085803198482" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg7ycBgcfI/AAAAAAAABGQ/BGgUdXVkC58/s1600/IMG_1451.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg7ycBgcfI/AAAAAAAABGQ/BGgUdXVkC58/s320/IMG_1451.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541745079181406706" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg6bwk3jGI/AAAAAAAABGI/GdGV4Ot0Bl0/s1600/IMG_1453.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 229px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg6bwk3jGI/AAAAAAAABGI/GdGV4Ot0Bl0/s320/IMG_1453.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541743590049811554" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg6bttdXmI/AAAAAAAABGA/SQnGP4jg6YI/s1600/New%2BJohnson%2BStreet%2BBridge.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TOg6bttdXmI/AAAAAAAABGA/SQnGP4jg6YI/s320/New%2BJohnson%2BStreet%2BBridge.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541743589280538210" /></a><br />It's an election day today in Victoria. One council seat is open and that was combined with a referendum on whether or not to build a new Johnson Street bridge. I have done my duty, although I confess that I wasn't sufficiently diligent to really know the details of what was at stake. I'll have to do better next time. I have been asking the other residents of my building whether they planned on voting, and I'm sorry to say most of them had no interest at all. I think many of them feel rather helpless and fatalistic. What good does my little vote do, since they are going to do what they want anyway? Well, OK, if that's the way you feel about it then you have no cause to complain when something happens that you don't like. But then it is a fact that it's easier to find out what's going on in Afghanistan than in the local political scene. Maybe that's why it's so easy for total idiots to get on the local ballot. It only takes 100 bucks in Victoria and you can be on it. Maybe I'll try it next time. But no. My idea of hell would be a series of meetings stretching into eternity. I'm pretty sure I would prefer hellfire.<div>I'm a little embarrassed to say that I only spent about an hour researching the candidates. However, it didn't take long to figure out that at least six of the eleven contenders were certifiable morons. </div><div>Of the remainder, only one stood out as opposing the insanity of needle exchanges and she got my vote. And the bridge? It doesn't take an expert to see that the present bridge is inadequate for Victoria's future needs. To those who extoll its heritage value, I say fine. I like it too. It's a pretty bridge. But I hated riding my bike across it. Let's sell it to a bridge museum. Or maybe there's a smaller city along the coast that would like to buy it. But as a useful facility in Victoria its day is done. The next thing to think about is what bridge. There are those who say that the proposed bridge is too expensive and worse, that it's an unproven design. I am a little leery about the design, but it does address many of the deficiencies of the present structure. Access for pedestrians and cyclists will be much improved and that silly little blind curve will be eliminated. I guess it will take a little while to pay it off, but at least those future generations will have something useful and lasting. I decided to trust the city engineers and hope the politicians aren't screwing it up.</div><div>The polling place I went to is in Cook Street village. I was glad to see that it was quite busy.</div><div>Our first snow of the season blew into town last night but only in the hills has it stayed. That's a good place for it.<br /><div><br /></div></div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-13632461739074735942010-11-13T09:42:00.000-08:002010-11-14T10:45:38.651-08:00Vic West and the E&N rail line<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7zWQOuznI/AAAAAAAABFw/DCMsqiG5i5g/s1600/IMG_1409.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7zWQOuznI/AAAAAAAABFw/DCMsqiG5i5g/s320/IMG_1409.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539132155351715442" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7zI6DibUI/AAAAAAAABFo/QvkugudfCeQ/s1600/IMG_1359.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7zI6DibUI/AAAAAAAABFo/QvkugudfCeQ/s320/IMG_1359.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539131926060887362" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7ysclei9I/AAAAAAAABFg/xNEwBM0rV7w/s1600/IMG_1361.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7ysclei9I/AAAAAAAABFg/xNEwBM0rV7w/s320/IMG_1361.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539131437113838546" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yrjDPYeI/AAAAAAAABFY/ajIcZZ3E_Rg/s1600/IMG_1375.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yrjDPYeI/AAAAAAAABFY/ajIcZZ3E_Rg/s320/IMG_1375.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539131421669417442" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yHR9m3DI/AAAAAAAABFQ/CQKFaoUikSQ/s1600/IMG_1381.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yHR9m3DI/AAAAAAAABFQ/CQKFaoUikSQ/s320/IMG_1381.