Jeffrey Aho

I completed my third trip up to Waterloo this term. This time was for Council, the main highlight dealing with the Service Review. These trips have really been draining me and I can’t wait until the fall when I don’t have to travel up every month.

I’ve been taking the train lately because I find it is the best choice for me. When trying to decide how to travel you really have only two land based choices, VIA Rail and Greyhound. Regardless of my passive agressive undertones in the last sentence, I’ve taken both services and have to say that VIA is much more comfortable and has more convenient times for my needs. So each month I pack my stuff, hitch a ride to the train station and travel to Waterloo to endure the thrills of council. At least I have leg space and can actually open my laptop fully on the train.

So…where this is leading is that I’ve noticed something on the train. People like to show off (this includes myself now in response to them). It’s very subtle though, and may only be within a certain demographic. My main observation stems from the people who sat near me on both my ride up to Waterloo and my ride back to Windsor. Most people either sleep, listen to music/watch a movie, or read a book/magazine. The latter seemed to be the most common and the range of material was quite interesting. Personally, I was just listening to my iPod but it seemed to me that people were flashing their book covers (even holding it in clearly visible sight line) towards others on the train.

Everyone has a little bit of curiosity and is quite aware of the curiosity of individuals around them. On my way up I saw people flashing a Cosmo, a Bible and book called “The Fear of God”, and for those who didn’t have something, they quickly turned to VIA’s on train magazine (which I might add wasn’t that bad). I had brought a few titles with me but wasn’t in a particularly fond mood of reading at the time. On the way back I had used my ticket stub as a bookmark (I had been using my new passport at home as one…I really need to get a proper bookmark), and when I went to get it to give to the attendant I caught the person next to me trying to peak at what it was.

Of course I, always willing to entertain some curiosity, proceeded to lay my book in just the right position as to make it clear for my neighbour to view. I expect it probably would have caused a little bit of discussion if I wasn’t purposely wearing my headphones to avoid conversations. I haven’t had the most intellectually stimulating and rewarding conversations with strangers on group transit before, and I don’t feel the need to test my luck again. I had peaked around my general area and all I saw was a book on Cognitive Science and a copy of the Da Vinci Code (which to me indicated the person was a little behind in the times…by a few years).

So…my book. It was The Rights Revolution by Michael Ignatieff. This “book” is really a collection of his 2000 Massey Lectures and is on a very contentious topic. Rights debate is frequent in all parts of the world, from dinner table chatter to international court rulings. I haven’t completed the book (probably will on my flight on Friday to Thunder Bay), but I am getting a general idea of where Mr. Ignatieff stands on rights. He seems to favour individual rights over group rights and he also supports interventionalist policies when needed (as reflected in his decision to support the extention of the Afghanistan mission with Mr. Brison and a majority of MPs). The lectures focus on Canadian history and often (maybe too often) reference Aboriginal Rights and Quebecois rights.

My impression from all this is that Mr. Ignatieff (if I were to label him) is a neo-libertarian. He’s pragmatic but focused. This is in slight contrast to me (I guess I self-identify as a progressive libertarian). I have a strong advertion to interventionalist policies. Mr. Ignatieff came close in one chapter when he mentioned that human rights are only being infringed on if the person says so (that is we shouldn’t force our views on others) but he still has that clause for action. Maybe I’ll change my mind by the end of the book.

Currently Listening to: Inside Out – Eve 6

Random Wikipedia Article – Sokal Affair

Now..it’s been a plain week with nothing really standing out. In my attempt to make it pass faster, I came across a forum that was having a discussion about gravity. The initial post drew me in on it’s grand ignorance and following discussion. Generally I found that many of the rebutters themselves really had no idea about gravity and just tossed the formula for Universal Gravity around. I did post two posts, one addressing the theory of gravity and another addessing the shape of orbits. And yes…I did register at a forum for the goal of adding my comment…usually I don’t, but the question “how do you evolutionsts explain gravity???” sealed the deal…heh.

The forum in question is called “Christian Forums” and has a wide range of topics being discussed. My first impression and from quick reading of a few posts is that it had several intellectual people who actually enjoyed discussing religion and were from a wide range of denominations. It seemed that several prominant posters were familiar enough with scripture to quote passages of the Bible as proof and I felt it was a breath of fresh air in the constant debate I usually witness of “Christians” who don’t truly know the doctrine that they are professing, but just spewing opinions that they’ve been conditioned to have.

This opinion changed when I began to search a little more. My initial goal was to post 5 posts so that I might be able to send a IM message to one of the members (due to a forum administration rule). I just wanted to have a discussion about one of the comments I saw on the Gravity thread, and set off in my goal to find 5 places to post something interesting to me. Two of them landed in the Gravity forum, two in threads that amounted to nothing in the end, but one landed in a thread about Nontrinitarianism. Nontrinitarianism is a non-belief in the Holy Trinity. I posted a comment about how there are Christian groups who are nontrinitarian, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormans). Immediately it was commented that it is heretical and that “the LDS church is not Christian – contrary to their assertions.” They went further to distance themselves and affirm that Christians are only Christians if they believe in the Trinity.

