Great Turtle Race Round Up

Well, folks, it was an exciting contest but the Great Turtle Race is over. All but two of the turtles made it to the waters off the Galapagos Islands. (The other two are still apparently lounging on the beaches of Costa Rica.)

The top three finishers were:

1. Billie (sponsored by the Offield Center for Billfish Studies)
2. Stephanie Colburtle (named in honour of Stephen Colbert)
3. Champiro (sponsored by GITI Tires)

Good work, turtles!

Make Mine Mink!

I got an email today that confirmed that the little mustelid that I photographed last week is, in fact, a mink. The actual comment was that it was "a small one, most likely a young one" so there you have it. To celebrate, I am posting a few more photographs of it.

The Great Adventure: Episode 7

The clock is ticking. It is now less than two weeks until I fly to Africa.

People have asked me if I am excited/nervous about the upcoming trip. The truth of the matter is that I am looking forward to the experience but I am experiencing none of the nervousness I used to suffer through when I did a lot of business travel. I don't really know why this is, except for the fact that I have no concrete expectations for the trip apart from just "being".

I know that sounds a bit odd, but that is all I really want to do for the next two months. I guess I do have a notion of what I mean by "being": I want to experience life without any distractions; I want to interact with people and experience a different culture; and I want to spend some time reconnecting with who I am as a person.

I know it sounds terribly clichéd, but I sort of lost touch with the real me. I spent 15 years building a career with an organization only to discover that the title on the business cards did not match the person I was (or the person I used to be). It sounds like I am going through a mid-life crisis -- and maybe I am -- but somehow I lost the real me during the six years I was a vice president. I lost that person and I want to get him back. Or at least, I want to get a version of him back.

I suppose working in an African orphanage for two months is a bit of an extreme way of "finding myself" (if you will permit me to use that horrid phrase) but I don't like cars enough to splurge on an expensive sports car and I am not yet brave enough to try sky diving. I guess I opted for the safe route. Or, perhaps, I chose Africa because I feel a need to go back to where human life began.

I don't really know and, truth be told, I don't really care. I am looking forward to spending the next two months under African skies.

Masters of Understatement

The great thing about living in Newmarket is that the municipal government is constantly looking out for its people's safety.

A Day of Mourning

Today is a National Day of Mourning in Canada, or International Workers' Memorial Day in other countries. It is a day set aside to remember workers who have been killed, injured, disabled, or made ill by their work. Today's observance is especially relevant in Toronto, where an employee of the Toronto Transit Commission died in a work-related accident earlier this week.

Consider the following statistics from the International Labour Organization:

• two million workers die each year of work-related accidents and illnesses
• workers suffer 270 million work-related accidents each year
• workers suffer 160 million work-related illnesses each year

The idea of commemorating workplace casualties originated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 1984 and was formally recognized by the Canadian parliament seven years later. Today, Worker's Memorial Day is formally observed in over a dozen countries, and unions in other nations are also pursuing official recognition.

Scene from a Great Lake

Afghanada Renewed

I was just checking out Joe Mahoney's blog (http://assortednonsense.com/) and I discovered, to my delight, that Afghanada has been renewed for another season. (Sorry for not checking it out earlier, Joe, but I've been busy getting prepared for Africa.)

I am very happy, as I enjoy listening to radio dramas. When I was a teenager, I used to listen to one of the local radio stations in Vancouver that replayed classic radio programs in the late evening -- you know, dramas like The Shadow or Gunsmoke and comedies like The Jack Benny Show. There is a special quality to radio that is absent in television, and it is nice to see that the CBC is committed to continuing the magic.

Baby Steps

The federal government announced today that it will be banning the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012. The ban is intended to reduce energy consumption, thereby reducing greenhouse gases.

There is no word yet on a ban on gas-guzzling Sports Utility Vehicles or personal watercraft like SeaDoos (r).

Turn-Offs Include ...

"Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance, and feeding radiation." At least, that's what my all-time favourite rap group -- the Disposable Heroes of Hiphopcrasy -- once sang. Apparently, the Heroes are not the only ones disgusted by television because today is the start of TV Turn Off Week.

TVTO Week is an annual awareness program sponsored by the TV Turnoff Network (http://www.tvturnoff.org/). The idea behind TV Turn Off Week is simple: rather than spending their usual hours in front of the television, families turn off their television sets and engage in other activities such as reading or playing games or going for walks. Organizers claim that over 30 million people have participated in the event since it was founded in 1994.

I applaud the aims behind TV Turn Off week, but I somehow doubt that die-hard hockey and basketball fans will be willing to shut off their TV sets during the playoffs. As for me, however, I just might take part. I can get my news from papers, the radio, and the Internet, and most programs are in reruns at the moment. Giving up television will be good practice for the next two months in Africa.

Great Turtle Race Update

The leatherbacks are halfway to the Galapagos Islands and Stephanie Colburtle has taken the lead. No doubt we will hear about it on tomorrow's Colbert Report. Drexalina and Sundae are still in Costa Rica, so I wouldn't put any money on them to win.

The Great Newmarket-Aurora Safari

I realize that Earth Day was today, but yesterday was my big day outdoors. I went for a long walk, and I brought along my camera so that I could try out the new telephoto lens. I'm glad I did because I got a number of shots that I wasn't expecting.

As the name suggests, the common grackle is fairly widespread throughout Ontario. They are beautiful birds, and they never look prettier than when you see them in a marshy setting.

I was walking down Yonge Street when I heard a splash in a little creek at the bottom of the hill. I thought it might have been a fish jumping or a bird splashing around, but it was a very active mustelid. (I think it is a mink but my expert has not replied to my email yet.)

I realize that this is not the best picture of a muskrat that has ever been taken, but those little buggers are fast swimmers. I didn't even know it was in the water until a nesting Canada Goose started hissing. I took four shots of the muskrat, but this is the only one that came out.

My favourite bird in the whole wide world is the red-winged blackbird. I love the way they look and I love their vocalizations. Now is a perfect time to see them. You can find them around marshy areas or any other freshwater, in fields, or even by the side of the road.

I have seen lots of mallards in my time, but this is the first time I have ever seen one fishing before. I had actually been trying to get a shot of a different bird when I noticed what was happening with the duck.

Book Review: Hitler's Beneficiaries

I am a Canadian. I was born here. I was raised here. I hope to die here. I have no loyalties to other nations and desire to be anything other than a Canadian. I am also the son of a woman who was born in Hitler's Germany and a father whose family came to Kanada from the Hapsburg Empire. Not surprisingly, I have struggled with trying to understand how a cultured nation, a people that produced great artists and brilliant scientists, could have followed an evil megalomaniac like Adolph Hitler.

Thousands of books have been written about Hitler and National Socialist Germany. (When I searched Amazon.com with the search words "Adolph Hitler" I got 70,996 results.) Some authors try to demonize Hitler; others try to explain him. Some books focus on the dictator as the willful architect of the great world catastrophe that was the Second World War; others show more ambition and expand the discussion to include Nazi Party functionaries, generals, industrialists, and other "great men". Very few look at the average German, "Johann Q. Öffentlichkeit" who lived under the regime.

Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State goes a long way to explaining how average Germans benefited materially from the Nazi state's imperialistic forays. We are all familiar with how high ranking Nazi officials looted museums and private collections of valuable works of art, but author Götz Aly suggests that individual Germans played their roles too.

But instead of stealing Vermeers or Rembrandts, German soldiers in occupied countries used local currency that had been converted at very favourable rates to pay for food, clothing, and luxury goods that were no longer available in Germany itself. The goods were then shipped back to Germany. The net result was to strip the de facto colonies of their resources while ensuring that Germany itself did not suffer from inflation.