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539130798607096882" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yGfabU4I/AAAAAAAABFI/fRh-3aud2Mw/s1600/IMG_1387.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yGfabU4I/AAAAAAAABFI/fRh-3aud2Mw/s320/IMG_1387.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539130785037767554" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yFmhZIVI/AAAAAAAABFA/_I9fSRZiLm8/s1600/IMG_1423.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7yFmhZIVI/AAAAAAAABFA/_I9fSRZiLm8/s320/IMG_1423.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539130769766162770" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7xC9b1bEI/AAAAAAAABE4/FOLrk-KuCUQ/s1600/IMG_1427.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7xC9b1bEI/AAAAAAAABE4/FOLrk-KuCUQ/s320/IMG_1427.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539129624865631298" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7xCJ_hYVI/AAAAAAAABEw/lXag_pV7_Xg/s1600/IMG_1430.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7xCJ_hYVI/AAAAAAAABEw/lXag_pV7_Xg/s320/IMG_1430.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539129611056669010" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7xBp_o0JI/AAAAAAAABEo/BetWN2_ezKI/s1600/IMG_1418.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TN7xBp_o0JI/AAAAAAAABEo/BetWN2_ezKI/s320/IMG_1418.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539129602467221650" /></a><br />I was thinking this morning that there's a fair to middling chance that I am taking more pictures of Victoria than anyone else currently. I don't think of myself as a "photographer," and I make no claims as to the merits of the pictures, I just like taking them. Like an alcoholic I can't stop. This morning, for instance, all I wanted to do was get a few up close shots of the E&N Dayliner trundling through the rail yards I had photographed the day before. This morning was cold and very damp with a heavy mist. and I was going to just take one picture and then get back inside. Then there was one more, and then another, until fifty pictures later I was almost in Esquimalt. Even in the dampness Victoria's face is as lovely as ever, as if she is just come out of the bath. The moss-covered rocks jutting from the sea, fissured and abraded, give off a subdued but vivid glow. Victoria is named after a queen, and men know how it is with a beloved woman. If you don't love her in her changing moods you don't love her at all. <div>Vic West is not very big. You can walk from one shore to another at its widest point in twenty minutes. And yet in that twenty minute trudge, you will traverse areas of million dollar condos, run-down industrial areas, narrow jumbled up streets, social housing, and small bungalows from the early years of the last century. Through it all winds the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway.</div><div>Not much is left of this relic of days gone by. Once, and not that long ago, the whole foreshore of Vic West was covered with rail yards. It must have been a sight, rows on rows of steaming locomotives amidst the reek of burning coal. That was before our industrial base started moving to Asia. Now all that's left of those days are these semi-derelict brick structures in a setting of weeds and rusty rails. But the Dayliner still wends its way up the Island to Courtenay every day- at least when it doesn't break down. I have yet to take that trip. If I'm going to do it it will have to be soon, before the money-losing operation is cancelled.</div><div>There's lots of talk about modernizing it and turning it into a commuter service. It sounds like a good idea, but experience all over the continent indicates that the costs of such rail schemes are always underestimated while ridership is always overestimated. I have lived along this line most of the time I have been on Vancouver Island going back to the '70's and I can tell you that the tracks and crossings are in very bad shape. It doesn't take an expert to see that trains capable of higher speeds would necessitate a complete rebuild of the entire route. I would like to see a convenient and inexpensive travel and commuter option. I would love to hear the chuffing of a steam train carrying visitors back and forth every day. But one has to look at costs and weigh them against the benefits. I will say this. People who think that a commuter train from Langford would reduce the traffic on Highway 1 are seriously deluded.