SSM

Same-sex marriage became legal in Canada yesterday. Prior to this inevitable decision, a great deal of ink has been spared arguing against and for the expansion of the definition of marriage to include man-man and woman-woman combinations of possible spouses. So it's no point for me to dwell on the matter as such any further.
I agree with many fellow conservatives that the battle has been lost and it'd be unwise for Harper and the CPC to center the future campaign around this issue. In terms of practical political steps they should work to ensure full protection for Church and other structures not to approve of, or participate in the SSM.

I have intellectual honesty to admit that the bill's passage was a foregone conclusion not just because of 'judicial activism', 'liberal media', 'political elites' and so forth (though these were all mitigating factors of course). The nature of marriage, its spiritual and moral decay had precipitated it for a long before and ultimately this had a bigger impact on the outcome of the debate than anything else.

BBC had a few comments on the issue (reflecting the balance of opinion, as they put it). I especially enjoy this one:

"This is a logical next step in the evolution of modern society."

So true, though the auther evidently didn't have the same in mind: insofar this is a logical step in the evolution of modern society, it won't be the last one.
I've argued about this before and yet to see a any plausible argument to convince me otherwise. So I repeat it again: following the logic behind the same-sex marriage debate there's nothing that can prevent, on logical grounds, to have polygamy legalized in the same manner it's been done in regard to SSM.
It's not fear-mongering and not even an attempt to undermine SSM. The crux of the matter is this: if the man-woman clause is arbitary and thus injust to man-man/woman-woman relationships, there's absolutely no ground to insist that the number 2 is not equally arbitrary.

Of course, from practical point of view, it's not gonna get challenged tomorrow. It will have been a while since all the media bruhaha about SSM when 'multiple love activists' file a petition arguing that laws against polygamy violate their human rights to live a a commited three/four....some relationship.

What pisses me off is the inability or rather sheer hypocrisy of the SSM proponents to admit that it's plausible. I guess honesty is the first casualty in any political debate.

Russian files: sex, class, gender in the blogosphere

The Ivannikova case would have made headlines everywhere I think.

A year and a half ago Ivannikova stopped a car in the street — a common practice in Russia, where taxi services are less developed — to travel home.

The driver, ethnic Armenian Sergei Bagdasaryan, drove her to a dark side street instead, where he locked the car doors and demanded that Ivannikova perform sexual intercourse with him, threatening that she “will never be found” if she refused, Ekho Moskvy reported.

Bagdasaryan pulled down his trousers and underwear and reached for the woman, but Ivannikova, who had already been raped once before, was carrying a small kitchen knife in her purse. She stabbed the driver in the hip and struck his femoral artery.

She then managed to escape from the car and call the police.

The Russian segment of the LiveJournal got fuming. Some backed up the woman's right to use force against the rapist while others pointed out that said Bagdasarian is unable to defend himself ans all what we know regarding what transpired in the car is literally Her Story.
However, much of the publicity was generated due to the fact that Bagdasarian happened to be of Armenian descent while Ivanninikova is Russian. (Russkikh ludey obizhayut or "Russian people under attack" was their slogan; if you read Russian see check out user Krylov’s postings)

Some Russian 'real' media, such as Komsomolskaya Pravda, have also covered the story however, it was Masha Gessen's article in the glamour Russian magazine Bolshoy Gorod that has sparked a new cycle of controversy.
Masha Gessen, a Soviet-born Jewish-American lesbian-feminist journalist, interviewed Ivannikova and came up with no so flattering portrayal of the woman.
To cut through all the subtleties, Gessen depicted her as a 'white trash' oblivious to her own intellectual and spiritual poverty. In her defense, Gessen wrote that since the BG magazine’s target audience is upper middle class people (by Russian standards of course) who earn no less 1500$ a month, she wanted to provide them with an insight into the lives of those who live on lesser means.