Similarly, Adolph Hitler -- like other, more contemporary politicians -- attempted to wage an expensive war without raising taxes. Despite the huge demands for armaments and the resources to produce them, the Nazis avoided increasing taxes for the vast majority of Germans. (Unlike today's populist politicians, however, the Nazis limited their tax increases to the wealthiest Germans, a nod, no doubt, to the "socialist" element of National Socialism.)

One of the more bizarre, if interesting, policies pursued by the Nazi government was the lavish system of pensions and income supplements they put into place to ensure the support of the people. The German government provided the wives and families with such rich benefits that a woman could make 80% of her pre-war income by staying home to look after die Kinder. (National Socialists obviously believed that "Der Platz einer Frau ist im Haus.") When the family benefits were combined with the money that soldiers were forced to save, some family incomes increased.

So how was the Nazi state able to bankroll such lavish benefits? Simply put, they plundered and enslaved their victims. Hitler's Beneficiaries goes into sickening detail how Nazi Germany relied first on Jewish resources and then on the riches of occupied countries to bankroll both the war effort and the personal prosperity of individual Germans. In fact, Aly makes the argument that Nazi Germany was forced by its very economic foundations to continue wars of aggression in order to maintain average Germans in the standard to which they had become accustomed.

Perhaps the most horrific stories in a volume filled with horrific stories were also the most banal. Aly repeatedly quoted older Germans who had lived through the war years as they fondly recollected how well off they had been in the war. The most chilling moment in the book, for me at least, was when an elderly German lady mentioned that she did not lack for material comforts during the war. It was only after the war, when the victorious Allies instituted rationing, that things became scarce.

Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi State
Götz Aly (translated by Jefferson Chase)
Metropolitan Books, New York City, 2005
ISBN: 0-8050-7926-2

The Great Adventure: Episode 6

Three things recently happened to make my upcoming trip more concrete to me (as if weekly inoculations were not enough).

First, I received my passport, with the requisite visa, back from the Tanzanian High Commission. There had been a slight problem due to a missing letter of invitation, but all was eventually cleared up and said visa is stamped, numbered, and duly signed in my passport.

Second, I got my credit card bill. You know, the one with the air fare, medication, and other trip-related purchases on it. My initial reaction at seeing the total -- a personal high, I might add -- was one of shock. Horror was soon replaced with resignation, and then excitement. While the cost of the inoculations was considerably higher than I had anticipated, at least I am (a) safe to travel to Tanzania and (b) safe to travel to other countries, should I desire to do so in the future.

Last, but not least, I purchased a new telephoto lens for my camera. I had been planning to make this purchase for months, but it is really only my impending journey that spurred me to take the plunge and actually buy it. It was a no-brainer: if I am going to spend two months in Africa, I want to take the best pictures possible. Since there are no inoculations against lion, hyena, or hippo attacks, the more distance between me and wild animals, the better.

Dirty Old Town

I've been doing a lot of walking lately, and it's clear that there is either a serious lack of garbage cans along major pedestrian routes in Newmarket or else people just don't give a damn.

Now, I understand that it is a pain in the neck to carry your empty fast food containers around until you finally do come across a garbage bin, but it is certainly not that much of an inconvenience. And anyhow, the only time I actually see anyone walking is when school gets out. I can hope that the copious volume of rubbish is not solely the work of misguided youths.

I keep seeing in the news that the environment has replaced national health care as the cause du jour. I don't see it, at least not on the grass that lines Yonge Street. Come on Newmarket -- I dare you to prove me wrong!

And They're Off ...

I love sea turtles. I especially love Leatherback turtles. Unfortunately, the massive Leatherbacks are under threat. Which brings me to the Great Turtle Race.

The Great Turtle Race is a great exercise put together by Conservation International, the Leatherback Trust, TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators), and the Costa Rican Ministry of Energy and the Environment. The premise is pretty simple: eleven turtles are in a race from Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands. The first turtle to arrive wins.

