introducing just a call-the song that started it (what?) for the maudlins

Just A Call, the way I remember it, was the first recording David and I attempted. I wrote the song in the mid seventies. A waitress I had been dating (I use the word advisedly; as a damaged Catholic I have never successfully dated a woman. Rather I become involved. Right or wrong. Appropriate partner, inappropriate partner. A damaged Catholic boy cannot just get his end away, no strings attached. Blame Jesus for all the complications that result...) got in touch with me after a period of time post dumping. For one of the very few times in my life I had been the dumper, not the dumpee...

Her name was Laurie. A Jewish princess (shit, I think I just committed an act of racism there. Sorry Rob ;-) ) she was working at the same restaurant as I. The Medaevil Inn in Gastown, where adult men and women paid good money to wear bibs while eating meat with their fingers, drinking copious amounts of red wine, talk really really loudly and sing the most terrible British and Irish pub tunes you can imagine. Laurie had a reputation. If I understand the word, she was a feminist, I think. She was in a bit of a battle with management about the wearing of the low cut "wench" costumes that were the costume required of the serving girls. She demanded that she be allowed to flash a little less tit.

She was an interesting young lady. I was an interesting young drunk. We the help of plenty of booze, something I required, we connected. It was a crazy time. I was playing music with two guys who became great pals through the years: Steve Mansfield and Gord Kearney. We were having a grand time, playing and singing, all through the long summer nights. Smoking the ganja, having the sex, or trying to, good times, but tumultuous. Laurie and I had some kind of drama running our relating. I can't really remember too much detail, but I was a pretty dramatic fellow.

We parted...

Later in the summer, she called me on the phone. Just to say hello, how are you and tell me she was going to Paris for awhile. We got together and stayed that way for another few years. I have the scars to prove it. So Just A Call is about that fateful telephone conversation. I think I did a good job with the lyric. The music is straightforward, more Bob Dylan/Beatle style major to minor chord progressions. It has a nice middle part. The part that talks about me smiling while thinking about Laurie in Paris was pretty advanced for a real beginner on the guitar.

Enter Davy Maudlin. He and I met each other in one of the group homes we toiled at. We immediately struck up a really great rapport. Laughing at one another's pretty cynical perspectives, we brought our guitars to work and noodled away. We started to get together, after work, just to write and play. David's treatment of this demo recording previews a musical sensibility that I continue to believe was and is very special.

The echo on the tambourine, for example. Like it or not, it was an interesting experiment. Later David suggested an important change to the singing of the chorus of the song. Oh, will you save me (pause) baby, became will you save me baby, pause removed. You are hearing the first version. That simple changed makes the song better. So this, for me, is what started a project that has been one of the very most important parts of my life, active or not, it's a thing of great beauty. Enjoy Just A Call. Baby. Pause. The end.

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two things to say on sunday

Thing one is about blogs, and particularly those that exist in what we call the political blogosphere. Someone, via the comments section over at Kinsella's Musings, turned me on to the columns of Dan Gardner. I've read a few and I like his approach. He did a piece he called "The Trouble With Blogs".

His main point: political blogs have become closed circles, the gathering places of like-minded folks who are increasingly contemptuous of the points of view of others. I am thinking about this right now because I have been struggling with a comments section back and forth myself, right here on home turf. Rob Nichols, a fellow whose written expression led me to believe he is nearly neo-conservative, at least with regard to his thoughts and feelings about Muslims immigrating to Canada, and I have been discussing our beliefs about Islam, generally, in the comments thread under my post "these things are possible".

One of Rob's first communications was to call me an "asshole". But I thought he did it tongue in cheek so I continued reading. It seemed to me he was asking for a dialogue, an exchange of ideas based on some mutual respect. Given my recent experiences, including that of being banned from a website for basically disagreeing with the prevailing political perspectives featured there, I was pleased to find an apparent conservative I might chat with.

Rob provided me with some interesting links, some reading he thought I might benefit from and enjoy. I noticed that the material he was sending tended to support his main thesis-that Islam is (like columnist Mark Steyn has infamously suggested in his best selling book America Alone and is being tormented by Canadian human rights commission for...) a danger to European and Western civilizations.

