Post 114—Announcing a Break

The purpose of this post is to inform you readers that I will be away till the end of June. I’m going to visit relatives and friends in my native country, The Netherlands. Though I would like to share my road experiences with you during this time, I doubt I will have much computer time.  If I see a chance, even if a short one, I may try to tell you a bit of our adventures there.

I was born there in 1938 and immigrated with my parents in 1951 at age 13 to Canada.  I went back for graduate studies from 1972-1974. Since then I have visited there every few years, usually on my way to or from Africa. This time  NL is the actual destination. We won’t go beyond its borders.  It’s a very small country but more than enough to see for a month, especially since the “things” we want to see include relatives and friends. 

So, enjoy your June and I hope to meet you again early July.  

Post 113--Celebrating Chickpeas

Celebratin’ what?  Chickpeas?  I love celebrations, but celebrate chickpeas?  The topic came to me when reading an article in my favourite Christian Canadian magazine, Christian Courier (CC), that was entitled “Celebrate chickpeas, beans and lentils.” Unless you’re an Asian, that probably is not the first food to turn you on. To be honest, apart from hummus, I knew nothing about these peas until just four years ago or so.  Even then, I liked hummus, but had no idea its main ingredient is chickpeas or garbanzo beans, another name for it.  I’d heard of them but had no interest whatsoever in trying them, something like the author of that article.

Establishment Treatment of Diabetes

But then things changed drastically for me. I was and still am a diabetic. I saw my blood sugar count slowly inch its way up. What had started with one pill had climbed up to three and my doctor said we should start thinking about a daily fourth. It was his idea together with the diabetic organizations that once you have contracted the disease, it will slowly get worse and worse. You periodically add another pill until you reach around seven and then you turn to insulin injections—slow if you’re lucky, but sure. It will never get better. You don’t heal it; you just manage it by slowing down its progress.

The Turn-Around Diet

Then I saw an ad in the paper about a seminar that would show that diabetes can be restrained and, in some cases, healed altogether.  I attended the event and came out of it with the decision to buy into this company’s programme, enroll into their initial regime of special pills and cleansing and from there pledge to go on their prescribed diet. I was promised I would lose weight, my blood sugar count would go down and I would in general feel a lot better. I paid some big bucks for it, but till today I am very happy I did. Everything went as they promised. However, the strict diet eventually got to me so that I started compromising. I am still on that diet, but hardly a day goes by when I don’t compromise once. The result is that my medicines are down to a minimum, I have lost some weight and I do feel better, but I have not managed to free myself totally. That is my own fault for not sticking to it more legalistically, but with that daily compromise and the diabetes reduced to a minimum, I can live with it and am happy, happier than if I would continue to adhere to that strictest of diets. That struggle was just too much in the long run for one who loves to both cook and eat.

Enter the Chickpea

And that’s where the chickpea comes in. The diet excludes wheat and all other western grains and their derivative products. So what can you do without any flour? It is so pervasive in our western cuisine. Two major substitutes are buckwheat and chickpeas. Buckwheat, by the way, is not a wheat at all; it is related to rhubarb, if you can believe that!  I use it a lot. But my attention in this post goes to chickpea.  There are many websites devoted to that lowly pea, including many great and healthy recipes. You can search them out yourself.

Random Chickpea Uses

I use chickpeas all the time.  I use it for a thickener and for making pancakes. Last night, my wife and I experimented with a recipe we cooked up ourselves (pun intended).  We sliced eggplant and covered it with a paste of an Indian mix of chickpea flour called “pakora” and water. The pakora adds a delightful Indian taste to it. Then we deep fried it.  It tastes really great, especially if you use a little salt on it. We made more than we could eat. So we put the leftovers in the fridge. This morning I fried those leftovers hard and, believe me or not, they tasted even better than last night.  I am planning to serve them for breakfast next time I have guests. Just this evening I found a very simple and easy recipe for making crispy roasted chickpeas in the oven as a snack. Just google “crispy roasted chickpeas in the oven” and it should surface. I’m probably going to try it before this week is over. 

Ethnic Resistance                                                  

The writer of that CC article, a farmer and fellow Dutch Canadian I have never met, called Meindert Vander Galen, said he is not keen on eating chickpeas and does not intend to eat them. “Maybe they’re healthy but they’re not my kind of food,” he writes. He prefers that wintry comfort soup for the Dutch, namely pea soup. Sounds a little bit like an ethnic limitation he has not yet broken through.

A UN Declaration and Business

But why should Meindert then promote celebrating chickpeas?  Purely business! The UN has declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses.” I’m not going to define or explain pulses; you can do your own research. But it includes chickpeas. This declaration is expected to create a global agricultural concentration on chickpeas so that it will become more popular in places where now it is relatively unknown. Meindert the farmer sees an opportunity. He’s “going to look at maybe growing chickpeas… as a cash-crop in the future now that the UN has given it a big boost.”  So, of course he promotes chickpeas even to the point of celebrating them. And the more you celebrate them by eating, the more he will celebrate increased sales.

