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The snow smoothed the landscape and muffled sound. All was made new and the ugly covered; the annoying noise of traffic quelled. Peace at last; people even walked. Our power diminished : If Hydro goes, fate rests in ability; Survival over convenience. I am glad it snows once in a while in Victoria.
I broke down and downloaded some songs from itunes (what holds me back is the low quality/dollar ratio). One was Pacing the Cage, which I think as Cockburn's version of "Blowing in the Wind". Cockburn's poetry is amazing:
Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And everyone was taken in
I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
Today, I had the pleasure of attending the funeral for John Dougan (the pleasure was in knowing this great man and hearing about his impact on so many, not in having to say good bye). Well, why was he so great? You can only answer this question by having known him, but here are a few things. I first met him when we moved to Victoria, he and his wife Rie were our new neighbours, immediately our family took a shine to this man and his wife. Over the years he has been more than a grand parent to me. He was the second person (after my mom) Tessa and I told the news of our engagement to, while he was on one of his usual walks in the neighbourhood. My mom is right, the neighbourhood will not be the same without him; he knew everyone and was always up to date with what they were doing. He delighted in giving toonies to my children as if they were his own grand-kids. To me, the glint in his eye and gentlemanly manner stand out. Over the years my mother has oft said, "always the diplomat, John Dougan". He was always so gracious and loved a good joke; he would always laugh while telling the punch-line. I still break out in laughter when I recall some of the occasions with him. We, humans, truly are meant to be together, given the impact we can have upon one another. It is amazing how the stories of so many have "John" in it and he is inextricably woven through the last twenty-two years of mine. Thank you John, for being you. Just like a ray of sunshine you were always seen to be brightest in the gloom. Good bye.
A good friend of mine and pastor, Hans, wrote about Stanley Hauerwas in his blog. It is really cool because Hauerwas' views on pacifism completely echoed my last blog entry. Colman McCarthy quotes, "I say I'm a pacifist because I'm a violent son of a bitch. I'm a Texan." This very blunt statement shows that for him the battle is within. This is the case for me and the case, I believe, in general. Check out the Raskolnikov-effect given in my last post. Earlier he is quoted, "I would not be a pacifist if I were not a Christian, and I find it hard to understand how one can be a Christian without being a pacifist." This is remarkable again given the question on Israel in my last post for so many Christians are staunch Zionists.
A cool juxtoposition has taken place in my studies. I am translating (I'm hoping to be reading at some point) parts of the Iliad and all the Trojan Women by Euripides and parts of the Aenid. What is cool is that the Iliad deals with the war, the Trojan Women with the fallout and the Aenid with the founding of a new city once the baggage of the old is dealt with. In class we watched the Cacoyannis film (the soundtrack and filming is excellent by the way) The Trojan Women. Oh! the horrors of war. Check out this quote from the play:
"I do not commend the fear of one who fears but never yet has reasoned out the cause."
Astyanax, the child of Hector, had just been killed because Odysseus reasoned that one day he may be a threat to the Greeks. Check out how it lines up with Hauerwas says, "[I] recalled that Bush, after urging Americans to go shopping, immediately proclaimed, "We are at war." Hauerwas explained that peculiar juxtaposition this way: "We are frightened, and ironically war makes us feel safe. The way to go on in the face of 9/11 is to find someone to kill. Americans are, moreover, good at killing. We often fail to acknowledge how accomplished we are in the art of killing. We now conduct war in a manner that only the enemy has to die." This is exactly what Euripides was struggling with. The Athenians were adept at war and went campaigning every summer. Also, it is possible that the play was a response to the Athenian's slaughter of an entire city, very similar to Troy's situation. The point, though, is that Euripides definitely took his minerals, in other words, he had balls because he was sponsored by the state and still produced this play (a much harsher critique than Michael Moore's work). As my professor stated, "this play today could easily be set in Iraq, Afghanistan or Darfur".