I shared this observation with Rob. Wrote that I thought he was more interested in finding material that dismisses the fact of secular and/or moderate Muslims in favour of what I called "propaganda" reinforcing the Steynian world view. I should also tell you, in the name of the father and the son and the holy ghost, that I took many opportunities to write very insulting descriptions of a blogger Ron likes: the clearly racist Kathy Shaidle.

For some reason Ron Nichols returned to an abusive tone, now insisting I was an "asshole" in earnest. I found it tiresome. I wrote to Ron that we were obviously not going to come to enough common ground to continue to discuss the subject, so why did he not just...let it go. Now, again in the service of the noble ideal of complete honesty, I will tell you I was feeling like I really wanted Nichols not so much to "let it go..." as I did to fuck right off.

Long story (perhaps a story in process) short; Rob made yet another comment that seems to, again, suggest he wants an exchange of ideas. But, reference Dan Gardner's column, the key and operative word in that sentence is "exchange". It's explicit, is it not? I give you an idea and you give me an idea in return. We exchange. Why would I want to continue hearing one idea ad nauseum?

Rob, to be fair, is apparently convinced that it's me who is wanting to exclude points of view other than my own. I am happy to concede this: it's natural, to some extent, to seek the familiar and the self reinforcing idea.

But it becomes dull, and nothing new is learned. Here is what I was missing from my back and forth with Rob: any sense, specifically by way of feedback, that he was hearing what I was saying. That's essential, if we're talking about talking. We want, I am sure, to know that what we are communicating is being heard. Or we may just as well be talking to ourselves. Comments?

I will note that I am now moderating comments, because I have gotten some spam, so bear with me please. I know it's great to see what you've written appear instantly. But I have been the exception, blog-wise, in having unmoderated comments and that has, among other things, too often resulted in readers here suffering the ill effects of a spam comment opened and fucking with their computers....

I may also choose to not publish comments that are laden with personal invective, or the overuse of foul language. I think comments are essential if a blog is going to be experienced, by the reader and writer alike, as a means for communication. But some trouble needs to be taken to keep things coherent. I don't mind strong disagreement. I invite that. I also don't mind strong agreement. I mind material that would reasonably seen as an attempt to bait or stir up shit for shit's sake.

I've done that myself on other blogs. Kate McMillan claims I earned my ban that way. I will dispute that. I think the vast majority of my contributions were pointed in their disagreement with McMillan's politics. In fact, where foul language and insults were concerned, my comments were well below the class (less) average of her readers. C'est la vie. I continue to comment there, under the cover of darkness, and continue to try to prick her conscience and that of her obedient followers.
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Second thing on a Sunday. Someone, it might have been Muddy67, recently said he has decided it matters, even after all these many many years, that we find out who killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Why? Because everything since then, in terms of our faith in the powers that govern our lives, has been based largely based on our accepting (or not) the official version of Kennedy's assassination.

I'll narrow that down. For baby boomers, the children of the 60's, it is crucial that we now what really happened in Dallas, on November 22nd, 1963. If JFK was, in fact, killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone and for personal reasons, then the history that follows that moment in time resonates in a way that is consonant. If, on the other hand, their was a purposeful effort to hide the truth from citizens, then the cynicism we carry with us today is, in fact, a healthy reaction. If we know we are being lied to and we accept that, or pretend that we accept that, or we feel we have no choice but to accept that, I am sure we have the conditions for mass mental illness.

sandy (still thinking on danny federici, the man and the musician

Here is a wonderful piece of video tape. Bruce Springsteen singing Sandy, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, 1975. Into the frame, suddenly, appears a very young Danny Federici, absolutely setting the mood for this piece with his delicate touch on the accordion.

When Springsteen laid his old buddy to rest, he spoke honestly and accurately (that's important) about the contribution Federici made to the musical paintings that hang in the E Street Hall of Fame. He talked of Danny's minimalist approach on his instrument. In with a flourish and then back into the subtext of the story Bruce is telling. These guys are masters. Danny Federici is irreplaceable.

cloverfield:best damn scary movie in a long while!

