Things Ain't What They Used to Be

Things have sure changed since I was a kid.

There have been several news stories recently about men who convinced girls in their early teens to expose themselves or to perform sex acts in front of their webcams. Television stations run specials about how parents can protect their children. As people say, the world ain't what it used to be.

When I was a kid, we had one television and it was in the family room. We had a big console stereo in the living room and a smaller record-player in the family room. My sister and I each had a transistor radio. If there had been personal computers back then, we probably couldn't have afforded it. Even if we had, my parents would not have allowed me to keep it in my room - we weren't even allowed to eat in our rooms.

When I tell my nieces and nephews about what it was like when I was a kid, they act as if I lived during the Middle Ages. In some ways, though, I think people will eventually look upon my childhood as the last of the golden days of childhood.

Peat Bog Time Capsule

There was an interesting find in an Irish peat bog earlier this month. A worker discovered a medieval prayer book while excavating peat with a bulldozer. He recognized the importance of the find and covered it with fresh peat, thereby preserving the treasure for archeological.

The prayer book, or Psalter, is believed to be between 1,000 and 1,200 years old. Reports indicate that large portions of the book have survived, making it potentially one of the most valuable finds of its type in Ireland.

As is the case with so many archeological finds, the book's survival is largely a matter of luck. Irish monks often hid treasures in bogs to preserve them from marauding Vikings. If this was the case, the Vikings' loss is posterity's gain.

Where Are the Fruits of Yesterday?

I am showing my age.

The last few times I went to the grocery store, I did an imitation of my late grandmother. I start by saying how nice the fruit looks, and then proceed to picking up the ripest looking specimens. Feeling how hard they sit in my palm, I lift them to my nose and sniff in a fruitless attempt to discern the scent of peach or canteloupe or raspberries. Sometimes, I thump the melons in an unsuccessful attempt to identify ripeness. Most times, I just leave the fruit section, muttering under my breath about how fruit was better when I was a kid.

I may have been spoiled. We had berries in our back yard when I was a child in Saskatchewan. At one point, we lived near cherry orchards in Idaho. When we moved to British Columbia, we lived in the berry capital of Canada and I grew to take fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries as my birthright. After I became an adult, my parents moved to the orchard country of the Okanagan, with its cherries, apples, and peaches.

I know the cause. Fruit growers are cultivating varieties for how well they travel, not how well they taste, in part, I suspect, because consumers are no longer willing to wait for fruits to come into season. Instead of waiting for the short window of watermelon, we expect it year round -- and we get it.

Too bad it doesn't taste like anything.

Poem: Plotzensee

Plotzensee

At Plotzensee only the meathooks remain.
Flowers replace piano wire
And the halls no longer echo
Of jackboots on stone.
Best of all,
The men we'd like to be no longer die
At the hands of the men we are.

(c) J S Phillips


A poem for the July 20th conspirators and everyone else who fought the Nazi regime.

Celebrating a Few Honest Traitors

Today is the 62nd anniversary of the assassination attempt on Adolph Hitler.

A cabal of officers, led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, attempted to kill Hitler and other top Nazi officials with a bomb detonated in a combat headquarters. Hitler escaped, bloodied and dazed, and the coup d'etat fizzled largely due to the lethargic pace of the plotters. Only Stauffenberg seemed to really understand the need for urgency. In the end, a number of Hitler's opponents were executed for treason.

The German government held ceremonies honouring the conspirators, and several of the news sites mentioned the anniversary. The response on the Fox News web site had an interesting closing sentence: "Even now, historians still argue about their motives and — given their conservative views and early support for Hitler — their commitment to democracy." (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,204638,00.html)

I am not sure what point Fox News is trying to make. Is Fox implying that the only good assassin is a democratic assassin? Had they succeeded, would we look down upon them as traitors and ingrates because they preferred government by Kaiser over government by Fuhrer? Was it not enough that a group of men finally decided that enough was enough and that Hitler had to be stopped?

