"Honour killings" bring dishonour to all human beings everywhere

There is no way for a western observer to comprehend the stoning of a family member, especially the stoning of a female family member who, while pregnant, has chosen the person with whom she wishes to spend her life with. There is also no comprehension, in the west, about the manner in which women are being treated by some in various parts of the world.
Denying young girls a formal education, as part of the path to escape the kind of domestic bondage to which women have been "subjected" for centuries, and denying those same women the right to dress as they wish and also to choose the partner, for love, are also concepts we find heinous and intolerable.
We watch as young Muslim women walk a few paces behind their male partners, on our streets, covered almost in what we would consider a 'nun's' habit, so that their whole being is hidden from public view, except their faces, and we wonder what other kinds of "oppression" they are suffering under their male partners, their fathers and their brothers.
And while human rights abuses take on multiple forms, in many countries, the rights of women may well be, or will become, the primary focus of human rights abuses in this century.
In the contemporary landscape of news stories that have inflamed the whole world, the Boko Haram kidnapping of some 300 young girls from their dormitories in Nigeria ranks as a possible turning point, along with the shooting of the young Pakistani girl, Malala by the Taliban.
The west is slowing awakening to the plight of women around the world, although there is also a considerable degree of oppression of women, more subtle and based on making money through advertising, modelling, and in a perversion of the "Pygmalion" archetype, turning young women into cash-cows, through photo-shoots of their barely clad bodies both for 'entertainment' (porn) and for the purpose of selling various products.
So the perception of women's sexuality, whether for capitalistic profit or for political morality, another form of ideology, is a central issue for the world's consideration. And there seems to be a widening gap between the perceptions, values and aspirations for women in the west from that in many countries in the east and Middle East.
Yesterday we read of another stoning of a pregnant woman in Lahor Pakistan, that revolted many westerners.
Here is a brief account from the Globe and Mail:
A pregnant woman was stoned to death Tuesday by her own family outside a courthouse in the Pakistani city of Lahore for marrying the man she loved.

The woman was killed while on her way to court to contest an abduction case her family had filed against her husband. Her father was promptly arrested on murder charges, police investigator Rana Mujahid said, adding that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in this “heinous crime.” ( By K.M. Chaudhry and Zaheer Babar, The Associated Press. in Globe and Mail, May 27, 2014)
However, such 'honour killings' are also occurring in Canada, where there have been some study done on their meaning by professionals whose credentials fit the task.
Here is a brief excerpt of an report from one such professional:
Dr. Amin Muhammad is a psychiatrist at Memorial University in St. John's, N.L., who is currently working on a report for the federal government about honour killings in Canada. He said there've been 13 such cases in the country since 2002.
"We are seeing an upward trend," he said. "More cases are coming to the forefront in the legal system."Noting honour killings are not in any way condoned in the Qur'an, Islam's holy book, he suggested the idea is coming up more as a defence for murder by people hoping to take advantage of Canada's cultural sensitivity in order to receive a more lenient sentence.He also said he suspects mental-health issues are behind most cases."We cannot rule out personality disorder among the perpetrators or some sort of psychopathology," he said."I think all such cases should be evaluated from a mental-health perspective."Muhammad said that since the UN began cracking down on the issue of honour killings, no country is any longer officially supporting the practice.That said, a report Muhammad published two years ago found a number of countries actually allow for a partial or full defence against criminal charges on the basis of honour killing, including: Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Guatemala, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Venezuela, Peru and Egypt.While many recent cases in western society involve Muslims, Muhammad said honour killings have also been committed in the name of Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity. (By Tobi Cohen, Canwest News Service, in Vancouver Sun, May 27, 2014)Unfortunately, however, while 'personality disorder' may be a significant contributing factor in these heinous events, there is also a social, political and cultural side to the issue.Can the world simply stand by, as too many in the west have done when mass killings have occurred in the United States in particular, and merely dismissed these acts as those of people suffering a personality disorder, or does the fact of these occurrences demand some collective, concerted and preventive action?Is there not, and we respectfully submit that there is, some broader social, political and cultural development in these acts which the 'body politic' cannot and must not ignore? Are we witnessing, not only the emergence of 'personality disorders' in greater numbers, but also acts that demean not only those who are victims, and those committing these acts, but also the whole of a society that countenances such acts, while not being able or willing to take collective steps to provide the safety and security of too many innocent people, like young children and women.Case studies, while necessary to the establishment of culpability in legal matters, do eventually link and combine into a coalesced mass of public opinion which says, "We have to take collective action to reduce the impact of these inhuman acts of cruelty and brutality, especially when we can see that the most vulnerable are under attack."And our response does not have to be more heinous than the acts which we are attempting to prevent. We all have a massive task ahead of us if we are to create conditions in which women and young girls, especially, are to be able to make the kinds of choices that we consider normal and acceptable, in conditions free from fear and assassination, from those whom they considered part of their family.And, while in too many places, those committing these heinous acts, in the name of 'family honour' are too often given very light sentences, if any, dependent on sloppy police and prosecutorial work, these acts will not only continue but perhaps even grow in numbers.There is, or at least there seems to be, something like penetrating education and transformation of human values that we might consider, at the highest levels of our political decision-making, to begin to address this form of terror against women and young girls.