Is life an endless cycle of hate? Wars, battles, attacks and daggers in the back? Apparently so, but the cycle can be broken and the stream reversed. What? There must be a catch. There is! The effort that a person makes will not be readily apparent for a long time, much like when one first lifts a heavy piece of furniture the pain is excruciating until raised from a squat the muscles have finished contracting. Then a sense of lightness overcomes the lifter. How can one feel lighter? As Gene Edwards says in A Tale of Three Kings, "One, never learn anything about the fashionable, easily-mastered art of spear-throwing. Two, stay out of the company of all spear throwers. And three, keep your mouth tightly closed". Any other catches? Yeah, one more, a person will go through almost more pain by doing the above three things than if he fought back. What about assertiveness? Be a doormat? Remember the goal! To rise beyond conflict. Ghandi lay like a doormat, but was never used as one. Are people powerless, then? No! A person has incredible power, but it must be harnessed. What? The same hate can be brought out of anyone. In classical speak, anyone can be Raskolnikov; in modern speak everyone must win against their own temptation of the dark-side or the ring. Pass the test and peace will come. Aung San Suu Kyi passes all the tests with flying colours. Look at the size of her enemy and the power they have over her, yet she will win one day since she wins one day at a time. This sounds like passive crap? The battle is in a person, that is why questions like this are asked angrily. Why be defensive, if it's crap? Well then what about Israel? Israel owes its heritage to a pacifist, David. David overcame his own soul first, became king legitimately and then ruled and established the kingdom. Yes, he made mistakes, but he wasn't mad like Saul. And yes he could have deposed of Saul since Saul had served his purpose. What about fame and power? None is more famous (especially over time) than Jesus, Ghandi, Mother Theressa, Aung San Suu Kyi and many others. Power then? Whose kingdoms have influenced the most outside their lives, i.e. lasting power? Keep up the struggle and acknowledge first temptation, its source and then overcome it for power is not taking but overcoming.
The subject of control enters my mind often. Control is an illusion that deceives many, for at certain times a person can truly feel in control and actually be in control to a limited extent. Times in life exist where everyone does another's bidding and everything goes that person's way, a person has control. Or does he? Can that one make things go his way or is it the hand that he is dealt. In no way am I minimizing the need for gracious behaviour and seizing the things that are in a person's reach (and we can extend the reach somewhat), but in the end humans are limited. There is a ceiling.
In addition to the temporal nature of control, control, which is the ultimate exertion of power, often has many inconsistencies. In the Constant Gardiner a central character states "I was the control freak who couldn't control himself". He couldn't control his lust nor could he figure out what caused it or where it came from. He was disjointed.
Rather than control, I favour the word influence. Complete control over another person is not natural and is more akin to slavery than anything else. In contrast, there are many ways that a person can influence another without tampering with their self-determination, i.e. when a person does not bend another's will through withholding food, clothing, visas, and passports. Does it violate your existence? If yes, it's control. Influence can be feeding another with ideas and ideals, but brainwashing is the unacceptable limit of this influence. Influence arises from the authority structure present in most, if not all, cultures. Lastly, someone always remains above another; world-records are usually broken, so there is a levelling effect present in influence. I was reminded of these facts when I read the following:
It towered so vast above petty human creation, so elemental in a man-made world, that even if all the men who had lived in all the past millennia had opened up their arms as wide as they could and carried everything they had ever created or intended to create and piled it all up in massive heaps, they could never have raised a mountain ridge as fantastic as the Caucasus. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. August 1914. Trans. Glenny
Fly on! Enjoy the feeling! Breathe it! But remember that you can always fall to the ground because your being is governed by many laws.
In the previous post I described how adrenaline remained in my system even though it was clear there was no need for it. I just read a movie review of Crank in which the main character must keep moving and awake to retard the effect of a deadly poison. Since it is September and I am starting a very demanding degree, I have been thinking about stress and what causes it. In the past during school I have been like Jason Stratham in the movie, always on the move, adrenaline flowing and without peace. Understandably, university is intense, so my body should react somewhat, but my reaction seems excessive to me even though it is within the normal limits of student stress levels. I have determined that much of my stress results from a feeling of being out-of-control. If I had all the time in the world school would not be stressful, I would be in control. I could study for each test appropriately and do thorough research on my papers. The fact is that I don't have nearly enough time. I feel out-of-control because so many things enter my study time, necessary things. Should I resent going out for coffee with other students? No way, if I want friends and compatriots. Also my grades lie in the hands of my professors, what they will assign and expect.
