75 Years. In Case You Were Curious.

Reuters: A British store is launching a range of underpants for left-handed men, an innovation it says will save them both time and embarrassment in front of the porcelain.

The new range, by UK-based Hom, will have a horizontal opening instead of a vertical slit accessed from the right-hand side, breaking a tradition that has lasted for 75 years.

"In our view, this is a vital step toward equality for left-handed men," said Rob Faucherand of Debenhams store.

Teaching Newspeak

I've always marvelled at George Orwell's prescient warnings. His idea that when you remove words from the language you remove the very means of thought was a theory that I found especially frightening. Orwell:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

From the Telegraph:

Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

Let this be absolute proof that the politically correct, socialist, anti-Christian intellectuals that run Western education have a clear agenda: like Orwell's leaders of Oceania and writers of the Newspeak dictionary, these intellectual thugs wish to destroy our history and shape thought to match theirs. This has nothing to do with a "multifaith society." If that were the case, "mullah," "rabbi," and "bishop" would find a home in their books. Instead, "bishop" must go.

The thug that runs the children's dictionaries is named Vineeta Gupta. Her bogus reason for removing words like aisle, minister, and saint is that kids have little hands and not every word in the language can be included in the dictionaries. True enough. But look at some of the words finding a home in her children's dictionaries: celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense, debate, EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro.

Nice selection. Get 'em while they're young and teach the kiddies to start thinking interdependently about cautionary tales involving a bilingual dyslexic hoping to gain citizenship in the EU while bungee jumping over an endangered owl farm donated by a creep from Oxford University Press who avoided conflict by consulting a compulsory committee.

Yes, that is better than teaching words like ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, and lobster, all of which are creatures that have disappeared from the pages of the children's dictionary. And who needs them, anyway, when the big city is the place to be? Those weird creatures from a bygone era and distant planet are joined by insensitive words like sin, nun, devil, monarch, and decade.

"Decade" sticks out like a sore thumb, dovetailing nicely with the newly added word "chronological." Removing the specific "decade" but replacing it with the abstract "chronological" is interesting. I wonder what that's about? If I were to get heavy-duty-Orwell on you, I might theorize that the PC crowd is going to start playing with time as well as words. Orwell: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

I have a phrase for Ms. Gupta. It might not belong in a children's dictionary, but she can find it between her recently deleted words "fern" and "fungus."

With But A Little Help From Miss May

You would think we'd hear more about this case over in Canada and the States, but for some reason...crickets.

Here's a pretty good breakdown of the case so far, in which 7 homicidal maniacs targeted US and Canadian air carriers, in the hopes of killing thousands. They hoped to get passed security with the help of porn mags and condoms, a sort of do-it-yourself kit for the Mile High Club. Didn't work.

It's these guys, by the way, that are the reason for you enclosing your cologne or Pepto-Bismol in a sandwich bag.

Here's what I had to say about it a couple of years ago, after a flight to Heathrow that got affected by these whack jobs.

Bye-Bye Britain -- Part 6

I notice The Independent decided to fire another "we're better than you" headline at the United States.

On the new cover they have the words: United States of America: 2008. THE GREAT DEPRESSION. Beneath it, they show a soup kitchen line-up in New York.

Perhaps it's a case of misery loving company, since The Independent should be worrying about their own backyard.

I have a better headline: England 2008 - The Great Implosion.

The latest story of whacky justice in the UK has a criminal being released less than halfway through his sentence due to overcrowded jails. His crime? Not much. He only smuggled missile blueprints into the country.

Since last summer, 20 000 inmates have been released onto England's streets in the "end of custody license" deal. The Telegraph reports that 3400 of them were violent offenders. 367 crimes have since been committed by the released crooks, with one murder to top it off.

Depressing.

Tinker, Tailor, Policeman, Spy

MI5 agents have identified FOUR London Met officers after searching for a cell of fanatics passing Scotland Yard's secrets.

The spooks homed in on the officers in the past few weeks after working with anti-terror police to uncover "sleeper" agents in London's Met. -- News of the World

When I was kid, nothing could separate me from spy stories. I devoured them at a rapid pace, and always came back wanting more. There was something about the world of cloak and dagger that fascinated me.

Quiller was my favorite spy. Written by Adam Hall, the Quiller books were fast and lean. Violent. Fun. Quiller was always getting up to no good behind the Berlin Wall, and Hall managed to paint Quiller into extremely tight corners from which no one could escape. Except, of course, Quiller.

The Quiller Memorandum put Hall on the map, and Hollywood turned the book into a pretty good flick starring George Segal (and Alec Guinness, in a bit-part). As the years went on, Hall (a pen name for Elleston Trevor) churned out more novels, but Hollywood never picked them up. This was understandable. If you've read the Quiller series, then you know that it was written in the first person. First person stories rarely translate well to the big screen because so much of the story is about the character's own thoughts and emotions. It takes a very good script, and a very good director, to show these thoughts to the audience without telling them.

le Carre
It wasn't until I grew older that I could read John le Carre's stuff. Le Carre went in for the hum-drum spy, the quiet machinations of the dark world. As a kid, I couldn't get into it because it bored me, and when I was older I made the big mistake of reading le Carre's post-Soviet Union material.

