test blog #10

I was looking my dogs, thinking about how each came into our lives. How one day a dog is living in a shelter, and that's its pack and its life, and then one day it is put in a car and taken somewhere else, and now it has a new family, and a new life. The dog loves its new people and its new packmates, because that's what dogs do. That's what it's programmed to do, so to speak. That's its dog way of being. Even if the dog is stressed from the huge change, or depressed over the loss of its old family, after a period of adjustment, the dog will grow to love its new pack with the same loyal, intense dog-love, because that's what dogs do. And for us, the day we bring the dog home, we're excited and we like the new dog, and we anticipate is life with us. But the longer the dog lives in our home, the longer we take care of the dog, the longer it depends on us, the deeper the bond becomes, and the more we love the dog. Because, I think, that's what humans do. I ...

Revolutionary thought of the day: Remember when, in the wake of the 9/11 attack, the Patriot Act was controversial, held up as the symbolic face of Bush/Cheney radicalism and widely lamented as a threat to core American liberties and restraints on federal surveillance and detention powers? Yet now, the Patriot Act is quietly renewed every four years by overwhelming majorities in both parties (despite substantial evidence of serious abuse), and almost nobody is bothered by it any longer. . . . The idea of flying robots hovering over American soil monitoring what citizens do en masse is yet another one of those ideas that, in the very recent past, seemed too radical and dystopian to entertain, yet is on the road to being quickly mainstreamed. When that happens, it is no longer deemed radical to advocate such things; radicalism is evinced by opposition to them. Glenn Greenwald, "Extremism Normalized"

I did this once before - turns out it was about a year ago - and although not many people participated, it made for good conversation and helped me get caught up with some friends. So why not? I still prefer posting about my life here as opposed to Facebook. From last year's post: This list will answer the burning question: What's up? What's happening in your life? Doing anything interesting? Enjoying doing something mundane? Reading a good book? Working in your garden? Suffering from the heat? Tell us! Elaborate as much or little as you'd like. We'll limit this to five, but less than five is OK. 1. My mom's annual visit is this week; she arrives tomorrow and leaves Friday. I always try to make her visit special - cook a nice dinner, do stuff she'll enjoy, have foods she loves in the house. She is very easy to please, and super appreciative, so it's a pleasure to make the effort. Would you believe this woman turned 81 this year? This photo is from 2010...

CBC reports that a heavily censored, declassified report obtained by the Canadian Press shows that the RCMP (with input from CSIS and the CBSA) have issued warnings about the supposedly growing threat of radical environmentalism in Canada. Isn't that convenient. With the Harper Government branding everyone who opposes their anti-environment, anti-human, profit-over-all agenda as dangerous radicals, we can now hear it direct from the spying-enforcement agencies themselves. Supposedly Greenpeace and other environmental groups are dangerous and might become violent. As Yossi Cadan, campaigns director for Greenpeace Canada, is quoted as saying: There is a difference between breaking the law and criminal activities. . . . It's true that the distance between the government policy and the environmental movement is growing, but I don't think that the movement is getting more radical. The Harper Government TM , on the other hand, is trying to radically remake Canada in its own ima...

Today marks 10 years since Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, then 15 years old, was picked up in Afghanistan. For an entire decade, he has lived in prison, first in Bagram, then in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. He lives in solitary confinement, which is recognized internationally as a form of torture. Just this week, Public Safety [sic] Minister Vic Toews scrambled to find new excuses to not bring Khadr back to Canada. Professional wingnut Ezra Levant launched a new campaign to discredit Khadr and bolster the government's case. We can only hope that, as with most of Levant's ranting, this one will end up backfiring. May I please ask you to do three things? First, if you have not already done so, sign the petition  created by Senator Romeo Dallaire, calling on Toews to bring Khadr back to Canada. Second, please share the petition with everyone you know. And third, read this excellent column by Thomas Walkom. Some are down on Ezra Levant, the prolific conservative gadf...

Before reading Invisible Man , I thought the book's title referred to the invisibility of black men in white society, but it turns out I was mistaken. Ellison didn't call his masterpiece "Invisible Men ". The titular Man refers to a man - an individual, a person, a human being with a unique identity. The man in question realizes he is invisible because he is always seen as a Black Man, always slotted into one of the ways black people are perceived in American society - not just by white people, but by black people, too, and all the time. Indeed, the people most despised by the narrator are not the ignorant Southern rednecks who thrive on humiliating their black neighbours, but the hypocritical, duplicitous black leaders who in public are "a credit to the race," but in private are greedy for power, ready to betray and vanquish any black brother one who stands in their way. As the nameless narrator's world expands, he begins to realize that he has only a...

I've just learned of the untimely passing of a very funny man. Those of us old enough to remember the brilliant and subversive "The Franken and Davis Show" bits on the old Saturday Night Live may have sometimes wondered what happened to Al Franken's less famous partner. Tom Davis died last week at the too-young age of 59. In 2004, contestants on “Jeopardy!” were stumped by the clue “He was the comedy partner of Al Franken.” Tom Davis, that comedy partner, sighed as he watched. He was so inured to playing second fiddle to Mr. Franken, now a Democratic senator from Minnesota, that he called himself Sonny to Mr. Franken’s Cher. But the fact is that Mr. Davis helped shape Mr. Franken’s comedy, and vice versa, from the time they entertained students with rebellious, razor-edged humor at high school assemblies in Minnesota. In 1975, Mr. Davis, brilliant at improvisational comedy, and Mr. Franken, a whiz at plotting funny sequences, became two of the first writers on a new s...