Skjærtorsdag (I)

Leonardo da Vinci’s (Italian, 1452-1519) painting of the Last Supper

Denne dagen skulle Jesus holde påskemåltid sammen med disiplene. Det var den vanlige måten å feire påske på for jødene, de holdt måltid på samme måte som Israelsfolket hadde gjort den første påsken i Egypt over tusen år tidligere.

This day would Jesus eat the Passover with his disciples. It was the usual way to celebrate Easter with the Jews; they were eating the same way that the people of Israel had done the first Passover in Egypt over a thousand years earlier.

I thought that I would start this post on Maundy Thursday with a little Norwegian language quote because I’ve been in Norway, Thursday comes from a Norse word meaning Thor’s day and finally it would create curiosity. Today is a holiday in Norway but not in Sweden so they do the same thing that all good consumers do and go shopping. They have an annual trek to the shopping malls in Sweden called harrytur where towns like Strömstad have huge sales of alcohol and tobacco which is much more expensive in Norway. It’s a bit like Torontonians travelling to the discount malls in Buffalo, New York except they forage in Sweden with all the rapacity of Vikings pillaging coastal towns in the Middle Ages.  Skjærtorsdag is deconstructed into Skjær (“cut”) and torsdag (“Thursday”). This is because it was customary for men to cut their beards on this day since spring was coming and the weather was getting warmer. In Sweden it is associated with the day of witches where young children dress as witches and knock on doors for candy.

Maundy Thursday is used in the Anglican Church and originated with the Latin word “mandatum” which comes from the first word in the Latin translation of the Gospel of John (13:34) bible verse. “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you") was spoken by Jesus at the last supper. The washing of feet to represent humility is part of the service. This is the point at which I shift for a moment to Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” where he hypothesizes about various aspects of the Last Supper picture. Is John on the right of Jesus really Mary Magdalene? The painting has faded, been washed during a flood and had a door cut in the bottom so it’s hard to judge. Folk have continued to bring up new ideas about the painting. One person suggested that the heads of the people in the painting are actually musical notes that when reversed in a mirror (Da Vinci would sometimes use mirror reversal) referred to a contemporary musical piece. The fallen saltshaker on the table could represent bad luck. Does the fish represent a reminder that several of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen and Jesus grew up near Lake Tiberias?  Is the fish a herring or an eel?  The Italian word for eel is “aringa” and “arringa” means indoctrination and the word for herring is “renga” which means he who denies religion. We’ll always query symbolic codes in the painting.

The basic message is humility and altruism. Not popular with Steven Harper and the Conservative party in Canada’s current election campaign. If the Liberal party is the house of Hillel then the Conservative party is the house of Shammai. At least Shammai was faithful to the Law while the Harperites flout parliamentary tradition. Speaker of the house, Peter Milliken, made a ruling on contempt of parliament. This is the first time in Canadian history that a government has fallen due to a non confidence vote on this topic as well as in any of the 54 countries of the British Commonwealth. The wording is as follows:

That this House denounce the conduct of the government, its disregard for democracy and its determination to go to any lengths to advance its partisan interests and impose its regressive ideology, as it did by justifying the Conservative Party's circumvention of the rules on election spending in the 2005-2006 election campaign, when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism used public funds to solicit donations to the Conservative Party, when the Party used taxpayers’ money to finance a pre-election campaign under the guise of promoting Canada’s Economic Action Plan, when it changed the wording in government communications to promote itself, when it showed that it is acceptable for a minister to alter a document and make misleading statements to the House, when it refused to provide a parliamentary committee with the costs of its proposals, and when it improperly prorogued Parliament.

A few comments: When a parliament is prorogued, between two legislative sessions, the legislature is still constituted and the prorogation causes all orders of the body such as bills and orders to be expunged. Prorogations are not recesses, adjournments, or holiday breaks from legislation, after which bills can resume exactly where they left off. Harper did this twice in one year to avoid contentious issues which is an inappropriate use of the procedure and flouts parliamentary tradition. This is a direct threat to democracy. I went to the anti prorogation demonstration in Toronto to publicly display my disapproval.