The Muslim Brotherhood, a threat to Canada? according to a report, perhaps!

Declared a terrorist organization in Egypt, with hundreds of their members jailed, and under investigation in the United Kingdom, the Muslim Brotherhood is now named in a reported entitled, The Muslim Brotherhood in North America as seeking to provoke, incite and accomplish systemic overthrow of existing free and open societies.
This year, British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered an inquiry into the group’s activities in the U.K.
"What I think is important about the Muslim Brotherhood is that we understand what this organization is, what it stands for, what its beliefs are in terms of the path of extremism and violent extremism, what its connections are with other groups, what its presence is here in the United Kingdom. Our policies should be informed by a complete picture of that knowledge," Cameron said in April.
(Tom) Quiggin (author of the report and a court expert on terrorism and member of the Terrorism and Security Experts of Canada Network, ) believes that the organization’s period of relative moderation has come to an end and it is now becoming “increasingly aggressive in its actions."
But the threat facing Canadians is not so much physical but more systemic.
"This is cultural, this is political, this is a different kind of threat," he said.
The goal of the Brotherhood in North America is to establish front organizations and eventually gain political power, he said.
These front organizations are interlinked by a common ideology, set of beliefs and set of leaders, Quiggin said.
The Brotherhood has already tried to spread influence and raise money through these adherent groups, which have "sought to systematically and repeatedly circumvent and break Canadian regulations and laws," according to the report....
“The aim of the group in North America is to weaken and destroy the free and open societies within Canada and the U.S.A. from within and replace them with the heavily politicized views of [founder] Hassan Banna, Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to the report, entitled The Muslim Brotherhood in North America (Canada/U.S.).
The report, written by Tom Quiggin, a court expert on terrorism and member of the Terrorism and Security Experts of Canada Network, raises concerns about the Brotherhood’s alleged ties to Canadian organizations, some which have either been accused of being terrorist organizations or alleged to have links to extremist groups. (From CBC News. May 27, 2014)
Who are the Muslim Brotherhood?
The Muslim Brotherhood (known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) is a transnational organization headquartered in Egypt. Founded by Hassan al-Banna in Ismailia, Egypt in 1928, the brotherhood is the oldest and largest Islamic political group, with representation in most Middle Eastern countries.
According to the group’s founding document, it is "an international Muslim Body, which seeks to establish Allah’s law in the land by achieving the spiritual goals of Islam and the true religion." The current chairman of the group is Mohamed Badie. Due to its often fraught relationship with ruling parties across the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood operates under different names in different countries, from the Al-Menbar Islamic Society in Bahrain to Hadas in Kuwait to the Islamic Movement in Israel. Hamas, the party that currently rules Gaza, is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. To circumvent a ban on the group in Egypt, the Brotherhood fields independent candidates in elections.(From CBC News January 31, 2011)
Muslim Brotherhood beliefs:
Al-Banna founded the group as a response to a growing secularism in Muslim society. The Brotherhood views liberal Arab governments as an impediment to the establishment of Islamic states.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated objectives, as laid out in the group’s founding document, are as follows:

• Inform the masses of Islamic teachings.
• Unify mankind under Islamic teachings as well as bring "closer the viewpoints of the Islamic sects."
• Raise the standard of living of marginalized people.
• Expand social justice and social insurance to cover every citizen.
• "Liberate the Islamic nation from the yoke of foreign rule."
• Establish the country as an Islamic state and defend the nation against "the internal enemies."
• Support global co-operation based on the provisions of Islamic Sharia law.

As one  born and raised in what many would consider a "free and open" society, Canada, I am sensitive to the implications of this report, given how innocent and naïve the Canadian culture is to threats from organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. Accommodating thousands of immigrants each year, and absorbing them into our workplaces, our governments and our communities has significantly enriched the Canadian "mosaic" as it has traditionally been called. Pockets of various immigrants cultures have been integrated, relatively smoothly, if not completely assimilated, in all provinces and regions of the country. However, with some exceptions, we have not witnessed, or found the need for such a report as the one just released.
Naturally, we concur with one of the report's recommendations, that Canada co-operate with Great Britain in the investigation of the Brotherhood, and that perhaps our advance scrutiny of immigrants requires additional detailed checks, in addition to uncovering the organizations within the country that have already been 'engaged' in supporting the goals and aims of the Brotherhood, perhaps even without knowledge of that purpose.
While the Brotherhood disavows "jihad" in the Al Qaeda model, systemic penetration of a non-lethal nature can be, and often is even more 'lethal' to an established culture and society's norms than what might be accomplished through violence.
Canada is not Egypt, nor any of the Middle East countries and we are not willing to move in that direction, under influence of any organization that espouses Sharia Law, whether imposed through violence and terror, or through more 'moderate' and 'modest' measures like political influence. Witness the right's victory yesterday in France, and the anti-Semitism that is finding resonance in many parts of Europe and in Russia. The world is considerably "smaller" from the perspective of transmission of information, including political interference, and there is a need in all countries to guard and protect the freedoms and the openness that have characterized our culture and our history, and even to move to enhance those freedoms and that openness, not to restrict it with a tidal wave of Islamic extremism, of any kind.

