THE
AMBLER REDUCED TO BEGGARY WEEK: DAY 5
(NEW POSTS APPEAR BELOW)
Days 2, 3 and 4 of my appeal brought in $110,
significantly better than Day 1 ($10) but not likely to
keep Hector in kibbles 'n bits for long. The thought
occurs that not all people like dogs. Some prefer cats, so
I have procured one of them too. Again, probably best not
to inquire too deeply into the how. Never let it be said I
am unwilling to go that extra mile. I do not know what
this animal was called before, but she is now called
Morgan Le Fay, after the British sorceress of yore.
Hector and Morgan are dumb, but I speak for them. And
our message is a simple one: Feed us. Please click
on the PayPal button to the upper right, or email
me for my address, if you prefer to send cash or cheque.
Morgan sez: Feed me, or I'll bewitch you
Kevin
Michael Grace, 5.20 a.m., 28 February 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
(SPECIAL DEATH OF FREEDOM EDITION)
We accept the proposition that truth is not a defence
to an alleged violation of s. 13(1) of the [Canadian
Human Rights] Act. We note that the
truthfulness of a statement is not listed as an explicit
exception in s. 15 of the Act. Moreover, in our view,
there is nothing in s. 13(1) of the Act which allows for
an implied defence of truth…
Strange as it may sound, the establishment of truth is
not an issue in this case. Unlike the statutory defences
set out in... the Criminal Code which make truth a defence
[although the conviction
of Mark Harding has made this defence moot—Ed.]
to criminal prosecution for public incitement of hatred
against any group distinguished by colour, race, religion,
or ethnic origin, no equivalent defence is available in
the Canadian Human Rights Act. Parliament has deemed that
the use of the telephone [subsequently amended by
Parliament to include
the Internet—Ed.] for this kind of
discriminatory message is so fundamentally wrong, that no
justification for the communication can avail the
Respondents…
Consistent with a focus on effect rather than intent,
it is the effect of the message on the recipient, and
ultimately on the person or group vilified, that is the
focus of the analysis. The truth in some absolute sense
really plays no role. Rather, it is the social context in
which the message is delivered and heard which will
determine the effect that the communication will have on
the listener. It is not the truth or falsity per se that
will evoke the emotion but rather how it is understood by
the recipient. The objective truth of the statement is
ultimately of no consequence if the subjective
interpretation, by virtue of tone, social context and
medium is one which "arouses unusually strong and
deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and
vilification." Therefore, in our view, whether the
message is true or not is immaterial. Whether it is
perceived to be true or credible may very well add to its
impact, but its actual basis in truth is outside the scope
of this inquiry…
Once a person or group is identified, directly or
indirectly, on the basis of a prohibited ground [of
discrimination] it is somewhat disingenuous to say that it
is their behaviour and not their group membership which
exposes them to hatred or contempt…
It can thus be concluded that messages of hate
propaganda undermine the dignity and self worth of target
group members and, more generally, contribute to
disharmonious relations among various racial, cultural and
religious groups, as a result eroding the tolerance and
open mindedness that must flourish in a multicultural
society which is committed to the idea of equality.
In any event, we further find that the underlying truth
or falsity of the comments are not of particular utility
in making the argument on the basis advanced by the
Respondent. This argument relies essentially on correctly
interpreting the statements made by a respondent perhaps
with the assistance of an expert in semantics or other
relevant field, to evaluate whether hatred or contempt is
aroused "by reason" of the target group or
individual’s race or conduct. Whether the statements are
true or not will not have any particular bearing on the
analysis.
Parliament has spoken and determined what the scope for
legitimate criticism will be, at least in so far as
messages are communicated telephonically…At the risk of
stating the obvious, the scope for negative criticism is
limited to comments which are either silent or neutral
regarding membership in a group identifiable on a
prohibited ground, or which do not promote hate or
contempt. If the message "is likely to expose a
person or persons to hatred or contempt" then,
insofar as those individuals are targeted on the basis of
a prohibited ground under the Act, the comments are no
longer legitimate criticism…
In our view, questions as to the truth or falsity of
the statements found on the Zündel
site add nothing to our ability to
determine the issues before us, and potentially will add a
significant dimension of delay, cost and affront to the
dignity of those who are alleged to have been victimized
by these statements.