Like most spy writers, the crashing of the Berlin Wall destroyed le Carre's career. You may argue that many of his post-Wall books have made the bestseller list, but I think that was more on reputation than on quality of writing. As a friend of Stephen King's once told him, "You could write something on toilet paper now and people would still buy it."

One day I was in the book store and I spotted The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. I hemmed and hawed and finally bought it. And I loved it. I was in my twenties and I was finally old enough to let Carre take me through 65 pages of nothing before getting to the point. Until I realized that the 65 pages were the point, and that he had fooled me. Leamas still worked for Smiley, and he was going East.

I read the Smiley books shortly thereafter, and I loved them, too. Le Carre's post-Wall politics as an anti-American panty waist have clouded the fact that he was a very good spy writer. Today, the Left regard him as good people, while the Right figure he sold out (I don't think they truly trusted him to begin with). Me, I just think he's some guy that wrote a few good spy stories.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was probably my favorite, and Smiley's People comes after that. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could write more boring material and make it more interesting. Whole chapters of Smiley reading musty old documents, or talking to alcoholic widows, or wandering around a murky dockyard under overcast skies.

Depressing stuff, and maybe that's why the Right don't remember him too fondly. His spy world was not one of gunshots and victory. Smiley was not the typical spy hero. He was fat, old, washed up. His wife had cheated on him with his best friend, and his best friend turned out to be a double agent. He wasn't James Bond.

I never liked Bond. On my scale of spies, I'd put Quiller first, Smiley second, and anybody from Frederick Forsyth third (Forsyth almost doesn't count, because many of his book weren't "spy stories," in the true Berlin Wall sense).

The tension of the Cold War spy books came from one place: over there. The Wall represented a physical reality for a philosophical nightmare: beyond the barbed wire was a land where free throught was outlawed, and free thinkers were jailed and starved. Over there was a place where you could die for writing a poem, and over there was a place you could never leave. If you were born over there, nobody in the West would ever know you existed unless you were a politician or a figure skater.

Then the Wall came down, and the spy writers went with it. No more dragons to slay, no over there to go to.

Fast forward almost twenty years, and the spy racket is in total disrepair. The Bourne movies are about a character that is being hounded by his own people, three times over. Any story involving today's great enemy, Islamic fascism, is run through the political litmus test before it reaches the shelf. If the story is a film, then the litmus test becomes an acid test, as the story is warped into some strange tale about equality between the good guys and the bad guys.

Kim Philby
There are no more real spy stories. They're gone. The Kim Philby disaster that rocked British Intelligence (and gave birth to Smiley) is ancient history. Today, 4 members of the London MET are outed as agents spying for fanatical terrorists, and everybody yawns. In the old days, a spy outed in the newspapers would be crapping his pants and heading for the train station, one step ahead of the noose. Today, the word "treason" in never mentioned and the spy wonders if his lawyer will get him off. And nobody cares. Why?

Because the enemy is already over here, walking amongst us, part of the political theater. Indeed, over there is over here, and vice versa. Treasonous acts are no longer treasonous, they're simply a nuisance. Spies are not spies, they're just people with a different set of beliefs. When a spy is eating dinner at the next table, how dangerous can he be?

I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

Photos: Lenin Imports & Wikipedia

Drudge Outs Harry

Prince Harry was pulled out of Afghanistan and sent home yesterday, after the Drudge Report outed the fact that he was there in the first place.

There. I said it. The Drudge Report.

I've been having a good chuckle at the hypocrisy of the mainstream media. They call the war on terror a sham, and demand that the troops come home. In Britain, Tony Blair is dubbed as "Bush's poodle" for putting British troops into action. Then Prince Harry goes to war and suddenly he is a hero, with photos of a gun-wielding Prince gracing the front pages of all the major papers.

So which is it? Prince Harry the hero, but Blair the warmonger? How does that work?

The press's hypocrisy continues. It's no secret that they hate Drudge (he broke the Lewinsky scandal, and they haven't forgiven him since), but what is the Drudge Report really? It's a link site. Drudge makes the headlines, but 99.9% of those headlines lead to other sources. Due to a media blackout on the "Prince Harry Goes to War" story, the papers were mum. Then Drudge links to an Australian news piece that says Harry is in Afghanistan, and all bets are off. The mainstream press didn't wait five seconds to plaster the news all over their front pages.

I scoured the papers and the news services and found one that named Drudge as the source. For the rest, it was "a foreign website," or "an American website."

Well, that's not exactly how you learn to quote sources in Journalism 101, is it? Drudge is not some secret source that they met in an underground parking lot. With one click of the mouse, anyone on the planet can see what he's up to. For them not to quote Drudge by name is like saying, "According to a Washington official," after talking to the President.

