For Every...

...action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Yup

Like I said...

Go make it (sorta) big in the USA, then come back to Saskatchewan where they make Grade-B movies.

Alright Guys...

...Here's the perfect excuse:

What if he (or she) can’t read your emotions?

"If someone you care about can’t read your emotions from the look on your face, their prefrontal cortex might be the reason."

[---]

"Neuropsychology researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital and McGill University have found that certain parts of the brain are critical for either detecting or distinguishing emotions from facial expressions.

What does that mean? It means that if your sweetie forgot to bring you flowers on Valentine’s Day, and the sad look on your face simply didn’t register in his mind, there’s a chance he can’t help it. The problem might be in his prefrontal cortex."

Just tell her it's your prefrontal cortex and don't blame me if she clobbers you. I'm just the messenger.

Shame On You Rob Ford!

The Great Library Debate

"Do you think public libraries are now redundant in the digital age?"

Scroll down and look at the number of people who disagree! 89.96% as of the time I am writing this!

I wonder how often he uses a public library? Why is it that the politicians who threaten library closures are so often the very people who never avail themselves of the service?

And ain't it grand that so many people rally round their libraries!

This Whole "Christian" Thing....

...is as screwed up as they get.

Okay, I so can't let this Norway/Breivik thing go, but it wasn't me that started the "right wing Christian" thing.  I'm a right winger and I'm proud of it, but as far as being Christian is concerned, I'm not a believer, especially not a Bible-thumper, but I do recognize that Christianity was central to the history of the region of the world where my ancestors came from and that its tenets, its trials and tribulations, are responsible for what we call Western Civilization today, and I think that's what motivated Breivik, however sick his method of dealing with his frustration may have been.

The left's and the political class's total abandonment of loyalty to their ancestral roots and to the great achievements that sprang from those roots is, IMHO, very close to treasonous.  It has become very fashionable to pretend that Europe isn't the source of anything worth preserving or celebrating; that extolling things like Western achievements in science, art, music and architecture, great advances in technology and profoundly influential ideas, such as those of the enlightenment and their influence on ideas concerning governance, are nothing but ethnocentric, and therefore dismissible.

But, damn it, ethnocentric as they might be, they are, essentially, unassailable.  There is a reason why Europe was first past the post in the race to explore the entire planet. It could have been the Arabs or the Chinese who set out and conquered the world, as both of those civilizations came close to developing sciences, arts and technology, modes of transportation, and so on, that could have led them to be masters of the planet, but the Europeans did it better and came out on top.

Europe, especially Britain, and her offshoots in the former colonies have inherited a legacy that is something of which we should be proud. After all, and I'm not the first one to note this, people from all those other places still come in droves to our shores, trying to get in, so they can take advantages of the opportunities and gifts, both intellectual and physical, we have to offer. And we do offer them and we do let them in. But we're not going in droves to their shores, longing to get in.  There's a reason for that.

But we won't be able to offer anything, if we keep shooting ourselves in the foot. Breivik saw this. He just chose the most stupid and counter productive method for dealing with it, and now the champions of Western Civilization are left scrambling to distance themselves and justify their positions.

And by the way, did you know the word "Christendom" was commonly used in the Middle Ages to refer to Europe. Long before the concept of the nation state was developed it referred to a political realm, which was characterized by adherence to the Christian faith. The "Church of Rome" was more or less the capital of Christendom, with, perhaps, Constantinople being a significant centre as well, being the centre of Orthodox Christianity. (Constantinople is, of course, modern day Istanbul, which at one time not too long ago, was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, another worthy challenger to European world domination, which likewise failed and disappeared into history to join the Arab Empire and the China of Cheng Ho.)  But neither Islam nor Tao (Chinese philosophy) had what it took to come out on top today, although the land of Tao is certainly waking up, and given a choice, I'd far rather be under China's hegemony than Islam's, thank you very much.

No, Breivik is a sick SOB, but he really did understand what's happening to Western Civilization - to Christendom.  And he took it out on those who he felt were responsible - not Muslims, but "progressive" Europeans. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why he may just become something of a cult hero. Way to go, progressives!