Soros: "Russism," a new word to describe Putin's percption of Russian ethnic superiority and nationalism that threatens Europe

Sometimes, we have listen to those who have no political office to maintain to find out what kind of situation we might be facing. Such people, and I am specifically thinking of American businessman and philanthropist, George Soros, have access to information and to the microphones that disseminate such information that no politician would be ready to discuss. Soros has a considerable interest in the future of Europe, has established a foundation to assist in the development of open societies in countries such as Ukraine, and studies the situation from a much broader perspective even than those whose careers focus on the needs and instruments of foreign policy and diplomacy.
In his interview with Fareed Zakaria, on CNN's Global Public Square yesterday, Soros expressed some concerns that might, or should, interest a wide and deep audience. He suggested that Putin's activities in Ukraine ("he came out of the closet in Ukraine") and his (Putin's) perception of a dangerous genetic superiority of Russia and his overt attempt to destabilize the European Union through Russian nationalism, while not precisely "fascism," is quite dangerous, and here Soros used a new word, Russism, to describe a new ideology  based on Russian superiority. And linked to China through both trade and common interests, this new Russism, according to Soros, is a development to which the world needs to pay close attention.

Here is s portion of the interview Fareed Zakaria did with George Soros yesterday (May 25, 2014) on CNN's GPS
ZAKARIA:  You have been very pessimistic or - or gloomy about Europe. Um, do you think that in this Ukraine situation, you're seeing another aspect of the tragedy of Europe, the lack of collective action?
SOROS:  Unfortunately, Europe is very weak.  It's preoccupied with its internal problems, which are unresolved.  The euro - the euro crisis is no longer a financial crisis, is turning into a political crisis.  And you're going to see it in the elections.  And - and Putin...
ZAKARIA:  Explain what that means.
It's going to be - you're going to see it in the elections because you're going to see the rise of nationalist, anti-European forces?
SOROS:  Yes.  And interestingly, they are supported by Russia and pro-Russian.  So Russia has emerged as an alternative to the European Union.  Putin has sort of come out of the closet in - in Ukraine with an ideology that is Nationalist based on ethnic nationalism.  You could call it Russism...
ZAKARIA:  Right.
SOROS:  - that's a new word to describe it, because I don't want to call it Nazi, because it is very similar to what you had in the interwar period...fascism.  You know...
ZAKARIA:  Protecting your ethnic groups with military force, if necessary...
SOROS:  Well, it's more than that.  It's - as an ideology, a new sort of myth of Russian superiority.  If you - those who watch Putin's speeches, he actually has revealed this new myth of Russian genetic superiority.  You might have heard that previously from someone else.  It's a - a new ideology based on ethnic Russian superiority.
ZAKARIA:  And as you say, a lot of these nationalists who are we - who are doing well in European - these European-wide elections seem very pro-Russian...
SOROS:  Yes.
ZAKARIA:  - whether on the left or the right. Do you think this nationalism could break up the European Union?
SOROS:  Yes.  It's a real threat.  And - and Europe needs to recognize it.  And we need to recognize it, actually.  We need to have a bipartisan foreign policy.  We used to have that and we have lost it.  So we need to reestablish it, because there is a real threat.  It's a ret - it's a threat to America, also, because what's happening in - in Ukraine and in - in Europe is having repercussions in - in Asia.  You know, the - the Chinese drilling rig that is establishing facts on the ground...(in Vietnam)
So, if the west is too focused on the short-term crisis in Ukraine, if I read Soros correctly, there is a danger that we might miss the longer-term ambitions of Putin's perception of Russian ethnic superiority and the combination of both overt and covert moves he has, is and will continue to take to magnetize a vulnerable Europe as a counter-magnet to the west. And he could and likely will use China as support for his larger design.
The word "Asian Union" was allegedly used by Chinese Premier in ShiangHi in his speech this week, announcing that $400 billion energy purchase over thirty years from Russia, as compared with the normal phrase used by President Obama, the "Asian-Pacific Union" which would and does include the United States.
If China and Russia are proposing the development of an Asian Union that excludes the United States, and that threatens Europe's congruency and stability, then Ukraine could well be seen as a minor skirmish very quickly, inspite of the many lives already lost.

A respectful submission for an alternative "problem" to the BBC Longitude Contest

In 1714, the British government passed the Longitude Act, which offered a prize to anyone who solved a great challenge of the time – accurately determining a ship's longitude. Navigation problems caused wrecks and trade disruption, so the prize was large – 20,000 pounds, $3.5 million by today's standards. A working class clockmaker eventually won after years of developing reliable marine clocks, or "chronometers," that allowed sailors to pinpoint their position at sea.

1. Fast forward 300 years and Britain is offering the Longitude Prize again – this time it's $17 million for solving one of humanity's biggest problems. And a group in the U.K. is letting citizens pick the problem this time. Asking them through a BBC poll if it should be:

• Flight – How can we fly without damaging the environment?
• Food – How can we ensure everyone has nutritious sustainable food?
• Antibiotics – How can we prevent the rise of resistance to antibiotics?
• Paralysis – How can we restore movement to those with paralysis?
• Water – How can we ensure everyone can have access to save and clean water?
• Or Dementia – How can we help people with dementia to live independently for longer?