But that's the media. The war is a sham, but Harry's a hero, and Drudge is a jerk for running the story, but now we'll make a whole weekend edition out of it without saying his name.

The plummeting ratings and newspaper sales of the mainstream press are not shocking. The arrogant fools are being outscooped all the time by people that own a laptop and a cell phone. For them not to quote Drudge as the source of their lastest windfall is not only arrogant, it's petty. It also shows how frightened these crusanders of hard journalism really are.

Photo taken from the Drudge Report

Bye-Bye Britain -- Part 5

Here's an excerpt from a recent Mark Steyn piece:

Every day around the developed world, minor government bureaucrats get advice from minor government lawyers and make small incremental adjustments to western civilization. “Where there is a valid polygamous marriage the claimant and one spouse will be paid the couple rate,” read the new British guidelines. “The amount payable for each additional spouse is presently £33.65.”

You can’t (for the moment) marry multiple wives within the United Kingdom, but if you contract a polygamous marriage in a jurisdiction where polygamy is legal, such as certain, ahem, Muslim countries, your better halves (or better eighths?) are now recognized as eligible for British welfare payments. Thus, the concept of “each additional spouse” has been accepted both de facto and de jure.

Read the rest of the piece here.

Bye-Bye Britain - Part 4

I don't know if it's because I'm an English-speaking guy, but it is rather sad watching Britain slowly flush itself down the toilet.

Here's the latest installment, which comes on the heels of the Archbishop of Canterbury saying that sharia law in England is a foregone conclusion.

"A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East. Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful." -- Daily Mail

Many of my English buddies like to put the kibosh on my arguments by defaming the source. As in, "Ah, that's just the Daily Mail, bunch of bigots." Yet I've quoted the Daily Mail, the Guardian, The Spectator, The Times, and others in the past. How many papers do you need to quote before people say, "Huh. Maybe it isn't the racist British rags, but a fact of life."

Britain's decline is intriguing. Perhaps it is post-colonial guilt. Never before has a people been so hell bent on trashing their own traditions and culture in favor of ones from a different land, ones which they've never practiced in their lifetimes. Rome was invaded, and the Aztecs were slaughtered, but the English are exercising an amazing act of self-destruction.

The Mail goes on: "A spokesman said: "The Prime Minister is very clear that British laws must be based on British values and that religious law, while respecting other cultures, should be subservient to British criminal and civil law."

So that's how the law works? Silly me. I didn't know that religious "law" existed in Britain. I thought there was only British Common Law. Any religious laws are supposed to be "rules," practiced by the people in the religion, such as a "rule" against eating pork, not having sex before marriage, so forth.

There is no religious law subservient to the law, because there is no religious law in Britain. At least, not yet.

United Kingdom: Organ Grinder

Here's a piece from today's Telegraph:

Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph the Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year.

The proposals would mean consent for organ donation after death would be automatically presumed, unless individuals had opted out of the national register or family members objected.

But patients' groups said that they were "totally opposed" to Mr Brown's plan, saying that it would take away patients' rights over their own bodies.

There are more than 8,000 patients waiting for an organ donation and more than 1,000 a year die without receiving the organ that could save their lives.

The Government will launch an overhaul of the system next week, which will put pressure on doctors and nurses to identify more "potential organ donors" from dying patients. Hospitals will be rated for the number of deceased patients they "convert" into donors and doctors will be expected to identify potential donors earlier and alert donor co-ordinators as patients approach death.

But Mr Brown, who carries a donor card, has made it clear he backs an even more radical revamp of the system, which would lead to donation by "presumed consent". The approach is modelled on that of Spain, which has the highest proportion of organ donors in the world.

Interesting. Hospitals receiving a gold star from the government if they convert you into an organ donor. So on your next visit to a UK doctor, you might hear the words, "Everything appears to be normal. However, if you do kick the bucket, how about donating your kidneys and liver?"

Gordon Brown is playing tidy game, suggesting that people still have the right to decline being an organ donor. Notice that he wants you to explicitly opt out of the program. If you forgot to sign on the dotted line, then your organs are up for grabs. As for the "family members objecting," that sounds fine in theory. But organs must be harvested immediately after death. What happens if mom or dad don't pick up the phone in time?

Gordon Brown: Grinder Monkey
"Presumed consent" is a pretty abysmal term, but it matches squarely with the socialist/communist philosophy that there is no god beyond the state. The state represents all. The state has the right to take over your body once you are done moving around in it. Your body was never your own: you were merely borrowing it while on the temporal plane, and now your pieces belong to the government.

It makes a certain amount of Orwellian sense. The UK government could argue that the National Health Service has been taking care of you since the day you were born. You never had to pay a dime of your own cash, except in the form of taxation, and therefore it was the government that nurtured you and got you to a ripe old age. Now that you've expired, why should the government not take possession of the body that it cultivated?

Something to ponder the next time you get a free check-up.

