Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

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24

Dec

2022

Jewish song writers who invented modern Christmas

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 27, 2022 

 

Years ago, I thought I was giving the Sunday School kids a treat – no dull boring lesson today; we’d just sing some familiar Christmas carols. 

            We tried. One of the mothers bravely played the piano. A teenager hoping to emulate Eric Clapton played a 12=string guitar. The singing, however, was less than enthusiastic: 

            “Okay,” I said, “you’re not keen on our choices. What would you like to sing?”

            Bigmouth at the back called out, “Rudolph!”

            Without waiting for either piano or guitar, the whole group of kids launched into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

            They sang lustily. With enthusiasm. They knew all the words. They also knew all the words to Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. And to Silver Bells.

            I didn’t have the heart to tell them that those had all been written by Jews. 


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24

Dec

2022

A season in a life of waiting

Author: Jim Taylor

Thursday December 1,, 2022

 

This is the first week of Advent. Advent is the four-week period in which Christian churches traditionally prepare for the birth of Jesus. It’s considered a time of waiting, while we tidy up the dusty corners of our lives to prepare for a special visitor.

            I don’t know about you, but I dislike waiting. I feel as if I’ve spent most of my life waiting for something, even if I didn’t clearly know what I was waiting for. 

            As a child, I waited to be considered an adult. 

            As a young adult, I waited for my career to find me. 

            As a father, I waited for my children to grow up. And when they did, I waited for them to come home.


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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: future, Advent, waiting

24

Dec

2022

Unsatisfactory solution for unmasking lies

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 27, 2022 

 

Occasionally, The Guardian lets its hair down and writes about itself. 

            Recently, Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill, The Guardian’s deputy membership editor, wrote in an e-newsletter that Donald Trump's announcement of running for the presidency in 2024 “renewed a debate about how to responsibly cover him without unwittingly providing the coverage he so expertly manipulates.” 

            She likened it to “walking a tightrope.”

            “We will have no hesitation to call a lie a lie, or indeed a liar a liar, even if they are a former US president," said Paul Harris, head of news for The Guardian US.


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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: Trump, lies, truth, Guardian

25

Nov

2022

A porcupine teaches about true love

Author: Jim Taylor

Thursday November 24, 2022

 

A porcupine waddled across the road in front of me the other day. It’s an ungainly creature. Little short legs paddle along underneath a jiggling haystack of quills, with its lethal tail flopping along the pavement behind it.

            Clearly, it sensed that it was in no danger. As long as it stayed right side up, that is. A predator can kill a porcupine only by flipping it over to get at its undefended underbelly.

            When I got home, my cat ran to greet me. It arched its back, rubbed against my pantlegs. And then lay on its back, all four legs akimbo, to have its belly rubbed.

           Whether we’re porcupines, cats, or humans, exposing our most vulnerable parts is a profound act of trust in another. 


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25

Nov

2022

Double whammy bodes badly

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 20, 2022 

 

Two news stories juxtaposed themselves this past week.

            In the first story, the eight-billionth human was born somewhere on Wednesday, according to an estimate by the United Nations.

            Maybe not precisely on Wednesday. It might have happened on Tuesday. Or Thursday. But one of the 385,000 babies born during those three days was the eight-billionth member of the human race.

            Just 12 years ago, there were only seven billion of us. A century ago, only two billion.

            We have, in other words, grown like mould.

            That famous “hockey stick” graph of greenhouse gases is duplicated, almost exactly, by the growth of human populations.

            Yet we get all upset about one statistic  and avoid the other.


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25

Nov

2022

Doing what’s right is always worth it

Author: Jim Taylor

Thursday November 17, 2022

 

IMy email friend and fellow blogger Jim Henderschedt listed a number of things going wrong: “The seemingly daily news of war, lies, assault weapons, muck raking, genocide, racial enmity, mass shootings, homelessness -- the list goes on and on...”

            What do you do when your world seems to be coming apart at the seams? When your dreams turn into nightmares? When old friends topple like bowling pins, and your investments sink like autumn leaves?

            It’s tempting to go back to bed and pull the covers up over your head. Or perhaps to curl up on the floor in a fetal position.


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25

Nov

2022

Mid-term elections all about Trump

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 13, 2022 

 

Final results in the U.S. mid-term elections may not be in for some weeks. But the political pundits are having a field day finding things to analyse. 

            I dare suggest that some of them have read the election wrong. This election was not about abortion rights. Or about immigration, racial discrimination, or inflation. 

            It was not even – despite Joe Biden’s and Barrack Obama’s impassioned last-minute pleas – about the survival of democracy. 

            It was about one thing -- Donald Trump.

 

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12

Nov

2022

A grocery cart burdened with traditions

Author: Jim Taylor

Thursday November 10, 2022

 

 

For a week, a while ago, I was a person with “no fixed address.” My daughter was out of town for a university reunion. That made me the designated driver/chaperone/security patrol for her two teenagers.

            But I still had my own home, cat, and community responsibilities to tend to. 

            So I spent the week shuttling back and forth between two houses 30 km apart. 

            One morning, a woman pushing a grocery cart, piled high with all her worldly possessions, crossed the street ahead of me. 

            I felt sorry for her. At the same time, I must admit, I felt a flicker of scorn, maybe even contempt. 

            Then I felt shame. Because she and I were both in the same cart, so to speak. 


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12

Nov

2022

Racism isn’t only in other countries

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 6, 2022 

 

I’d better say this tight up front – I have never experienced prejudice against me because I am white. I suspect that no “person of colour” can say the same.

            I have travelled widely. I have spent time in, by my last count, 66 different countries. In many of those, the local population had darker skin than mine. I have never been told, “Hey, whitey, go to the back of the line.” Or, “This is where WE eat; what are you doing here?”

            And if anyone has called me derogatory names, they did it in their own language, and I didn’t know.

            You may protest that you have no prejudice against brown- or black-skinned people. You may really believe that. But you cannot know it. Only the person experiencing prejudice knows it.

 

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: racism, Prejudice

12

Nov

2022

Domesticating our wildest mysteries

Author: Jim Taylor

Thursday November 3, 2022

 

Another Halloween has come and gone. We’ve sent our children out into the darkness of night dressed as skeletons or mummies, ghouls and ghosties, and other things that go bump in the night.

            Now the costumes have been put away for another year. 

            And I wonder what’s special about Halloween that we’re dressing up our kids for.

            There was a time, of course, when people actually believed that the souls of the dead rose up from their graves and roamed the streets. The whole premise of Dickens’ Christmas Carol relies on Scrooge believing that dead still have a presence among us.

 

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: Hallowe'en, ghosts

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