Do you like to be truly terrified when you watch a movie? Rent Cloverfield. I watched it last night, while passing the graveyard shift, all alone (well the residents were asleep) in the group home. Man oh man. If you enjoyed the Blairwitch Project you will dig the look and feel of this film. Mostly done with hand held and cell phone cameras, it puts you right downtown when something (whhhhhaaaaattttttt was that!!) begins to happen.

Hold on tight.
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professor dumbledore introduces me to the very eminent doctor blah blah blah

"Temperature's rising, fever is high

Can't see no future, can't see no sky

My feet are so heavy, so is my head

I wish I was a baby, I wish I was dead..."


Cold Turkey; John Lennon


Old John Lennon had no medical pedigree. He was not a specialist. He wasn't even particularly articulate, beyond his squinting scouse hard-headed self assuredness about a few thousand things. His take on opiate withdrawal said it as well as it can be said though. I'll come back to that. In my hour of darkness (thank's Paul) Lennon feels me and I feel him. Unlike the very eminent Doctor Blah Blah Blah...

I'm gonna be a little hard on the eminent Doctor Blah Blah Blah. It's not that I disrespect him. I do. Respect him. He seems like a good man, essentially, with a little round belly and a shirt that could use an iron, and a very busy mind filled with the bullshit he's heard from ten thousand opiate addicts just like me. Dumbledore and I sat, for about twenty minutes, waiting for an audience with His Holiness, Keeper of the Prescription Pad. We went over the work we've done, to date, and Dumbledore reviewed the approach he wants to take. Dumbledore has a vision, and it's a good one. He thinks it's not sensible to treat an aging endorphin-deprived hard working tax paying otherwise upright and solid citizen like me in a way that increases shame, decreases my bank account, and advances the overall good of the community not one centimetre.

He would favour a situation that affords me as soft a landing as can be arranged. Like when you are landing in a big old jet airliner. You come in too fast you might just go off the other end, or have to lift off again and circle the airport. You might come in too fast and not get a chance to take off again. Ever. You might just say "fuck it" and remain airborne. Tapering down has been working alright. Not perfectly. But I will tell you something, my "contact" did not have any candy for me, and I am very grateful I am coming off of 10 milligrams, yesterday, than 40 or 50. It ain't pretty, but so far it is far from as ugly as I have lived through in my checkered past.

I was led into Doctor Blah's (for the purpose of this blog I'll use his last name only...) dimly lit office. Dumbledore warned me that Blah cuts to the chase. He does. He is so beyond small talk he will not bother to finish quite a few sentences. His review of a particularly important (to me, anyhow...) section of my personal medico/addicto/depresso history is read back this way: "So you got a divorce after back surgery and started taking the Tylenol 3, blah, blah, blah..."

'Scuse me?! What the fuck, dear Doctor Blah, it's only my life we're discussing here. Try and stay awake, will ya? But this is the way it is. This poor bastard (and for followers of my pre occupations of late, please note Doctor Blah is a Believer...so I guess there is some kind of karma in play. His karma was soon to run over my dogma. You can guess what my dogma is. As follows: Doctor Blah, would you mind changing your name (and identity) to Doctor Feel Good for a moment....)

He would mind though. The doc went over things, for an hour. I kept noticing his little round belly, making judgments about that. The guy can't manage his own appetite, what's he going to do for an off the rails over the hill brain damaged hippy like me? In his fashion, Blah was on the job. I listened closely. What else was I going to do? He reviewed some options, which I may or may not reveal, dear readers, later, and asked me to come back and see him in a weeks time. He sent me on my way. Empty handed.

Just so that there was no confusion, Doctor Blah told me toward the end of our meeting that he does not prescribe from his castle/office. He leaves that to your family doctor. I write "your family doctor" because I have as much, or more, chance getting the good stuff from your family doctor as I do from mine.

