The PenOpticon

What choice did they have? When Israel began bombing the bejeesus out of Beirut and southern Lebanon, the G8 leaders sprang into action to help evacuate thousands of westerners — particularly white, God-fearing families and students — that were stewing in the Beirut sun and in their own frustration. Stephen Harper actually flew his own plane to Cyprus where he spent two days weeping on the tarmac, bawling his eyes out because he couldn’t land the plane in Lebanon and quickly ease the pain and suffering of stranded Canadians. Or maybe he just needed to chill. Meanwhile, George and Laura Bush steamed into Beirut on a U.S. destroyer in the hope that they could pick up some Americans. To make room for more passengers, the President began loading and firing the ship’s big guns while the First Lady made sure the Gatling gun kept spitting out thousands of rounds into the southern Beirut suburbs. “Boom! Boom! Ratatatatata! Boom!” they gunned and they grinned and they gunned some more.

Not to be left out, Tony Blair roared into port piloting a 200-foot hydrofoil and began pulling pasty-white Brits aboard the vessel. Blair was determined to make this one of his finest hours and raced against time in order to both save English tourists and raise his own poll numbers. His face remained locked somewhere between a grin and a grimace as he glad-handed the multitude and maneuvered them into every corner of the ship he could find.

Meanwhile, the Bushes fumed as a Norwegian cruise ship absconded with 300 of their own people, while they were getting rid of munitions. “Don’t collaterally damage any Americans” Laura chided. Her voice prickled down his spine as he breathed the stench of freshly fired weaponry. Smiling, he loaded another shell and yelled “boom” as he fired. He loved the way Laura chided him. As the Norwegians passed by, they heard a throng of voices calling out for “Food! Food!” and “Water! Water!” George yelled down to the galley and asked if the chicken sandwiches were ready yet? “They sure are!” said the cooks and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld brought out two huge boxes of individually wrapped sandwiches. Bush grabbed them and started jogging down the deck of the ship until he was alongside the Norwegian. He looked down over the hungry crowd below and wondered if there would be enough to go around. “Heh heh heh heh! Them sangwiches is for ‘Mericans only” he shouted. And then he watched the crowd clamor for the food he had given them, while angry voices yelled “For Americans only! Show your passports! Show your passports!”

Dick Cheney was on the bridge scanning the sea and noticed something in the water coming straight at them. He raised his trusty Remington full choke 12 gauge and had a bead on the craft in no time. “Torpedah?” asked the President. “Jet ski” grumbled Cheney as he fired off a few rounds at it “just ‘cuz”. An aide whispered in the President’s ear, “Sir, that’s Stockwell Day, the Canadian minister of Foreign Affairs.” “Stocky!” the President bellowed, “whatchy’all doin’ on that SeaDo in the middle of this here ocean”? Day smiled and tried to speak, but he was going too fast and the noise of the Jet ski was deafening. “Is that you Coop?” Bush asked. And it was. Anderson Cooper was holding on to Day for dear life, while another reporter, the Toronto Sun’s own Christie Blatchford snaked her arms around the CNN reporter’s waist. Stockwell Day bit his lip with determination and made a beeline toward Ottawa where he hoped these two would join a larger throng of reporters who would pepper him easy questions that he would heroically answer.

And so it was that thousands of upstanding taxpayers (and potential poll-skewing voters) navigated their way through a few afternoons of hot sun and a few late meals and left Lebanon to be leveled again by Israeli soldiers armed with American weapons and money. Because they were too busy helping evacuee’s on the ground, G8 leaders could not be taken to task for giving their tacit approval to Israel for “over-reacting” to the Israeli invasion. While debate raged over who should pay for this evacuation, not one leader suggested that Israel be made to pay for the reconstruction of Lebanon. Stephen Harper sulked in Limasol and mulled these questions silently, far away from reporters who might have asked why he did not even bother to express outrage that Israel murdered eight Canadians during its “meausured” bombing of Beirut. Condoleezza and Rummy continued to make a new batch of chicken Sandwiches and Kool-Aid. At the end of the day, they all hoisted their glasses, drank the Kool-Aid and felt the unreality of the latest war recede into a starless night. They drank deeply and purple waves of moral certitude flowed like cool, clean water through their veins. We did the right thing, they insisted. It was a “measured” response, they added. We stayed on message, they cried. We did everything possible, they wondered? But resistance is futile, they slurrred, and took another swig of that most mysterious political Kool-Aid.