</div><div>And then there is the curious fact that the same kind of people who advocate big projects like these are the same people who object to projects that would bring in more taxes to help pay for them. As for example, the proposed megayacht basin in Vic West. This project would bring money into the city in the form of taxes, and tourist spending from visitors with very deep pockets, who might want to resupply here or put in for repairs or maintenance. Recently our Mayor Fortin remarked that we just did not have enough of a tax base to pay for all the services Victorians demand. And yet he has no trouble turning up his nose at an addition to our tax base, and an addition to our economic base. </div><div>I'm not saying I'm for it, but if I understand right, the developer jumped through every hoop required of him. The zoning was in place, all the environmental considerations were met. It was ready to go. Lots of construction jobs would come on stream at a time of a building lull in the city. Contractors would make money. The city would have more money to spend on services. Where is the downside? Well, you might say that the megayachts are ugly, and I would agree. Those acres of white fibreglass leave me cold. I would much prefer to look at the homebuilt liveaboard I posted recently. It has a certain homely charm. I have always detested tasteless ostentation- those ugly megacondos that line the shore, for instance. </div><div>But the developer did follow all the laws and regulations, didn't he? Did he not in good faith spend large amounts of cash complying with those rules and regulations? What legal or moral grounds does the city have to refuse to allow him to build? Is there some suspicion that tons of illicit drugs are going to be smuggled in? What are laws for? Are they just put into books for their looks? Are they not to be taken seriously? Are they to be changed- retroactively- when the outcome doesn't suit us? If that's the case then we live in a lawless society. And, word gets around. Investors who are hurt by the capricious behaviour of city officials will tell their friends. "If I were you I wouldn't put any money in that city. Beautiful place, but it's run like a third world country."</div><div>Plans to turn the ancient E&N line into a brand new spiffy commuter rail may be deferred to an indefinite future date, but crews are already at work building a cycling and pedestrian route along side of the tracks. I do like these things even though I don't bike anymore, but I will mention one problem that is never properly addressed when facilities like this are planned, and that is law enforcement and safety. I can tell you from personal observation that parts of the existing Galloping Goose trail are already being well used by drug traffickers and hookers. We can't forget that there are bad people in the world and that bad people are not necessarily stupid. They can spot a new opportunity as well as anyone. I don't doubt that a dedicated trail patrol should be included in the plans for these types of facilities. Victorians rightly love their trails and walkways. We have lots of swimming pools, playing fields, skating arenas, but many of us just like to be out of doors enjoying Victoria. I think it's a pretty good use of our tax dollars. We just have to remember where those dollars come from, and we have to remember that once built it will have to be maintained and policed.</div>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-354962341813834618.post-77211407719757099522010-11-07T12:57:00.000-08:002010-11-07T13:18:40.162-08:00Seasons<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcXCaVH1CI/AAAAAAAABEg/Ac45VVG-vJY/s1600/IMG_1292.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcXCaVH1CI/AAAAAAAABEg/Ac45VVG-vJY/s320/IMG_1292.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536919597070406690" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWir4KwoI/AAAAAAAABEY/jeu_Wr23MW8/s1600/IMG_1274.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWir4KwoI/AAAAAAAABEY/jeu_Wr23MW8/s320/IMG_1274.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536919052024988290" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWiEq99GI/AAAAAAAABEQ/4haYlzD9P8U/s1600/IMG_1275.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWiEq99GI/AAAAAAAABEQ/4haYlzD9P8U/s320/IMG_1275.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536919041500640354" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWF8wk1AI/AAAAAAAABEI/6TZ5mS2YI94/s1600/IMG_1306.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWF8wk1AI/AAAAAAAABEI/6TZ5mS2YI94/s320/IMG_1306.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536918558340338690" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWFou2fPI/AAAAAAAABEA/hI1d1uDWoWg/s1600/IMG_1293.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcWFou2fPI/AAAAAAAABEA/hI1d1uDWoWg/s320/IMG_1293.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536918552964398322" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcVW5BBUuI/AAAAAAAABD4/_UhYEklxAbE/s1600/IMG_1288.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcVW5BBUuI/AAAAAAAABD4/_UhYEklxAbE/s320/IMG_1288.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536917749881721570" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcVWYA0ORI/AAAAAAAABDw/_yKWWLuKJ94/s1600/IMG_1286.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcVWYA0ORI/AAAAAAAABDw/_yKWWLuKJ94/s320/IMG_1286.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536917741022492946" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcVWHoO68I/AAAAAAAABDo/M6f3kS_rmRU/s1600/IMG_1282.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aqn1dqX0lMk/TNcVWHoO68I/AAAAAAAABDo/M6f3kS_rmRU/s320/IMG_1282.