(From Fareed Zakaria, GPS, May 25, 2014)
Sorry, BBC, but we are not satisfied with your list of options.
We would respectively and even fearfully like to add a seventh:
Human tolerance of all people (including their ideologies, faith beliefs, communities and practices, gender orientation and economic status)
The list of problems detailed by the BBC is exclusively "extrinsic" and focuses on: 

1. the provision of some balance between movement and the environment, or
2. the provision of food and the environment, or
3. the provision of drugs to combat disease, or
4. the enhancement of movement for those suffering paralysis, or
5. the provision of clean drinking water, or
6. the provision of a longer physical and autonomous life for those with dementia....

all of them extremely worthy problems needing attention, research, solutions and the reward of the $17 million you are offering.
However, none of these problems can or will be resolved in a sustainable manner for a future that includes a minimum of one century of life on the planet without a reversal of the general and somewhat legitimate human pattern of bettering one another, of competing with each other in all areas of our lives, and a transformation of human attitudes from the pursuit of survival at the expense of the other, to a shared pursuit of the authentic and unrestrained acceptance of the rights, aspirations, and the legitimate needs of food, shelter, work, safety... for actually accomplishing one's life in dignity, honour, respect and freedom from fears imposed by threats of a human origin or a natural root or some combination of human and natural.
And the more abstract issue of human rights, dignity, value, tolerance and respect in a world free of the deeply entrenched arms trade, the pursuit of power over instead of empowerment, and the acceptance of a shared, warranted and rewarded participation in a common, universal and sustained security of the individual, the family, the tribal, national and global interests and resources  is much more intractable and fundamental to the provision of all the other legitimate problems.
This is not solely an issue of economic and political ideology, nor is it an argument of the provision of international institutions that can and will shape the path to a different and both transformed and transformative perception of the human being, and his place in the universe, as one of interdependence and collaboration, nor is it an issue of religious inter-faith accommodation and celebration of the tenets and the rituals and the beliefs of all faiths (as in Bahai), nor is it an educational/learning initiative to better acquaint each country's people with its neighbours regionally and across the globe, nor is it only a question of the sovereignty of outer space and unclaimed oceans, or of land masses, or a question of the provision of institutions like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, nor any one or a combination of the original six problems outlined in the announcement of the Latitude Award.
It is a matter that encompasses a new way of conceptualizing the problem, not from a single and legitimate academic perspective, but rather from a gestalt perspective in which the whole is the focus and not the individual parts of the problem. It is really, metaphorically, an application of the theories of relativity and quantum physics and micro-biology and macro-economics and history and meta-history, anthropology and astrophysics, calculus and philosophy, language and epistemology, theology and metaphysics...to the shared issues common to all human beings and all academic pursuits.
We are at one and the same time, as Rollo May has reminded us, both subject and object, both within a time frame and transcendent of time, competitive in the extreme and altruistic to a similar degree, hopeful and fearful, creative and destructive, warlords and refugees from human conflict, mothers and fathers, men and women, workers and homeless, scientists and poets, while at the same time, androgynous beings capable of both comprehending and accepting the 'gifts' of our individual and our collective Shadows, if and when we are offered the secure opportunity of such a pursuit. We are also unique individuals and socially hard wired for relationships who can and do exhibit a capacity for annihilation and for mutual restrain, for commitment to legitimate contractual obligations and a profound intolerance for restrictive authority of any and all kinds.
We have, through the somewhat and sometimes heroic achievements of our ancestors, achieved some success in the goal of human tolerance and acceptance and respect and dignity of the other. And now, with this BBC initiative, it is time, surging on the wave of digital technology to bring much more information to the design of the problem of the pursuit of our shared and balanced and sustainable futures, to make a quantum leap forward in our understanding of and our commitment to those common and agreed needs and aspirations that depend on a vision of the limits of our needs, and the raised ceilings of our imaginations.
If  this "problem" is deemed too large for human solution, as some may legitimately consider it to be, and therefore unworthy of consideration in this contest, then consider the alternative of how a ranking of the original six problems is a reduction of what is perceived as within the realm of the possible, the feasible, the reasonable and the measureable. It is our empiricism and our need for benchmarks that has simultaneously stirred our achievements and restricted our vision.
And perhaps it is time for us to reconfigure how we approach the situation in which the world finds itself, not from a mere apocalyptic and frightened perspective but also and simultaneously from a magical and courageous and unrestricted perspective that is not reducible to what is already known (in both content and in method) but that stretches the human capacity for adventure and for discovering and sharing new horizons of possibilities not currently within our epistemology or our understanding.