—Interim
decision of the Human Rights Tribunal in Citron
v. Zündel, May 25, 1998
Kevin
Michael Grace, 4.35 a.m., 28 February 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
In the Age of Bush, no lie is
too brazen. The more vulgar, the better: it's the only way
to capture the attention of a people who require the
crudest and strongest possible stimulus. That's what it
means to be decadent.
—Justin
Raimondo
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.41 p.m., 26 February 2005►
THE
AMBLER REDUCED TO BEGGARY WEEK: DAY 2
As suspected, I am simply not cuddly enough to backstop
an appeal for funds. Day 1 of Beggary Week brought in a
pitiful $10. And yet my need for sustenance is greater
than ever. So I have procured a dog. How is not important.
Let's just call it a "grey-market" transaction.
According to the American Kennel Club, he is called GK
Launcelot Snookums Babee, which is a rum name for an
animal, not to mention demeaning. So I have renamed him
Hector, after the Trojan hero of yore.
Hector is a prodigious eater, and it is embarrassing to
feed him from garbage cans. More embarrassing still is
that I wish I could bring myself to sup where Hector does.
Won't you please help? Please click on the PayPal
button to your right or email me for information
regarding cheques and cash.
Hector: How can you say no to this face?
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.32 a.m., 25 February 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
My own memories of the
British Military Hospital in Nicosia are mercifully few.
An officious brigadier, a senior surgeon, kept trying to
cut down the pain-killing drugs, for fear of addiction.
After my mother returned to England and her cows, Lady
Foot took to visiting me, leaving her 12 machine gunnists
outside the ward. She read to me from Lawrence Durrell's
book about Cypress, Bitter
Lemons, all about conversations with
quaint Cypriot peasants as a cool, thyme-scented breeze
whispered among the olive groves. Nothing could have been
more kindly intended, but as I lay on my sweat-soaked bed,
groaning in pain, between sessions of the crudest torture
when surgeons stuck huge needles in my back to drain it, I
conceived a great hatred for Lawrence Durrell. Scarcely
able to speak, I eventually stammered out: "He can't
even use the word 'pristine' correctly." "There,
there," she said. "You must not let these things
disturb you." This hatred has never left me and
embraces the entire school of expatriates who write
sensitively about sunnier climes than our own.
—Auberon Waugh, Will
This Do?
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.50 a.m., 25 February 2005►
THE AMBLER REDUCED TO
BEGGARY WEEK: DAY 1
It is customary in appeals of this kind to publish a
picture of a dog or some other cuddly creature next to a
warning of the dire fate that awaits this quadruped
should insufficient funds be raised. Unfortunately, I do
not own a dog, a cat or even a gerbil, as pets are not
allowed in my building. So I cannot claim that those who click
on the PayPal button on the right would be benefacting
anyone other than the biped called me.
I have several photographs of myself, but,
unfortunately, I have not been cuddly for quite
some time. Rather the reverse, actually. I did come across
this, however.
Behold the Ambler at 20 months. Note the equanimity
with which he regards the world. Note also the bib, which
indicates either that he has eaten recently or is
about to directly. While it is not true that a full
stomach is the sole cause of equanimity, it is safe to
say that the latter is near impossible without the former.
And this is where you can help. When you click
on the PayPal button at the upper right hand corner
of this page and then donate, you ensure the
continued provision of nutritious food to me. Those
who are unable or unwilling to give over the Internet may
email me for my address, as cheques and cash are most
appreciated as well. And the nutrition provided thereby in
turn engenders a calmer, more considered me, which results
in better polemics, which is of benefit to you.
This is what we in the grovelling game call a
"win-win situation." Help me help you. I
won't ask you to give until it hurts but rather to give
until my stomach no longer hurts.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 3.45 p.m., 24 February 2005►
THE CURSE OF GRACE
If you sit by the riverbank
long enough, the body of your enemy will float by.
