Char vs Pop Culture

I am not a biblical scholar.

I am not a sociologist.

I am not even a pop psychologist.

But I have noticed that two big stories this week have been about the possible burial sites of Jesus, and Anna Nicole Smith. The parallels really are striking. Jesus came from a poor family, so he couldn't possibly have a fancy burial, right? Anna Nicole Smith came from a poor family, but she's having a fancy burial! Jesus had a following in life, but the lessons of his life spread after his death. Anna Nicole Smith had a following, though when living she had been a train wreck, now she's a tragic lesson to others in death.

In the interest of fairness, I would go into the far longer list of differences. But as I said, I'm not a biblical scholar, so it would be an incomplete list at best.

I guess I'm just saying that if there can be this much trouble deciding where Anna Nicole Smith will be buried, surely there is as much trouble deciding where a Messiah might be laid to rest, and who might or might not be with him.

  ¶ 9:14 AM 2 comments

  A Conservative Minority I think I like that. I’ll be honest, anything would’ve been better than the Liberals. I agree with much of their policy platforms, but they’re terrible at implementing it, and pretty much just waste money. I understand that governments fundamentally waste money… but the Liberals didn’t seem to care.

I don’t agree with everything the Conservatives stand for, but with any luck their common sense policy will be supported by the Bloc Quebecois while their ‘scary’ platforms will be blocked. I’m not entirely sure what ‘scary’ constitutes. They’ve promised to leave abortion alone. I’m not fond of abortion, but don’t figure it’s worth fighting for. I don’t understand why people oppose gay marriage, and anytime I ask a respected conservative what’s wrong with gay marriage, they just say it’s ‘wrong’ and say it leads to other evils without any real facts to back that up.

I like the idea of a senate that isn’t appointed by the PM. I like the idea of every vote in parliament being a free vote (and yes, a free vote includes the cabinet ministers!). I like the idea of giving people money to spend on programmes of their choice, rather than simply setting up a programme and hoping it’ll work. And, I like that Americans might respect our PM. Canadians and Americans are 99% the same. To have a PM who is anti-American, who focuses on the 1% difference… doesn’t seem like a good way to deal with the most cooperative sovereign nations ever.

A lot of people are probably going to be nervous about a federal party working closely with a separatist party. I think, ironically, this will weaken the Bloc Quebecois. Stephen Harper has promised more power to the provinces, and, well, the BQ only exists to gain more autonomy for Quebec. If the Conservatives give Quebeckers what whey want, then they don’t need the BQ. If the Conservatives offer Quebeckers what they want and the BQ block them… then they don’t need the BQ. It’s win win. Even if the BQ dissolves, surely it’s not a bad thing if they made Quebec stronger. (And hopefully the rest of Canada too!)  ¶ 2:26 PM 1 comments

  Using the Spotlight vs. Attention Getting I-Told-You-Sos Okay, all you know-it-alls out there who predicted a disaster in New Orleans, you can shut up now. It’s one thing to discover something, it’s quite something else to get someone to listen. If you’re right, then it’s up to you to get someone to listen.

Having said that, everyone who can prove they knew New Orleans was doomed, you have a golden opportunity. You HAVE the attention of people who would otherwise ignore you. Brush off that other report, about how a 8.2 quake is coming to level Los Angeles. Or find that report that talks about Boston’s preparedness for a big hurricane. There are other disasters waiting to happen to cities that are not prepared. If you know which cities have been tempting fate for too long, LET US KNOW.

We’re done blaming people for New Orleans. Anyone who knew it was coming but couldn’t get anyone to believe them is as culpable as someone who has 8 million other pressing concerns but overlooked it. It’s time to prepare for the next disaster, to ensure the next disaster doesn’t come.

If LA, New York or Chicago is wiped out, it’s the fault of anyone who saw it coming. Not anyone who didn’t.  ¶ 12:38 PM 1 comments

  Char vs. Gas Prices Hey, Geniuses!

I can’t believe these gas stations that don’t have their prices up on their big fancy signs, but rather put them up on some tiny sign at the side of the road. Why? Because they’ve only got room for three digits on the sign, and now gas prices are four digits.

I’ve got a solution:

Drop the fucking fraction of a cent and move the decimal place over.