I Think I Have Found My Next Career!

I'm going to be a "wrongologist"!!

Seems like a perfect fit.

Tres Cool!

Go here. Notice in the bottom right corner you can flip from Nicolaus Copernicus's view of the solar system to Tycho Brahe's view. Stare. Mesmerize.

Reading the Arab Street

Below is my comment, currently pending approval, on Terry Glavin's otherwise excellent piece on Libya (and the great wimpish one currently sitting in the Oval Office wringing his hands and/or practicing his putt).

"Good on President Garcia, but I have to ask, how many Peruvian nationals are waiting in Tripoli or elsewhere (or trying to get to Tripoli) so they can be safely evacuated?

As we have seen, the Libyan regime has considerable control over the speed and efficiency, or even the very existence, of the process of evacuating foreign nationals.

They call the shots about who gets landing/docking rights and as such, they can delay the departure of foreigners and by extension, any overt action on the part of the countries whose people are stranded there.

And then there's the Skylink insurance thingy, just to make things interesting.

God-Damned-Daffy can do a lot of damage in the meantime, and can instantly declare hudna once every foreign national is out which could very well leave him lying in his luxurious tent until the next time the spirit moves him to crack down of the betrayers of the revolution.

It's all very fine to declare a no-fly zone, which will undoubtedly reduce Ghadafi's capacity to rape, pillage and murder, but the keyword there is reduce, not eliminate, and maybe just postpone.

In the meantime, we have the world paralyzed due to their fear of being too much like the much reviled Dubya.  After all, Libya has oil and no blood for oil is the new modus operandi."

But once foreign nationals are out, all bets should be off, IMHO. I'm fully aware that many of my "right" thinking colleagues have long ago washed their hands of the notions that Arabs may actually want to modernize and live by and under that suite of contemporary enlightenment values we call human rights, equality, etc. etc., but I am not one of them. I've met too many Arabs in my life, including Iraqis and Egyptians, to know that not to be true. It's the thugs in power and the cozy arrangement they have made with Islamists, that have created the stereotype and benefit from our wholesale acceptance of it.

Next time the streets and rooftops of Tehran are filled with young people wearing green armbands, listen to what they are shouting.

"Allahuakbar!!"

That's right. "God is Great!!"

Given the fact that the people of Iran have lived under the pre-eminent Islamist tyranny for decades, that cry is hardly a rallying call to embrace Islamism, is it? What it is, is a cry for justice and freedom. The same can be said of those on the so called Arab street in Cairo, Tunis, Saana, Tripoli, Manama and elsewhere over the past few weeks. If we ignore it or mis-read it, it is to our peril - and our shame.

Catty Catnip: Achieving enlightenment or stuck on stupid?

Whenever I discover a new blog I like to go back to the first few posts and read them. Bloggers often introduce themselves with a little biography in their first post and sometimes in the next few they will reveal further facts about their personal perspectives, their life history and so on. When I first found the Catty Catnip, I followed my usual strategy of reading the early entries, plus I have been reading her blog off and on now for more than a month. Although I find her style and the lack of substance rather tiresome and boring, as a specimen of modern day whacky leftism, her blog is an interesting study. In fact, having been a leftist a long time ago, I have even found myself in agreement with her once or twice and I think we have some common roots.

Very early in her blogging career, she revealed that nearly twenty years ago she gave up a dependence on an addictive prescription drug that was often used for treatment of stress and depression. Of course, I can only admire her strength in overcoming this affliction and her courage in making that very personal information public by posting it on a blog. I hope she realizes it's out there now for all to see.

Her revelation of such personal information did allow me to connect a few more of the dots in my ongoing study of her as a personality. Twenty years ago I was just coming out of a serious depression myself, having separated from my husband. Having married a way too young and for all the wrong reasons, I had to face life on my own for the very first time and deal with some very real issues in my own personality. To put it succinctly, in my mid-thirties I had to finally grow up and learn to handle life on my own. It was a rough ride, but it was well worth it.

