And Two Makes Forty-Four

After six weeks of relative safety, the Canadian army lost two soldiers the other day in Afghanistan. They were traveling in a convoy when a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle, damaging theirs. The losses brought up the total Canadian fatality count to forty-four soldiers and one diplomat killed in the Afghanistan mission, most of them in 2006.

The families say the things military families are supposed to say, things like, "He died doing what he loved doing." I am sure that is true. Why else would someone put themselves in harm's way to face death in someone else's country? The soldiers must have truly loved being in the army and serving as their government saw fit to deploy them.

The Afghanistan mission is a tough sell. Canadians are torn between wanting our troops home without further losses, being proud of the job they have accomplished, and worrying that the war may not be as much of a Dudley Do-Right mission as it was initially portrayed. No doubt historians five decades from now will find similarities between Afghanistan and Korea, the last major conflict in which Canadians saw combat.

I am torn too. I am proud of how well our troops have carried themselves. I know it is politically incorrect to say this, but I am pleased to see that they are still effective at the arts of war, especially after the neglect of successive governments. I am sad that so many of them have died.

Most importantly, I sometimes wonder if the end result is worth it. Who knows if democracy will really take root in Afghanistan? Who knows if the lives of women and children (and men, for that matter) will ever change for the better? Who knows if a hundred years from now the Afghan elders will tell their grandchildren of the times when the brave freedom fighters first chased out the Russians and then chased out the NATO armies? Who knows if the fighting will ever end?

The Deed is Done

Members of Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve Prime Minister Harper's motion to recognize the Quebecois as a "nation within a united Canada". 266 MPs of all parties approved the motion, while only 16 rejected it.

I don't know what to make of this. I doubt it will appease separatists in Quebec, who see Quebec as an independent country. I doubt it will please many "average Canadians" either, although I may be wrong on that count.

I do know that the move seems to be a step backwards to a time where ethnicity defined nations. To me, Canada has always risen above mere parochial ethnicity. I am Canadian first, of German descent second (or even third, given my strong identification as a North American).

Perhaps the one thing I find the most ironic is that the Quebecois were never really a "nation" in a true sense. Up until 1759. Quebec was a colony of a nation, France, but it was not a nation in and of itself. The French government called the shots -- and paid the bills. But irony and politics seem to go hand in hand, so perhaps I should not be surprised.

What About That Weather, Eh?

The television weather reporters are having a field day this weekend. Toronto has had a weekend of unseasonably warm temperatures while Vancouver has been hit with a snowstorm and sits beneath a foot of snow. Meanwhile, the Prairies are in a deep freeze, with temperatures falling below 20 degrees Centigrade.

I find this fascination with weather interesting, but somewhat inexplicable. Perhaps because we are a nation of extreme weather changes, we are at times preoccupied with whether or not precipitation has fallen, and in which forms. On the other hand, perhaps we are like strangers on an elevator who, pressed for conversation, settle on the weather as a safe topic.

Intimations of Winter

I walked to work this morning.

The blades of grass were white with frost. The leaves that littered the ground were coated with a thin crystal crust that sparkled in the sun like diamond dust. The sidewalk revealed the treads of those who'd been there as if Mother Nature's CSIs dusted the pavement for shoe prints. The warmth of my breath caused wisps of steam to accompany my whistling.

I popped into the Tim Horton's to pick up a coffee.

When I exited the coffee shop, the sun had been out long enough to melt the magic away. The grass was wet. The leaves were soggy. The sidewalk looked as if it had been rained on. The only steam was the heat that escaped when I lifted the lid from my coffee cup.

A Nation at Last, As If It Really Matters

Earlier today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons and proposed to recognize the Quebecois as a nation within Canada. The other two federalist parties ( the Liberals and the NDP) agreed with him that the Quebecois are a nation within the Canadian state. The Bloc Quebecois, on the other hand, seemed miffed that the federalists included that pesky "within Canada" limitation on the recognition.

Supposedly this is a big thing, perhpas even historic in nature. After all, Quebec separatism is predicated on the idea that the Quebecois form a unique nation. I am not sure it really is a big thing, though.