Quite honestly, if I’m paying 103.5 cents, I’m probably just as happy to pay $1.04. Look, only three digits. You can use your old sign, and we don’t have to worry about the extra… what… 25 cents that .whatever adds on to the final $50+ price.  ¶ 11:19 AM 0 comments

  Canada vs Power Look, you can’t begrudge someone in their quest for power. At most, you’re jealous that you’ve been unable to attain that power. You can fear they might abuse it, though, to be honest, the aphorism ‘Power Corrupts’ isn’t just for fortune cookies.

Do the corruptible seek out power?

Since when is being the PM of Canada the pinnacle of power anyway? What is Paul Martin clinging to, and why are people allowing him to do it? He doesn’t have a long list of things he’d like to accomplish. He has a long list of promises that he’s made no effort to fill. Why do people keep thinking that he’ll fulfill them?

I understand why people don’t like the Conservatives. They’re different, they want change. Canadians don’t want ‘change’, they just want things to work. The Conservatives need to run on a platform of reconciliation. They need to run as moderates who are going to do everything the Liberals promised, because the Liberals promised everything that Canadians want.

That’s why we vote for them, they at least pretend that our opinion matters.

You want to win an election in Canada?

Make extravagant promises.

You want my vote?

Follow through on them.

In Ontario, we’ve actually had a string of governments that have done what they said. Maybe that’s why we keep believing the Liberals, because we’re accustomed to Mike Harris and Bob Rae keeping their words. (We won’t get into the fact that in Bob Rae’s case, keeping his word was a bad idea, and Mike Harris did more backroom dealing than he’d care to admit.) Even Daulton McGuinty is really in over his head. It comes out as lies, but it’s incompetence combined with bad luck. If Ontario had been the province he thought it was, I think we’d be doing better.

So, until we get saddled with slimy politicians in Ontario, it looks like we’re going to give the feds the benefit of the doubt, and keep voting for the guy who promises us more.

And Paul Martin knows that.

And so he clings to power, so he can make more promises he has no intention of following through on.  ¶ 3:32 PM 0 comments

  The Pope vs. Democracy With the passing of Pope John Paul II, there’s understandably been an absolute media assault on the subject. He’s being honoured as the greatest man of his time. Quite honestly, I couldn’t begin to evaluate how true that is, so I won’t even bother with this assertion.

It does lead me to rather… odd avenue that no one seems to have taken yet. The Pope is possibly one of the most powerful men on earth (certainly the most powerful man without ‘any divisions’!), yet is essentially a dictator for life. Hopefully we understand I use dictator literally. In no way should be compared with Hitler, Stalin or Castro. But at the same time, like these men, he merely has to say ‘jump’ and 1 billion Catholics say ‘how high’? (Luckily no other dictator has had 1 billion people under their thumb. Hmm. Well, we’ll give China the benefit of the doubt for now, okay?)

Perhaps we were lucky to have John Paul II to prove that absolute power does NOT always corrupt.

Perhaps it’s impossible for a corruptible soul to become Pope. Given that few people can name ‘great’ Popes, I somehow doubt that.

Was John Paul II a fluke? Did the Catholic Church simply luck into having such a great man when such a great man was needed? I don’t believe in God, but I’d even concede that it could have been His will in place of luck. But that wouldn’t explain the lack of other ‘great’ Popes.

But, given that the line of Popes is longer than the life of any government that I’m aware of, certainly longer than any current government, perhaps there is something to this ‘elected for life’ thing that resulted in John Paul II’s greatness.

Once in power, he never had to worry about retaining it. It was his, no matter what he did, popular or unpopular. The very definitions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were in his hands. That’s a lot of responsibility to hand to someone. I can’t think of anyone that I’d hand that I’d trust with that. Certainly no Canadian PM of late, definitely no American President nor UN President that I can think of.

Is there a way to recreate the process that creates a man like John Paul II? Or, if he was not formed by a process, do we need to recreate a process that identified and elevated a man like John Paul II?

And if there is a way to recreate this process, is there a way to implement it? Most democratic nations are pretty good at retaining their democracy, even if ‘mature’ democracies seem to be a little apathetic towards it. I simply cannot imagine that, say The Senate would get to choose the Prime Minister of Canada, who serves until he passes away. Especially since the PM himself appoints the Senators. And yet, that’s exactly how the Pope is chosen. More to the point, it worked. This time.

If the next Pope is as ‘great’ as John Paul II (he’s got a template to work from, I can actually envision this happening), is that going to be a threat to democracy as we know it?