Reflections on perfectionism

For the second or third time, my wife and I just watched a re-run of the Sandra Bullock-Hugh Grant comedy, Two Weeks Notice. While I did not recall many of the specific comedic scenes, I also did not have a vivid recall of the scene in which Grant's character, George, explains to "Lucy" (Bullock) why no one wants to be with her, that she has such high expectations, like noting the split infinitive in his last speech, and that such "perfectionists" are "boring"....in his words.
Perfectionism, that dreaded disease that afflicts many of us who have spent decades practicing the piano, or perhaps other decades "perfecting" our skills as brains surgeons, or "perfecting" our skills in detecting many of the details we face on the faces of those we meet, in an endless search for full awareness of the complexity of the immediate situation....in social terms, is both dangerous and destructive, especially to relationships, where "moderation" equals mediocrity.
Once, in a private conversation with a bishop whose duty it was to "filter" candidates for ministry, I heard these words, "No congregation wants to hear the full truth; they can't stand it!" And upon hearing those words, I wondered, silently, of course, why I had chosen to pursue a life in active ministry if the full truth were not going to be permitted in that pursuit. And then I quickly learned, to my dismay, that politics trumps truth-telling in the church, that whom one associates with is more important than whether that person tells the truth, faces the truth or even wants the truth in his or her spiritual journey.
Persistence, in the pursuit of full disclosure, is one of the most noxious of social diseases. It offends those who have chosen to hide their private lives from the eyes and ears of their families for decades. It offends those who know members of their family who have hidden their pasts, and have developed a family "rule" never to speak of that 'dark' truth forever.
It offends those who believe that the telling of 'dark' truths is an offence to the human condition, so dependent is that condition, in their minds, on a "rose-coloured-glasses" picture of the past, the present and the future.
Since it is a prevalent and growing disease, especially in circles in which snobbery triumphs, political correctness reigns, and let's look at some of the reasons why many of us protect our mask of demanding, pursuing and expecting perfection.
First, we know that we are not now, and never have been fully adequate, in whatever endeavour we have pursued. Whether we failed in our final examinations for our 'associate' degree in piano studies, or whether we failed in our first, second and third attempt to acquire an undergraduate degree, or whether we were refused admission to both a doctoral program and law school, the first based on an unprofessional letter of reference by an anal-retentive math-grad high school principal, the second based on poor undergraduate grades, or whether, for many years we heard the words, "You are no good and you never will be any good, just like your father!" so often that in our innocent adolescence we believed there had to be some merit to the evaluation....the message of inadequacy was writ both large and indelible in our minds, our hearts and in our belief systems.
And so, we kept our 'nose clean' and kept on marching to a drummer that demanded more than any
human being should have had to "put out"...and in a manner that kept us driving for more....more responsibility, more respect (that illusive and illusional elixir that never fills the bottomless pit of a "worthless spirit". We applied for more positions than we should have. We attended more interviews than we could expect to be approved in. We performed more tasks, professionally and extra-curricularly than our families deserved (guaranteeing our continual absence) and we also hit a wall when, on a long walk in the northern Ontario forest, we suddenly grasped an epiphany: What if the Christian faith really were true, that a man-God named Jesus, the Christ Resurrected, actually died for us, and to atone for our sins, our's and our neighbours, not only our neighbours, then why were we playing God and imposing our limited perception on this universal act of grace, meaning that 'that' was only for the destitute people, and for me?
And then, without skipping beat, we wandered off on another voyage of self-discovery, to delve even more deeply into why we were so driven to  succeed, and to encounter new mountains and seas of awareness of our perceived compulsion to work longer and harder than our bodies and our minds and our spirits could sustain.
And, in the process, we were provided with opportunities like training in pastoral skills and post mortem reflections that were dependent on our enhanced awareness of our identity, especially as perceived by others whose perceptions were not based on any authority or obligation to please, but rather on a sceptical penetration of insights that challenged our illusions, removed many of them, and caused us to further question our basic assumptions of our identity and purpose. And when we overlaid our 'work ethic' with our affective learnings and began to discover how we had become a human "doing" instead of a human "being" and then we proceeded on another 'trip' to grow new comprehensions of what it means to mature and become a 'man' in a world dominated by controlling women, without our learning, first and foremost, that acceptance of self, fully, completely and unconditionally was the sine qua non of any healthy human relationship and that such acceptance would always be a work in progress, and never a finished "product".
And with the help of a partner who too, accepted her vulnerabilities and her incompleteness, as well as mine, we were finally able to begin to walk a trail over whose entrance were emblazoned the words "Go gently into the dark night....you are not alone" and find those words full of meaning and truth, not the kind of public and political truth that passes for "reality" in the practical sense world, but rather a deeper and more sustained, less fickle and  less stable reality of mood, or of intellectual prowess, a truth that was firmly grounded in open and full disclosure of all truths: factual, fiscal, emotional and spiritual....in a spirit of a conjoined search for each other, ourselves and a new self, the relationship.
Once, in an acrimonious conversation with a former professional colleague who had deeply and profoundly hurt me, in a character reference that far exceeded both ethical and professional boundaries, probably out of the jealousy of an extremely insecure man, he said, "I understand that you are unhappy with me; so let's have a conversation with you laying out all of your arguments and I will counter every one with mine!" in an act of desperate hubris.
To which I immediately retorted, "It is not a matter of winning an argument for God's sake! It is a matter of trust and I simply do not trust you!
And in that conversation, I became aware of just how much I had pandered to the political powers that had impact on my life, and sacrificed my truth in too many situations, in order to appear "perfect" but really as I then saw it, simply acceptable.
I believed that had I not been so "compliant" and adaptable, I would never have been accepted, and the truth was really that I could never be accepted unless and until I accepted myself, something that was denied me in my developmental years, and something that repeated itself in the many chapters of my first five decades.
Today, I have retained some of the nuanced and detailed pursuit of a life that accepts the limits of my abilities and my mortality, without the condemnation of restricted breathing or sleepless nights because I am not "good enough" but the battle is never over and will be with me until my last breath.