—Chinese proverb
In Southeast Asia we'd call
this kind of thing bad karma.
—Bruce Dern, The
’burbs
One correspondent
informs me this site is "depressing," while another
calls me "cranky." No, no, no. The Ambler
is "spirited," while The Ambler is
"mordant." But who am I kidding? I am now
distinctly depressed and cranky as all get out. I have 12
cents to my name. The source of my next meal (and any
future meals) is a mystery. I’ve lost two jobs in the
last month. And I haven’t been paid since December, the
result of a "mix-up." I’m owed $2,700, but
when I will get this money is also a mystery.
The Ambler: Not exactly as illustrated
And this set me thinking about the Curse of Grace. This
knockoff of the Curse
of Gnome doesn’t exist, of course, nor
would I wish it to. It is surely coincidental that several
of the people who have crossed me over the years have come
unstuck. Like Kenneth "Ken" Whyte, fired
as National Post editor in 2003, some four years
after blackballing
me there. It wasn’t so much the
blackballing I minded (he can hire whomever he likes), it
was that he kept me twisting in the wind for weeks and
weeks and weeks.
The Post had flown me out to Toronto at great
haste and expense to be interviewed by Terence
Corcoran, editor of the business section. I
must have impressed him, because after I returned to
Vancouver, he called me on a regular basis to say how much
he me wanted me as his deputy. "Really, really"
wanted me. It became obvious, however, as my excitement
turned first to apprehension and then to irritation, that
something was standing in the way of my appointment as
deputy editor of the Financial Post. Several months
after we’d begun this rigadoon, a sheepish Corcoran
stomped on my feet: "What is it with you and Ken
Whyte, anyway?" I wish I knew.
Actually, Whyte never really paid a price for his base
treatment of me, unless one considers a huge buyout and a sinecure
at McGill to be punishments. And now, of
course, he has been named
editor and publisher of Maclean’s. The latter
appointment was presumably in recognition of the bang-up
job Whyte did on the fiscal side during his tenure at the Post.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline identified the "quest for
justice" as the primary source of madness. And so it
is. But you will perhaps forgive me for being somewhat put
out when I consider that the result of doing me down is
invariably increased fame and fortune. Which is not to say
that the Curse of Grace does not exist.
Q: What do these
companies have in common: CJOR
Radio, CJCA
Radio, The
Report Newsmagazine and the Provincial
& Territorial Report?
A: The Ambler worked for
all of them, and they all went bust, while he was there or
shortly afterward.
(Extra credit: The Ambler also worked at KOGO Radio in
San Diego; later, it was bought
by Clear Channel, which is a kind of
death.)
I sit by the riverbank, but the body of my enemy does
not float by. It is my own body, again and again and
again, in Nietzschean eternal recurrence.
God, I wish I had the last eight years back.
On the stereo, The Kinks, The
Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society,
"Where Did My Spring Go?":
When you were loving me,
You were just using me.
You would employ me,
You would destroy me.
Now all I've got are varicose veins.
Where did the spring go?
Where did my hormones go?
Where did my energy go?
Where did my go go?
Where did the pleasure go?
Where did my hair go?
Remember all those sleepless nights,
Making love by candlelight,
And every time you took my love,
You were shortening my life.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 8.21 p.m., 23 February 2005►
GRACE NOTES
A strange headline
from the Denver Post: "Hunter S. Thompson
shoots self in head." And then what happened?
"‘Fear and Loathing’ author dead at 67."
Yes, well, I suppose death is the usual result of shooting
oneself in the head. One can hardly claim to be surprised
by Thompson’s fate. He long ago became the prisoner of
his own mythology, and the last 30 years of his life were
rather a postscript. I remember seeing him interviewed in
1972 as an "expert" on American politics on the
Canadian TV newsmagazine W5. Hubert Humphrey, he
declared knowingly, was a "speed freak." You can
see it in his eyes, he explained. My first reaction was
that Thompson was demented. Later, I thought this a good
joke. Later still, I concluded that my first judgement was
correct. It is a sad truth that drug addicts are insane.