Photo: REUTERS/Kirsty Wigglesworth/Pool

Fie, Foh, and Fom! I Smell the .96 Blood of a British Man

I found this photo on The Sun's website, one of England's tabloids. Apparently this girl got tanked in Newcastle's Bigg Market, and needed a helping hand. The Sun's editors weren't ones to waste irony.

According to the rags, New Year's in England was yet another night of drunken debauchery, as binge drinkers threw up into rivers, passed out on street corners, and wore next to nothing in the early chill of 2008.

To which I say, where's the problem? England's always been like that. Any country that closes its pubs at 11pm is asking for trouble, as people try to get blotto before the call of "Time, please." Turning around and asking those same louts to take it easy on New Year's Eve is like asking a Bengal tiger to take it easy on the veal.

Bye-Bye Britain -- Again

I see that Peter Hitchens has decided to get on the bandwagon vis a vis the demise of the British culture. He uses his latest blog to rant against various topics, including the fact that Oxford may soon be playing the Muslim call to prayer over city loudspeakers.

Alas, Pete, you're too late. I've been saying for quite a while now that Britain is going down the tubes. Not that any Brit would notice. After Hitchens' long rant on loudspeakers, burglar alarms, and Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism, most of the response comes from people that don't like noisy burglar alarms. The priorities in Britain are as mixed up as their own sense of purpose.

I remember being in England when the Euro replaced the Franc, Deutschmark, so forth. I thought then that the European Union was a disastrous idea, and that Britain's last bastion of culture would be the Pound Sterling. I was wrong. Nothing can save Britain from the tidal wave caused by the EU. What were they thinking? France, Germany, England, Spain. Surely a lowly Canadian (me) could not have been brighter than their political elite. For them not to see that tearing down their borders meant everyone and anyone could now move into their iconic cities at will was lunacy. Given the choice, where did they think people would go? Prague? Warsaw? Or London, Paris, and Madrid, cities with a culture for the taking and government subsidies to boot.

Adios, Europe.

Pot Boils On...

This is going to have to be a weekly event, as I try to keep up with the demise of the UK as we know (knew?) it. Sure, that makes me sound like some kind of paranoid guy, but emails from my friends make me think otherwise.

Here's another couple of stories that make you wonder where England is heading:

How do you teach British people about their "Britishness?" By destroying their British heritage, of course.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the EU was the most foolhardy decision that European leaders have ever made. Yes, that is saying a lot, but I'm saying it, anyway.

Catch the story here.

Here's another laugher. Dress-up day at an English school shouldn't make headlines, but this one does. Students and teachers at the school had to dress as Muslims to belatedly celebrate the Eid festival. In the afternoon there was a party, but only women could attend. Of the students, most are Christian. Of the 47 teachers, 2 are Muslim. Yes, you just read that. No word yet on when everyone will have to wear a yarmulke or a Buddhist robe.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Review

Director: Shekhar Kapur
Writers: Hirst/Nicholson
Starring: Cate Blanchett/Clive Owen
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is described as historical fiction, which is a good thing. I promised myself that I wouldn't harp too much on the film if it took liberties with the documented facts of Elizabeth's reign. History is covered in dust and cobwebs, and the further back you go, the thicker the dust gets. If you were to use only the primary evidence of written documents to make a movie about Elizabeth, you'd probably end up with a 30 minute film. Liberties must be taken, and forgiven, in order to fill out facts and turn it into some kind of emotional story.

This film, however, leaves you with one eyebrow raised throughout the showing. Not in surprise, but in incredulity. Would a Queen really break down and lose control like that in front of her courtiers? Not once, but four or five times? Would she really let commoners talk to her like that? And, if she would, how long would it be before a wily courtier used her instability to his advantage?

These are some of the questions that drift through your mind during a rather confusing story that is covered with a bombastic musical score and lavish costumes.

The film takes place towards the end of Elizabeth I's reign as ruler of England. Her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, is locked up in England and scheming to steal the throne with Spanish aid. King Philip II of Spain, a Catholic like Mary, despises the Protestant Elizabeth. He hopes to conquer England and knock Elizabeth from the throne. In the film version, he hopes to install his daughter Isabella as eventual Queen of England, which might have been news to Mary.

Henry VIII
Want backstory? Okay, follow this: Mary (Bloody Mary, not Mary, Queen of Scots), was Philip's wife. After she dropped dead, the throne went to Elizabeth, to the chagrin of English Catholics. Since Henry VIII, Elizabeth's father, had divorced Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Elizabeth's mother (Anne Boleyn), Elizabeth was regarded as a bastard, and not eligible to take the throne. Long breath. Therefore, Mary, Queen of Scots, who was a Catholic great-granddaughter of Henry VII, was considered by Catholics (and Phillip II in Spain) to be the rightful owner of the throne. That is why Philip was in cahoots (fine: secret communication) with Mary, Queen of Scots, in her prison cell. If he could get her on the throne, that would put paid to Elizabeth's Protestant reign, and Mary (not to mention the Pope) would owe Philip bigtime.