What makes the race interesting is that each turtle has a corporate sponsor. The current leader -- Billie -- is sponsored by the Offield Center for Billfish Studies, while the second place contender -- Windie -- wears the colours of West Marine. My two particular favourites, however, are third placed Stephanie Colburtle -- who was named after talk show pundit Stephen Colbert -- and last placed Sundae, who is sponsored by Dreyer's Slow Churned Ice Cream.

Although a couple of turtles seem to like Costa Rican waters, the other nine have made more headway in the race. Billie, for example, has traveled over 270 miles in four days. Not bad at all!

Check out the Great Turtle Race site to keep tabs on your favourite turtle: http://www.greatturtlerace.com/.

Happy Birthday, Griot!

It's hard to believe, but the very first posting on this blog was made one year ago today. Since then, over 240 posts have followed. Some were serious; others were not. Some included photographs; others poems. There have been film reviews, book reviews, and peevish comments on popular culture and politics.

For those of you who have read the blog and kept coming back, thank you. I would write this blog anyhow, but it is nice to know that there are people out there reading. And for those of you who have posted, emailed, or spoken to me with your comments (you know who you are, AB and PP), I would especially like to thank you.

My Timing is Impeccable

I note with a degree of self-satisfaction that I jumped off the Sanjaya bandwagon prior to him being kicked off the show this evening. I can only hope that my defection was not responsible for the most entertaining contestant being evicted from American Idol.

Stop the Bandwagon - I'm Getting Off

People, I know I committed to jumping on the Sanjaya bandwagon a few posts ago, but I really don't know if I have the wherewithal to stick this through to its triumphant (?) conclusion.

I tried to watch all of last night's episode of American Idol, honest, but I just could not handle it. The first four performances were enough to convince me that I was wasting valuable time that I would never get back, so I ended up going to my bedroom and reading a book on the natural history of skin. Whilst I stuck around long enough to take in Sanjaya's indescribable performance, I did not have the stamina for the last three contestants.

It was not so much that I hate country music, because I don't. I grew up in all sorts of rural areas where country was king and rock 'n' roll was reserved for degenerate city slickers. Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris are two of my all-time favourite musicians, and I think Dwight Yoakum's early albums in particular were fantastic. I just can't seem to connect with what passes for "country" on Idol.

To be honest, I can't really connect with the whole Idol thing anyhow (and by Idol I refer to both American Idol and its equally excruciatingly bad cousin Canadian Idol). I didn't like talent shows when I was a kid and I don't care for them now. The thought of spending months on end watching as contestants perform and face elimination is horrifying -- it's as if the talent portion of the Miss Whatever beauty contest became a series.

So sorry, Sanjaya, but I'm hopping off the bandwagon. You seem to be a very nice kid and I wish you all the success in the world, but I won't be wasting any more Tuesday nights listening to you and your comrades play other people's music.

Call Out from the Bandwagon

Tonight is yet another edition of American Idol, and the strangely compelling saga of Sanjaya Malakar. Let all good citizens of the Universe of Sanjaya watch the show and vote in huge numbers for him.

At the very least, enjoy the show. Tonight's theme is "country and western", and none of the contestants seem much like C&W singers to me. (Mind you, they didn't really strike me as Latin singers either.)

Happy Anniversary, Charter

Today is the 25th anniversary of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter, which is entrenched in the Canadian Constitution, guarantees Canadians civil and political rights including:

• freedom of association, belief, conscience, expression, peaceful assembly, the press, religion, and thought;
• democratic rights;
• equality rights;
• language rights;
• legal rights;
• minority language education rights;
• and, mobility rights.

The purpose of the Charter, at least to the government of Pierre Trudeau that created it, was to be the basis for a set of national values. I suppose it has succeeded in this aim, although I am sure that many of my more conservative compatriots would disagree with me on that. However, I am happy that we have a government that is based on the concept of rights and freedoms.

Speechless

I have sat in front of my computer for the past 49 minutes trying to think of something to write, but words fail me.

I am rendered speechless by the senseless campus shootings in the United States.
I am still dumbstruck by the recent losses of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.
I am incapable of even contemplating the enormity of the Holocaust.
I cannot begin to express my anger and my sorrow when I read the numbers of AIDS victims in Africa.