Some hours later, and 15 hours since my last uptake of Oxycontin, let's let Mr. Lennon describe the scene:

My body is aching,goose-pimple bone

Can't see no body, leave me alone

My eyes are wide open, can't get to sleep

One thing I'm sure of, I'm in at the deep freeze

And now, Saturday morning, at hour 39 my mission was temporarily aborted. I dropped in to my drop clinic and said can ya give me something that will let me sleep. I have slept one hour in the last 36. The doctor, a young man, knew something about opiate addiction. He allowed me 5mg of Oxycontin a day, for the next seven days, until I meet with Doctor Blah Blah Blah again. I have to pick that one pill up at the pharmacy. They will charge me a dispensing fee for each pill. I will, then, pay more for these pills than I do to my street supplier. Oh well, blah blah blah, eh?

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mr. grumpy in craft class (the dumbledore chronicles)

Apparently some of my colleagues are wondering what's happened to my sunny disposition. Well, boys and girls, can you say d- e- t- o- x? One of my more valued co workers (because as long as I'm coming clean, I may as well come all the way clean, I can't fucking stand most of the people around here, unless I am medicated...) has given me her best non professional assessment this morning. To wit:

She thinks I should stay on my medication, and manage it. I agree. At least the part of me that has permanent hair on his palms, and wolf-like incisors and is perpetually lean and hungry and on the hunt agrees. My wee life long inner addict. Oh how the right of centre humans love to kick us addicts when we are down. Just toughen the fuck up, Rob will tell me (I like Rob...today) and don't expect sympathy.

I'm not sure what I expect. Not sympathy. Sanity? You see, my co worker is not far off the mark. She was going on about brain chemistry and how the chemistry in the brain is changed after years and years of taking a substance, and why not just have a bit?

Yesterday I had 10mg of Oxycontin. This is a level of the narcotic most doctors would consider placebo. It was the difference between sitting in the dark, wanting to suck my thumb (if I had the energy) and reaching over to pull open the blinds, then feeling the warmth as the sunshine came through the window. 5mg was just fine, thank you very much.

5mg on the street will cost me $5. Twice a day times 30 days. I can still do math, with a calculator. It's $300 a month. Not bad. Maybe manageable. I could conduct some kind of negotiation with Margaret, create a surtax system that would benefit her, entice her with tacit support for her addictions, whatever.

But here's the whole story: I have never ever managed my relationship with mood altering substances. For a week, sure. For a few weeks? It depends. If you put the stuff in my sweaty hands, not a chance. If I had to report to Nurse Ratchet every morning in a clinic, I could do that. I guess I need to know what the point of living like that would be. We'll see. I am in the hands of the good professor Dumbledore. I am as close to clean right now as I have been in years. My feet are concrete and on this most sunny day I can theoretically feel the heat.

Yesterday I supported one our individuals in his crafts class. We glued little bits of coloured tissue paper onto cheap plastic mirror frames. I was unsmiling. Grim. The teacher kidded me about "scowling". It's a good word, actually, very descriptive. You bet your ass I was scowling. I was not a happy crafting camper. But oh so gradually, as my plastic became buried under the pretty blue paper I realized I am cut out for institutionalization. Bring on the Velcro slippers!
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her majesty's a pretty nice girl

But she doesn't have alot to say. Here she is, visiting a mosque in Turkey. The fact that she donned a head scarf, in keeping with Muslim custom and religious culture, is cited as yet another example of the coming apocalypse by the brain trust down yonder to the right side of the blogosphere. The video is short. Have a look. I think the old girl looks positively ravishing. It's a good thing, you know. A well considered outreach, something that leaders ought to be doing often, to counter the nasty efforts of those in society who like to promote the time-honoured idea that there must be a Boogie Man.

eulogy for an e streeter

Margaret brought this to my attention. It's Bruce Springsteen's eulogy, at the funeral of life-long pal and band mate, Danny Federici. If you have to die, then you're lucky to have a friend with the gift of tongue. Springsteen is a storyteller. He tells a wonderfully honest and heart-warming one with this send off to a fellow E Streeter:

FAREWELL TO DANNY

Let me start with the stories.