Ontario NDP prospects dim, and federal NDP is watching with concern for 2015

Ontario is Canada's largest province, with the largest population outside of Quebec, so the voting patterns of Ontario voters in provincial elections can be and often are a barometer of things to come in federal elections. This spring, Ontario voters will go to the polls on June 12, following a decision by the NDP not to support the Liberal budget and force the minority government to call an election. Emerging from the campaign of the Tories under current Harris-clone leader Tim Hudak are two prominent numbers: 100,000 and 1,000,000.
The first number is the number of civil service jobs Hudak would cut, if he became premier.
The second number is the number of new jobs, through the private sector, spurred by tax cuts he would introduce, Hudak promises under a Conservative government, if elected.
These are simplistic numbers, easily displayed in all media ads for the Tories, and easily digested by even the least interested voter, a standard that all political statements have to meet. However, they are also highly misleading and deceptive, covering up a multitude of issues with which the voters of Ontario are very familiar. Only a few years ago, another Conservative premier promised a similar ideologically pure right-wing agenda, and one of the results was the death of two and the severe illness of several others from water contamination directly attributable to reductions in water inspectors in Walkerton, an example of the potential buried in civil service cuts that Premier Kathleen Wynne points to at every press briefing when asked to comment on Hudak's "jobs" proposal. "Replacing pay slips with pink slips" is how Wynne characterizes his position.
Relying on the private sector for his "jobs engine" is also a proposition fraught with peril, given the resistance of the private sector to increase investment in either capital equipment or hiring in a modestly sluggish economy.
For her part, Andrea Horwath, the NDP leader explained her party's withdrawal of support for the minority Liberal government  because "we could not trust the Liberals to follow through in implementing their budget proposals". However, that budget was filled with NDP-friendly proposals including:

Establishing a new 10-year, $2.5 billion Jobs and Prosperity Fund to partner with business to  attract investments, strengthen Ontario’s strategic sectors and support the province’s future economic growth.

Giving small businesses the tools they need to conserve energy, manage costs and save money.

Helping large businesses with their electricity costs.

Expanding the reach of Ontario’s exports to fast-growing emerging markets, to help many small and medium-sized businesses grow and create jobs.

Investing in Transportation and Infrastructure
Ontario’s projected population growth will result in significant demand for all types of infrastructure.  That is why the Province is planning to invest more than $130 billion in public infrastructure over the next 10 years, including:

• Dedicating funding to make nearly $29 billion available over the next 10 years for transportation infrastructure across the province.
• Investing a total of $2.5 billion in 2014–15 for highway rehabilitation and expansion projects across the province.
• Supporting municipal roads and bridges through a new permanent $100 million fund.

An Ontario-based retirement plan 

• To help Ontarians, especially middle-income earners, be more secure in their retirement, the 2014 Ontario Budget proposes the first-of-its-kind provincial pension plan that builds on the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

A CPP enhancement would have long-term economic benefits by growing the economy and creating jobs, while providing for a more secure retirement for all working Canadians. Given the federal government’s decision to shut down discussions on an enhancement to CPP, Ontario will be developing a “made-in-Ontario” solution — the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP).
The ORPP would:

• Build on the key features of the CPP, including a predictable monthly benefit in retirement that is indexed to inflation and paid for life.
•  Increase retirement savings while keeping contribution rates low.
•  Be introduced in 2017, beginning with large employers, with contributions phased in over two years. 
• Increase the level of earnings covered beyond what is currently covered by the CPP
• Lowering costs in the system over the last 18 months, reducing what people would have otherwise paid by about $520 over the next five years.
• Proposing to remove the Debt Retirement Charge cost from residential users’ electricity bills after December 31, 2015, saving a typical residential ratepayer about $70 per year

(From the Government of Ontario, Department of Finance website.)

