To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
3
Apr
2022
Sunday April 3, 2022
I won’t offer excuses for General Jonathan Vance, Canada’s former chief of defence staff. Earlier this week, Vance pled guilty to a single charge of obstruction of justice. He was under investigation for sexual misconduct with a subordinate officer.
There’s no question about the sexual liaison with Major Kellie Brennan.
After their affair became public, Vance tried to get Brennan to deny their relationship.
There’s no question about that, either. Because Brennan recorded his phone calls.
Vance’s attempts to protect his reputation indicate that he knew he had done wrong. So why did he do it?
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: sex, macho, Gen. Vance, army
1
Thursday March 31, 2022
In her semi-memoir Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert describes being taught Balinese meditation. She had just spent four months in India learning -- sometimes painfully -- Yoga meditation. It involved physical postures that had to be practiced. And memorized texts that must be repeated precisely. Over and over.
But her guru in Bali simply said, “Smile.”
It was the Balinese attitude -- Smile. Always smile. Always face the world cheerfully.
It seems to me there’s an underlying truth there. We receive what we’re tuned to.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Eat Pray Love, resonance, Bali, smile
29
Mar
Sunday March 27, 2022
Some magpies in Australia proved themselves smarter than a group of scientists. Magpies are known for their intelligence; they belong the corvid family which also includes crows and ravens.
A month ago, Australian ornithologists hoped to learn more about how wild magpies socialize. So they devised miniature backpack transmitters, weighing less than a gram, that they could strap onto individual magpies.
They designed the backpack so that the magpie carrying it couldn’t possibly remove it.
They reckoned without the intervention of other magpies.
Tags: altruism, Magpies, Australia
Thursday February 24, 2022
I took my bicycle for a ride along the Mission Creek Greenway in Kelowna, not long ago. I didn’t bother checking a map –why bother? The creek runs down to the lake; the Greenway follows the creek; what could go wrong?
Except that the trail I was riding along abruptly ended at a wire fence.
Clearly, the main trail had diverged somewhere, but I was so preoccupied with my own ride that I didn’t notice. It must be somewhere to my left. And fortunately, there was a trail of sorts leading that direction.
The trail was rough, but passable. Until I got to a little stream, seeping down through millennia of rotting vegetation, just too wide to leap across.
Tags: God, Job, bicycle, Satan
Sunday March 20, 2022
For St. Patrick’s Day earlier this week, I wore a green T-shirt and an Aran Islands sweater. And orange underwear. Covering all my bases, so to speak.
Ireland, as I’m sure you’re aware, has been troubled by conflict between the orange and the green. The Protestant and the Catholics. The north and the south. Monarchy and republic.
Today, Ireland is relatively peaceful. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 largely eliminated the violence of “The Troubles” – 30 years of bombings and shootings.
Unfortunately, bombings and shootings continue in other places. Most notably these days in Ukraine.
And the suspicion, the ill-feeling, that plagued Northern Ireland for generations now shifts to other groups.
The CBC’s National newscast reported a few nights ago that over 600,000 people who have Russian connections, or Russian names, or who sell Russian products, are finding themselves treated with same suspicion
Tags: Russians, internment, suspicion
Thursday February 17, 2022
From my office chair, I can look up and see a an eight-foot shelf filled with books I helped to publish. I recognize every title. I know every author. I remember delving into every subject.
I had a hand – or at least a pencil – in every one of those books.
And then, abruptly, the authors, the subjects, the textual content, are all strangers. They’re still good books. Still worth reading. But they’re not mine anymore.
In serious discussions of faith and doctrine, a friend frequently ventures something like: “I’m not sure that I know what I’m talking about, but isn’t this all about ego somehow?”
Yes it is. It’s almost always about ego.
Tags: God, books, ego
Sunday March 13, 2022
I love coincidences. Today’s coincidence is the name Volodymyr. Or Vladimir, if you prefer the anglicized Russian spelling. As a person who intuitively roots for underdogs, I’ll use the Ukrainian spelling. But it’s the same thing, either way.
There are four Volodymyrs involved in this coincidence.
There’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the comedian with no political experience who came out of nowhere to become Ukraine’s president, and has since shown himself to have leadership qualities many other nations might envy.
There’s Volodymyr Putin – yes, same name, but usually with a different spelling – who sees the burgeoning democracy led by Zelenskyy as a threat and wants to take Ukraine back into Mother Russia.
Tags: Putin, Ukraine, Saint, Zelenskyy
Thursday March 10, 2022
The “Golden Guys” meet on Mondays. Mostly, we talk about what it feels like to grow older.
On a recent Zoom call, we talked about how our lives have changed.
There were six of us:
· One university professor, no longer teaching any students.
· One high-school principal, no longer administering anything.
· One orchardist, no longer tending trees.
· One business executive, no longer running any business.
· One minister, no longer offering leadership in any kind of pastorate.
· And me, the only one of us still doing what I had done most of my life – writing – although at a significantly reduced level.
We all wondered who we were, now that age and circumstance decreed that we could no longer be what we used to be.
Tags: Yahweh, Tetragrammaton. names
12
Sunday March 6, 2022
I love coincidences. Coincidences are like bits of information floating on an ocean of meaninglessness until they drift up onto a beach and a passer-by – me – fits them into some kind of pattern.
Today’s coincidence is the name Volodymyr. Or Vladimir, if you prefer the anglicized Russian spelling. As a person who intuitively roots for underdogs, I’ll use the Ukrainian spelling. But it’s the same thing, either way.
There’s Volodymyr Putin....
Tags: Putin, Ukraine, Volodymyr, Vladimir, Saint
The “Golden Guys” meet on Mondays. Mostly, we talk about what it feels like to grow older. On a recent Zoom call, we talked about how our lives have changed. There were six of us:
Tags: God, Moses, Exodus, YHWH, Yahweh, names