In remembrance

...and in support of those who grieve:

http://awvarchive.blogspot.com/2005/09/now-of-it-all.html

http://awvarchive.blogspot.com/2006/09/weekend-assignment-remembering.html

Those posts now reside in an archive of the original Aurora Walking Vacation blog. If you feel moved to comment, please do so here, rather than there.

Isn't her fifteen minutes up yet?

It is completely beyond me why anyone is still talking about the whole Letterman-Palin joke issue. I can't imagine why Dave felt it necessary to issue a public apology, much less two. I mean, Sarah, really. When you join the American political process at such a high level, you become a target for these guys. When you involve your family in as public a manner as you did, you become a wider target. When you demonstrate, by word and by deed, that you are hopelessly out of touch with the real world, that you are, effectively, a moron, you become an easy target. When you demonstrate, by word and by deed, that you are a hypocrite, you become a juicy target. When you moan and whine about it, you become...well, quite frankly, you become a bit pathetic. And when you make the mistake of thinking that everything is about you, it just becomes a little bit sad. Because, let's be honest, Sarah. You and your family were convenient comedic accessories, but that joke was aimed at Alex Rodriguez. And you don't hear him crying about it, do you?

Something to celebrate?

   There has been a fair amount of squawk in the atheist/humanist blogosphere over the recently announced results of the latest American Religious Identification Survey, ARIS 2008.The survey appears to show a significant increase in the number of atheists and agnostics in America, accompanied by a matching drop in numbers of Catholics and Protestants. There has been much hooting and hurrahing, and raising of hands in celebration, as if this were some kind of victory, in some kind of contest.
   Leaving aside the question of whether or not this is an appropriate thing to celebrate, I'm not sure the celebrants are feting the right thing. I don't know that they are correctly interpreting these results. Are there really more non-religious people in the USA now then there were in 2001, the last time this study was undertaken? Or is something else going on?
   The most important point to remember is that this is a study of religious self-identification. What do you call yourself? The secular community has always recognised that the non-religious have long been under represented in surveys. Most non-religious people are not activist atheists; they are just people for whom religion has no place in their lives. They never think about it. But if they were raised in a Catholic, or Baptist, or Jewish household, that's the little tick they make on the survey. It is an answer stemming from culture, rather than religious belief in many cases.
   Over the past eight years, we've seen a dramatic upsurge in the visibility of atheism and secularism in our every day lives. There are a couple of different reasons for this.
   First, we've seen several best-selling books on atheism from authors such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins. Additionally, the advent of the popularity of blogging has many people expressing themselves in ways they never have before - and many more able to easily find information on atheism/agnosticism than ever.
   Second, there have been several high profile court cases dealing with seperation of church and state issues. Along with focus on the previous administration's rather liberal (heh) interpretation of the constitution, these have brought secularism under a microscope in America in a way it never has been before.
   The offshoot of all this is that more Americans than ever before are thinking about what it means to be agnostic, or to be an atheist. More Americans than ever before are considering whether or not the USA truly is a nation founded on Christian ideals, as the religious right would have you believe, or whether it was, in fact, envisioned and created as a secular nation.
   More Americans are looking at that questionaire, and stopping, and thinking, "what am I?" There aren't really more atheists in America than there were eight years ago. There are just more people willing to be honest when answering that survey than there were before.
   And maybe there is cause to celebrate that.

OK, so I was wrong

Yes, I said it. I was wrong. I must say that I have rarely ever been so pleased to have been wrong. I am somewhat encouraged that all is not necessarily lost for the USA. There are some grown-ups living down there after all. Well done, America.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday

T: The Majesty of Rock (or How To Know When You've Been Up Too Long)*

Thursday night, while I was reading "my blogs," I came across a fun post at BigHeathenMike's place. Mike featured a YouTube video from the Barenaked Ladies Bathroom Sessions. I'd never heard of them before - the 'Bathroom Sessions,' not The Barenaked Ladies - so I clicked through to explore a bit. (They're basically just some home video recordings of acoustic renderings of Barenaked Ladies songs recorded by Ed Robertson and Stephen Page in Ed's bathroom - no, don't think about that too much; nothing good can come of it.)