As a citizen of what some have described as the world's first post-nation state, it seems to me that the question of nationhood is rather outdated. Canada is a country, not a nation. We are a community of communities, rather than a homogeneous enclave with a single ethnicity, a single religion, and a single culture. The same can be said for Mali, for Australia, for Costa Rica, and for France.

It is definitely the case for the modern Quebec where multilingual Montrealers speak sentences that mix French, English, and other languages with ease. Quebec is no longer the homogeneous conservative Catholic society that it was in the years before the cultural revolution. It may be true that Quebeckers identify themselves in narrower terms than most Canadians do as citizens of a province, but then again, Vancouverites take pride in their unique identity as do citizens of my own beloved Hog Town.

Recognizing Quebec as a nation is a nice way of saying "We recognize that you are special, with a unique history", but does it really mean much in practical terms? I guess we will find that out in the months and years to come. I am sure that the separatists will continue to press for independence, even though the world seems to be becoming more integrated than ever before in the empire of global capitalism.

Perhaps that makes the Quebecois the Luddites of Canada. Demands for a separate nation state may just be the last ditch gasp of a society of diehard romantics, a society in which the nation is more important than the state.

The Rime of the Lower Mainlanders

"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink."

These days, the people in the lower mainland of British Columbia must feel some kinship with the Ancient Mariner from Coleridge's poem. Despite living in the wettest environment in Canada, nearly a million British Columbians remain under orders to use bottled water or to boil tap water. Worst of all, officials still do not know when they will lift the ban on drinking tap water.

The problem stems from the storms that ravaged the area recently. The Capilano and Seymour watersheds were hit hard by the storms, and the water is considerably murkier than normal. Although nobody has reported falling ill due to drinking the water and despite the fact that health officials have not found any evidence of bacteria in tap water, they are still concerned that drinking the water may lead to gastrointestinal illness. The ban, therefore, remains.

There is one piece of good news, though. Local coffee shops are back in business after having been temporarily shut down. If you know Vancouver, you'll understand what an important step this is on the road to normalcy.

A Grey Day in Canada

Today is Grey Cup Sunday. CFL football fans throughout the country have congregated in Winnipeg to watch the big game. Millions of others, including my family, will be watching on television. I probably won't.

It's not that I have anything against the Canadian Football League. Truth be told, I prefer the CFL game to the product put out by the National Football League down south. Having said that, "prefer" is a relative term, and preferring the CFL over the NFL is like preferring the cold over the flu. As much as I hate to admit it, football just doesn't appeal to me.

I played football once. I was in Grade 11 and I had an incredible need to fit in with the other kids in school. Since I was a big kid, everyone always urged me to go out for the gridiron gang and that year I decided to go for it. The gym coach who had constantly urged me to go out for the team was ecstatic. My friends on the team were happy that they were going to be bulking up the line.

Imagine everyone's surprise when they discovered that the tall kid with broad shoulders who looked like a football player was so lousy at the game! I like to joke that I was a fourth string player on a three string team, but the truth is that I barely made the fourth string. My biggest contribution was to intimidate the other team with my size when we took to the field for pre-game calisthetics.


I don't regret my football career. I may not have been very good, but I learned a lot about life by playing football. Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned was that I don't enjoy football enough to waste a good part of the day watching the Grey Cup.

Do I dare to eat a peach?

I did not have a particularly good day today. I don't know why -- perhaps there was no reason why -- but I felt a bit out of step with the world around me.

Maybe I should blame it on T. S. Eliot. You see, I read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock on my lunch break and, as always, the poem left me feeling a little empty. I suppose you could say it made me feel like a "hollow man" after I had read it.

I don't know what it is, but so many phrases reverberate in my soul when I read Prufrock. Today it was the following passage that spoke to me:

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of tea.

I just watched a couple of television shows. One is fairly good. One is filler, shlock fit only to kill an hour until my preferred show comes on. Neither is capable of affecting me the way these nine lines did. Both are forgotten a mere half hour after their completion. Eliot, on the other hand, haunts the chambers of my very being.

There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. Did Eliot imagine that all these years later we would live in a world that encourages us to prepare faces to deal with one another? Would he be sad to discover that each of us dons masks each day, as if there is no other way to face the world?

Time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of tea. Imagine the odds that Eliot would foresee my life in such detail. How comforting to know that he could imagine a world with such possibilities that the greatest challenge is to choose the dream to pursue.