This weekend, a group of young Christians converged on Parliament Hill to pray for Canadian politicians. This “Prayer Siege” was the brainchild of Faytene Kryskow and her group, 4 My Canada. Kryskow is a Vancouver-based minister, missionary, writer, public speaker, singer/songwriter, visual artist and “evangelical activist”. Her group is fighting for “traditional values” — banning gay marriage, outlawing abortion and raising the age of consent to sixteen. Kryskow’s group is no stranger to Ottawa — they held their first Siege in 2005 and have met with many Conservative MPs to voice their views. They were introduced to the House of Commons in October 2005 by Myron Thompson, (Wildrose CPC) and given a standing ovation when Thomson declared:

“They are not representing a denomination or special interest group. Their mission is to engage with leaders to let them know they exist and what their heart is for our nation as well as to motivate and mobilize young Canadians so they too will become leaders themselves one day.”

Huh? This group seems to have some extremely “special” interests. In addition to actively campaigning for “pro morality” Candidates, 4 My Canada hopes to directly influence Canadian politicians by encouraging young Christians to apply for MP staff positions. After the last election, Kryskow blogged:

“We have just heard word that many MPs on the Hill are scrambling to fill needed job positions for their offices and for various posts on the Hill. We wanted to encourage those of you who can, and who feel the call, to submit your resumes for consideration. We want to see TONS of Jesus lovers get jobs on the Hill!!”

It’s hard to imagine what this group will do with a pro-morality guy like Stephen Harper. After the last election, Kryskow noted: “I pray for Prime Minister Harper and his new team and look forward to meeting with them in the very near future to see how we can walk together.” But, now that Harper has (once again) blindly followed Bush’s broken moral compass by supporting Israel’s “right” to bomb Lebanon, exactly what will this group be praying for? Their supplications are already too late for the 7 Canadians and 130 Lebanese civilians that have been killed by Israeli bombs over the past few days.

Ah well, perhaps 4 My Canada is really just a well-meaning, harmless group of young people. I don’t know if the group brings in enough money from their art, CD and DVD sales — and donations — to be profitable, but they seem to be highly organized and single-minded in their goal to create a Christian Canada. Who knows? Perhaps Faytene Kryskow will become the next Aimee Semper McPherson.

Whatever Kryskow really wants for Canada, she seems to be in it for the long haul. Her aspirations are very different from the more temporal goals of Rev. Beatrice Williams. In May, Williams and eight other Christian leaders spent the day in Hollywood California praying for lower gas prices. “These high gas prices, Lord, bring them down, oh Father.”

I can almost hear Janis Joplin growling in her grave: “O Lord woncha buy me a full tank of gas. My friends all drive Humvees, I must make it last.”

Gwynne Dyer’s piece in the June 12 Toronto Star, Same War, Different Players, is a concise but cogent analysis of the military and political state of affairs in Afghanistan. As Dyer notes, the Afghani’s have borne many invasions and occupations over the past two centuries and have had to learn to “ambush, harass and bleed the foreigners for as long as it takes” in order to survive. Now Hamid Karzai has started to negotiate with various warlords and may soon (according to Dyer) begin talks with what is left of the Taliban. In spite of the West’s (one hopes) best intentions, Afghanistan will most likely end up with some form of power-sharing arrangement that is more in keeping with the actual culture(s) of the region. Perhaps this new arrangement will be based on a democratic framework. Perhaps not. As Dyer dryly concludes: “There is time for lots of killing yet. But Afghanistan stands a reasonable chance of sorting itself out once the Western armies leave.

Dyer’s argument resonates with me because he is essentially suggesting that we might all be better off obeying the “Prime Directive”, and, it is probably true that leaving people to their own devices to work things out for themselves is often be the best policy. Before the era of instantaneous communication, that was the way the world worked. A fifth century Mongolian would never know if there was a war or a famine among the Aztecs of Central America. Vikings would have been blissfully unaware of the plight of Polynesian islanders. When it comes to war, famine and all other geopolitical “bad things”, does instant communication always mean we must bear instantaneous moral responsibility? That’s a hard one, is it not?