I had hopped on the 60s radicalism bandwagon and like many others who did the same, I went through a period of disillusionment and ennui in the mid-seventies, about the same time the Viet Nam war came to an end and the feminist movement was running into trouble. Like so many of my generation, during the late 70's and early 80's, I endured a period of soul searching and spiritual hunger - and emotionally wrenching experiences I doubt I will ever have to go through again.

Some of my generation got further and further into the drug scene and became full-blown addicts, subsequently having varying degrees of success in controlling their habit. Catty Catnip appears to have been more successful than some of these poor souls, although it's hard to understand how she managed.

Others - following another track then very much in vogue - began exploring the religions found in India and the Far East. Even the Beatles, THE pre-eminent rock group of our era, had followed that journey and pale skinned followers (ie. not Indian) of Hari Krishna, in their flowing robes, were to be seen on the streets of even the small Canadian prairie city of Saskatoon, where I lived at that time. Still others returned with utter abandon to the faith of their ancestors, taking Christianity to an extreme even their parents would not have recognized. Thus, the 1970s boom in born-again sects of Christianity and a proliferation of new holy-roller churches unheard of prior to that era.

Somewhere during those times, I stopped calling myself an avowed atheist and began to understand that atheists, even if they claim not to believe in any god, do have a idea of what the Judeao-Christian God is, against which they rail, but refuse to contemplate that there may be other conceptualizations. They have one concept. They reject it. Therefore there is no God. Like them, I had no acceptable concept and, although I wanted to, I could not find one. I had to come to terms with the fact that whatever God might be, He/She/It will forever be a mystery to me and that's okay. I kind of like it that way and I now laugh at atheists on soapboxes, as they presume, beyond all doubt, to know the unknowable, to have clinched, unlike anyone else, the ultimate truth, thereby revealing their silliness.

It also took me a long time to admit to no longer having a socialistic outlook on the world. At the end of it, I had to accept that I had changed my politics. I was now completely estranged from the old guard of the 60s and was gradually losing my discomfort when in the company of those at the other end of the spectrum. Although I do think our generation's heart was in the right place, I now look at many of the ideas that prevailed during the 60s as silly and childish. We just didn't understand that the world is not and never will be Nirvana and, as a consequence, I now look upon some of our then strident beliefs as pure, unadulterated narrow-minded bigotry.

I suspect the Catty Catnip and I have a few things in common, then. For example, she has talked about her grandchildren, and although I don't have grandchildren, I am certainly old enough to have several running around. I suspect, therefore, that Catty Catnip and I are roughly the same age. She has revealed she is a Buddhist, and I presume (perhaps incorrectly, I freely admit) that she was not born into that religion, but like many others during the '70s and 80's she was led to it during the great and tumultuous reality-facing "come down" that followed the high produced by the radicalism of the 1960s.

But while I have mellowed considerably since then, Catnip, on the other hand, has not. What Catnip reveals about her personality, through the topics she chooses to write about and, most especially, through the manner in which she develops her ideas, is a baby boomer of advancing age, who has yet to grow up. She hasn't the capacity to critically evaluate any of the subjects she entertains. She lacks the skill of developing a case in support of her position. She utterly fails to do anything but repeat, ad nauseam, the talking points first uttered so long ago by the leaders of the 60s radicalism. In short, despite her age, and the era through which she has lived, somewhere way back when, she simply stopped growing. Alas, she is stuck on stupid, still a catty teenager in her approach to life’s heavy issues and deep philosophical questions.

How ironic, then, that on Thursday of this past week she pays homage to the Dalai Lama, praising him thus: “His astounding capacity for humilty (sic) and compassion reminds all of us that we too can attain such an enlightened state, even in the midst of great turmoil.”

So, Catty. When will your journey to enlightenment actually begin? Enlightenment requires spiritual growth and arises most fully from having successfully dealt with life's many pains. If you are seeking enlightenment, I surely hope you believe in reincarnation, 'cause I don't think you're going to make it in this go round.