They have nothing to teach us. They are also terrible
bores, being interested in two subjects only, which are
the same subject: drugs and their own consciousness as
filtered through drugs. Still, Thompson wrote one good
book, Hell’s
Angels, and one great book, Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas. The latter
is a kind of postscript, too, a postscript to the death of
Freak Power. Those interested in understanding the death
of this dream/nightmare and why it was inevitable are
directed to Christopher Booker’s Jungian analysis, The
Neophiliacs: "Really and truly,
don’t you know, after such an experience, one looks for
the Writing on the Wall, and asks oneself, How long are
such things going to be permitted to go on?"
It is an amusing irony that Thompson’s paranoid
fantasies have been outstripped by "reality."
Indeed, one is tempted to regard the world since 9/11 as a
psychotropic hallucination. Viz., Representative Christopher
Cox at the Conservative Political Action
Conference, 17 February, "America's Operation Iraqi
Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among
the blame-America-first crowd…We continue to discover
biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make
them inside Iraq." Cox went on to suggest that Iraq
had planned the mass murder of Americans via ricin and
sarin secreted in bottles of Calvin
Klein’s Obsession and the like. Shock and
awe, indeed. Those that murder truth are capable of
anything. What shall be the response, I wonder, should the
Bushites decide to bust the 22nd
Amendment?
Barbara Amiel has risen from her sickbed to pen a column
for the Sunday Telegraph, one of the newspapers her
husband was forcibly divested of last year. One cannot but
be reminded of the late Hunter S.: a mind at the end of
its tether. If there is an argument here amidst the
self-pity, I can’t find it. "This past week has
been something of an epiphany for the politically
correct," what? And she dares accuse Ken
Livingstone of "flat cliché."
And, better yet, of precipitating "an endless stream
of bilge about racism." Would this be the same
Barbara Amiel who has made a career of accusing
tout le monde of anti-Semitism, the same
woman who cast a pall over Metroland when she shopped the
French ambassador for private remarks allegedly made at
her own dinner party? "Schadenfreude
at Ken Livingstone's current plight is inevitable,"
she writes. At Ken Livingstone’s plight, eh Babs?
The murderers of truth see all others as liars. This
explains why hatred of the "liberal media" (sic)
grows ever stronger among our politicians. It has not
occurred to them that if not for journalistic courtier
gentility, they might be forced to confront directly the
anger of the people they ostensibly represent. Richard
Ingrams writes,
"[Alastair Campbell] still seems to think that
journalists are a tough cynical lot, always prone to see
the worst. In fact, with only a few exceptions, they are
almost excessively deferential, as you can see from [Tony]
Blair's monthly press conference, when all the questions
are invariably bland." Campbell came a cropper when
he put Blair before a television studio full of "real
people." Foolish Campbell forgot that "real
people" don’t worry about "access" and
thus are not afraid to ask real questions, such as,
"Bearing in mind that tens of thousands of innocent
men, women and children have died as a result of the
invasion of Iraq, how do you sleep at night, Mr
Blair?" Karl Rove is smarter than this. That’s why
George W. Bush only appears before "real people"
that have signed loyalty
oaths.
What is it about Dubya that makes him so awful? (As
opposed to merely wicked.) How about this: "I just
can’t stand the man’s style, the way he swaggers and
struts and smirks and the way he looks sly and deceitful
and the way Americans can’t see it. I’m irritated by
the way they think he’s just a regular guy you can have
a drink with." Bango! Whose words? None other than
the Rev.
Richard Dawkins, Rector of the First Church
of Scientific Atheism. Live and learn: Dawkins is
obviously much cleverer than one might have imagined. (And
here’s my
contribution to the Will Chris Hitchens
Cross The Tiber? file.)
The Dawkins quotation comes from Brian Appleyard via Steve
Sailer. Steve continues to speak up for
Lawrence Summers, beleaguered president of Harvard. He
should save his
advocacy for someone that deserves it.
Three years ago, Summers took on the Black
Studies scam. That ended with Summers
grovelling. Did he learn anything? Not a bit of it. We all
know how his dust-up with the bearded ladies will end.