If so, is democracy something that will be missed? Certainly wise and benign dictators for life are better than bickering partisan ‘leaders’ who are more interested in fame and lining the pockets of their friends.  ¶ 2:29 PM 0 comments

  Conquest vs. War War vs. Conquest

Whatever your views on the most recent Iraq War, as far as wars go, it was pretty tame, and not all that many people killed. (Don’t misunderstand me: one person killed is too many! I certainly mean no disrespect for anyone killed senselessly.) Mostly because the civilised world has decided that killing people is uncivilised. Good for us.

Of course, there are still a great many people who don’t live in places that I would consider ‘civilised’. It’s all perspective, of course. When you get right down to it, someone who digs wells in rural Africa has more in common with me than we don’t have in common. A big un-commonality is that this well digger is much more likely to experience war firsthand than I am. He lives in an area that values life differently than I do. People may not LIKE killing any more, but enough seem to accept it that it’s a problem. Until these places attain what we like to call ‘civilisation’, war will continue to haunt them.

African War Lords aren’t about to lob ICBMs at the USA or Canada. The fact that they’re willing to go to war doesn’t really scare me.

So who is willing to go to war that does scare me?

I’m sure that geo politicians might argue with me, but the world’s civilisation is divided up into a few blocks: North America, ‘Old’ Europe, ‘New’ Europe’, the Islamic World, India, China, Japan and the Koreas. It’s not a complete picture, however, I think it’ll serve my purpose.

Now, certainly we don’t need to fear ICBMs from North America. If it comes to that, civilisation as I know it is gone. Old Europe has a lot in common with us, I doubt France is ever going to actually attack us. New Europe is still adjusting to our civilisation. It seems pretty unlikely they’d attack us.

So that leaves Asia. I honestly don’t know enough about India to say they’re antagonistic towards the USA or not. They’ve got a lot of people. They’re a democracy, they seem to have free market economy. I think they’d like to be civilised like us, but it’s a lot of effort getting everyone moving in the same direction. Going to war doesn’t seem likely.

I know Japan has been forbidden certain military hardware because of WW2. I have no way of knowing if they’re capable of attacking anyone. I’d assume ‘no’ since Sony and Toyota are such big companies, attacking the people who buy their stuff doesn’t help anyone.

So we’re down to China and North Korea. (I suppose I’ll lump South Korea in with Japan. Not very fair of me, but I’m just writing here, not trying to win the Nobel prize.) We’re certainly used to thinking of Communists as evil. I’m one of those people who would like communism to work: it seems like a great idea where everyone’s equal and people put forth all their effort, and are provided with everything they need. Of course, I also realise that if it was going to work, it would have worked by now. Communism and human nature simply aren’t compatible. There might yet be a mechanism to implement communism, but I don’t know what it is. Since communists are ‘evil’, it’s easy to assume they’ll attack us.

But WHY would they attack us? Japan attacked the USA during WW2 simply to prevent the Americans from stopping their empire. I guess that’s why China/Korea would attack us: just to keep us from stopping them from doing whatever they want to do in Asia.

Would that work? Wiping Canada/USA off the map isn’t easy. We’re big nations with spread out population. Even without a missile shield, it would take a lot of effort to ‘nuke us’. Invasion would be virtually impossible, especially if attacking us is an effort to divert us from a real target.

Even if we were ‘neutralised’, what could the bad guys target? Japan? Korea? India? Taiwan/Republic of China? These ARE civilised nations. Would a civilised nation simply accept being invaded? They’re mostly service/manufacturing economies. Does China want to take over all the call centres in India? Do the North Koreans think that taking over Nintendo by force, they can run it better?

They could try to skip the ‘civilised’ countries and move on to some nations that are resource rich. But modern mining/pumping techniques are efficient uses of high technology. It will take years for Iraq to recover from the damage caused by a small war with the USA, and that’s with the USA’s vast resources rebuilding it!

If Korea were to take over an oil/mineral rich nation, they’d probably have to rebuild all the equipment from scratch. How long would that take? Can they possibly retain control over the country while they do that?

War, in the ‘civilised world’, is expensive. It’s not just about seizing farm land and natural resources any more. It’s about controlling the people you’ve invaded.

Indeed, this may be why WW2 failed for the Axis, the Soviets failed in the cold war. If Americans try to control the Iraqis, that’s why they’ll fail. If the Americans succeed, it’s because they’ve given the Iraqis what they want.

If the ‘bad guys’ want to go to war with a civilised nation, they’ll have to give them what they want. This is why Rome worked: they brought civilisation itself with them. That’s why the USA/Canada could grow to encompass so much of North America: they offered people something they wanted.  ¶ 11:24 AM 0 comments