Got it? I don't blame the screenwriters for leaving this out of the movie.

Sir Walter Raleigh, however, does make it on the screen. Though he doesn't get much press in the history books vis a vis Elizabeth, the film gives him the full blown movie star treatment. Elizabeth is attracted to him, and enjoys hearing his stories of adventure on the high seas. He informs her that he has named a colony in New World after her: Virginia, for the Virgin Queen.

The rest of the story is convoluted, as the filmmakers seem unsure of where it should go. It could have been a story of political intrigue between Phillip II of Spain and Elizabeth I of England. Or it could have been a love story between Raleigh and Elizabeth (a love story with no foundation in fact). Or it could have been a story of the Protestant Elizabeth's troubles with the Catholic Church (the Pope in abstentia, Philip II as bad guy on the horizon).

In the end, the film tries to do all three, and you end up caring about none of them.

As far as the Catholic/Protestant angle, it was fairly obvious that the good old Christian/Western-bash has made it into historical films. The movie's modern day language and politics is a joke. Elizabeth I comes off as an agnostic, leaning towards atheist. The filmmakers were either unaware that the Protestant faith still considers Jesus Christ a top dog, or they ignored it.

The Spanish, on the other hand, are the film's Christian Neo-Cons. Philip II is a gibbering manic-depressive, constantly quoting scripture and declaring that a Catholic God will help him win the day. The main sails on the Spanish fleet are decorating with portraits of Jesus Christ and crosses. When he kneels to pray, his face is a sweating mask of religious zealotry. Back in England, when Elizabeth I prays, she says no words aloud and appears to be contemplating her next dinner party.

I was amused at the ignorance of the writers and the director. No matter which side you come down on with today's religious beliefs, they do not match the flavor and fervour of five centuries past. I was curious to see how they would handle the religious disputes of Elizabeth I's reign, and they completely fumbled, yet fumbled on purpose.

In Elizabeth's day, there was no such thing as a separation between church and state. Elizabeth's faith was not called the Church of England for fun. Her father established the Church of England so he could get a divorce and not kneel at the feet of the Pope. Mary I, Elizabeth's predecessor, brought the Catholic Church back to England. Then Elizabeth took over, and made it Protestant again. Religious conflict was common for the times, and Elizabeth was hardly as "above the fray" as a liberal Senator from California might be.

There is no question that the costumes and production value are top notch. Unfortunately, you might feel like you're watching a music video. There are a few short scenes where Elizabeth is filmed wearing beautiful clothes under beautiful lighting, while the camera twists and turns for the best angle. It's pretty, but it's bogus. The director of photography was obviously told to shut up when he said, "Um, boss...this doesn't look like it's lit with torches."

They did try for some subtlety. There is one scene where a dwarf is standing by Elizabeth's throne. No mention is made of her, and she can't be a jester, because she's too cozy with the Queen and she's dressed too finely. This is probably Lady Mary Grey, sister to Catherine Grey. Catherine Grey was one woman who had a legitimate claim to the throne, but died leaving only two bastard (and therefore, out of luck) sons. In another scene, a ship's Captain calls out the name, "Drake!" to let you know that Francis Drake was there during the Spanish Armada invasion. Beyond that, however, the film is lavish, in your face soap opera.

As for the Spanish Armada sequence, when Philip II rolls the dice to invade England, I will not go into it too much and blow it for you. It takes place towards the end of the film, and is meant to leave you with the cozy feeling that after this, England's future is bright and cheery. As any armchair historian knows, England's future was never bright and cheery: political intrigue abounded at home, and England had to fight and swindle for everything that it got abroad.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age left me wondering what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish. I don't believe they accomplished very much, either as entertaining narrative or history lesson.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Ten Years Later

It was 10 years ago, and I was struck by life's irony. A wonderful woman passed away. She gave her heart and soul to the poor and the diseased. She wanted nothing more than to help people. Then she was taken from us and...nobody noticed.

Her name was Mother Teresa. The nun of Calcutta had enough humility to recognize God's sense of humour: Princess Diana died only six days before. The headlines remained in England.

People wept and prayed over a woman who did her best to live the high life, destroy the reputations of her benefactors, and ski the slopes of wintry paradise. In between visits to Monaco and Paris, she would visit pristine hospitals to shake the hands of AIDS patients. The shutters would click, the bulbs would flash, and there she was: the Princess. And people would swoon.

When you have beauty, you do not need humility. You can go on television and in one breath discuss your infidelity and your eating disorders without shame. Sunlight is not the great cleanser. Television is. If you tell your neighbours that you cheated on your husband by banging the riding instructor (I'll say) and that you barfed after every breakfast, they'll call you a headcase. Tell it to the world on TV, and they call you "poor thing."

No one noticed the passing of Mother Teresa, and in a way I always liked that. She wouldn't have wanted the headlines, unless they came with a donation for her Missionaries of Charity. She had no crown jewels, and would have hawked them for food if she did.