Myself at the Anti-prorogation demonstration

Harper has also announced his intention after the election to eliminate the public funding of parties’ electoral costs which amounts to approximately $2 per vote won in the previous election. He would like to adopt the American system where private funding by special interest groups and lobbies are so important and have a major effect on legislation to the detriment of public interest. If the Conservatives win a majority then they will try again to reverse the CRTC decision not to allow false or misleading information to be broadcast thus enabling Fox news north. The Prime Minister’s office also issued a directive this year that the phrase “Government of Canada” be replaced with “the Harper government” in all government communications so that citizens who have a marginal understanding of civics think it’s his government. We don’t elect Prime Ministers. We  elect members of parliament.

Part of a very large crowd at the demonstration

The Mountain

A beautiful video by Terge Sorgjerd taken on El Teide, the highest mountain in Spain. Must be seen in HD and full screen.

Ex deus



Holy Maximizer




People seem to be having fun with subsets of Rational Choice Theory these days. Rational Choice theory is a subset of Positive Choice Theory which says that a rational actor will act so as to maximize the satisfaction of its preferences. Positive Choice Theory and Rational Choice Theory do exist in the social sciences. I was hoaxed not too long ago by an article on Academic Choice Theory in Yves Smith’s blog which was detailed and convincing. The title was “Blacklisted Economics Professor Found Dead: NC Publishes his last letter” and you can read it here Now this has been applied to deities in an article “Posner on the Economics of Theology” which was supposedly written by the well known jurist, Richard Posner and posted by Lawrence Solum . You can find it here Since this is Holy Week you might like to have an irreverent moment with this one.  

Prince William and Kate Middleton Wedding March

You have to see this royal parody of the JK wedding march video. For all you anglophiles.

Cum ramis palmarum

Outside my window today

Ingrediente Domino in sanctam civitatem, Hebraeorum pueri resurrectionem vitae pronuntiantes,  Cum ramis palmarum: Hosanna, clamabunt, in excelsis.  Cum audisset populus, quod Iesus veniret Ierosolymam, exierunt obviam ei. Cum ramis palmarum: Hosanna, clamabunt, in excelsis.

As our Lord entered the holy city, the Hebrew children, declaring the resurrection of life, with palm branches, cried out: Hosanna in the highest. When the people heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they went forth to meet Him: With palm branches, cried out: Hosanna in the highest.

Palm Sunday. For me it means processioning at church, a gift of a palm cross, hot cross buns and snow. The last item is specific to today because we had a snow storm. Hot cross buns began in the middle ages when a part of the blessed host would be placed into buns and the cross was marked on the top to signify the host. The buns were sometimes nailed over the doorways of homes for good luck. Some people have elevated the palm cross into a form of mystical object but I just find it an interesting annual keepsake to remember Jesus' entry into Jerusalem just a few days before His crucifixion. I have no reliquaries.  For clergy the palms are burned at the end of the day and the ashes preserved for next year’s Ash Wednesday.

The donkey was a symbol of peace and the laying of the palm leaves represented the arrival of a king. I wish that the American government would remember this symbol with respect to Cuba. Since 1962 there has been a total trade embargo and one consequence is that observant Cuban Jews lost their access to kosher items for Passover so each year groups in Canada would send these items as Maot Chitim (Wheat money) under an old Jewish custom of gathering wheat to provide the poor with matzoh. Maybe one day they’ll learn. Rabbi Hillel once said “He who refuses to learn deserves extinction.” I just hope that they embrace the true meaning of their traditions.

Free Association

One week. Three followers, 140 views and 19 posts are my stats. I don’t know if this is good or bad. Certainly it’s far from the Olympian heights of Clarissa’s quarter of a million views. I feel the weight of being writer, editor and publisher after having moved up the food chain from passive reader to commentator and finally blogger. I’m still trying to get a handle on “fair use.” Canada has civilized copy write laws where fifty years after an author’s death his oeuvre goes into the public domain and can be quoted at length which means I can quote Robert Service’s “Dangerous Dan McGrew” in its entirety but not Pablo Neruda’s “Epitalamio”. I wonder if the University of Texas which holds the copy write to Neruda’s estate would show some latitude. Last night I had a weird dream where I was Mikael Bloomkvist in Stieg Larsson’s book, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and in court for using copy written material without permission.

Noticing that one of my readers is from Slovenia, is Slavoj watching over me like some misanthropic Grand Inquisitor waiting to throw me on some epistemological rack?  I plead guilty of cultural contamination rather than cultural capitalism.  Northrop Frye once said that reading is “like a picnic to which the author brings the words and the reader the meaning.” Trolling through Clarissa’s followers list to outline a profile of a potential reader, I’m just going to do my eclectic thing and see how things work out. In one of my preceding posts I used the word, progymnasmata which is a Greek word referring to a list of exercises to teach rhetoric. Not a common term but screw the Gunning fog index. You can have hamburgers and hot dogs at your picnic. I’m having duck rillette, ham, Bayonne prosciutto and escargots in puff pastry with leeks, cream, white wine and fresh herbs at mine.