Back in the days of miracles, the frontier days when "Mad Dog" Lopez and his temper struck fear into the band, small club owners, innocent civilians and all women, children and small animals. Back in the days when you could still sign your life away on the hood of a parked car in New York City.

Back shortly after a young red-headed accordionist struck gold on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and he and his mama were sent to Switzerland to show them how it's really done.

Back before beach bums were featured on the cover of Time magazine.

I'm talking about back when the E Street Band was a communist organization! My pal, quiet, shy Dan Federici, was a one-man creator of some of the hairiest circumstances of our 40 year career... And that wasn't easy to do. He had "Mad Dog" Lopez to compete with... Danny just outlasted him.

Maybe it was the "police riot" in Middletown, New Jersey. A show we were doing to raise bail money for "Mad Dog" Lopez who was in jail in Richmond, Virginia, for having an altercation with police officers who we'd aggravated by playing too long. Danny allegedly knocked over our huge Marshall stacks on some of Middletown's finest who had rushed the stage because we broke the law by...playing too long.

As I stood there watching, several police oficers crawled out from underneath the speaker cabinets and rushed away to seek medical attention. Another nice young officer stood in front of me onstage waving his nightstick, poking and calling me nasty names. I looked over to see Danny with a beefy police officer pulling on one arm while Flo Federici, his first wife, pulled on the other, assisting her man in resisting arrest.

A kid leapt from the audience onto the stage, momentarily distracting the beefy officer with the insults of the day. Forever thereafter, "Phantom" Dan Federici slipped into the crowd and disappeared.

A warrant out for his arrest and one month on the lam later, he still hadn't been brought to justice. We hid him in various places but now we had a problem. We had a show coming at Monmouth College. We needed the money and we had to do the gig. We tried a replacement but it didn't work out. So Danny, to all of our admiration, stepped up and said he'd risk his freedom, take the chance and play.

Show night. 2,000 screaming fans in the Monmouth College gym. We had it worked out so Danny would not appear onstage until the moment we started playing. We figured the police who were there to arrest him wouldn't do so onstage during the show and risk starting another riot.
Let me set the scene for you. Danny is hiding, hunkered down in the backseat of a car in the parking lot. At five minutes to eight, our scheduled start time, I go out to whisk him in. I tap on the window.

"Danny, come on, it's time."

I hear back, "I'm not going."

Me: "What do you mean you're not going?"

Danny: "The cops are on the roof of the gym. I've seen them and they're going to nail me the minute I step out of this car."

As I open the door, I realize that Danny has been smoking a little something and had grown rather paranoid. I said, "Dan, there are no cops on the roof."

He says, "Yes, I saw them, I tell you. I'm not coming in."

So I used a procedure I'd call on often over the next forty years in dealing with my old pal's concerns. I threatened him...and cajoled. Finally, out he came. Across the parking lot and into the gym we swept for a rapturous concert during which we laughted like thieves at our excellent dodge of the local cops.

At the end of the evening, during the last song, I pulled the entire crowd up onto the stage and Danny slipped into the audience and out the front door. Once again, "Phantom" Dan had made his exit. (I still get the occasional card from the old Chief of Police of Middletown wishing us well. Our histories are forever intertwined.) And that, my friends, was only the beginning.

There was the time Danny quit the band during a rough period at Max's Kansas City, explaining to me that he was leaving to fix televisions. I asked him to think about that and come back later.
Or Danny, in the band rental car, bouncing off several parked cars after a night of entertainment, smashing out the windshield with his head but saved from severe injury by the huge hard cowboy hat he bought in Texas on our last Western swing.

Or Danny, leaving a large marijuana plant on the front seat of his car in a tow away zone. The car was promptly towed. He said, "Bruce, I'm going to go down and report that it was stolen." I said, "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Down he went and straight into the slammer without passing go.

Or Danny, the only member of the E Street Band to be physically thrown out of the Stone Pony. Considering all the money we made them, that wasn't easy to do.