10 years on, the news coverage still makes me laugh. A few days ago, a number of papers ran a story about how Teresa questioned her faith in God towards the end of her life. That's a great hit job on a devoted Christian, and a wonderful way to celebrate her life, isn't it? Diana, however, gets the tears, the flowers, and the orgasmic excitement of a nation in mourning. Fire up the TV. Replay the Elton John tune. Edit the video and photo montages. Set them to music, with soft focus and dissolve transitions. Nothing's too good for the Princess.

The differences in their deaths could not be more striking. One with malaria and heart failure, the other in a millionaire's limo. Guess which one gets the full blown Larry King treatment?

Headlines

From Breitbart.com:

Muslim chief slams 'police state' Britain, like Nazi Germany

Speaking outside the mosque shortly before the prayer session began, [Mohammad Naseem, chairman of Birmingham's Central Mosque] compared the current situation, and anti-terrorism legislation introduced in Britain in recent years, to Nazi Germany.

"The German people were told the Jews were a threat. The same thing is happening here. The Muslims are now the bogey people," he said. "It's a small community. It's easy to pick on them. That's what's being done."

A chairman of a mosque hiding behind the Jews. Interesting. I'll bet he doesn't have much to say when Ahmandinejad says Israel should be wiped off the map and all Jews should be exported to Europe.

As for what Naseem says about Muslims now being Jews in a Nazified Great Britain. Um, no.

I read a very good book last week by Richard J. Evans called The Third Reich in Power. It's the second in Evans' trilogy about the Reich, and it's the best book written about the Nazis since Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's chock full of info that nobody mentions anymore, and it shows just how evil the Nazis were, should we care to remember it.

Great Britain's anti-terror laws are not comparable to Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews. Nobody's laws are, except Sharia Law itself, and the call to jihad for global domination and the destruction of the infidel.

Here's a small sample from Evans regarding Nazi Germany's laws vis a vis their own perceived infidels:

- people with two Jewish grandparents had to get permission from the Committee for the Protection of the German Blood if they wanted to marry a non-Jew.

- Jews were not citizens, but rather subjects of the state. They had no rights, including the right to free speech.

- the Law of 7 April 1933 banned Jews from the civil service, universities, teaching professions, and the judiciary.

- in 1935, a law was passed that declared Jewish and non-Aryan foreigners could not receive German citizenship.

- Jewish businesses were not allowed to advertise in the press from 1933 onwards.

- by the end of 1936, laws were passed that banned overseas transfers of Jewish-owned funds.

- Jews were banned from sports fields, public baths, and outdoor swimming pools.

- municipalities were authorized to ban Jews from streets and districts.

- Jews were banned from carrying firearms and offensive weapons.

- The Reich Chamber of Culture banned all Jews from cinemas, theaters, concerts, and exhibitions.

- Jews were stripped of their rights as tenants. They could now be evicted at any time.

- Municipalities could order Jews to sublet parts of their houses to other Jews.

- by 1939, all tax concessions were removed from Jews, including child benefits. Jews were now taxed at a single rate, the highest one in the Reich.

- all insurance payments owed to Jews after the 1938 pogrom were confiscated by the government; Jews had to pay for and clean up the mess left by the rioting.

- on February 21, 1939, all Jewish cash, securities and valuables (except wedding rings) were ordered to be put in blocked accounts; the Reich eventually seized these accounts.

And then, once the war started, the Nazis murdered millions of them. Great Britain like Nazi Germany? I think not.

From the Daily Mail (UK):

Global Warming Sees Polar Bears Stranded On Melting Ice

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice.

Although the magnificent creatures are well adapted to the water, and can swim scores of miles to solid land, the distance is getting ever greater as the Arctic ice diminishes.

"Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one," said Dr Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service.

"They just kind of float along and kick. But as the ice gets farther out from shore because of warming, it’s a longer swim that costs more energy and makes them more vulnerable."

Bummer.

I don't know what to say about this global warming thing anymore. In the 70's it was global cooling. In the 80's it was warming. Then in the 90's it became 'climate change,' which was a great turn of phrase for the enviro-boobs and unemployed people that wanted to yell at lumberjacks. With the words 'climate change,' bitching about mankind's sins became an all-season sport, snow or shine, blizzard or heatwave.

I studied anthropology in school. That's what the degree says on my wall, anyway (both the degree and the wall are made from tree products. Apologies all around). During those classes we had to look back at history and count the number of ice ages and such. The theory then was that there were three big ones and a bunch of smaller ones.

Not so long ago, Toronto was under a mile of ice and the Great Lakes didn't exist. The ice had to recede in order to leave those puddles behind. So I guess one would have to say that global warming is a damn good thing. Without it, there would be no shopping on Yonge Street, and there would be no forests for the enviro-weenies to run around in.