Bob's Red Mill

Bob’s Red Mill is one major source for garbanzo bean flour. On the package right here next to my keyboard I read that they

are one of the creamiest and tastiest of beans. Flour made from this delicious bean lends a sweet, rich flavour to baked goods. Garbanzo flour is a good source of fibre and is especially good for gluten-free baking. It can also be used to thicken soups, sauces or gravies.

Now that’s advertising, of course, and thus we tend to take it with a grain of salt—another intended pun. However, I have tasted it and used it now for around four years and testify that this is an ad you can and should believe for your own sake. Even if you’re not a diabetic, it will add a very healthy and great-tasting component to your cuisine.

I am proud to have the opportunity to introduce you to it and thus enrich your life.  After all, you’re in the world, which, according to Christ, makes you my neighbor.  

Post 112—Have It Your Own Way!

The Graham "Machine"

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina).  I don’t know the date of this document nor just what happened with Katrina, but I think her perspective is worth some serious consideration.  I appreciate the evangelistic outreach of the Graham “machine,” for I believe God has used especially Graham Senior in a remarkable way. On the whole, I am not very impressed with the rather narrow Christian perspective that seems to fuel the “machine.” But, then, most evangelists are fueled more by godly passion than deep intellectual thought. All of us have our roles to play and the statement below does indeed contain some grist for your mill. 

That said, I share Anne Graham’s statement below with you. It wasn’t what I had in mind for this post, but events of the past few days prevented me from doing an original of my own. So, rather than leave you in the lurch, here’s something to occupy yourself with. It’s not just a biscuit; there’s some well-cooked meat here—with apologies to the vegetarians among us. Just consume it intellectually and spiritually! 

Anne's Statement

      God, Get out of our Way!

Anne Graham gave an... insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.

And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school . the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. 

      Spock's Magic

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. 

      Sowing and Reaping
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. 

      Forwarding the Message
Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

                               

Post 111—Liberal FG and Transparency

Canada underwent an election in the 2015 fall. That first sentence contains a pun, something I, along with newspaper editors, always enjoy. It was fall, that is, autumn time, but it was also the fall of the Harper Conservative government, a double fall situation. The victorious Liberals promised this was going to be a change from dark opaque government to transparency and disclosure.

The Harper Record

First of all, was the Harper government all that disastrous?  Den Tandt, whose writings I increasingly appreciate along with those of Andrew Coyne as I proceed with this blog, acknowledges that it is fashionable “to belittle and insult the outgoing PM. What good he did is forgotten amid the rush to assign blame for the loss.”  At the same time, he strongly argues that Harper’s was a government marked by “responsible fiscal management” that handed over balanced books and a growing economy.  Harper may have had his nasty dictatorial and centralizing side—and I fully agree with that—but Den Tandt’s list of five positive points for the defeated Conservative government was not balanced by a charge of lack of fiscal transparency, something he would surely have included in his article of November 2, 2015. Nasty personality? Yes, that was Harper’s downfall. But fiscal opaqueness? Lack of fiscal transparency? None of that surfaced—except of course from the victorious Liberal side. But that’s to be expected in the Canadian political culture of nastiness, blackball and blame; it has nothing to do with truth or fact.

The Transparency Tumble

      Den Tandt

Half a year after the above Den Tandt article, he wrote a column with the title “Liberals hiding budget plans.” Now that does not sound like transparency to me. So, let’s see how he unpacks this charge. There is this institution called Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) that apparently keeps an eye on the Federal budget. According to Den Tandt, this office had been given data by the Finance Department “that would have allowed for a five-year breakdown of the government’s taxing and spending plans.” However, Finance prevented PBO from releasing this data because it allegedly is “confidential.”  The problem here is that it was not deemed confidential under the Harper or even the Liberal Paul Martin regime. Den Tandt lashes out:

The fair questions, then, which only a cretin (Boer: from a Webster-- stupid, vulgar, mentally retarded) would not think to ask: Why is this information confidential now, when it was not before?  And how can this Liberal party, whose leader lashed himself to the mast of transparency long before he became PM, justify a move that appears to limit the PBO’s power to publicly dissect government projections, and thus, this independent office of parliament’s freedom of action?

The article contains more of the same. There is the talk of openness, but not the walk. There is the claim of transparency, but it is not an honest claim. Den Tandt did not expect a reasonable answer from the PM himself, for, he charges, “The PM himself responds to fair questions with the most outrageous nonsense” (VS, April 8, 2016).

      Coyne

Coyne chimed in on a similar strong, not so pleasant, note.  “The face on TV may bespeak a commitment to idealism and honesty, transparency and fairness, but the government behind it has already amassed a record od cynicism, deception, secrecy and cronyism that for most governments would take years.”  He hands us a long list of things promised on which they have reneged. I won’t go into the gory details, but, as I noted above, nothing pretty about it. Words and phrases used in his article include “political chicanery,” “carelessness,” “recklessness.” “the scent of money and expediency” that surround this government. He concludes his piece with this statement, “The Liberals are building up a deficit of trust and ethics to match the fiscal deficit. It has been just six months since they were elected” (VS, April 21, 2016).