Or Danny receiving and surviving a "cautionary assault" from an enraged but restrained "Big Man" Clarence Clemons while they were living together and Danny finally drove the "Big Man" over the big top.

Or Danny assisting me in removing my foot from his stereo speaker after being the only band member ever to drive me into a violent rage.

And through it all, Danny played his beautiful, soulful B3 organ for me and our love grew. And continued to grow. Life is funny like that. He was my homeboy, and great, and for that you make considerations... And he was much more tolerant of my failures than I was of his.

When Danny wasn't causing chaos, he was a sweet, talented, unassuming, unpretentious good-hearted guy who simply had an unchecked ability to make good fortune and things in general go fabulously wrong.

But beyond all of that, he also had a mountain of the right stuff. He had the heart and soul of an engineer. He learned to fly. He was always up on the latest technology and would explain it to you patiently and in enormous detail. He was always "souping" something up, his car, his stereo, his B3. When Patti joined the band, he was the most welcoming, thoughtful, kindest friend to the first woman entering our "boys club."

He loved his kids, always bragging about Jason, Harley, and Madison, and he loved his wife Maya for the new things she brought into his life.

And then there was his artistry. He was the most intuitive player I've ever seen. His style was slippery and fluid, drawn to the spaces the other musicians in the E Street Band left. He wasn't an assertive player, he was a complementary player. A true accompanist. He naturally supplied the glue that bound the band's sound together. In doing so, he created for himself a very specific style. When you hear Dan Federici, you don't hear a blanket of sound, you hear a riff, packed with energy, flying above everything else for a few moments and then gone back in the track. "Phantom" Dan Federici. Now you hear him, now you don't.

Offstage, Danny couldn't recite a lyric or a chord progression for one of my songs. Onstage, his ears opened up. He listened, he felt, he played, finding the perfect hole and placement for a chord or a flurry of notes. This style created a tremendous feeling of spontaneity in our ensemble playing.

In the studio, if I wanted to loosen up the track we were recording, I'd put Danny on it and not tell him what to play. I'd just set him loose. He brought with him the sound of the carnival, the amusements, the boardwalk, the beach, the geography of our youth and the heart and soul of the birthplace of the E Street Band.

Then we grew up. Very slowly. We stood together through a lot of trials and tribulations. Danny's response to a mistake onstage, hard times, catastrophic events was usually a shrug and a smile. Sort of an "I am but one man in a raging sea, but I'm still afloat. And we're all still here."
I watched Danny fight and conquer some tough addictions. I watched him struggle to put his life together and in the last decade when the band reunited, thrive on sitting in his seat behind that big B3, filled with life and, yes, a new maturity, passion for his job, his family and his home in the brother and sisterhood of our band.

Finally, I watched him fight his cancer without complaint and with great courage and spirit. When I asked him how things looked, he just said, "what are you going to do? I'm looking forward to tomorrow." Danny, the sunny side up fatalist. He never gave up right to the end.
A few weeks back we ended up onstage in Indianapolis for what would be the last time. Before we went on I asked him what he wanted to play and he said, "Sandy." He wanted to strap on the accordion and revisit the boardwalk of our youth during the summer nights when we'd walk along the boards with all the time in the world.

So what if we just smashed into three parked cars, it's a beautiful night! So what if we're on the lam from the entire Middletown police department, let's go take a swim! He wanted to play once more the song that is of course about the end of something wonderful and the beginning of something unknown and new.

Let's go back to the days of miracles. Pete Townshend said, "a rock and roll band is a crazy thing. You meet some people when you're a kid and unlike any other occupation in the whole world, you're stuck with them your whole life no matter who they are or what crazy things they do."

If we didn't play together, the E Street Band at this point would probably not know one another. We wouldn't be in this room together. But we do... We do play together. And every night at 8 p.m., we walk out on stage together and that, my friends, is a place where miracles occur...old and new miracles. And those you are with, in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you. Those you are with who create miracles for you, like Danny did for me every night, you are honored to be amongst.