The conceit of human beings is astounding. The idea that we parasites could affect this planet in any major way is a laugh. It's also a great chuckle watching the National Geographic specials and hearing the narrator give the Obligatory Guilt Trip. At the end of every episode, they always manage to say that such-and-such a thing will cease to exist if Man doesn't change his evil ways. Why? Because the ecosystem is fragile.

Fragile?

Tell that to the people in central Florida. A fragile tornado dropped out of the sky the other day and obliterated a town, killing 20 people in the time it takes to make toast.

Katrina, she didn't look too fragile, did she? We stewards of the Earth gaped in slack-jawed wonder at her power, cowered beneath concrete, and watched as she kicked over levees as if they were anthills.

Or the tsunami (Random Aside: can someone tell me where tidal wave went?) That surfer's wetdream wiped out thousands of people and destroyed entire villages and towns in less than ten minutes.

We're supposed to protect the environment from us? Please. More like the other way around. We're nothing on this spinning globe. Anytime it feels like it, it can give one big belch and we're history.

The Earth is not fragile, and to refute the article above, neither is a bear's grip. Timothy Treadwell could tell us that, were he still around. He's the guy who took his girlfriend up north to live with his furry friends. Treadwell's method of approaching bears was to slowly slink up to them while singing "I love you" in a high-pitched voice. He and his girlfriend are now bear shit.

Our conceit is limitless. The Earth has been through ice ages, massive earthquakes, hurricanes, innumerable volcanoes spitting sulphur into the sky, catastrophic meteorite impacts, so forth. But hairspray and unleaded gas will be the planet's demise?

Ours, maybe. But the Earth doesn't give a damn about us. Ask the next skydiver whose chute doesn't open how fragile the Earth is, and how much it cares. You'll get two four letter words in response. The first is shit!, the other is thud.

From the Herald Sun (Australia):

Row Over Washrooms

A ROW has erupted over Muslim-only washrooms at La Trobe University that can be accessed only with a secret push-button code.

Muslim students have exclusive access to male and female washrooms on campus, sparking claims of bias and discrimination. The university and Islamic leaders have defended the washrooms as vital to Muslim students' prayer rituals.

Yes, if you like to pray while taking a dump, I suppose.

There is no doubt in my mind these days that Islamic fascists were wildly successful on 9/11. Lenin once said that the purpose of terrorism is terror. That's true, but it runs deeper than that. There was a Palestinian terrorist who said that before terrorism and plane hijackings became the norm, the Palestinian cause got nowhere. Once they started shooting people and blowing things up, the UN listened and they got their concessions.

The above example adds weight to the insipid idea that terrorism works. It puts a people's cause on the front page, and we weaklings bend before it.

Think back to before 9/11. You didn't see Islam in the news every day. I bet you didn't once think about 'people of cover.' You wouldn't have known about Ramadan as a religious holiday, and there's no chance you contemplated giving Muslims separate bathrooms at universities.

Then 9/11 happened. For the first few months, the story was about us, and the pain we suffered. But slowly and surely, the headlines changed. Now the story is about what we can do for them, and how we are a discriminatory people that must make allowances for people that want nothing to do with our culture and our way of life.

And with each concession, the divide deepens. When strung together in the past, separate washroom were two vile words. Now they are 'vital.'

Welcome to the new world order.

England Redux

There must have been some kind of 9/11 effect since the last time I was in England. That was back in 2001, before the airplanes got hijacked and before the English acted like the most welcoming people on the face of the planet.

Anecdote from a few years ago:

I was in a bar with a singer/dancer girlfriend, who was performing in a show in High Wycombe. I was trying to get into the English mood by drinking dark beer and she was putting away the gin and tonics as she always did: with a laugh and a smile. Pretty soon our glasses were at rock bottom, so I wandered over to the bar to freshen them up. (As is the English custom, table service in a bar is no-go; you've got to walk up and order the drinks yourself).

On the way back from the bar, I noticed two older couples playing a game of Cribbage. Excellent. Here I was, first time in England, and I actually got to watch the very English game of Cribbage being played by a couple of genuine Brits.

The Cribbage board was different than the ones used in Canada or the States. There, they look like a race track. This one looked like a plain circle. So I watched for a few moments, then asked how the the scoring was done.

One of the Englishmen looked up and, upon hearing my accent, said, "Pretty tough for you to count, Yank." Just like that. One of the wives smiled, the other snickered, and the other man didn't say a word, just concentrated on his lousy hand of sixes and twos.

I said, "Excuse me?"

He replied, "I don't think you can count that high, Yank."

There was no banter here, no jest, no coy sense of humor. He meant what he was saying and he wanted me to know that he meant it.

I walked away from their table, choking back the urge to be an Ugly American and throw their Frisbee of a Cribbage board across the bar. I can be pretty aggressive and "American" when faced with a slight, but I was new to the country and besides, a man in his twenties has virtually no excuse when a cop asks him why he bounced a beer glass over an old man's head. So I did the manly thing and ran away to tell Sara that English people are big meanies to tourists.