I have read enough about the resistance to Hitler to know that the July plotters were reactionary and even unrealistic in what they hoped to achieve. (For instance, they hoped to negotiate a return to Germany's pre-war borders.) However, they would have been disabused of their illusions had they replaced Hitler and his cronies.

I say we should forget about their politics. They saw that an evil had to be addressed and they did it. Whether they considered it evil because it was an abomination against God and Kaiser, or whether they thought it was a crime against the proletariat, they decided to act.

They decided to act, when so many millions decided to keep quiet. That, my friends, is worth celebrating.

Hot, Hot, Hot

It has always struck me as odd that many government officials and scientists in the United States fought vigourously against the notion of global warming. As someone who walks a lot, I can tell you that summers have definitely been getting warmer in Ontario. Judging by the news, it is the same story throughout the world.

Take London, for example. Most of the news sites I check out had a story this week about London being potentially hotter than Bangkok. I don't know about you, but I have always imagined South East Asia in summer as a hot climate. Not, perhaps, as hot as summer in Kandahar, but hot nonetheless.

As another example, take the Canadian north. The icebergs are melting at unprecedented rates. The permafrost is no longer permanently frozen in some areas. Insects and birds that used to range further to the south are making their way north. All of this points to global warming.

The frightening thing is that nobody seems to have the will to act on the issue. We still drive our cars rather than walking. We still don't reduce, re-use, or recycle as much as we could. We still eat fruits and vegetables imported from overseas rather than eating locally grown produce. We still run our air conditioners and dish washers and other appliances when there are alternatives.

I don't know what it is going to take to address the issue. I just hope that someone does address it before it is too late.

Eve of Destruction

Lately it feels as if we are right back in the 1960s, when Barry McGuire sang "Eve of Destruction".

"The eastern world. It is exploding." North Korea is testing missiles. The Tamils and Singhalese are killing each other in Sri Lanka. Trains are being bombed in Mumbai. Afghanistan is an active war zone.

"And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin'." Maybe it hasn't hit the Jordan yet, but people are dying in Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. The insurgency is continuing in Iraq.

"When human respect is disintegratin', This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'." A 97 year old lady died after being left in a car in hot weather. Oprah Winfrey feels obliged to state that she and her best friend are not gay lovers. The World Cup is marred by a head-butting incident that was allegedly sparked by insults to female relatives.

I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

In Memorium: Constables Bourdages and Cameron

Last week I wrote about the similarities between the current manhunt in Saskatchewan and Almighty Voice. Yesterday, my worst fears came to pass and both of the young Mounted Policemen died of their injuries.

There is nothing I can say except that their sacrifice is appreciated.

My Own Private Kahlo

I watched a documentary on TVO last night. It was about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

I've always liked Kahlo's paintings, but I had never really known much about her other than she had a unibrow, liked monkeys, and was married to Diego Riviera. That's enough to get you points playing trivia games, but it does not do Kahlo justice at all.

The documentary presented a far more complex person -- a woman whose life was filled with physical and emotional pain. The most striking thing about Kahlo, for me at least, was the depth of her love for Riviera. As much as he hurt her, as much as he disappointed him, she still loved him. He was central to her life, but it was not a love that comes from weakness. It was a love that came from a strong person.

It was odd watching the show, because I have my own private Frida Kahlo. I am lucky enough to have someone feel for me the way Kahlo felt about Riviera. All I can hope is that I am worthy to receive such love.

Waxwing

This afternoon I saw a cedar waxwing as I walked back to the office from my apartment. I had gone home for a bite to eat and was meandering my way back down Yonge Street when I saw some movement in the trees.

Usually, waxwings take off before I even get close, but this time the leaves and berries blocked the bird's line of sight. I stood perfectly still for a moment and was rewarded by a close up view of the waxwing. It was a pleasant end to a lunch break.

Almighty Voice Redux

There has been an interesting little drama playing out in Saskatchewan over the past few days.