Sometimes, reality truly sucks. Tonight is one of those nights.

Remembrance of Things Past (We Hope)

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day set aside to commemorate the millions of Jews who were murdered by the Germans and their allies in World War Two.

You may notice that I say "murdered by the Germans and their allies" and not "murdered by the Nazis". Sure, Nazi politicians and bureaucrats were behind the planning of the Holocaust, but they required the complicity of the entire nation -- and their anti-Semitic allies -- to complete the evil that they desired to do. Ordinary people may not have known all the details, but they benefited from these crimes, and to deny it would be a disservice to the victims.

I think we must never forget the horror of the Holocaust and I think it is every decent person's obligation to ensure that such heinous crimes are never committed again. But we can't guard against future Holocausts until we acknowledge the true nature of the one that already occurred.

Shout Out to Brennan

My nephew Brennan is in Ottawa as I type. He was one of 41 regional representatives who are participating in the CanWest CanSpell National Spelling Bee. Unfortunately, he does not appear to have made it into the final 15, but just getting there is an accomplishment.

I remember participating in spelling bees when I was in elementary and junior high school. I never made it past the county round, much less made it to state, so I am pretty impresses with his accomplishment.

Good work on making it to the nationals, Brennan!

On Calm Seas

I've had a rough week, for reasons I will spare you, but today has been a bit of a respite from the storm. It was not a particularly fun-filled day, but for the first time in a week I did not feel like I was drowning. (Of course, I may just be experiencing the calm that accompanies the eye of a hurricane, but I choose not to be negative.) Now if I could just swim to shore . . .

One particularly nice thing about the day was running into an ex-colleague at the public library. It had been a while since I last saw Didier but you wouldn't have known it. We had a very nice chat, which helped put me in a better frame of mind.

Book Review: The Changing Faces of Jesus

Despite (or because of) my on-going crisis of faith, I find myself drawn to books about Jesus and early Christianity. The Changing Faces of Jesus by Géza Vermes is the most recent one to catch my eye, and in many ways it has been the most interesting of the bunch.

The author has an interesting background. Vermes was born in Hungary to a Jewish family, although he and his parents were baptised as Roman Catholics when he was 7, a fact that did not save his parents from dying in the Holocaust a decade later. Given a Catholic education, Vermes was ordained a priest after the Second World War. In 1957, he left the Catholic church and reverted to Judaism. In addition to teaching at the Universities of Newcastle and Oxford, Vermes has written extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus the Jew.

The Changing Faces of Jesus is an examination of the way Jesus was portrayed in the early Christian church. Vermes begins by discussing the way Jesus is portrayed as a divine Messiah in the Gospel of John. He then makes an extensive study of the Jesus who inhabits the epistles of Paul, which is followed by a look at how the Synoptic Gospels portray Jesus. The book ends by putting Jesus into what Vermes claims is the Jewish context in which Jesus actually lived.

I have to confess that I have a problem with these sorts of books, because so much has to be taken with a great deal of faith. I am not just referring to ideas such as the divinity of Christ, which is a rather obvious leap of faith -- I am also referring to faith that an author's knowledge of ancient languages and past times is, in fact, accurate. I am therefore unable to attest to whether or not Vermes' basic views are correct. I can, however, say that his arguments make sense in a logical way.

And what exactly is Vermes' argument? Put briefly, Vermes believes that Jesus, the man who first attracted followers in Galilee two millenia ago, was a charismatic, devout Jewish healer and teacher who made no explicit claims to being divine. One of the more interesting revelations in the book is the fact that the phrases "Son of Man" and "Son of God" were neither unique to Jesus, nor necessarily used by Jesus himself. Another interesting aspect of book is the degree to which Jesus was part of a larger Jewish religious tradition.

As I said, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of Vermes' arguments, but his ultimate portrait of Jesus as a devout Jewish mystic rather than as one self-proclaimed third of a holy trinity makes a lot of sense. I suppose I will have to seek out the inevitable critique of his arguments to discover the holes in his arguments.