I wish I could be like Prufrock, able to say, "I heard the mermaids singing, each to each", even if they did not sing for me any more than they sang for him. But today, I do not hear mermaids. Today, I only hear Prufrock as he leads me on through half-deserted streets.

Colour Me Lilac

Like many workplaces, the organization I work for requires employees to wear identification and security cards at all times. Like many such organizations, my company also provides employees with free colour-coded lanyards.

Our colour code is a combination of positions and departments. Team Leaders, for example, wear grey lanyards while management wears red or black depending upon their level. Similarly, Information Technology employees wear gold, while support departments wear burgundy. In my particular case, my department colour is the lilac lanyard of Training and Human Resources and my position colour is black. I normally wear lilac. And therein hangs a tale.

I have spent enough time with new employees to understand how red or black lanyards can affect training sessions. Believe it or not, they sometimes end discussions before they begin. Something as simple as a red or black strip of cloth can make people nervous, so when I am training the black lanyard comes off.

Many of the new employees know me as a trainer for the first two weeks of their careers. It is only once they are out of the training room and onto the floor that they learn my true role in the organization. I guess that makes me a bit like Batman or Superman. Call me TrainingMan, member of the League of the Lilac Lanyard.

Remembrance Day, 2006

I heard a young man talking about Remembrance Day earlier this afternoon. He stated he did not attend the ceremonies on the weekend because he could not condone violence and he would not glorify war. As far as he was concerned, he told his audience, attending Remembrance Day ceremonies was just a way to encourage the government to send a new flock of lambs to the slaughter.

I understand his position, even if I cannot agree with it. Even when it is necessary -- and sometimes it is necessary -- war is an evil, destructive, inhuman undertaking. But the young man was missing the point. Remembrance Day is not about war, at least not entirely. Remembrance Day is about being a member of society.

Every man or woman who agrees, voluntarily or not, to serve the state in its armed forces undertakes a social compact with their society. The warrior agrees to obey orders, undertake hardships, and, if necessary, to pay the supreme price of death or maiming. In return, the state is to care for the wounded and the families of the dead. The rest of us, the vast masses who make up the rest of society, are expected to make sure the warriors are not forgotten.

That is the purpose of Remembrance Day. The grotesque anonymity of the killing fields of Flanders, Verdun, and the Somme seared a broad and deep scar on the psyche of our societies. The survivors instinctively understood that plaques and resting places for "unknown soldiers" were not enough to meet the requirements of the social compact. Mere statuary was not enough -- living memories were required.

By pausing for one brief hour every November, we keep the social compact. The dead held up their part of the bargain, whether their graves are known or whether they are buried in tons of Flemish mud or hidden in the carcass of a plane awaiting discovery in the jungle. Remembrance Day is how we, members of society, keep our end of the bargain.

The poppies we wear, the silence we observe, the tears that form in the corners of our eyes when the piper plays The Flowers of the Forest or when the aging veteran reads from the roll of honour in a halting voice -- these are the true memorials to those who kept their end of the bargain. They are the means by which we keep faith with those who died.

Movie Review - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America

I saw Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan last weekend and I still don't know what to make of it.

In case you are one of the few people in North America who has not heard of the Borat phenomenon, the movie is a mock documentary detailing the travels -- and travails -- of a fictional reporter from Central Asia. It is your standard "innocent abroad" story with one exception -- Borat is anything but innocent.

Borat Sagdiyev is a sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic moron. He believes women are fourth class citizens, after men, horses, and dogs. He thinks nothing of asking a gun shop owner which firearm is best for shooting Jews and readily believes that the Jewish owner of a bed-and-breakfast is trying to poison him when she brings him a sandwich. He is crude, rude, and lewd. He is also riotously funny.

The film is based on a character created by Sasha Baron Cohen for Da Ali G Show, a popular HBO series. Like Cohen's other two avatars -- Ali G, the proverbial "wanksta", and Bruno, the fashionista from Austrian Gay TV -- Borat employs the same technique to get laughs: make outrageous statements to unsuspecting people and see how they react.