Clearly the Liberals calculated that if the NDP vetoed the budget, they would put themselves at the mercy of the potential campaign strategy of being swept aside by the debate between the Liberals and the Conservatives, and lose their current 21-member standing in the Legislature. Furthermore, the  budget, with NDP support in a minority government would have had more chance of being passed dependent on the leverage Horwath then had with the governing Liberals. Not incidentally, the budget was very favourably received in labour and other "working class" voter blocks, and many wondered what was going on in the NDP strategy rooms when the decision was taken to torpedo both the budget and the legislative session.
Now, the chickens are coming home to roost: not only is Horwath having trouble justifying her decision because it has not found resonance among the voting public but her own party faithful have come out swinging against her decision to torpedo the budget and for not taking positions that are equally if not more favourable to the left-wing of the party. They are accusing Horwath of having become another centre-right party, abandoning the principles of social justice and labour fairness, and job and workplace enhancement and are demanding that the party leadership change course before the election, now only a matter of two weeks away. When asked about the Liberal proposal to finish four-laning highway 69 from Toronto to Sudbury by 2016, Horwath was able only to imitate lamely the Liberals by promising to finish the project by 2015, hardly a significant improvement over what the Liberals have committed to do. If, by taking ads in the Toronto Sun, a right-wing populist newspaper, Horwath is attempting to woo blue-collar workers away from the Conservatives, her thinking is also off the mark, given that their ideological commitment to the 'right' outweighs their interest in and commitment to 'social justice' and even a neophyte NDP campaign worker would know that.
Here is how CTV news reports on the polite and public insurrection from within the NDP, in a public letter to Horwath:
 In the strongest signal yet that Horwath is losing the support of some of the party faithful, she received an open letter Friday from 34 current and former New Democrats -- some well-known within the party -- who said they were "angry" that she did not support the Liberal budget on May 1, triggering an election.
Calling it "the most progressive budget in recent Ontario history," they wrote: "From what we can see you are running to the right of the Liberals in an attempt to win Conservative votes. It is not clear whether you have given up on progressive voters or you are taking them for granted."
The group went on to say that they were "seriously considering not voting NDP" this time.
(By Keith Leslie, The Canadian Press, on CTVnews.com May 24, 2014)
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/ontario-election-2014/andrea-horwath-s-campaign-sees-pushback-from-some-ndp-members-1.1836355#ixzz32eA4Q9os
While this may seem like a small skirmish inside the NDP, it has serious implications for the upcoming federal election in 2015, in which, if Tom Mulcair is to have any hope of dethroning Steven Harper's conservatives, he will have to rely on NDP support in significant numbers from Ontario. And, if the party, as is predicted by many pundits, falls below its current 21 members on June 12, and Horwath takes a political and embarrassing "bath" (pardon the corny rhyme!) in the voting booth, and has to resign, there will be very little time for the party to recover and dedicate needed and substantial resources to the federal cause. While there is currently no evidence that Trudeau Liberals will present anything as strong as the Wynne Liberal budget to Canadians, as an alternative to Harper in 2015, the NDP "brand" has to be even stronger in Ontario for Mulcair to win 24 Sussex and prospects for that "brand" enhancement seem incredibly low at this point in the provincial campaign.

Firing squads in an "enlightened" society....really?