The Changing Faces of Jesus
Géza Vermes
Penguin Books, London, 2001
ISBN: 0-14-026524-4

Bandwagon, Here I Come

I've decided to jump on a bandwagon, but since the Leafs did not make the playoffs it won't be an NHL bandwagon. Instead, I have decided to join the universe of Sanjaya (or join the Sanjaya universe -- I can't remember how he phrased it). Having watching him do a decent job singing Besame Mucho this week, I think he's earned my moral support. I'm too cheap to actually vote for him, however.

The Great Adventure: Episode 5

Today is one month to the day away from my flight to Africa.

Time has certainly flown since I first signed up for the volunteer project and there is still a lot to do. Happily, I have only a single innoculation remaining and the flight has been booked. There has been a slight hold up on the visa, but that should be cleared up by the end of the week. My guess is that it will be a very busy four-and-a-half weeks.

Bye, Bye Belinda

Belinda Stronach, the high profile Liberal Member of Parliament for Newmarket-Aurora announced today that she will not be running in the next election. Instead, she will be assuming a role as a senior executive in the family business -- the Magna auto parts giant.

I must confess that I have been less than impressed by Stronach since she first burst onto the political scene, and lest anyone think I am being overly critical I would like to point out that she represents the riding in which I live. In fact, my feelings about Stronach are not so much based on her changing partisan allegiance or her unsuccessful run for party leadership as they are based on her weak performance as a local representative for her constituents.

I suppose Stronach underwhelms me because when I lived in British Columbia I lived in the riding of Svend Robinson. Robinson was not only an NDP politician, he was on the radical edge of the party, but when it came to serving his constituents nobody worked harder than him. You may not like his politics, but you certainly could not help but admire his effective, energetic advocacy.

Of Meetings Past

I grabbed a notebook from my drawer today and discovered some notes from meetings I attended a year ago. At the time, the meetings seemed important and took up a great deal of time and effort. Today, they seem trivial and inconsequential. The project we had been working on never got off the ground, despite all the resources that were poured into it.

Life is like that, I guess. Things that seem critical today wind up being unimportant in the great scheme of things. Other things that seem a low priority become of critical importance when you look at the big picture. The sad thing is that most of us never get good at figuring out what is important and what isn't.

Vimy: A Terrible Beauty

Today was the 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge, the first and perhaps greatest triumph of the Canadian Corps in the Great War. The government marked the anniversary by re-dedicating the beautiful memorial monument on the Ridge itself as well as by holding a memorial ceremony in Ottawa.

I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the ceremony this morning, and I have to say that it was a moving, emotional pageant. There is, to steal Yeats' phrase, "a terrible beauty" about the monument, and perhaps nothing in the ceremony reflected this as much as the performance of Sierra Noble, a 17 year-old Metis fiddler player from Manitoba whose "Warrior's Lament" was the emotional highlight of the entire proceedings.

On a day when the country is still reeling from the loss of six soldiers in the current conflict in Afghanistan, it is fitting that the people of Canada came together to recognize and remember the sacrifices of an earlier generation.

Go, Leafs, Go, But Raptors Go Harder

Okay, so I really couldn't care less if the Leafs make it to the playoffs -- who cares? There are a lot of people who do seem to care, and I would hate to see them disappointed. That's why I am throwing a shout out to the Leafs as they prepare for what can only be described as a "do or die" game tonight.

The Leafs need a win in regulation time against the Habs tonight along with an Islanders loss in their two games in order to make the playoffs. I realize that this is not exactly the situation Leafs fans want to be in, but at least Toronto still has a chance, unlike Boston or Florida or Phoenix.

Having said that, even if the Maple Leafs do claw their way into the playoffs, I have decided not to jump on the bandwagon, not with the Raptors clinching their first division title last night. Unlike the Leafs, I think the Raptors have a real chance to go all the way this year, assuming there are no more catastrophic injuries. So if I can steal a chant from Leaf Nation, "Go, Raptors, Go!"