I heard Sara's in a show in Portugal these days, but she should have quit singing and become a boxer. She turned in her seat and informed the Englishman that I was, in fact, a Canadian and not a "Yank."

The Englishman said, "Same thing," or "Close enough," or something like that, to which sweet Sara with the long legs and the polite English accent replied, "Then I guess that makes you a damned Scotsman."

I could have kissed her for that, and probably did, but the point is that strangers with American accents weren't greeted with a lot of respect before 9/11. Another time on that same trip I tried ordering a beer at the bar and the man behind the counter said, "We don't have any light beers." I hadn't ordered a light beer, didn't even want one, but he heard the accent and thought he would be funny. So I told him no, I'd like a Guinness, and he poured it with a shit eating grin on his face.

Fast forward five years. The polls say everyone here hates George W. The polls say that Afghanistan and Iraq are the blunders of a century and that Tony Blair should be tossed out on his ass. The newspapers and TV shows make fun of the President of the United States on an embarrassingly regular basis. And yet the people I meet treat me like gold, even before I get to tell them that I was born in Toronto.

Oh, don't get all misty eyed if you're reading this in Ohio. The English still say Americans are war mongering jerks, and they still say silly things like, "I could never live in America," as if they would know what living in America is like without having visited the place. But their treatment of people with American accents is vastly different than it was before. In fact, I feel more comfortable here than I have in any country on the planet since 9/11 went down.

To wit: the friend I'm visiting doesn't have a spare bedroom. I've been here 12 days, and I have only had to crash on his couch once. There are people lining up to spare you a couple of hots and a cot. They leave their keys in your hand and tell you to please lock up before taking off. They're going out of town? No problem. Lock the door, then drop the keys through the old fashioned mail slot. Glass half full? Not around here, where it's always half empty, so let me buy you another beer, buddy. Need a ride to the train station? I'm not heading that way, but Bob is, so don't sweat it.

In fact, they are so kind to you here that it is unnerving. The last time I was here, there was a definite tension in the air whenever I opened my mouth. I remember once that I complained about how expensive the bill was at a TGIFridays. I mean, two hundred dollars for a few burgers and beers and a bottle of wine? Get real. Then, I was directly accused of being a cheapskate. Now, everyone agrees with me that the prices are outrageous after taking dollar conversion into account.

Where did all the animosity go? Where are all the arrogant bozos? Not too far away: the occasional guy at the end of the bar who comments too loudly that I'm a 'colonial' is evidence that they're still around. But they've been pushed to a corner, or banished by their own kind in favor of happier talk around the pints of bitters and glasses of gin.

Why is that? I have my theories, but of course they would be denied in a heartbeat. My theories are thus:

The tube bombings really got to them here. They don't talk about it, never mention it over supper, but it is there if you ask about it. And they aren't happy.

Walk the streets and you will hear a myriad of accents from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, more so than ever. Ask an English person about this, and they will say that England is taking on more than it can handle. You would think they mean welfare stuff, or health care costs, and all the rest, but it is deeper than that. Without meaning to, they are talking about English culture, and whether or not it will survive the new era of terrorism, and borderless EU policies. They are upset at the cultural suicide that is taking place inside their own country.

A hundred years ago, they ruled the waves and the world. A hundred years later, they have taken the English flag out of prisons lest it insult a non-Christian inmate. The English flag is, of course, the cross of St. George, flown during the Crusades and a symbol of might and prosperity for centuries. Now they have talked themselves into believing that it is a symbol of shame. When you hide the state's symbol so that it does not insult people that have committed crimes against the state, what are you saying if not, "I surrender."

All of which leads back to me, the 'American' who has been met with nothing but generosity and goodwill. Even the bouncers at the nightclubs treat me with something bordering on respect, which as any nightclub fan will tell you is nothing short of astonishing.

It seems we may have had the capacity to dislike each other, we cousins of English ilk. But with more bombs going off, and more hardship ahead, perhaps we huddle a little closer to things that sound like us, things that we understand. Yes, they can make fun of the beer we North Americans drink, and sure they can bitch that we drive on the wrong side of the road. And yes, I can wonder for the hundredth time about the separate hot and cold taps in the bathroom which play hell for shaving, and of course I can gripe about the washing machines that take three hours to clean your clothes. But there is something that feels like home when you can meet people from across the ocean and know that deep in the bones there is some common feeling of belonging together.

Too much? Maybe. I can wax sentimental with the best of them when the mood strikes. And of course right now I have that fear of being called a bigot again, because the above paragraphs can be taken completely out of context: Sean likes white English speaking people. To which I can simply say, sure I do. I also like black French speaking people, and Hispanic Thai speaking people.

I like anybody that gives me a fair shake. But there is nothing wrong with feeling welcomed, and the welcoming feeling I have here is not so much that I am home, but that I am being greeted in a way that says, "Welcome back. Those petty arguments we had before don't mean a damn thing compared to what we're going through now. I still hate your beer. So have some of mine, won't you?"