Control truly is an illusion. Who knows when sickness will scupper all our plans? What can I really control? Is it really that big of a deal? I have heard of those employees who believe that the company will come to a halt if they take a vacation. What will halt is their control of the workplace. So what I can control are my expectations and the demands that I put on myself and not let them control me. The thing about stress is that you cannot lie to your body. If you feel cause for stress you will be stressed, sure, tell yourself it is not a big deal, but if you don't believe it you'll take two hours to get to sleep while fretting about needless details. This need for belief necessitates the change of our mindset, logic must prevail : if I can't change it who can? Many people have their own answers, for me it is he who stated "but trust, for I have conquered the world."
We have a glass door in our dining room that leads to an outdoor patio and a couple of weeks ago my daughter put her arm through it. Evelyn had just jumped on the couch and she was running back to get the farthest possible start when she tripped. I watched with horror and anxiety as I saw her entire arm go through the glass, stopped from a complete trajectory through the window by her torso. Immediately, I reached for a towel, ran to my daughter and yelled to my wife. My intention was that my wife would start the car while I applied pressure to the wound with the towel. Then we would rush to Emergency and hopefully Evelyn would not lose that much blood. Instead, I got to her and found no blood at all. There was a little glass on her hand and upon later inspection a cut under her arm, but only the first layers were scratched. Evelyn was fine, but I was not. Despite telling myself repeatedly that she was fine, my being would not respond to this information and adrenaline flowed through my veins for a few more hours. Her slight injuries defied my expectation. The next morning I took her to the clinic first thing to ensure that no invisible damage was done. The Dr. said she was fine, but that all the nerves and blood vessels for the arm and hand ran 1cm deep under her cut. Her injuries could have been so much worse. I was thanking God so much for her safety, but remained puzzled by the way the glass broke because two large pieces were pushed through leaving a thin rim remaining around the frame. My conclusion was that some force pushed the glass out just before her fall. In telling this story I have heard many other close-call stories in return, angels really are watching over us.
Upon reflection, part of the reason that I and many in my mixed culture seek reasons why is a lack of tradition : I have no idea what my ancestors did or believed. The chain is broken. What spiritual beliefs? What did those stars represent? What do those birds sing of? What happens after starlings flee? These questions came with no answers, not even a framework for me. What is true for me? leads me to explore, prove and adopt. Although no pure tradition exists except in isolation, since influence relentlessly pursues even the most xenophobic culture, the difference is that those with a strong tradition have a root to grow out of. Multi-racial, -cultural, -ethnic make-ups, by nature and contrast, have internal conflicts. Also certain cultural roots are often either preferred or suppressed. My parents are first generation Canadians, yet I do not speak Gaelic, Dutch or Chinese. Where do I come from? During different periods of my life I have even stressed my relation to certain cultural groups by diminishing or not recognizing the other cultures present in my make-up. I am? I used to envy those with an easy answer, but now I view myself as an alloy : I have some strengths that derive only from the fact that I am a mixture. I realize that I can neither escape my roots nor can I only be my "base-metal". Since few answers have been given to me, I'll continue to explore what causes what.
Was Mark Mothersbaugh really the front-man for Divo? Wow! And he can write "Let Me Tell You About My Boat".
I just made a donation to World Vision to supply rural children in Uganda that walk to the city each evening to avoid capture and subsequent forced enlistment in the rebel army with blankets, etc... Unfortunately, I had to turn down supporting Unicef because of my commitment to World Vision and Feed the Children. The need is so great! I have really enjoyed dialoguing with Unicef volunteers downtown and on the phone. They are doing a really good job. Unicef, due to their wide volunteer base gives 90 percent of what you donate to children in need. World Vision the last time I checked gave 86 percent and Feed the Children gave a similar percentage (who wants to pad already full pockets). All are good : choose one and help those that are hungry and scared.