Poem: Tenebrae

Tenebrae

One by one the candles sputter
And die.
The lessons have been read,
All has been said,
And Christ hangs lifeless on the tree.
The Book has been slammed shut
And the people file out wordlessly;
The joy of Christmas
Replaced by endless sorrow.

Our God is vanquished,
Darkness reigns,
And the devil laughs to himself
In hell
As people cry out in agony,
"All is lost.
The battle is over.
The enemy rules supreme."

The cries rush like the tide
Through my soul,
Mouthing what I've known for years --
Death is victorious,
Christ lies dead and rotting
In the tomb.

He lies in the tomb,
But just for the weekend.
Easter morn shall surely come
And the Son of Man
Shall rise again in splendour.

(c) J S Phillips

Thoughts on Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, the day of Christ's crucifixion and death in the Christian religion.

Back when I used to go to church, Good Friday was perhaps the most moving day in the religious year for me. (I hesitate to call it "my favourite", which would make me a bit ghoulish I suppose.) There was something moving and powerful in the suffering and self-sacrifice that was being commemorated. These days, though, Good Friday does not have the same impact for me.

I must confess that I found Good Friday to be most powerful when the tenebrae service was being held. Tenebrae is a rather "high church" service that includes psalms, hymns, and Bible readings, but never Holy Communion. During the service, the lights are gradually extinguished until the church is left in total darkness, representing the death of Christ.

Throughout the service, altar cloths may be removed and crosses and crucifixes covered with plain cloths. Sometimes, the service begins with a full choir and organ and other instruments, which followed by the departure of the choir and then the musicians. After the Bible is slammed shut, the congregation and clergy leave the church without speaking. The service itself is not considered finished until everyone has left the church.

The minister at the last church I attended would not have felt comfortable officiating at such a service, because he is an evangelical -- even though he is nominally Anglican -- and therefore frequently expresses a bias against "extra-Biblical" practices. I think this is a real shame, though, because a God who ostensibly created the pageantry of northern lights or ocean sunsets surely would not oppose His followers engaging all their senses, including their senses of wonderment and drama, when seeking to connect with Him.

My Humps? My God!

Sometimes I feel that I am always the last to know about the elements that comprise popular culture in North America. Other times, I seem to be ahead of the curve. I think I am somewhere in between today. You see, I just came upon a disturbingly fascinating video of Alanis Morrissette doing a laid-back version of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-g

To be honest, I am not much of a BEP fan, so I had only passing familiarity with the song. I remember that it seemed to be in constant rotation on the air at one point despite its silly lyrics. Now, thanks to Morrissette's slowed down version, I realize just how silly the lyrics are.

Steve Allen used to do the same thing back in the fifties, reading the lyrics of rock 'n' roll songs as if they were poems, to take the mickey out of popular culture phenomena like Little Richard and Elvis Presley. In this case, however, I don't think he could have come anywhere close to the true horror revealed in Morrissette's version of a truly loathsome song.

The Great Adventure: Episode 4

When I tell people that I am going to be spending two months in Africa I get one of two responses: "Take me with you" or "It is going to change your life". Usually, I get both responses from the same person.

I don't know what it is about Africa, but people -- Canadians, at least -- seem to have some sort of unspoken bond with the continent and its people. It is not just a sense that Africa is exotic, even though Tanzania promised to be different than anything I have ever seen (with the possible exception of a bus trip through shanty settlements en route to a mountain plantation in Jamaica). No, there is something magical, even mystical about Africa.

I share the sense of a hidden bond. I have wanted to travel to Africa since I was a teenager, living at home and dreaming of escaping Abbotsford for other lands. It only increased when I attended university, fueled on by exposure to African music, participation in African history and politic science courses, and introduction to African students. Since graduation many, many years ago, my path has been crossed by travellers from throughout the entire continent, from Cape Town to Cairo and from Sierra Leone to Dar Es Salaam.