Summers could not have done a better job making life worse
for white males at Harvard if had been an agent
provocateur. No names, no pack-drill, Larry.
What would have happened had Summers not surrendered?
Hard to say. But we know what would not have happened. He
would not have been arrested, imprisoned in a
concentration camp or dispatched with a bullet to the back
of the head and then dumped in a pit. I do not want to see
ever again any attacks, from Norman
Lebrecht or anyone else, on Richard Strauss
or Wilhelm Furtwängler or any other Germans for cowardice
during the period 1933-45. Of course as we continue to
become stupider and more snivelling with each passing day,
the number of attacks will continue to increase as we wrap
ourselves ever tighter with the fetid blanket of our moral
superiority. Sometimes one feels ashamed to be human.
In the window of the Chinese restaurant I pass by every
day, there is a poster advertising Zhujiang beer:
"State Beer of China." What a curious
catchphrase. I thought to compare it to other state beers
I have tasted, but I couldn’t think of any. A visit to
the website of the China
National Light Industry Information Center
did not exactly inspire confidence: "Zhujiang Beer is
the head product of the Company by adopting the Quick
Fermentation Process. Its appearance is clear and
transparent with luster, color pale and yellow, head pure
white, fine lasting and strong biting , Flavor mellow,
tasty and refreshing with remarkable fragrance of
hop." But it strikes me that most of the poster is
written in Chinese, with doubtless a more cogent message.
Perhaps, "It is the patriotic duty of all Han people
living abroad to drink large, but not excessive,
quantities of Zhujiang Beer, State Beer of China. That is
all."
I suppose I have been rather down on the Chinese of
late after watching Martin Scorsese’s Kundun
again. It has become fashionable in
"conservative" circles to mock Western concern
for the Tibetan people, but this is just more evidence of
how repugnant "conservatives" have become.
"What did we do that was bad?" asks one of the
Dalai Lama’s aides, and there is no answer to this
question. Unless not being sufficiently
"progressive" is bad, and here we see the common
ground between Chinese communism and Western globalism.
Critics of Kundun were ignorant of the genre in
which Scorsese was working: hagiography. It is a pity he
could not have been as reverent toward Jesus Christ, but
that probably would have been too much to expect.
Nonetheless, it is greatly heartening to see a film that
treats prayer and meditation as noble, that so exalts the
spirit. And is so pleasing to the eyes and ears.
Apparently, however, we are so surfeited with beauty
nowadays that the achievements of Roger Deakins and Philip
Glass were treated as niggling. As in,
"Sure, Kundun is beautiful but…" But
what? Any critic who believes beauty a minor consideration
is a bloody fool not worth wasting another minute on. But
what can one say about a critic
prepared to dismiss an entire religion on the basis that
Richard Gere is a member?
To me, the saddest scene in Kundun was not when
the Dalai Lama learns of the atrocities committed against
his people or even when that suave monster Mao Zedong
tells him, "Religion is poison." It is
when Mao tells him that Chinese colonists are coming to
Tibet. A nation can survive military defeats and mass
atrocities, but colonization is the end. When will the
West wake up?
There has been a pleasing uptick in the number of
visitors to this site recently. Especially, for some
reason, from Vermont. But I expect the latter is
temporary. I suppose that more words mean more traffic.
I’ll keep that in mind.
One the stereo, Peter Blegvad, Just
Woke Up, "Mad Love Vanishes":
Now he's coming up the stairs
to thank you, baby.
He's come from beyond the stars
Just to thank you, baby.
To shed new light on an unsolved case.
Do you recognize the couple locked in this embrace?
It's a fact you're gonna have to face:
Even mad love vanishes and leaves no trace.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 3.54 a.m., 22 February 2005►
RIP
SISTER LUCIA DE JESUS DOS SANTOS
Sister Lucy, the last of the three Portuguese children
to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima in 1917
died
last week. Barring some other kind of miracle, she took
the so-called Third Secret of Fatima to the grave. I wrote
about Sister Lucy in 2000, when the official
version of the Third Secret was allegedly
revealed. The official version was unavailing then and is
even less so now. It is not only cultists
and malcontents that agree, if this
ambiguous and disturbing account
from Reuters is any indication.