Nothing demonstrates the decline of Western civilization more than the secularization of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. The 1898 edition is a feast of arcane religious subjects. The current edition is a pale reflection with all the really fascinating facts redacted. Have you ever heard of the Devil’s door? This was a small door in the north wall of church sanctuaries built during the nineteenth century which was opened during mass to let out the devil. Beats the hell out of Little Red Riding hood. I have found a multicultural substitute called “The Dictionary of Mythology” by J. A. Coleman. Opening it at random, I see Chonchonyi, a vampire demon in the lore of the Arauacanian people of South America followed by Chonguita, a Pacific island monkey girl who transformed into a beautiful woman after she married Pedro, a Filipino prince.

Doing restaurant reviews is a possibility. There are five thousand restaurants in Toronto covering every conceivable cuisine. There’s probably a Polynesian restaurant serving fake Marquesas Islands long pig. I’m trying to get an angle on my coming trip to Buffalo, New York.  According to the Toronto Star Canadians spend 20% more than their American counterparts for equivalent goods even though the Loonie is now worth $1.04 US. In July 2009 the Loonie was worth just $0.92 US but the spread was 6.8%. Sounds like it’s time to hit the discount shopping malls in Buffalo again. I dropped the original concept for my trip which was a parody of a Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and considered a more monumental Dante’s Inferno allegory with the Maid of the Mist tourist boat travelling up the Niagara River transformed into Charon’s boat crossing the river Styx. It could certainly be a metaphor for the American rust belt - a sort of northern Macondo although I don’t think that García Márquez would appreciate the comparison. In 1900 Buffalo was the 8^th largest city in America and the first to be lit by electricity. It called itself the City of Light and it’s hard to imagine that the current denizens eating Buffalo wings and watching another losing game by the Buffalo Bill’s football team had predecessors who made allusions to Paris – a decline from La Ville-Lumière to current situation where the city had lost 11% of its population in the last census and has one of the highest housing vacancies in the country. The real descent started when my childhood television hero Buffalo Bob on the “Howdy Doody” show got sick, went to Pioneer village and was replaced by Bison Bill who outsourced Clarabelle the cow to a Chicago meat packing plant. After that it was all downhill.

Buffalo Bob  R.I.P.

Parsing Progressives

Everything moves forward.



From a progressive blogger:

“I don't identify myself as a liberal because the word makes very little sense to me. It has been used in such a wide variety of contexts that its meaning has been diluted to the point where the term means everything and nothing. ... You go far enough to the left; you will arrive at the far right and vice versa.

This is why I'm neither a liberal nor a leftist. I define my political views as progressive. I prefer this term because it is the most obvious antonym to the opposing political position, which is conservative. As a progressive, I believe that change, transformation and innovation are inherent to human beings. Even as I'm writing this post, I am not the same person that I was when I started writing it. This is why I believe the conservative position to be untenable. You cannot "conserve" anything because everything changes. It just does. We cannot stop the flow of time just like we cannot hope to preserve any state of affairs indefinitely. Everything moves forward, and a political movement that disregards the nature of things to the extent that it believes in moving backwards or standing still is illogical and unreasonable.”

Your post seems to indicate that you view the political spectrum is a type of Moebius strip with the conservative and revolutionary ends forming a circular continuum. To parse your idea of a “progressive” believing in change versus a “conservative”, I would submit that “progressive” implies a gradual or incremental change while a “leftist” or revolutionary believes in sudden or catastrophic change. This doesn’t seem to fit the metaphor of circularity.

I think that we have to separate the substance of the political stance from the method used to achieve it. Since you’re channelling Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 – 475 BC) in your analysis of time and change, let’s use Aristotle’s three branches of rhetoric - deliberative, forensic, epideictic -  as a corollary to Liberal, Progressive and Conservative. The Liberal uses societal and moral ethics to persuade his audience; a Progressive uses systemic analysis for his argument; a Conservative uses epideictic or “praise and blame” rhetoric.  I find it amusing to observe Sarah Palin’s Alaska program on television as a form of progymnasmata in which to hone her skills for the future.