Anyway, you know how, on YouTube, they have all those links to "related videos" down the side? And, you know how you can sometimes click on a few of those links, jumping from one "related" video to another "related" video, and eventually end up somewhere almost completely inexplicable? Yeah... Well... Sometime around one o'clock I found myself watching this:



So, as a point of information: when you find yourself, in the wee hours of the morning, watching a stop-motion animated YouTube video called 'Lego Spinal Tap,' it's time to say to yourself, "go to bed, idiot!"

Just a small piece of advice from me to you.

F: Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight (or It's All Fun Until Some Zombie's Eye Falls Out)**

Friday night we left the boy home to hand out Halloween candy, while we went out to the curling club. We dressed up for the holiday as the losing team on ice number 6. It's bad enough losing a game, but we had to suffer the indignity of being beaten by a woman in a four foot tall, rainbow coloured, Cat-in-the-Hat tophat, a bright orange, oversized cardigan, and spiderweb patterned, silk boxer shorts. Not that I mind losing to Karen. She's a fine curler, and I'm getting used to being beaten by her, but you'd think she could do it with a little bit more, I don't know, style, or something.

S: [Listen To The] Flower People (or How to make your voice heard in a participatory democracy)***

I'm really looking forward to Tuesday. Actually, I'm really looking forward to the day after Tuesday, when we can all stop talking about the American Election, and just get on with our lives. Seriously, does the whole world come to a stop to watch the outcome of an election in any other country in the entire world? (Just in case you were unsure of the answer to that question, it's, "no.")

But listen, all you American readers out there. Do me a favour. Vote. It's important. Go out and vote. I voted in our election, you vote in yours. Not being an American myself, I'm not going to presume to tell you who I think you should vote for. I'm just saying, "vote." Even if you're going to vote for the guy I don't want to see in office, still, vote. I mean it.

That's all.


* No Viagra was harmed during the writing of this post.

** Several commas were abused during the writing of this post

*** Stretching a theme too far was criminally perpetrated during the writing of this post. This one does not go to eleven.

Two stuffs

We had a federal election up here last week. Our Conservative Party won more seats in the House of Commons than any other single party, but not a majority of the available seats, leaving them to manage what we call a "minority government." Which is pretty much status quo, as that's the situation we've been in for the last two years. A minority goverment is an interesting situation because the governing party does not control enough votes in the house to pass legislation without the co-operation of members of other parties. This leads to an unprecedented amount of compromise and co-operation within the house, as the government will make concessions to the opposition parties in return for support for their initiatives.

It usually leads to a lack of contoversial legislation being passed, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It also means a short sitting period for a government, as a non-confidence vote is certain to eventually take place. We'll be back at the polls in probably less than another two years to do it all again.

I have read a number of opinions online from fellow Canadians who are scadalized that the Conservatives won another election. They seem to think Stephen Harper and his associates are out to ruin the country in some way. The most common commentary seems to equate Harper and the Conservatives with George Bush and the American Republican party, which is ridiculous. The Canadian political parties do not line up with the traditional American parties in ideology. Sure, the Liberals are more liberal minded, and the Conservatives are more, well, conservative, but both parties are far closer to the center of the political spectrum than the GOP and the Democrats.

While American conservatives can't seem to open their mouths without threatening to trample all over the rights of women, homosexuals, or non-christians, the Canadian Conservative Party has repeatedly stated that changes to Canada's human rights laws - permissive of gay marriage, abortion, and religious freedom - are not on their agenda. And have showed absolutely no indication over the last two years that they plan to change that position. Crying about those issues is nothing more than mindlessly parroting opposition talking points, so just stop it, OK?

It snowed here. All day long. None of it stayed on the ground though...until about 4:30. Now the front lawn is completely covered in a blanket of white. Put me in mind of this:

I predict high volume panic sales of snow tires tomorrow.