Update: Help Africa: framing the debate

Just a couple of days ago I reacted indignantly to a Globe and Mail article Live 8: Thumbs down on hypocritical 'aid' wherein Gerald Kaplan argued that Africa’s woes there is the West to blame for. Although it might be true that the event itself may not be such a noble undertaking this illustrates my point perfectly
(hat tip: Daimnation)

Canadian way of learning

"If you could be any polymer, which polymer would you be and why?" [from a science class assignment]
"in those provinces where Canadian history is still a compulsory course in high school, scant attention is paid to anything but social history"

(History, writ small. Jennie Morgan. National Post, Thursday, June 23, 2005).

tunnel vision

John Ibbitson writes on immigration reform:
"Canada need to increase its intake of immigrants from the current level of 210,000 to the Immigration Department's target of 320,000 as quickly as possible. If we do not, this country could soon face a declining population and an acute labour shortage".

Mr. Ibbitson and any other liberal pundit can come up with thosand policy recipies and solutions for Canada's crippled immigration system but it'd never occur for them to offer any other redemy than taking in more people to solve Canada's declining population problem.
World is bound to run out of oil soon but it'll never be a shortage of people wanting to take low paid jobs in Toronto's fast food outlets, won't it?

Help Africa: framing the debate

Again, July 22 Globe and Mail provided me with another article to ponder over.
I have no idea who (Sir) Bob Geldof was until I until got subjected to his relentless, if not slightly sanctimonious campaign, to help Africa's poor. Sir Bob's been slamming governments, including Canada's, for not doing enough on that front etc., etc.
I used to think that the debate was between those who think large scale foreign aid would help African country to break the vicious circle of poverty and underdevelopment while other have pointed out that without reforming African societies was the key to success.
Gerald Kaplan doesn't think so (the full text of the article is available here). He dismisses the latter group rather contemptuously -
"If only Africa's leaders were more like our own." (this tool of rhetorical evasion is called "begging the question" b.t.w. - the reader is led to assume that the implied proposition is wrong by default, which of course should be a subject of debate at the very least. To put it simply, what if indeed African government were more like their Western counterparts, it might help.)

Yet, he's equally critical of the attempts to provide aid. He's raving against 'capitalist exploitation of Africa' (the last one is not a quote; I'm just summing up his argument).
Or as Kaplan puts it himself:

the deep,comprehensive responsibility of Western nations and Western financial institutions for so much of Africa's continuing underdevelopment and poverty.

I'd think this guy is a communist but no, wait for it, he's.... a UN representative in the region!!!
Always useful to know who you deal with

Christie Blatchford's true identity

In a recent column on the upcoming Gay Pride Parade in Toronto. Christie Blatchford, whose columns I used to sort of like when she was still with the National Post, described herself as "relentlessly straight middle-aged woman”. Is it just me who hears the word ‘hopelessly’ somewhere between those words? It seems as if it’s become the only acceptable way for any straight person writing about gays to explain half-apologetically that he/she is unfortunately stuck being “normal” (the quotation marks are for double irony her of course).

back from the shadow (technical note)

I haven't blogged for a while and my blog is dying. I can of course say in defense that I've been too busy with teaching but I know all too well that the real reason me being such a disorganized person. Next few entries will serve as an attempt to make up for my absense.

The limits of tolerance

Opposition to the same-sex marriage voiced recently by various 'ethnic' groups has not gone unnoticed by members of the Liberal elite. Here goes certain Bradley Miller's column in the National Post, June 6.

For once, ethnic minorities have been bounced to the front of the social conservative bus. Thye're now taking centere stage in the fight against same-sex marriage, flaunting their outrage at deliberately multiracial rallies and airing their disgust in the media.

These minority communities are making a strategicc mistake. By opposing gay rights, they are betraying the very ideals that won them a place in Canadian culture. They are also encouraging an anti-immigrant backlash among those who already fear that immigrants are a threat tolerant Canadian values.

Then Miller proceeds to tell us two things: that there's been an anti-immigrant backlash in Europe.