I first became familiar with Borat when traveling in the United Kingdom, and I have to say he has always been my least favourite of Cohen's characters. I understand that he is trying to disempower racism and prejudice by showing it in all its magnificent idiocy. I just don't think the character is as funny as the other two. Having said that, Borat: Cultural Learnings was pretty funny.

Whether he was attending a fancy dinner party in a southern mansion, taking driving lessons, or wrestling nude with his producer --don't ask, words can't describe it-- Borat is hilarious. The responses he generates from his victims are often even more hilarious, if sometimes frightening. The government of Kazakhstan may not agree, but Borat is the funniest thing to come out of Central Asia since . . . well . . . Borat is the funniest thing to come out of Central Asia.

But something really funny happens during the movie. Despite holding up a mirror to the individual and corporate prejudices of everyday Americans, they come out as a pretty nice bunch of people. Most are happy to help Borat learn more about their country and their culture, and some display graciousness above and beyond the call of duty. There may be prejudice lurking just below the surface, but there is also sweetness and generosity. And that, perhaps, is the most important lesson that Borat has to teach us.

Decision Day Down South -- The Results

The results are in -- well, most of them, anyhow -- and this is how the US election shaped up:

• the Democrats control the House of Representatives (Congress)
• the Democrats have a possibility of controlling the Senate, once the votes are counted
• the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, felt obliged to resign

I guess you could say that President Bush has his very own "minority" government. At best, it is going to be very difficult for him to get legislation passed, especially since he has been so partisan over the past six years. At worst, he faces being hamstrung.

Decision Day Down South

I can't write long -- it is election day in the United States and I am getting ready to surf the early results. Funny, but even though the elections are for a foreign country, I know they will have a huge impact on our country. I guess when the elephant votes, the flea is affected too.

A Sunday Morning Kind of Thing

It's the middle of the morning. It's cold outside, but so far there is no snow. I have a cup of the pear-and-ginger herbal tea that my brother-in-law distributes in a large mug in front of me. In the kitchen, the ingredients of today's chicken corn soup are chopped and in bowls in the refrigerator.

I should be in church right now. I'm not saying that because I feel that it is the right thing for people to do; I'm saying it because it is the right thing for me to do. I feel a real need to be part of a community of faith, a community that reaches into the past and extends into the future. In other words, I prefer a church that cherishes its traditions, focuses on the present, and embraces what is to come.

I've tried going to church over the past two years. My wife and I started going to a little Anglican church in the country that was founded back in 1847. I figured it would be nice to be involved with a church that had a sense of community and a sense of the past. Unfortunately, it was just my luck to pick an Anglican parish whose incumbent has nothing but contempt for tradition.

I realize that absenting myself from church is a poor approach to dealing with my spiritual life, but I must admit that I never feel so close to the Devil as I do when I am attending services at this particular church. My wife still attends, though, so I spend my Sunday mornings sipping herbal tea and listening to Mahalia Jackson, Faure's Requiem, and Gregorian chants.

Shout Out to PB

Good luck at the Geminis.

Hope you win.

SG

My Imaginary Readers Write

Here are a few letters I did not get in response to yesterday's column.

Dear SilentGriot,

Aren't you being too hard on Barry Manilow? After all, he writes the songs that make the young girls cry.

Girl Against Griot

Dear GAG,

And he also sings the songs that make me cry, especially his version of Can't Take My Eyes Off of You. Although, to be fair, I did find his "dance" moves to the song entertaining. Apparently, when he appeared on American Idol this last season (in the highest rated episode, no less), he gave them the benefit of his experience and in exchange they taught him some "hep new moves".

Dear SilentGriot,

I thought you were in favour of artistic expression. What's wrong someone liking a song and singing it?

A Concerned Reader

Dear Concerned Reader,

I have absolutely nothing against people liking songs so much that they sing them. In fact, that is why God invented shower stalls and road trips in cars. When you are driving down Yonge Street (with the window closed) sing as heartily as you want, whether you sound good or not. Just don't foist a tortured version of what was once a beautiful song on the paying audience like the two artistes in question have.

Dear Font of All Knowledge,

Who died and made you the Music Pope? Who gave you the right to say people are not allowed to cover songs?

