On Linking et al.

A short post to say that I am trying to set-up some Links to Web sites/Blogs (is there a difference?) that I have found interesting and enjoyable. Although I have been around computers for years and even earned a living selling and supporting business systems I still don't have that easy affinity that some people have with them. Let say that I 'm always suprised when I follow the instructions and it WORKS! Although I understand some of the concepts of how they function I am in awe when confronted with what they can do and the effect they can have on our lives. Like the idea of blogging. Blogging is telling other people what you and who you are, what you think is important, it is grass roots. It's a way of thinking and saying things away from that world of TV, of fast food, sound bytes, news anchors and predigested news.
Anyway, what I hope to do is have some links , some photos, and pull in some stuff that I think is interesting. Maybe some audio and video. A year ago we got a really nice Sony digital camera that can do up to forty minutes of video, I'm just starting to come to grips with it and I need to ugrade the memory half a gigabyte before I can do a decent amount of video.
I want to do this on my own without calling in any help. Lord knows there such a lot of free help on the net. Lots to do and I still want to unburden myself about " cabbages and kings".

The Canadian Slippery Slope

The Canadian Condition #1
What ever Canadians have done in the past they have not deserved Paul Martin or his predecessor Jean Chretian. This country which nearly one hundred years ago was told by the then Prime Minister that the 20th century belonged to Canada has become a bad joke in the context of that prediction. If de-constructionism is the current trend then we are in the fore front of the movement. From the end of WW II till now Canada has slowly slipped down almost every scale of national measurement. The national agenda has been all about appearances with very little substance. Most of the national effort has been put into pandering. A leadership that refuses to put its position at risk and speak about the realities of Canadian life. We have no resolutions to our national questions because we have or had no leaders that are resolute. Health care, Pensions, Armed Forces, Indian Affairs, Quebec. If we live under the shadow of the United States it 's not their doing. It's through our own inability to come to terms with our reality. Canadians have been encouraged to view their existence as some kind of American appendage. That's our choice. Instead of using the proximity of the United States for our advantage to build our strengths and independance we have beggared our national character by taking and then reviling them beacause we have taken. Have we come too far down this particular path, do we owe so much of who we are and how we view ourselves to the United States, that we cannot change so that the only relief will come when we are absorbed by them. In the long run it's all about character.

On Becoming Politically Active

Trying to become politically active in Canada is frustrating. I think this is because there appears to be so little difference between the three largest parties. The most outstanding similarity is a lack of inclusiveness, when you join they welcome you for practical reasons, financial contributions, help in a campaign, but there is total lack of interest in wanting to discuss the party's direction. Policy is always "grassroots" but never seeems to veer away from the modest official line that is so close to the other two mainstream parties. Strong opinions or a desire to stand up and be counted on an issue is avoided I think for fear of offending some portion of the electorate. Much of Canada's political direction come from academics, who live in comfortable tenured seclusion, these people seem to propose and dispose of much that is considered politically important. The mainstream media most of whom are ex inhabitants of academia and who spent a large portion of their formative years in the university mileau appear to be unable to escape from this influence and develope mature opinions based on more specific values than the generic idea of wanting to do good works. Canadians and Canadian political institutions have not been tested for years, they and the electorate want only the good life and don't seem to be aware that whether they like it or not the world and it's people have changed. The isssues that face the us as Canadians are not the same ones of 30 or 40 years ago. We've become a nation of aging hippies who want to make Canada into a national commune. The unreality of Canadian life and expectations are bizarre and sad. Our refusal to address even the minor flaws that surface such as rampant corruption in political circles, our clinging to such awful boondoggles as national healthcare, our inability to properly fund our military or even provide them with a sane agenda is just more evidence of our indulgence in fantasy. None of the political parties wishes to discuss national issues in any kind of common sense way taking into account of what is actually occuring.
So we join in hope and our efforts are appreciated but don't really hope for any change, that's going to come from the outside or maybe we'll just keep on drifting into the US orbit. After all they provide us with our defense umbrella, we do 80 percent of our trade with them and we all want to spend our winters "down there". Even those Canadians who are continually and vociferously ennunciating their contempt for the US seem to want affirmation of their personal success by acceptance and recognition below the line. However we now belong to the Conservative Party of Canada with much hope and sophomoric optimism

On Reading and Blogging

I suppose that I have been motivated to blog by my reading of other blogs as well as reading books. I remember reading a book by Louis L'amour. I t was a memoir, sort of a biography about his early days, his adventurous life and his great need to read. When he read he made notes of when and what he read. Writing these notes must have given him a better understanding of the author's intent as well as helping him to remember the book. Later on those notes acted as cheat sheets for refreshing his knowledge. So, I thought that some of what I write will be my thoughts on what I am reading and my responses.
About six months ago I read a book by Michael Ignatieff called "Isaiah Berlin - A Life". I don't think I had ever heard of Berlin but this book was an eye opener. First the book itself was so engaging, so readable, yet Berlin was a very complex man but Ignatieff does not over simplify his subject but rather he undoes him, opens him up as it were. Also, Ignatieff likes him, he knew him well and respected him alive and honours him now he is dead. Second, Isaiah Berlin was a serious man who enjoyed being serious about important matters but Ignatieff allows us to think that Berlin was a man of good humour, a generous man but having a sense of irony. Anyway as a result of reading this book I obtained some of Berlin's writings from the library and I am fascinated by his views, by his ability to clarify such subjects as freedom, and liberty. A lot of his work is in the form of lectures that have been edited by the man who is his literary editor, Henry Hardy.

Isaiah Berlin on Freedom

Currently I am reading " Freedom and its Betrayal - Six enemies of Human Liberty." originally six lectures each one hour long broadcast over the BBC Radio's Third Programme they have been rescued and edited by Henry Hardy. As with much of Berlin's work they are remarkable for the clarity of thought and, especially for me, is their applicability to the world today.
In his lectures he discusses the ideas of six thinkers who lived at the time of the French revolution and whose work influenced this cataclysm, and our world since.
In the Introduction he asks the question "Why should an individual obey other individuals? Why should any one individual obey other individuals or groups or bodies of individuals?". Actually this this question or a variation of it, is the root subject of all six of the thinkers who are the subject of Berlin's lectures. He paraphrases the question in this interesting sentence. "But for the purposes political philosophy, as opposed to descriptive political theory or sociology, the central question seems to me to be precisely this one: " Why should anyone obey anyone else?"."
In this sentence he separates sociology from political philosophy and dismisses it by calling it " descriptive political theory". I'll come back to this thought at a later date. As I have now opened this can of worms in my usual windy way I'll post it.

The beginning of blogging

Well here we go. Do blogs or does blogging have to have a purpose? If so what is mine? Having read them for a couple of years or is that just one year I want to join in, I too, have something to say. Is this going to be my 15 minutes of fame? Am I going to be an Any Warhol statistic?
My blog title is brought to you courtesy Lewis because I had to learn that poem as a child and although I disliked his books which were certainly not for children, that small part has remained with me .So much of our lives are about cabbages and kings, sublime and ridiculous.
Copulation is ridiculous and conception is sublime! The making of life as opposed to the base instincts of domination and subordination. How about making something to use or making something to sell! Did you ever hear " They used to make soap to wash with, now they make it to sell!" Listen to the UN spokes people talking about the tsunami, read the Diplomad blog. Whose selling something ? whose doing something?
Here I am trying to determine what I want (need) to write about and I know that I'll be all over the map , off on this tangent, going down this road when I should be sticking to the subject, developing the theme, getting out those tightly reasoned arguments that I admire in others. Well, maybe that's why I'm blogging so I can just rattle on.
The Walrus Said