Mysterious Still
The fabled 'Third Secret' of Fatima is revealed, but some
Catholics are crying foul
The Report
11 September 2000
The Third Secret of Fatima was the greatest mystery of
the 20th century. It was said to foretell the unspeakable.
The Vatican has finally revealed its text, and the
revelation is, to many, a disappointment. Traditionalist
Catholics have even accused the Vatican of forgery,
claiming the truth has been suppressed because the secret
implicates the Church hierarchy in apostasy.
On May 13, 1917, 10-year-old Lucia dos Santos and her
cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto were in a pasture
outside the Portuguese village of Fatima. They were
frightened by lightning and cowered under a tree. There
they saw a vision of a woman. She appeared to them five
more times and called for the praying of the rosary,
repentance and devotion. She requested the building of a
church there and forecast the imminent death of Francisco
and Jacinta (they died less than two years later and were
beatified this year by Pope John Paul II). She delivered a
message for the salvation of the world and promised a
miracle. On October 13 of that year, 70,000 gathered in
the pasture to wait.
They witnessed the "Miracle of the Sun." The
sun was seen to dance in the sky. The cult of Our Lady of
Fatima was approved a decade later; a basilica was
completed in 1953. Six million faithful now make the
pilgrimage annually. Lucia entered a Carmelite convent in
1948; she resides there still. The Secret of Fatima is one
message in three parts: the first is an apparition of
Hell; the second prophesies of the spread of communism,
the outbreak of Second World War and a request for the
consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Sister Lucia transcribed the Third Secret in the 1940s; it
was delivered to the Vatican in 1957 with instructions for
it to be revealed in 1960.
It was not; speculation grew that it prophesied nuclear
destruction or the Satanic takeover of the Vatican. On May
13, 1981 (note the date), John Paul II was shot and lay
near death for days. A decade later, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, said he had seen the secret but was not
prepared to release it, as it was not in the Church's
interest.
A holograph of the Third Secret and a commentary were
released June 26. The text is an account of a vision of a
white-robed bishop, the Holy Father, and other priests and
religious figures massacred with bullets and arrows by an
army. The Vatican interprets this as a foretelling of the
1981 assassination attempt. Many Catholics were relieved,
but others were not persuaded by the interpretation and
wondered why the secret had not been released two decades
earlier.
Father Nicholas Gruner's Fatima
Centre of Fort Erie, Ont., rejects the
Vatican's interpretation. Fr. Gommar de Pauw, doctor of
canon law and founder of the Catholic
Traditionalist Movement, goes even further.
He claims he saw a copy of the Third Secret—and
published it—while he was a peritus (expert) at
the Second Vatican Council, 1962-65. (Cardinal Ratzinger
was also a peritus.) Fr. de Pauw relates, "It
said, 'Bishops will fight bishops; cardinals will fight
cardinals.' It said that by the end of the 20th century,
the Vatican would lose the faith completely, would
essentially cease to exist."
"It predicted all the turmoil the Second Vatican
Council produced," Fr. de Pauw declares. "It's
not the authentic text; they have falsified it, yes,"
he says of the Vatican's release. "No doubt they
forced that nun [Sr. Lucia], in her 90s, to write whatever
they wanted her to write. She's been kept in solitary for
years and years...poor soul." He says of Cardinal
Ratzinger, "I knew him when...he was once one of the
worse leftists [at Vatican II], right up there with [the
heretic] Hans Küng." He scorns the cardinal's
newfound reputation for conservatism and characterizes him
as "an arsonist who is now fire chief."
E.
Michael Jones, a conservative Catholic and
author of The
Medjugorje Deception, is similarly
scornful of what he calls "the Marian apparitions
industry." Jones believes the Virgin Mary appeared at
Fatima, but adds, "That doesn't mean that everyone
who wraps the mantle of Fatima around himself is credible.
Lots of Catholics are being exploited by people involved
in that business." He says the Vatican would be
"absolutely foolish to release a bogus document"
and concludes of Cardinal Ratzinger, "He's been an
absolutely scrupulous man in my dealings with him."