Rather than cast immigrants as libertines and layabouts who would threaten the traditional, Christian social order - as generations of bigots have done - the new nativists see immigrants as a threat to liberal values such as tolerance and secularism.

Note the distinction being drawn here: those who dared to opppose immigration based on Christian values, were of course bigots, whereas the 'new nativists' are evidently not.

And finally the conclusion:

As that idea spreads, it will find a natural home in Canada. Polls here have always shown that although Canadians don't have many hang-ups about skin colour or religious affiliation, we want our immigrants integrated.

The 'diversity crowd' would cheer and agitate for any kind of diversity except the one that matters the most: the diversity of opinion. The abovementioned article is a vivid example of this.

Khodorkovsky's case: an opinion

Russian tycoon, turned a crusader-for-civil-society-and-democracy, has been sentenced to nine years in prison. In the West, many think the verdict was yet another evidence of the growing authoritarianism of the Putin regime.
Here's what Oleg Kashin, a journalist with the Russian daily Kommersant, had to say on the subject:

No one would deny the injustice of the court, which has deemed the accused guilty, doesn't suffice to consider him innocent. The trail itself was a mockery of justice.... Yet, only naive people can consider Khodorkovsky an honest man.[emphasis mine - I.Kh]

It sums up pretty much what I think of the case myself.

the nature of U.S.-Canada relations: yet another succinct observation

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well-informed about the United States"

J.Bartlett Brebner, a history professor at the University of Columbia.

Ukraine 1 Greece 0

UEFA.com reports:

A late Andriy Husin goal saw off European champions Greece and took unbeaten Ukraine to within one victory of their first FIFA World Cup qualification.

We're almost in - Slava Ukraini!!!!

what they think of Canada

Sikh teen fabricated story of attack
Last Updated Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:11:01 EDT
CBC News

B.C. police are calling off a hate-crimes investigation, after a Sikh teenager admitted he made up a story about a group of white men beating him and cutting his hair.

Police had appealed for tips earlier in the week, after the 17-year-old said five men jumped him behind an elementary school in Richmond on May 26.

This is the update on the initial, June 1, story that started out like this:
B.C. police are urging the Indo-Canadian community to stay calm after a Sikh teenager was attacked by five men who snatched off his turban and cut his hair.

So the first story turned out to be fake has been promptly rebutted, the case closed... Indeed?

I actually pity the guy. Now he's asking for forgivness:

"I am really sorry for everything that has happened[...]
I did not realize that it will become an issue at such a large scale. My sincere apologies to my family, friends, the RCMP and overall community – whose feelings I have hurt in this whole ordeal. "

Poor chap. Perhaps, he had never watched CBC or any other Canadian TV station to realize that's precisely they type of stories they're always on the stand by mode for.
I watched the June 01 broadcast and it was preceded by a report on the results of an investigation on racial profiling in Kingston,ON.
Mere coincedence, no bias??

I shall say no more, make your own conclusions.

the Globe's groovy guy

Bob Tarantino mocks Rick Salutin's latest bile of non-sequitur nonsense.
I've stopped reading Salutin long time not because I'd disagree with everything he ever has to say. I just can't stand his incoherent ramblings any more - his columns can't withstand even the most primitive check of reasoning.
A more interesting question though, is why the Globe keeps him even though it must be evident to anyone how little he delivers in exchange for the valuable opinion space. I think it's due to their quite odd idea of 'balance'. They have Margaret Wente who's perceived to be a right-winger, which isn't true of course (she's sided with the establishment when it really mattered in the past - see her defense of the last appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada). So they feel obliged to offer space to someone on the left. And hence comes Rick Salutin.
I've heard some lefties accusing the Globe of being a ‘conservative rag’ actually. It’s funny but perhaps they’re not so much off the mark – If I were a left-winger I’d be sure as hell concerned that the voice of my party in the Globe is represented by Rick Salutin.