Last Friday, a man shot at three RCMP officers, seriously wounding two of them. He then fled into the hills around Spiritwood. Since then, the Mounties and other police forces have been combing a stretch of heavily wooded hills that is twelve kilometres wide.

The pictures coming out of the incident look more like a war than a police operation, with officers carrying automatic rifles and wearing full camoflauge. This should not come as a surprise, though. After all, the RCMP is a paramilitary force whose members have regimental numbers, not badge numbers. The force has even been awarded battle honours from four wars (the Northwest Rebellion, South Africa, World War I, and World War II).

In some ways, the whole thing reminds me a bit of the Almighty Voice saga that took place in the Batoche area. Back in 1895, a young Cree man was arrested on a misdemeanour charge of killing a cow without permission. He escaped one night after a guard joked that he would be executed the next day, and the NWMP sergeant who went to apprehend him was killed in the ensuing gunfight.

Almighty Voice remained free for 19 months, while the Mounties searched for him throughout the prairies. When they eventually located him near his home, several members of the posse were killed in a fruitless charge up the hill that he and two friends were hiding on. The Mounties surrounded the hill and bombarded him with two cannons.

By the time the entire incident was over, seven men were killed, including Almighty Voice, and several others were wounded. I hope that today's incident ends in a more peaceful manner.

Today's Playlist

Today is a beautiful summer day and I am stuck in the office preparing for an ISO audit. At least I have my music. I am listening to entire albums, rather than working off of a computer-based playlist;

Here are today's musical choices for Radio SilentGriot:

• Nelly Furtado - Loose
• The Housemartins - Now That's What I Call Quite Good
• The Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy
• Tracy Chapman Let It Rain
• Madredeus - o espirito da paz

Hopefully, this will be enough to cover my day. If not, I have Enigma's Love, Sensuality, y Devotion somewhere around here.

A Mammoth Discovery

European scientists announced that woolly mammoths may have had a number of shades of hair, including red and blonde.

The big question is: "Were they natural or were there mammoth salons that provided normally brown-haired woolly mammoths with an alternative look?"

Happy Belated Birthday!!

Yesterday was a momentous birthday. The bikini bathing suit turned 60!

Bikinis are so ubiquitous that it sometimes seems hard to believe people ever wore anything else to the beach, but there was a time that they were considered quite shocking. (I wonder what people would have said about thongs back in 1946.)

I don't want to date myself, but even when I was a child, I heard some older ladies talking about how scandalously-clad the young ladies were on the beach. My how times change.

It's Only a Game

I have been following the World Cup fairly closely this year, since it was being held in Germany and my family is of German origin. Naturally, I have been supporting the German team throughout the tournament.

As you may be aware, my team got to the semi-finals, but they lost to the Italians in extra time earlier today. I cannot say that it is breaking me up -- I am not that much of a fan of Germany. In any event, I identify myself as a Canadian, not as a German, and we have not been in the World Cup since our one visit in the 1980s.

I do find it interesting to watch the truly dedicated fans. You know the ones -- they wear the jersies, fly the flags on their cars, and die each time someone scores against their team. I swear, you could hear the Italian fans from two miles away when Italy scored twice in extra time.

And well they should -- the Italians were clearly the better team and they deserved to win. (I am not sure the same could be said of the Portuguese in the game against England, but that is another story.) Since my team will not be in the Cup final, I have the luxury of cheering for whomever is playing best when the final game is played, so I guess I have the best of all possible worlds.

I AM CANADIAN

I do not drink beer.
I do not play hockey.
I don't envy or hate Americans.
I don't speak French.
I don't finish my sentences with "eh".
I don't go snowmobiling.
I would never go to Florida in February.

I like the CFL.
I like foreign films.
I enjoy the cold.
I think Lake Superior is awesome, but eerie.
I love driving through the Prairies.
I like the Group of Seven.
I enjoy Sunny Boy and Red River Cereals.
I feel most comfortable in multicultural cities.

I AM CANADIAN!