Botched in Translation in the August 7, 2006 issue of Macleans humorously recounts tales related to tattoos with incorrect Chinese and Japanese characters ( I don't think anyone would knowingly put "crazy diarrhea" on their calf). Imagine if my language training was limited to this : "wow! that inscription reads, "Romans conquered diarrhea".
Wow! The whole month of July has passed by without me blogging. Renovations have taken up most of my time outside my regular work/parenting schedule but I have squeezed in some moments of enjoyment. One moment came tonight when I put away the mower and witnessed a spectacular sunset. Jean Vanier's Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John remains a consistent source of pleasure. In many ways the book embodies more than pleasure and often I feel the words reaching my soul. In addition to trans-soul communication Vanier provides many thought-provoking statements, e.g.
We human beings are a mixture of the presence of God and the absence of God, of light and darkness, truth and chaos, goodness and evil, openness and closedness.
No human being in himself or herself is holy or pure.
We become holy only through the holiness of God.
I wonder if Hans, to whom I gave the book, has ventured into its rich pages.
Last week I went out to a Euro-pub for dinner and got to sample some fabulous beers from their menu : My brother said, "They have a Cognac beer." right away I ordered it. I also tried the Wee Heavy and a Chocolate Stout. Fortunately, my local liquor store carries these and the Cognac remains my favourite, its flavours are as complex as a fine red, though I am looking forward to the stout.
Also, for my birthday I finally picked up Hancock's Gershwin's World and Pat Metheny's Speaking of Now Live. Gershwin's World is much better than Possibilities (the last Hancock album I bought) in which Hancock voluntarily took a backseat to other artists. Joni Mitchell is amazing and rivals her accompaniment to Neil Young on The Last Waltz. Wayne Shorter always rocks and Hancock's talent, appropriately, stands out. Metheny, Anthony Sanchez and Richard Bona stand out on the DVD. Ironically (because Sanchez was present), the DVD was filmed among a conservative and relatively sparse Japanese crowd (possibly favoured for their expression of appreciation being limited to enthusiastic applause after each song as opposed to shouts during the performance).
Alpha Yaya Diallo played downtown for Canada Day. The concert was a highlight of July and the fireworks that followed rounded out an awesome night. Dancing with my family in front of the Parliament buildings and viewing the fireworks on my dad's boat stand out. Hopefully I will find the CD tomorrow.
Today I felt at a loss with no scores to check and no matches to follow. What will I do after the final? I did a bit of organizing today and guess I will do some more catching up. I read a clip my mom had cut out from a newspaper during her recent trip to Scotland about a rare postcard that was found under the lining paper of a drawer. The postcard was dated 1883 and addressed to barristers in Victoria; the cool thing is that the address is the two block street where I work. I work in a heritage building, one of about three on the short street, so it may have been sent to my building all those years ago. Cool!
Today, I went through the pain of watching Holland versus Portugal. It was painful to watch due to endless dirty play, cautions and red cards, and the fact that the Dutch brought shame upon themselves because they did not redeem the mistakes they made: Cocu who passed when he was in the penalty zone rather than shooting came closest to redemption when he hit the crossbar (see what happens when you shoot, the ball actually goes near the net). Robben said he could play much better when he played against Serbia. Where was he today? I know he was double teamed, but come on! Kuyt passed rather than shot and then when his chance came he kicked the ball right into the goalie rather than going around the goalie or shooting up high. Van Persie and later Van der Vaart were the only players that seemed to get the urgency of this game : elimination. Delivery has been a common problem among the Dutch this round (I talked about the heart-attacks they caused me by not scoring insurance goals, previously). They have very few finishers. The good news is that their finishers are young and I look forward to great things from van Persie, especially. I just hope that he stays out of Holland until the next World Cup so no one can convince him it is better to pass rather than shoot when you are in the penalty zone. Portugal deserved to win despite all their dirty work and if it weren't for Van der Sar the score would be even worse. Hopefully for Holland someone will be able to fill his shoes for the next World Cup (if they qualify). Until redemption it's sackcloth and ashes and lots of hard work.