Kevin
Michael Grace, 8.43 p.m., 21 February 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
It is difficult to conceive
of a masterpiece in any other form than it is... [It] must
convey what I think Schönberg called the illusion of
spontaneous vision. It is as if the artist had caught a
glimpse of something that has been going on all the time
and that he has stretched out and effortlessly captured
it.... It is the ability to sacrifice good ideas in the
interest of structural coherence that is the hallmark of a
good composer.
—Robert Layton, review
of Sibelius Violin Concerto, First and Final Versions, Kavakos/Vänskä
Kevin
Michael Grace, 4.19 a.m., 21 February 2005►
THE REICHSTAG IS BURNING
If nothing else, the arrival of Fox News in Canada has
been a godsend to the Conservatives. This has enabled
near-simultaneous transmission of the Republican National
Committee talking points they require to calibrate their
foreign policy.
For
immediate release: Friday, February
18, 2005
Ottawa – Stockwell Day,
Official Opposition Foreign Affairs Critic, declared today
that Paul Martin’s egregious comment regarding Syrian
defiance of UN resolution 1559 (the illegal occupation of
Lebanon) as being legitimate for sake of peace, has
embarrassed Canada as feared by the Conservative Party.*
“This was a statement made
appeasing the Syrian government and bolstering its
confidence,” stated Day. “The Prime Minister’s
remarks
have not only created a diplomatic problem for Canada,
hurting our international credibility, but has have also
given the Syrian government ample reason to defy UN
resolution 1559.”
Day forcefully insists that
“there is only one way for the Prime Minister to remedy
this situation. He must apologize and correct
himself by stating that Syria is a threat to peace in the
Middle East if their troops continue to occupy Lebanon.”
Evidence of Martin’s
failure can be seen in the communiqué
today by the Canadian Islamic Congress, in
support of Martin’s statement about Syrian forces in
Lebanon.
Let's leave aside Day's cynical love-hate relationship
with the UN. Syrian troops have been in Lebanon since
1976. And they're a threat to peace in the Middle East
now? Why? Because some guy nobody in the West had
ever heard of got
blown up? Try again. No, Syria has become
vulnerable because the administration of George W. Bush,
the real threat to peace in the Middle East, has admitted
it to that select (but growing) club, the Axis of Evil.
Stockwell Day says Paul Martin's remarks have
"created a diplomatic problem for Canada." Are
we to believe that the fragrant night air of the Levant is
rent by cries of "Canada's response to the
murder of Rafik Hariri is an egregious insult!" Chuck
it, Day. What Day means by "diplomatic problem"
is that Canada is not marching in lockstep with the United
States. So why doesn't he just say so?
And yet Day's inanity is as nothing compared to our
friend Jason Kenney's: "The Prime Minister made an
enormous diplomatic faux pas ["cataclysmic,"
shurely?! Ed.] when he effectively endorsed the
illegal Syrian occupation of Lebanon. He insulted
thousands of Lebanese Canadians in the process."
Chuck it, Kenney. Since when do Lebanese Canadians have a
veto over Canadian foreign policy? I don't recall Serbian
Canadians being offered one before Canada piled
on with NATO at the behest of that Muslim
drug gang, the KLA.
And to which "Lebanese Canadians" does Kenney
refer? The Maronite Christians? They invited the Syrians
into Lebanon in 1976 and yes, as "peacekeepers."
*Grammar
alert: this preceding paragraph demonstrates that some
bugs remain in the HumanFreedom™ (formerly WarBot911™)
software the Conservatives recently licensed to compose
their press releases. A spokesman for Perle Laboratories
assures us, however, that a perfect synthesis of human
writing skills will be ready "real soon now."
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.33 p.m., 19 February 2005►
PENSÉES
George W. Bush's "human
freedom": Wherein the United States of
America becomes the United States of Everywhere.