Of course we all grow up and we know "it's only rock and roll"...but it's not. After a lifetime of watching a man perform his miracle for you, night after night, it feels an awful lot like love.

So today, making another one of his mysterious exits, we say farewell to Danny, "Phantom" Dan, Federici. Father, husband, my brother, my friend, my mystery, my thorn, my rose, my keyboard player, my miracle man and lifelong member in good standing of the house rockin', pants droppin', earth shockin', hard rockin', booty shakin', love makin', heart breakin', soul cryin'... and, yes, death defyin' legendary E Street Band.

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will george bush one day be charged with war crimes?

Highly unlikely. The United States of America has no precedent for that kind of severe self examination. But when you stop to consider what George Bush has done, in the name of his country, the 4000 (and counting...) young Americans who have been sacrificed in the mistaken belief that a western style democracy might be installed in this most unlikely of places (Iraq)...well Bush is a lucky man, somehow.

Because there is no question that he's guilty. Thanks to Kate McMillan for this tip. It was her intention that folks would find this editorial "over the top", evidence that dislike for President Bush is a symptom of mental illness. Well, give yourself a moment and listen to what the editorialist has to say. Judge for yourself. Who is the madder hatter, Bush or his detractors?

irritable neo con syndrome

David Frum was inside the inner circle of George Bush's war cabinet. He coined the now infamous term "axis of evil". A small independent media outlet We Are Change L.A. followed him to a book signing, demanding he answer questions about his involvement in the illegal invasion of Iraq. These guys also subscribe to the idea that 911 was an inside job. I don't buy that allegation, but for whatever reason, on this day David Frum had had enough. H/T my good friends over at five feet of fury...

I think old Muddy67 will enjoy seeing this guy, the quintessential starched white shirt, losing his neo conservative cool.

i thank my lucky stars

The last couple of days I have been referring to the tragedies in Burma and China. In passing. Death on this scale is something very few of us can comprehend. How can one understand what 100,000 deaths means, when those deaths happen in seconds as a result of the storm surge from a typhoon. I've also been writing about the current battle between "free speechers" and the Canadian human rights commissions.

Today it strikes me as ludicrous, in the extreme, that anyone involved in the back and forth about free speech would take their situation, by comparison, seriously. We are lucky beyond measure, tonight, if we have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. A pal of mine, last week, sent me a terse email. "What a bunch of navel gazers!" he spat. It was a crabby comment, but I thought about it. He's right. And that's another thing to be grateful for. That we have the time and the liberty to be thoughtful.

So give a moment's thought, a prayer if you are so inclined, and maybe find some other way of giving too, for those whose lives have been torn apart by the forces of nature. For those whose loved ones are missing, under the rubble, or in the water. Luck has passed these humans by.






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these things are possible

I would like to draw reader's attention to the comments section under my post "on racism". There you will find a back and forth between Rob Nichols and I. Rob has politely asked if it would be alright does he call me "asshole". I replied he can call me what he likes, just don't call me late for dinner...

There is something about Rob Nichol's communication that telegraphs humour. He's kidding me. Sort of. I'm pretty sure he found, and finds some of my opinions to be crap and hogwash. But here is the thing; I am listening to the guy and I think he's listening to me. I am willing to hear what he's saying and he's returning that favour in a respectful way.

So there is hope for a dialogue between the so-called left in this great country and the so-called right. I am reading Mark Steyn's book (America Alone) with as open a mind as I can manage. Steyn goes a long way out of his way to present the least flattering and most damaging perspective on Muslims that he can. It's a depressing read. But if I shut myself off from that perspective then what does that say? About my confidence in my own point of view?

Nichols has turned me on to the writings of some Muslims who are willing to stand up and be identified as moderate and who are opposed to what they view as the hijacked meaning of Islam as espoused by radicals and those who use terror to forward their agenda.