Just Wondering

Dear JW,

I didn't even know the job was open, but since it is, I humbly accept your nomination. We can dispense with all the formality and you can just address me as "Your Griotness". To answer your question, I am not opposed to people covering other artists' songs. I just wish they would cover songs well.

Take one of the songs in question, for example. My all time favourite version of People Get Ready is not the original, but rather a version done in the 1960s by the little-known UK group Jimmy James and the Vagabonds. Unlike Rod Stewart, JJ & the V did not cover the song to prove they had soul -- they covered the song because they had soul. If you can track down a copy of the Vagaonds version and compare it to the Stewart version you will hear a purity on the former that is missing from the latter.

Other cover versions that I can recommend are:

• Rock the Kasbah by Rachid Taha, an Arabic version of the old Clash anthem
• Hurt by Johnny Cash
• Ring of Fire by Zimbabwe's Bhundu Boys
• Afrika by Tukuleaur, a bilingual French-Toucouleur reworking of a rather weak Toto original
• Spit on a Stranger by Nckel Creek
• One by Johnny Cash
• Puff the Magic Dragon by the Loop, a frenzied reworking of the children's classic by a friend and former co-worker

Nuff said!

Keep those imaginary emails and comments coming.

Cease and Desist Order #1

To: Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow
From: the SilentGriot
cc: the music-loving public
Subject: Stop the Atrocities!

Okay, guys, I get it. You are not just rock stars, you are "artistes". (Well, in your case, Barry, you are not just a pop star -- "rock star" doesn't really describe you.) That is why you insist on inflicting your insipid versions of other people's songs on us, isn't it? I mean, why else would you insist on covering songs that other people have done better, especially classic songs from the past?

Rod, I blame you for this. I agree, there is a timeless beauty to the old standards from the days before rock and roll. Even though I did not like piano lessons when I was a child, I derived a great deal of pleasure playing Deep Purple or Gershwin's Our Love is Here to Stay. Hell, I even sang along sometimes. I understand your appreciation of the old standards. But really, Rod, did you have to record your Great American Songbook albums?

Come to think of it, did you really have to record Broken Arrow, People Get Ready, or What a Wonderful World either? Don't get me wrong, I love each of these songs. Its just, you don't do them very well. Your versions of these songs are tired, uninspired, and, quite frankly, soulless. Considering the oomph you put in your best works -- your original works when you were starting out -- you really run the risk of becoming a caricature of the entertainer you used to be.

And Barry, what sort of cockamamy thought process resulted in your take on the Greatest Hits of the Sixties? Did you really think that the world needs a weak-voiced, poorly phrased version of Can't Take My Eyes Off of You? Does anyone need any version of What the World Needs Now Is Love?

Gentlemen, if you are such fans of the music as you say you are, please limit yourselves to either listening to them in private or to recommending the original versions to interested parties. Please do not continue to commit the musical equivalent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre on these beautiful songs.

Dia de los Muertos

Today is the "Day of the Dead". A national holdiay in Mexico, Dia de los Muertos commemorates deceased friends and relatives. The dead are honoured and death is celebrated as just the start of the next step in a person's life.

When the Spanish landed in Mexico five centuries ago, the natives had already been observing Dia de los Muertos for over three millenia. As they converted to Catholocism, the native Mexicans melded the old ways with the very Christian holiday of All Saints' Day. Today, the Day of the Dead is considered an important expression of Mexican culture.

Mexicans observe the holiday by cleaning and even decorating the graves of loved ones. They often leave offerings of food, alcohol, candy, and toys. They may also make altars for these offerings in their homes and offices (even government offices). All in all, they display a distinct lack of dread about death and a definite sense of communicty.

As interesting as I find the Dia de los Muertos observations, I could never follow them myself. My family has been mobile -- we travelled from Saskatchewan to the United States to British Columbia. My three siblings live in different towns in BC than my parents; I live in Ontario. Neither my parents nor my siblings live in the same province where my grandparents are buried. I don't even know what cemeteries my grandparents rest in.

I am not Mexican, so I could never really celebrate the Day of the Dead, even if I knew where my grandparents were buried. What I can, however, learn from Mexican culture is how to celebrate the lives of the people who have gone away. And so I will spend this evening thinking about the ones who are no longer with us: my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, and my father-in-law. In my heart I am leaving you flowers and food and alcohol.