Last night while I was trying to sleep after a very long workday --see the last post-- I was thankful that I did overwhelm my body with coffee. Unfortunately, at times I have loaded up while studying and heard my own heart pound and stayed up much longer than required. It is difficult to calculate how long the stimulant will last over how long it is required for and how much is needed to stay awake for that required time. The lag effect of the economy, however, is much more difficult to predict.
This thought originated yesterday when I was cycling to work and saw all the new construction in Victoria. "Will there be enough demand?" was my question. The lag in construction is considerable, given the time between planning and finishing. I think most of the mid-to-late eighties when many lost there shirts being spread to thin or investing too late. When does the wave crest and when does it break? There is time, if you can surf well enough, to get out even at this latter stage; if, however, you ride it too long you will be washed up on shore and have to take the long and hard journey out to the swells. The fear of missing activity compels one to push on and assume that demand will not be quenched : what if more people move here? If you drop in late you are toast, so I would ignore the "what if" and wait for the next great swell. I was, however, proven wrong about interest rates as I predicted they would have started to rise long before they did. The signs of the Reagan era are here : high defence spending and high gas prices (although they have a diminished effect on inflation to the eighties recession). I do not monger fear, but recommend not taking uncalculated risks based on unceasing demand : just look at all that fiber-optic cable that has not paid for itself ten-years later.
I am writing this after only 3 hours of sleep --during the last half-hour my daughter screamed constantly because her hair was being washed, so it wasn't a quality three hours. Neil Young's Living with War is on and last night begins to flood into my conscience. I went to work purposefully late yesterday to prepare for the long day ahead because I was hired by a film company to be a liaison for our building. The film company told me I would end between 11 and 2, but 5:30 turned out to be the time. Anyway, I made some decent money and got to see the large number of people exercising at that time on a Saturday morning.
It was pretty cool to be "part" of the crew and I was shuttled off to lunch with other workers at around 10:30. I was able to put in an eleven hour day of work, but couldn't focus so late at night so I watched the filming for the remainder of my long shift. At one point I was imprisoned upstairs because they were filming on the stairs. Repeatedly the prop-man handed a gun to an actor and yelled, "The gun is hot." The scene consisted of a woman who is kidnapped by some guy, the kidnapper shoots a cop and as they go down the stairs the victim breaks free and grabs the gun from the dead cop and kills the criminal. Funnily enough, at one point the actor playing the criminal got hurt so there was real blood with all that fake blood. Bang! Bang! still rings in my ears from the firing of all those blanks.
Well, Spain came back, but there is still a chance for Tunisia if they can beat the Ukraine by two goals. The compilation The Beautiful Game in National Geographic (June 2006) really pumped me up for the World Cup. The map is awesome, especially the chart that shows that 218 million watched the Final in 2002 compared to 127 million for the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympics and to 95 million for the 2004 Super Bowl. Given my interest in the Classics I particularly enjoyed Robert Coover's article Morality Play: Soccer as Theatre:
The explanations advanced for soccer's intense mysterious power, the trancelike quality of great matches, its worldwide domination over all other sports, have been many...Soccer has often been compared to Greek Tragedy, or seen as a kind of open-ended morality play. Perhaps the difficulty in scoring...intensifies this sense of theatre, causing the denouement--or collective catharsis--to be withheld almost always until the final whistle.
I hope to read some more of Coover's works in the future (on the web version of the article he supplies an article on Spain).
Renovations and upkeep have filled my waking hours lately, so it has been a while since I blogged. I have run the gamut of emotions watching the World Cup Finals : despair, anxiety and elation. My genetic makeup comprises of 50 percent Dutch (25 percent Dutch-born, 25 percent Chinese immigrant) and 50 percent Scottish. Since China and Scotland never make it to the Finals, the Netherlands is my team. Now I mostly watch games feeding and distracting my two year-old daughter to keep her away from the TV. I used to visit Holland quite regularly as a child and recall the severity of punishment if my brother or I breathed too loud during a game. Now, when I watch Holland I hardly breathe, since they never score that insurance goal and give their opponents too many chances during the last 15 minutes of play when their chances of scoring would be slim. Whew! I will be even tenser on Wednesday when they play Argentina, who has just come off a 6 goal win against a team that Holland only scored one goal against. So far, the FIFA rankings do not match performance, since the Czechs lost and both Holland and Brazil have not played to their potential (the top 3 rated teams).