I will, in turn, share some of that with you. It is essential that Canadians have this conversation. In this way Mark Steyn is part of a vanguard. Whether he is right, or partly right, or mostly wrong, there is a clash going on between the followers of Islam and non believers. That much must be obvious by now. I think we are responsible to understand what is at the root of the conflict, and then if we are truly (believer and non believer alike) peace loving, we are to raise our voices in favour of resolution.
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the lost tapes of freddy mercury recording his biggest hit

This guy cracks me up. It's been a rough few weeks. What with battling back and forth on the who is a bigger racist, me or me file, or learning of yet another horrible natural disaster here, just right after the horrible natural disaster here. I need a break. Got nothing to say, but it's ok. Good morning, good morning, good morning, uh!

Watch this newly discovered tape of Freddy Mercury doing outtakes from his biggest hit, Bohemian Rhapsody...

jesus maudlin says; "let's all become one with freddy mercury"

Jesus Maudlin says, "When it's all said and done, to hell with getting along. Let's all not get along today, let's not give a damn for Burma, let's not worry that China is doing their best version of rock 'n roll. No. Let's instead, learn to Freddy Mercury.

on racism

racism
Main Entry:
rac·ism
Pronunciation:
\ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi-\
Function:
noun
Date:
1933

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
— rac·ist \-sist also -shist\ noun or adjective

Rob Nichols sent me a comment today. You can find it under the post "welcome to kathy shaidle's readers". In responding to Rob, I said that I was going to put up the definition of "racism" from Webster's Dictionary, and that would be the basis for further writing on that subject here. So up yonder is the definition, in black, of all colours: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2. racial prejudice or discrimination. I guess I didn't have to do what I just did, eh?

Now, quite a few very smart visitors have pointed out that Islam is a religion, not a race. Yeah, and the vast majority of it's adherents just happen to be non white. Shall we invent a new word for people who discriminate against others solely on the basis of their religious beliefs? Is there already such a word?

So: where does noticing the differences between you and I, the differences in our skin colour or anything else, cross the line from just that-noticing-and become prejudice? There probably is no such line. I accept that.

As far as Kathy Shaidle is concerned, specifically, she has admitted to her own racism. On her blog, and in response to something another blogger, Doctor Dawg, wrote, she basically said, yeah, she's a racist and so is everyone else. If you go to her blog now you won't find that. I don't know if she keeps archives. Trust me, ok? (Here is the quote: Dawg: everyone is a racist, or, if you prefer, a bigot. Non-brainwashed grown ups admit this to themselves.)

So on that she and I agree. But Shaidle is not, at least as far as I can detect, ashamed of her racist beliefs and feelings. Today she acknowledges that writers like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant at least try to take "the high road", by which she means they attempt to be polite and civilized in their discussions about the current human rights complaints. Shaidle is not interested in being polite. She has confessed to doing her level best to be as obnoxious as she possibly can. I think that comes very naturally for her.

The difference between Shaidle and I is that I regret my inherent racist ideas and feelings and try to be aware of when they are happening so that I can challenge them. And that, really, is all I have. Not enough to keep a conversation going very long is it?

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I don't think Kathy Shaidle, or anyone else, ought to be jailed for having racist ideas or feelings. My God! I do think that acting upon racist ideas or feelings in a manner that brings harm to the target of our racist ideas and feelings ought to be consequenced. Education is a great place to start. I notice that many of the folks who have commented here, in support of Shaidle and Kate McMillan, appear to have trouble with basic literacy.

In case you have not noticed, I am no academic. Not particularly well read. I am curious and I read as much as I can. I try and keep an open mind. I read the writings of folks who are smarter than I am. That seems to me to be a legitimate way to learn. So I would hope ignorant individuals like Kathy Shaidle and Kate McMillan would be open to learning, so that they can understand and then change their own thinking and behaviour.

A few friends and readers continue to wonder why I bother going to blogs like Kathy Shaidle's and Kate McMillan's. I've been banned from even looking at McMillan's blog from this computer. I do it because I want to have this discussion. I think the discussion about how Muslims and non Muslims get along is one of the most important ones happening in the world right now. Second only to the conversations we are having about the environment and climate change. So I will continue and I will continue to invite participation from anyone else who is interested in learning as we go.

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