Of course, the Prime Directive is a slippery concept. It can look like an attractive option for those on the outside of Afghanistan or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It can appear to be an utterly immoral option from the perspective of those who have rockets whistling over their heads and bulldozers ripping up their homes. Things get even more slippery when you realize that some external powers have already interfered by providing some combination of weapons, personnel, etc.

As much as I admire Dyer’s argument, it is hard to imagine that Middle East hotspots will be quickly defused after the withdrawal of “Western armies. I’d much rather imagine a global, cowardly retreat of all armies. Perhaps on a global scale, the applied use of cowardice will bring about the end of most of the world’s armies. (Ha!) Wouldn’t that be a grand thing?

[July 16 - Today at least 8 7 Canadians were killed during Israel's bombing of Lebanon. It's all too easy to forget there are thousands of foreign nationals living in that country. It is depressing to think that Stephen Harper actually mimed Bush's exact words about Israel's right to defend itself. As others have pointed out, every bomb Israel drops may as well be emblazoned with a big "Hiya, from Uncle Sam!". Hezbollah and other militant groups will not forget the country that has been bankrolling Israel's military escapades.]

The House Sparrow is a tough, adaptable species that has become a North American de facto standard. Look out any window, stare at any telephone line or check the pavement next to any hotdog vendor and chances are you’ll see four or five or fifty of these things. Though they seem to own the place, House Sparrows are a fairly recent import in North America. It is said they were first introduced by Nicholas Pike in 1850 when he brought eight pairs over from England and released them in Central Park. It took several tries, but within a few years, House Sparrows learned how to make a go of things in North America — largely by eating grains, animal feed and feasting upon horse dung and garbage in cities. It is estimated that there are at least 150 million House Sparrows in North America today.

The House Sparrow and other European species was introduced for both esthetic and environmental reasons. Pike and others mistakenly expected the birds to help control worm infestations in forests. Between 1872 and 1874, the Cincinnati Acclimatization Society introduced 4000 European songbirds (18 species), but only House Sparrows and Starlings found a foothold and spread. They wanted to “aid people against the encroachment of insects” and to make sure that the “ennobling influence of the song of birds will be felt by the inhabitants”. Unfortunately, these exotic introductions helped cause a major decline in the population of North American native songbirds by driving away Bluebirds, swallows, warblers and other species. It is sadly ironic that because House Sparrows are primarily seed-eaters, their introduction in North America actually encouraged more widespread insect infestations.

A few years ago, Graeme Gibson wrote an interesting book called The Bedside Book of Birds: an Avian Miscellany. It’s a collection of writings from many places and times that deal with the symbolism of birds. I’d like to suggest that in North America, at least, the House Sparrow has nothing to do with symbolism and everything to do with realism. The lowly House Sparrow is more of a mirror — a direct reflection of our strivings and our capacity for colossal error.

The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell

In this hype-driven world where inventive genius is often displaced by package design and product-placement consultants, it can be instructive and enjoyable to amble through history to gaze over the shoulder of a great 19th century inventor. Reluctant Genius, Charlotte Gray’s new biography of Alexander Graham Bell effortlessly puts the reader into the inventor’s life along with his wife Mabel, the remarkable Bell family and a diverse cast of supporting characters. Drawing on primary sources such as the Bell family papers, diaries and letters spanning 140 years, Gray portrays much more than just the technical hurdles of Bell’s life as an inventor. The author is equally concerned with Bell’s emotional life and human foibles and she portrays the complexity of his life with objectivity and tact. This is particularly evident in her account of Bell’s unusual relationship with Hellen Keller and the strain it caused for Mabel and their children.

The text is thorough but fast-paced. It begins with Bell’s childhood years in Edinburgh where Alec and his brothers first invented a “speaking machine” in answer to their father’s challenge and ends with the inventor’s attempts to perfect a hydrofoil. And yes, of course — Bell’s telephone and related inventions are also vividly rendered. However, this biography’s main accomplishment is that it succeeds in transforming the oft-seen image of Bell as the aging, grey-haired, “Father of the Telephone” into the complex, passionate and driven man that appears on the book’s cover.

Gray’s life of Bell rings true.

Reluctant Genius, 478 pages
Harper-Collins Publishers Limited
Release Date: August 2006