I am very excited about the remaining 3 African teams that have a chance to proceed. Tunisia is ahead 1 to nil right now (Joga Companion Rules!!) against Spain and a victory today will help them greatly. Ghana has the best chance; if they can beat the USA by more than one goal they will proceed, due to Italy's poor performance yesterday. If Mexico loses against Portugal, a possibility, and Angola defeats Iran, a high probability, then they will proceed. That would be awesome for a team that just earned their first World Cup Finals point by holding Mexico to no goals.
Labels can accurately represent contents if the contents/ingredients are few in number and readily identifiable. If it is a case of WYSWYG the label works. Although many people like to extend labels to people, people are individuals that cannot be so readily categorized. More commonly, labelling people leads to or is used fuel racism and other forms of intolerance/ignorance. Todd Haspect, a Youth Empowerment supervisor, states in May 26, 2006 issue of Saanich News, "Upon spying a group of teens adorned with Mohawks, ragged clothes, tattoos or body piercings, some adults tend to make negative snap judgments about their character rather than remaining neutral or taking time to find out who they are as people." The label reads: "those with Mohawks are sketchy".
Waiting for my drink in a new coffee shop I was checking out, a homeless man introduced himself to me. Subsequently, I shared my table/food and chatted for about half-an-hour. I am glad that he broke the barrier and ripped the label off by introducing himself to me; what a blessing.
What is very interesting about labelling is that many feel compelled to label themselves. This compulsion arises in seeking an air of respectability in social circles. Even though I genuinely say that I want to be myself and forget about the pressure to conform, I still find myself at times glamorizing my story. The pressure to fit into an acceptable preset mould is great. Finding a label also saves you lots of explaining at cocktail parties. Anyway, I'll still venture to be myself and to find my place.
My co-worker showed me the fuh2 website the other day. I wish that one day I will invent something so quirky and original. It, however, both encourages and mocks labelling, so mine hopefully will be in a slightly different vain.
Edward Wilson in the May 2006 issue of National Geographic states, "Well, the human mind has evolved to search for meaning." This statement seems counter-intuitive to me. There are few things in history that have caused as much grief to the world as the search for meaning. Notably any institutionalized form of religion. How could it then develop? I do like the fact that Wilson considers the subject of the world as A Meeting of Science and Religion (the subtitle of his new book). It is true that many have lost the big picture. The world is beautiful. Let us not screw it up too bad. We will have an impact, so the question is quantity. How needless is our (the traditional West's) waste? I agree that Intelligent Design will not provide scientific answers, but I in no way believe that science can provide all the answers humans need. I like how Robert Miller put it in the April 2006 issue of First Things:
"The larger problem the Dover Area School Board was trying to address--the apparent atheistic drift of much public education--may still have a solution, however. I think public high schools ought to offer, at the senior level, a course in philosophy, including metaphysics...This would negate the impression, perhaps created in science classes, that science explains everything there is to explain about the universe." Check it out! The whole article is good.
Since I read the article Duchy of Cornwall in the May 2006 issue of National Geographic, I have a few apologies to make. I was lulled into a diminished of view of Prince Charles, but now have much greater respect for him. Although the maximum level of respect that he can get from me is still hampered by his treatment and fall-out with the most popular woman of this age (her funeral attendance says it all), I would like to apologize for thinking he was completely without judgement. Not only does he have judgement, but he also "gets it" and puts his money where his mouth is. The town of Poundbury says it all. As does the following quotes from pages 102 and from the article:
"'It very nearly didn't end up like it is now because there were efforts to water it down', the prince said. 'But we have probably shown that for a ten percent extra cost, roughly, you are actually achieving a far higher value in the longer term than the shorter term, which is the way the modern world looks at everything.'"
If only Bush could think the same!
"'In farming, as in gardening,' the prince once wrote, 'I happen to believe that if you treat the land with love and respect (in particular, respect for the idea that it has an almost living soul, bound up in the mysterious, everlasting cycles of nature) then it will repay you in kind.'"