Bombs almost daily killing dozens in Iraq; explosives hitting election rallies for Assad in Syria; the largest killing spree in eastern Ukraine by Russian "separatists" and more killings in Nigeria from Boko Haram, while the world searches for some 250 young women still hidden in the custody of that radical Islamist terrorist 'gang'.....and then there is this...
In the United States, following a botched "drug" injection to kill an inmate, several states are looking at restoring the "firing squad" as the state method of capital punishment, a method that many thought had been removed from the arsenal of the government decades ago.*
Of course, the initiative for these new 'firing squad' bills comes from both the 'wild west' and the south east, where justice and vengeance are so enmeshed that even a "Philadelphia lawyer" would have trouble separating them. Also on the agenda of some states is  a return to the electric chair and the gas chamber. So anyone who thinks the people of the United States are engaged in an enlightened triumph of humanitarianism had better take a second look at the evidence and reconsider.
The evidence that the civil society is suffering erosion from the pressure of a culture of violence, win-at-all-costs, "get the other guy before he gets you" mentality is like a neck collar that continues to tighten with both anonymity and impunity for those who are leading the attack.
I first heard the notion of "do it to the other guy before he does it to you" from a child who was raised in extreme poverty as one of thirteen children. There were no floors in the house and the children had no winter shoes to fend off the below zero temperatures on their way to school, nearly a mile from their home. I can almost recall the moment when those words pierced my ears; my head literally bolted in shock; and my memory inscribed the words in indelible ink for future reference. For one of the very few times in my life, I was lost for words.
Since that statement crossed my threshold, I have reflected on the meaning and the depth of all aspects of poverty, not only the lack of dollars of income on which to raise a family, but also the poverty that infects the way one sees the world. Poverty of what is considered fairness; poverty of what we might call legitimacy and value as a human being; poverty of, yes, those things that everyone else has and shows off in social settings, but also the poverty that makes one stay away from those venues, in order not to have to demonstrate one's inadequacy by comparison; poverty of experience in travel, reading, concerts and even in choices of nourishment. And, mixed into those galling and impoverishing aspects of scarcity, one has to factor in some kind of awareness of a Supreme Being, perhaps as antidote for the pain, or as a power that leaves those 'without' pining in the corners of our store doorways, under the bridges of our freeways, and in the back allies of our towns and cities, in too many cases attempting to medicate their impoverishment with various legal and illicit pain-killers. And then there is the poverty of expectation, in which one believes that the chances of moving out of desperate situations falls each day one survives. Of course, there are the exceptional and occasional stories of Horatio Alger 'victories' that through chance of a casual meeting, or a lottery ticket's numbers coming up, or a mentorship program that reaches out, or an inspirational story that actually infects one with hope, determination and the courage to climb out of the 'manhole' of hopelessness.
Interesting word, 'manhole' given that it is used to describe a path to our sewers, both storm and effluent, in which those whose lives were on the edge sought refuge from the 'upper' world. A lower world, in which those whose lives have been distorted by their circumstances, imperiled by their surroundings and left to wander through the darkest places of our collective and civic blindness, ignorance and apathy always beckons an 'upper world' to consider whether and how to reconcile their lives with those below. Of course, those below, for the most part, are those who fall victim to the state, through its punishments, sanctions and its vision of justice and vengeance. To the degree that a culture considers rehabilitation an integral component of its responsibility, not only for the specific crime that has been committed, but also for the conditions that made that crime even conceivable, to that degree one could consider the culture to be enlightened.
We do associate enlightenment with some kind of recognition of barbarity that has filled our history books with gallons of ink, while we considered our "progress" to be a more humane way to confront both the incidents that we consider criminal and punishable, but also the conditions in which those events were conceived, planned and executed. And enlightenment does not start or end with the prison system. It starts with the moment of conception of a child, and even before that with the conception of the child's parents and grandparents, in and through the notion of parenting that comprises language, body gestures and physical acts when encountering behaviour considered unacceptable from the child. And, as we have come to realize, both from common sense and from research, enlightened parents do not tend to raise children who become criminal, (again allowing for exceptions). And enlightened teachers and administrators who spend considerable time with the children of a neighbourhood, are especially aware of the degree of enlightenment that is being practiced by the parents and guardians of the children in their classrooms. Even the measure of enlightenment of the educators themselves, including their capacity for empathy, compassion and fairness in their pursuit of assisting the development of those children will significantly impact the trajectories of the lives of those children.
And, it must not escape notice that if the public leaders are engaged in language and actions that demonstrate a brutality, a kind of insouciance, a high level of narcissistic pursuit of personal  goals at the expense of the "public good", then the children watching will inevitably be infused with a spirit of disappointment and discouragement and perceived unfairness, and whether or not they even know the word 'enlightenment' they will know intuitively that it is absent from the public consciousness.
No matter how cynical and arrogant our political leaders are or become after they assume office, our children, like our pets, know intimately and indelibly how "fair" and how "just" and how "decent" and how "enlightened" is the world in which they are growing up. And in every town and city and hamlet and village, there are stories about a poverty of spirit that embody and demonstrate the pain of self-loathing which cannot be reduced to a personality problem disconnected from the surrounding culture. And the stories of self-loathing, while considered by many to be also of self-pity without considering the many incidents and encounters that generated that contempt, merge into the gangs of defiance and revenge, especially in children who have been given or have rejected options of 'enlightenment' that include negotiation, and meditation and a third party intervention, all of them based on the notion that together we can and will find a reasonable, fair and just solution to our problem, without inflicting all culpability and responsibility on one or two persons.
When the society becomes deaf to the calls for a renewed and critical examination of the level of enlightenment it supports and practices, and replaces those calls with virulent calls for enhanced killing and punishing measures of its most deprived and most desperate individuals, especially at a time when the numbers of those dispossessed is growing exponentially, it is time for those of us who have and who have been exposed to the better angels of our humanity, through literature, art, music, dance and all forms of creativity and the creative expression of enlightened ideas and visions to call out the artists and the creative voices among us to bring the ship of state back to a harbour of civility, one that we can and need to create, or to re-create if we have lost sight of its importance, far from the cruelty of the hurricanes and the cyclones and the tornadoes and the sharks and the impalas that would have us return to the most base savagery that nature has within its bounds.
And a return to the firing squads and the gas chambers is and will only embolden those whose hearts have been frozen and whose eyes have been shut to the pain and the agony and the poverty of all aspects of the lives of millions, even among the "developed" world, of which the United States would consider itself a leader.
And if leadership no longer insists on envisioning and enacting enlightenment, then where are we headed?

*The botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate last month using a previously untried drug cocktail has prompted intense debate about how states carry out the death penalty.

Now state representatives in Wyoming have directed officials to draft a firing-squad bill to be brought before the next legislative session.
And in neighbouring Utah, a Republican senator said that he will introduce firing-squad legislation at the next session too. The state outlawed execution by firing squad for inmates condemned to death in 2004, although kept it as an option for convicts sentenced before that year.

The firing squad was once a common method of execution in the US. But just three prisoners have been executed by that manner in America since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 and the firing squad is only on the statute books as a back-up option in two states.
Several states are now taking a fresh look at firing squads as lethal injection has become increasingly difficult after European pharmaceutical companies stopped exporting drug compounds used for the death penalty.
Tennessee has already passed a measure to reintroduce the electric chair and Missouri is considering a proposal that would allow the use of both gas chambers and firing squads.

The impact of the drugs' shortage was horrifically illustrated last month in Oklahoma when Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer, finally died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after officials started to administer an untried drug cocktail.
Death penalty opponents have argued that the restoration of the firing squad would breach the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment.
 (By Philip Sherwell, From Irish Independent and Daily Telegraph, May 23, 2014)