Despite a rule about specific types of flaming, specifically “Stating or implying that another member or group of members who have identified themselves as Christian are not Christian”, the thread members immediately dismissed the beliefs of large groups of self professing Christians. I found it very appauling their comments. There posters are so close minded that only their own denominations can gain any acceptance. I can only see this as driving people away from the Church. They went as far as saying it’s a cult and they would go to Hell…how accepting of different beliefs (from fellow Christians!). They can’t even accept their own, how are they going to accept others.

This is exactly the reason I left the Church. I can not put up with the bigotry and close mindedness. The ignorance and foolishness. From bickering over theological differences to “defending” the “morals” of the general population, it’s unbearable. I gave the Church a chance, but it is impossible to defend something you don’t believe in anymore. Faith got me nowhere except the depths of dissapointment. Fundementalists have little respect because they don’t respect others. It’s such a pretentious name they give themselves, implying that they hold the key to the fundementals of life. It’s just as bad as Neoconservatives masquarading as Libertarians. They use the true nature of something and warp it into whatever they want it to say. Christianity was not founded on the principles of bigotry and hatred fundementalists propagate.

I do wonder what exactly is different about “Christian Safe Search” on their homepage is…I hope it doesn’t so any other filtering other than regular Google filtering…

Currently Listening to: Roxanne – Sting and the Police

Random Wikipedia Article:Triumph of the Will

It’s been a fairly interesting week. Lots of international buzz due to terrorist topics. Besides the death of a key terrorist in the middle-east, there was an event that hit a little closer to home. A group of 17 Canadians planned an attack on several Canadian monuments, including the CN tower and Peace tower, and allegedly planned to storm parliament and behead Stephen Harper. You really don’t hear that too often; the call to behead our Prime Minister. Makes you wonder what Stephen Harper has done to invite a beheading…he’s only been in power a few months. Could it be his increase in military spending? Extension of the Afghan mission? Closer relations with the US?

Harper has been inviting groups to speak out against him since he stepped into office. From cutting funding to aboriginal initiatives, daycare, repealing income tax cuts, and backing off the Kyoto accord, it’s not surprising that people are standing up against him. Now, despite a clear and decisive majority in last year’s vote, as well as several of his own caucus telling him it will never pass, he’s going to waste time again and have a vote on Same-sex marriage. And why not? Everyone knows that same-sex marriage treatens the traditional family…even though it has nothing to do with religion and has provisions to protect the churches. Wait….I can’t even be sarcastic about it. I am disgusted with Harper for bringing this up again. Actions like this are why I will never support the Conservative Party. It is not acceptable to use parliament’s time to shore up social conservative’s support.

I’ve talked about this topic before and I’ll touch once again on it. Marriage traditionally was not religious. It was a contract between families and joined communities. It was several hundred years after Christ before it became part of the Church. It’s not even a sacrament and is a human institution (unless you are a christian denomination that makes up doctrine like papal infalibility and assumption of Mary). Same-sex marriage does not erode families, it just creates families. I can’t wait to see some stats in a few years comparing percentage of same-sex marriages that end in divorce compared to opposite-sex marriages. I will bet that same-sex marriages will survive more often.

When people talk about the “slippery-slope” and the “activist judges” I want to puke. The most common saying same-sex marriage is a gateway to polygamy. They are two completely different topics. It’s analogeous to if we were back in the 1800’s and giving visible minorities the right to vote and arguing that it will be the gateway to women having the right to vote. If our laws are bound to legalize polygamy, it will happen either way, NOT as a result of same-sex marriage. They are independant of one another. I have extreme faith in our Judicial system (which had a majority of conservative appointed judges throughout the 90’s when many landmark rights cases were made) to be non-partisan. We aren’t the US and our judges are picked for their qualifications, not their political affiliation. (Look at M. v. H., Vriend v. Alberta, and Egan v. Canada for decisions during a majority conservative appointed supreme court)

You get the point…so no need to continue more. In other news, the Leadership Campaign is heating up. There will be debates in Winnipeg this weekend which will be interesting. Also a satrical site about Volpe has appeared. He had it shut down, but it was moved to a different server (which apparently is out of their reach now). With this whole campaign funding fiasco it makes it even more clear it was the right decision when I rejected him for Comuzzi supporting him. Seriously…accepting thousands of dollars from kids? You are just asking for bad press. I’m surprised that election law doesn’t close that gap. It’s clearly a loop hole. How many of those kids truely made the decision themselves to support Volpe? It’s just exploiting them by their parents as a way to funnel more money for lobbying. Shame on them and shame on Volpe.

Ending on a high note, all of Canada should be pleased with the performance of Finola Hackett, who placed 2nd in the National (American, but open to international people) Spelling Bee. It’s amazing how far she went (improving from the year before) and is a wonderful example of youth education in Canada. It’s nice news to hear in between the beheadings and the religious nuts.

***EDIT*** News today, Canada’s Unemployment Rate drops to 6.1% (32 year low).

Currently Listening to: Office Chatter

Random Wikipedia Article: Warchalking