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536917736624417730" /></a><br /><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">It's November and rains are only to be expected when you live next to the Pacific Ocean. It's not that Pacific, actually, so much of the world's weather seeming to originate in its vastness. The daily weather report looks to the Pacific to see what's coming to our shore next Often you just have to find a high point and look out to the west to get a good idea of what tomorrow will be like. But the masses of cloud that billow to the west often take a detour around us, going north or south. That seems to have happened today. We were enveloped in clouds yesterday, but today the clouds have parted. There are clouds to the north, clouds to the south, east and west, but blue skies open a pathway for the sun so Victorians can enjoy their walks along the beach.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">It's in the winter that our grass turns green. During the dry days of summer our rocky soil loses it's moisture rapidly and our lawns turn brown. Watering restrictions come into effect out of concern for our water supply. Or so they say. But I 'spect an element of anti-human ideology creeps into it. Eek, people like green lawns! We can't have that.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The seasons come and go and I just get older. It's not fair. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">History has its seasons, too. The elections in the US turned out pretty well for us conservative types. The Pelosi winter didn't last long. Still, I was vaguely disappointed. That could be because California, my favourite state, hasn't shared in the return to sanity that most of the rest of the country is enjoying, California, once a model of how to attain prosperity and high living standards, now has one of the highest unemployment rates of any state. The unions are sucking the lifeblood out of California with pension plans that will be impossible for the state to make good. We're sort of a junior California in BC. The governing party started out well and for the most part has kept us solvent which encourages investors to bring their money here. That's how prosperity happens. Without it everybody goes broke and there's no money for the pensions. As a pensioner myself I am highly interested in seeing the economy produce enough to support me. Alas, the Liberals, though vastly more competent than the silly NDP socialists, have been losing sight of what they were elected to do which is leaving the door unlocked for an NDP return. I don't know why politicians, when they are voted in on conservative platforms, habitually drift to the left. Alas, we don't even have a Conservative party in BC, never mind a Tea Party.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">That perpetual drift to the left shows that it isn't enough to merely cut off the tops of the big government dandelions. You have to dig out the roots or they just grow back. The idea that big government can be the source of a people's well-being is so thoroughly disproven by history it's hard for me to understand how so many still believe in it. What is the answer? Obviously it's to be found in the workings of our major institutions, especially where they influence the thinking of upcoming generations. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">We have a fairly large educational establishment in Victoria. We have the University of Victoria, Camosun College, and a number of private schools that cater to foreign students. St. Michaels used to be a boy's school but some years ago the feminist hurricane came by and decreed that there could be no more boy's schools so now there are girls at St Mikes. Curiously, girl's schools were unaffected. Boys schools had to let girls in but girls schools didn't have to let boys in. St. Margaret's is still an all girl school. I often wonder why, but it does put me in mind of a comic book published when I was at the comic book stage of my reading. Little Lulu was the title. One of the recurring plot lines had to do with the boys of the neighbourhood who had a club with a sign tacked up, "no girls allowed!" Little Lulu, naturally, was always plotting to find out what was going on with those nasty boys. I think that's really all there is to that facet of feminism. Boys off by themselves having fun. Can't have that. The trouble is, once girls are allowed into boys' spaces then boys are no longer comfortable doing the things they like to do that don't involve girls. In order to get by under the new dispensation boys no longer had places where they could go to learn how to be men.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The result has been an emasculated society that now seems unwilling to defend itself against enemies who want to destroy it. The feminist wave wasn't the cause of a societal revolution so much as one of the consequences of a long term, multigenerational evolution. These things have their seasons, too.</p>Barry Brummethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18368177520598939198noreply@blogger.com0