But the United States of Everywhere is also the United
States of Nowhere.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.24 p.m., 17 February 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Even as the Census Bureau published
what may be the first lines of the epitaph of the American
nation and its civilization last December, President Bush
was plotting one last war in Somalia before he slipped
into the twilight of history. The United States
government, as George F. Kennan notes in his recent memoir,
while not loath to putting
half a million armed troops into the Middle East to expel
the armed Iraqis from Kuwait, confesses itself unable to
defend its own southwestern border from illegal
immigration of people armed with nothing more formidable
than a strong desire to get across it.
Mr. Bush's last war and Mr.
Kennan's latest reflections point to the central irony of
the American imperium's last days, that the willingness of
the American megastate to kill some 250,000 Iraqis who had
never harmed or threatened the United States in any way is
regarded as the ultimate confirmation of the omnipotence
of a superpower that has ended history and can now do
whatever it wants, while the same power cannot imagine any
good reason to protect its own borders from invasion. The
megastate and its masters can play with bombs in Baghdad
and Bosnia all they want, save as many Somalians as can be
rounded up, and count as many beans as they can find, but
those enterprises will not preserve a civilization or a
nation whose founding demographic core is facing a slow
extinction and whose leaders have forgotten what
civilization means and have come to regard their own
nation as a barrier to be broken down and discarded.
—Samuel Francis, Chronicles, June 1993
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.33 p.m., 17 February 2005►
GRACE'S THREE
STAGES OF TOLERANCE
1. Please stop persecuting us.
2. We're just as good as you are.
3. We're better than you, and, in recognition of this
and of the historic and systemic discrimination to which
our community continues to be subjected, we demand
privilege, both societal and statutory.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.47 a.m., 17 February 2005►
DANGER! DANGER, JASON KENNEY!
The Rabble has decided that Jason Kenney must
be a sodomite on the "He hates gays,
so he must be gay" principle. Or perhaps the
"Deep down, everybody is really gay" principle.
But there's one young woman on the Franksters webboard who
knows better. She calls herself "Missy Tee" and asks,
I heard that Jason Kenney has
recently dropped about two small children in weight.
Anyone have a before/after?
Now "Missy Tee" calls herself all sorts of
names, on the Web and elsewhere. Her true identity is
known to me—and others—but I dare not
reveal it, because I'd prefer to stay in one piece. What I
can say is that "Missy Tee" is a comely,
mediagenic, sexually voracious and certifiable member of
the "conservative community." And when you
become the object of her affections, you'd best start
running as fast as your legs will carry you. Change your
name, Jason; change your address; change your face, if you
must. And avoid Vancouver at all costs.
On the stereo: Jimi Hendrix, Experience
Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix,
"Dolly Dagger":
Here comes Dolly Dagger
Her love so heavy gonna make you stagger
Dolly Dagger
She drinks the blood from a jagged edge
Ah, drink up, baby
Been ridin' broomsticks since
she was fifteen
Blow out all the other witches on the scene
She got a bullwhip just as long as your life
Her tongue can even scratch the soul out of the devil's
wife
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.19 p.m., 16 February 2005►
PENSÉE
Once the rising tide (of capitalism) no longer lifts
all boats, it will become a flood.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.13 p.m., 16 February 2005►
A PREDICTION
Yes, yes, I
know. Nevertheless. Stephen Harper will
announce his resignation as leader of the Conservative
Party of Canada by 1 July 2005. His successor? Bernard
Lord. You read it here first.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.18 a.m., 16 February 2005►
THE THOUSAND-YARD STARE
The highest praise I know: unfortunately, not written
by The Ambler.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 1.30 a.m., 16 February 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The
conservative media has blown its great chance to gain
credibility by holding Bush accountable as it did Clinton.
Instead, the conservative media and talk radio have shown
themselves to be political partisans who fight against
truth. Justify Bush at all costs is their operative rule.
At least
the German press and the Soviet press were forced into
these roles by Hitler and Stalin. The American
conservative media willingly adopted the role on its own.
The
function of a journalist is to speak truth to power and to
hold accountable those with power. Abandoning this role,
the conservative media cheerleads for war, incompetent
leaders, and a police state.
—Paul
Craig Roberts
Kevin
Michael Grace, 1.13 a.m., 16 February 2005►
