Church of Reason

Church of Reason (Kris Kuksi)

In chapter 30 of Robert Pirsig’s book, “Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance” he writes,

“Phaedrus, the wolf, yes, down from the mountains to prey on the poor innocent citizens of this intellectual community...The Church of Reason, like all institutions of the System, is based on not individual strength but upon individual weakness. What’s really demanded in the Church of Reason is not ability, but inability. Then you are considered teachable. A truly able person is always a threat.”

Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest is a 1996 huge opus by David Foster Wallace that presents a dystopian vision of North America in the near future. It has many characters with interwoven connections and one hundred pages of footnotes. The graphic representation below is map of the relationships between the characters. Oh what tangled web we weave.

                                                                                           (purchase a full size poster from Sam Potts)

Danger Redux

警告！



This pet parrot has heard so many earthquake alert warnings from speakers and cell phones in Japan that it has learned to mimic the sounds.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

This year is the sesquicentennial of the start of the American Civil War and I think that I’m going to do a set of posts on Canada’s involvement. I consider this practice for next year’s bicentennial of the start of the War of 1812. This post is on the Underground Railroad.

Nikko Burton, 10 used in a mock slave auction in an Ohio school

There seems to be a push in America to tag states rights as the proximal cause for the Civil War but I think it’s about slavery in spite of southern historical revisionists.  Pedagogical innovation has lead to slave auction re-enactments for U.S. schoolchildren. According to Time magazine:

“Jessica Boyle, a fourth grade teacher at Sewells Point Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia divided her class according to race and held a mock slave auction on April 1 as part of her lesson on the Civil War. She sent black and mixed race students to one side of the classroom and then allowed the white students to take turns buying them.”

Perhaps this was a bizarre April fool’s Day joke but would a teacher in France mark Bastille Day by having mock executions using a fake guillotine while the children’s mothers acted as sansculotte women spectators knitting socks. Slavery had been limited in Upper Canada which is known today as Ontario since the passage in 1793 of The Upper Canadian Act against Slavery and abolished in 1833. From 1820 to 1860 over 20,000 refugees from slavery in the states fled to Canada. I’m not going into detail about the underground railway in America except to say that it was a means of helping slaves escape from the southern plantations to safe havens in the north. One group which was a main enabler was the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers. The following is from Wikipedia:

“The resting spots where the runaways could sleep and eat were given the code names “stations” and “depots” which were held by “station masters”. There were also those known as “stockholders” who gave money or supplies for assistance. There were the “conductors” who ultimately moved the runaways from station to station. The “conductor” would sometimes act as if he or she were a slave and enter a plantation. Once a part of a plantation the "conductor" would direct the runaways to the North. During the night the slaves would move, traveling about 10–20 miles (15–30 km) per night. They would stop at the so-called “stations” or "depots" during the day and rest. While resting at one station, a message was sent to the next station to let the station master know the runaways were on their way. Sometimes boats or trains would be used for transportation.”

Up to 1850 the number of slaves fleeing to Canada had been limited but then the Fugitive Slave Act was passed and this lead to a dramatic increase. Wikipedia again:

“Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made any Federal Marshall or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000. Law-enforcement officials everywhere now had a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway slave on no more evidence than a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, any person aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Officers who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work. Slave owners only needed to supply an affidivit to a Federal marshal to capture an escaped slave. Since any suspected slave was not eligible for a trial this led to many free blacks being conscripted into slavery as they had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations.”

Oro Twp. African Methodist Episcopal Church

During the War of 1812 a group of black men from a variety of locations formed a regiment called “Captain Runchey’s  Company of Coloured Men” to fight with the Loyalist militias and the British regulars to stop the Americans who had invaded Canada. A settlement was created in Oro Township (a few townships north of where I lived in the country) for the retired members of the regiment. The church was consecrated in 1847 and has been re-consecrated every year since 1947. Although this settlement was not directly connected to the railway it did become part of the inspiration after 1850.  I lived in the Township of West Quillimbury. The Townships of East Quillimbury and King (just south of me) were settled by Quakers from Pennsylvania who had been pacifists during the American Revolution, mistreated and moved to my area between 1801 and 1803 to escape persecution. They kept their connections to the American Quakers who were instrumental in the operation of the railroad and helped organize the Canadian portion.

East Quillimbury Quaker meeting house

I’m on my way to Canada
That cold and distant land
The dire effect of slavery
I can no longer stand
So long old Master
Don’t come after me
I’m heading north to Canada
Where everyone is free.

(underground railway spiritual)







False Cognates

Def: False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not.
 

Tepco Logo

Is the Tepco logo a symbolic false cognate? The Tepco logo was introduced in 1987 and was created by graphics professional Kazumasa NagaiSome . Current satirical pundits say that the three circles on the top of the logo represent the three wise monkeys or (三匹の猿) ) sanbiki no saru on the front of the Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, Japan. Mizaru sees no evil, Kikazaru hears no evil and Iwazaru speaks no evil. For North Americans, the symbolic false cognate is Mickey Mouse. Given the antics of Tepco in the last month, Disney Corporation should sue Tepco for infringement of copy write and the use of their cartoon narratives. Certainly the Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan has been channelling both derivatives of the symbol since the beginning of the nuclear crisis. They have a saying in Japan, 「窮地で初めて男の真価がわかる」（”kyuchi de hajimete otoko no shinka ga wakaru”; “It is when a man is placed in a tough situation that we first know his real worth.”) It’ll be interesting to see how Naoto makes out.