People who have been to Africa tell me -- promise me, really -- that this trip is going to change me life. As my friend Mary told me on Monday, "You are not going to come back the same person." That is both a scary and an exciting thought, and I can't wait for the journey to begin.

My Reading List: A Tale of Inefficiency

At what point does multi-tasking become attention deficit disorder?

I am currently in the middle of reading a couple of books. Well, technically I am in the middle of reading five books:

• Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business by David Mamet
• The Death of Hitler by Ada Petrova and Peter Watson
• Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreigh
• Coaching for Results: A Skills-Based Workshop (Leader's Guide) by Donna Berry, Charles Cadwell, and Joe Fehrmann
• The Rough Guide to Tanzania

I am reading the fourth one because I am studying for a professional certification exam through the Canadian Society for Training and Development, and I am using the last one in regards to my upcoming trip to Tanzania. As for the other three, I am either (a) not interested enough in any one book to concentrate on it, or (b) too interested in all of them to concentrate on a single book. I guess it doesn't matter in the end, doesn't it?

Thoughts of Home

It was a grey, dreary day when I headed into the city this morning.

It was a grey, dreary day when I walked to the local Tim Hortons this evening.

I don't really mind. Grey, dreary days remind me of home -- or at least, they remind me of what I tell people is home. They remind me of Vancouver.

Vancouver is not really my home. It's not where I was born and raised. It is where I attended university. It is where I lived a substantial part of my life. It is where my family lives. Vancouver is a nice enough city, but it isn't really home. Then again, no one place feels like home to me, except maybe for Canada itself.

I suppose that home is where my books are. Perhaps home is simply where I am at the moment. Today, home is Toronto. Ten years ago, home was Vancouver. Thirty years ago, home was Nebraska. Forty years ago, home was Saskatchewan. Who know what will be home in ten year's time and does it really matter?

But still, today the grey, dreary weather reminded me of Vancouver and I heard a siren calling out, beckoning me to return to my so-called home. I am like the geese that have started to fill the skies as they journey from southlands to northern nesting grounds. There is something drawing me west.

I Am Gob-Smacked

I just watched American Idol for the first time since the "humiliation round" ended. I now understand what people are talking about when they refer to Sanjaya. Or rather, I know what they are talking about -- I will probably never understand.

The Great Adventure: Episode 3

I am back from my trip to the travel clinic. As I feared, I received yet another injection -- this time for yellow fever. I also had a skin test for tuberculosis. I only have two more sets of shots to take prior to leaving, which is good because I am starting to feel like a human voodoo doll.

Great Sports Day in Toronto

I am not much of a sports fan but if I were today would be my kind of day.

First of all, the Raptors have secured a playoff berth for the first time in five seasons. Good work, guys. It has been a fun season to follow you -- sort of like watching a real life version of Hoosiers. (And a special shout out to Chris Bosh who is the NBA's co-player of the week

Secondly, the Blue Jays won their opening game against the Tigers. It took an extra inning, but the boys got the job done. I know there are a lot more games to go, but I can honestly say that my team is currently undefeated!

Last, and in my case definitely the least, the Maple Leafs are not out of playoff contention yet. I don't follow hockey, having never played the game, but there are enough citizens of Leaf Nation around here that I hope they make it all the way to the Stanley Cup. And if they do, I will make a running jump onto the bandwagon like the rest of the city. You heard it here first.

York Region: A Lying Bunch of Liars

So I'm walking up Yonge Street in Newmarket when I see this sign by the York Region Administrative Centre. Cool, I think, I'll go in and claim my timepiece.

Imagine my shock when the civil servant I spoke to claimed to know nothing about the free watch for foot traffic promotion that York Region was advertising. No matter what I said, she refused to give me my free watch. She even went so far as to suggest that I was misreading the sign.

People of York Region, don't be taken in by false promises of free timepieces. Live up to the legacy of William Lyon Mackenzie and demand your free watches (but only if you walk).