And who pays? The Japanese taxpayer of course. There is no catastrophic insurance for the nuclear industry. To quote Bill Schmick, “Nuclear risks like the present fallout from the Fukushima plant tend not to be insured by private companies. The quasi-government-owned Japan Earthquake Reinsurance Company will most likely bear the brunt of those losses (although this government agency might only insure half of the losses or less).  Actually, few if any insurance companies worldwide will insure against a nuclear accident, which makes the ongoing concern over the Indian Point nuclear unit in New York considerably more serious.” The reactor sits atop an old fault line that in the worst case scenario could conceivably expose 6% of America’s population to radiation and affect a comparable amount of the nation’s assets.”One question I have is why isn’t any of this discussed in the mass media? As I said earlier in posts on other blogs this is not an act of God but the logical consequence of a series of human decisions.

Meanwhile GE is laughing all the way to the bank. GE made during 2010 $14.2 billion profits worldwide and $5.1 billion profits in the US. Their tax bill in 2010 –ZERO! For most people that would be enough but GE also got a tax benefit of $3.2 billion and their financial services branch was bailed out by the US government (i.e. taxpayers.) President Obama knows a winner when he sees it so he has designated G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, as his personal liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness which is expected to discuss corporate taxes. 

Japan has certainly been unfortunate in the culture wars. Japan gives America Pearl Harbour, anime and sushi while America shares by giving Japan Fat boy in Hiroshima, Mickey Mouse and now Mark 1 nuclear reactors. Next time Jeffrey Immelt visits TEPCO’s chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, Tsun should quote a line by Takakura  which he delivered just before he and Ryo Ikebe were about to 殴りこみ(nagurikomi, invade the headquarters of a rival gang) in Kosaku Yamashita’s 「緋牡丹博徒」 (“Hibotan Bakuto,” “Red Peony Gambler,” 1968): 「所詮、俺達の行く先は赤い着物か、白い着物」 (“Shosen, oretachi no ikusaki wa akai kimono ka, shiroi kimono ka“; “After all, we’re bound for either a red kimono [worn by prisoners] or a white kimono [worn by the dead].”) Japan needs to borrow into the substratum of the American psyche with all the persistence of Nogales tunnel rats.  Thanks to Sarah Noorbaksh for quote.

........

I had an appointment with my respirologist today. If you wonder why I post at such ungodly hours in the middle of the night, I have sleep apnea. Like Aspergers this affliction does have its positive benefits, nothing like a spot of hypoxia to send your mind spinning down strange and less travelled paths. This blog started on a high note with an arty post but has rapidly descended into low humor. My bête noir is a sense of absurdity which is the maturation of my youthful existential angst as manifested in the smoky environs of Montreal’s Winston Churchill pub. I attempted to seduce impressionable young American transfer students from McGill posing as an exotic intellectual coureur de bois spouting Camus and Sartre. I’m not sure what direction this blog will take. I am working on a cooking recipe with a political twist in contrast to a lot of blogger recipes. Right now I’m having too much fun playing with the concepts to post. Trying to stay away from pedantic plodding think pieces. Any ideas?

I’ve posted long enough on this blog to invoke Godwin’s Law. Definition: As an Internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.





Travelogue: Kinsarvik

I thought that I would from time to time write about some relatively unknown but fabulous destination to which I have been. My first post on this topic is about Kinsarvik, a small village on the Hardanger fiord which is 38 miles east of Bergen, Norway. You can arrive by ferry or car. I would recommend the ferry since the land route is a five hour, white knuckled drive over the mountains from Oslo. I remember a one lane road carved into the side of a cliff with a very low guard rail and it was raining so the road was slick. If a vehicle was coming from the other direction, you had to pull into a small passing spot cut into the cliff. The village was certainly worth the trip. I was on a camping trip across Scandinavia with a group of Australians whom I met in Earlscourt, London. Earlscourt is considered Kangaroo land in England as many expatriate Aussies live there.



Norwegian road

I had my first (and last) whale meat dinner at the Hardangers campground in Kinsarvik, . We marinated the meat in Swan beer and pounded it for hours but it was still the toughest meat that I’ve ever had. At the time, Hardangers was quite inexpensive but it has gone upscale since then with chalets rather than camping spots. They have also built a Best Western hotel in the village so you have all your North American hotel food. Alcohol is also expensive in Norway due to the taxes so try to bring it with you. They have a pewter flatware manufacturer in the village called Hardanger Bestikk. I still have a full set but they are very expensive now. They are special because of the intricate Viking pattern.  Kinsarvik is a premium spot for hiking, mountain climbing, skiing or just looking at the scenery.  There are four spectacular waterfalls within a few hours hiking. The water is too cold for swimming unless you’re wearing a wet suit.





On the banks of the campground





Hardanger fiord from Kinsarvik shore

My pewter flatware from Kinsarvik



Hardangers campground





Teddy Bears

Like many children I had a teddy bear when I was young. What can you do with teddy bears, birds and cars in a video? Actually quite a lot as this video displays.