Den Tandt and Coyne are two writers for whom I have the highest regard. They don’t play politics; they are straight shooters, the kind I go for.  All I can say is,  “Phew! Wow! Was there something substantial after all about the Conservative election claim that Trudeau was “not ready” for the PM office?” 

Aboriginal Transparency  

But to take it one step further, there’s the case with Canada’s Aboriginals. Everything one reads about them leaves the impression they wallow in poverty. That is a terrible shame, especially since the Feds pump so much money into them year after year without any apparent success in raising them up out of the poverty level. I have written earlier posts to which I refer you in which I discuss how the Harper government began insisting on disclosure on the part of the chiefs who were/are the beneficiaries of that government largess.  The reports I have read indicate that this was a good move supported by most Aboriginals, especially the commoners among them. During an RV trip to Canada’s far north some years ago, we stopped in various Aboriginal communities and spoke with some of their inhabitants. We were surprised how open they were with respect to the corruption, especially amongst their own chiefs. I could not believe how they freely volunteered such info to an unknown white couple. Things were obviously bad.

But now comes the clincher: The Trudeau government is intending to unwind that disclosure standard! Now that leaves me totally floored. Disclosure is part of the gold standard of modern progressive nations. Joe Oliver, the former Conservative Minister of Finance, writes, "The Transparency Act was designed to protect Aboriginal people" (VS, May 3, 2016). On what basis would one lower a demand for disclosure when, as has been revealed abundantly, that many Aboriginal chiefs receive millions while their people live in absolute misery. The documentation is there all over the place for people to see.

I am simply dumbfounded! 

I need to change to another subject, for I don’t want to be seen as a negative politician who loves to berate the current government.  I surely don’t. I am basically a positive citizen who appreciates good government, but what we’re facing now seems to be something else!

Post 110—May 5: A Tale of Four Celebrations

As so frequently happens, I am unexpectedly again interrupting the flow of thought from Post 109—unexpectedly for me, at least. I’ll try to continue that train of thought in the next entry.  Do I need to apologize? Well, at least, this way you can never quite tell what the next post will bring you. It’s called keeping you in suspense!                                                  

Mexican's Cinco de Mayo

I have occasionally reproduced in this blog some items from the Denison Forum. Today, I will not reproduce much from them, but I will summarize a bit of their entry for today, May 5, 2016. They encourage us today to celebrate two important events, the first of which is called Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday that commemorates the Mexican army's 1862 defeat of France at the Battle of Puebla. This victory, where a rag-tag force of 2,000 overcame 6,000 well-trained French troops, bolstered the Mexican people in their resistance against the French. Six years later, French forces withdrew. Cinco de Mayo remains a symbol of the Mexican people's struggle against imperialistic forces. Since we have many Mexicans in Canada and in view of our important trade agreement NAFTA with them, I considered it a neighbourly thing to draw your attention to this worthwhile celebration of independence.  We can be doubly grateful in view of the fact that Canada did not have to fight its way to independence from Mother UK. Our transfer of power came amicably, though I am not sure our Quebecois compatriots would interpret that transfer in quite the same way.

Jewish Holocaust Memorial 

And then there is the Holocaust Memorial Day known as Yuom HaShoah. In Jerusalem, all places of entertainment, bars, restaurants, cinema, and theater must be closed by law. At 10:00 A.M. a siren will be heard for one minute." When that siren sounds today, traffic on the roads will stop. The entire nation will cease all activities as its people remember what happened and pledge that it must never happen again. I refer you to the Denison Forum itself to follow up on their suggestions for our proper response. It is well worth reading.

Dutch Liberation Day

But then there is a third celebration: the liberation of my home country, The Netherlands, from Nazi occupation in 1945 that we began celebrating on May 5.This event involved Canadians more than Americans and so it is more of a Canadian celebration than American, though they too were involved. The Dutch in Canada, among whom I am one, always organize events to mark this Vrijheids Dag—Freedom Day. We all continue to be exceedingly grateful to the role of Canada in that liberation. As a seven-year old at the time, I well remember the Canadian tanks rumbling through our village, throwing chocolate bars and other goodies to the public lined up along the road. As well I remember the 2-week celebration of evening dancing in the village. Two weeks is a long time in the life of a seven-year old. I had come to the conclusion that all of life is one grand party!  You will find that story in our memoirs, Every Square Inch, vol. 1, chapter 2 (www.SocialTheology.com/boeriana.htm).

Ascension Day

But the most important celebration is a universal one in contrast to the previous three. Christians especially should recognize this day as Ascension Day! See in the Bible—Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9-11.  Ascension refers to the ascension of the risen Christ to heaven in the presence of and, yes, in the very eyes of His disciples, soon to become apostles. I realize I’m always referring you to the books I have published, most of them both hard copy and online. This celebration is also captured by a book written by my main role model, Abraham Kuyper, that I translated under the title The Ascent of the Son—The Descent of the Spirit, the latter section referring to Pentecost. It is found on the Kuyperiana page of the above website SocialTheology.com.  

Let me treat you to my translation of Kuyper’s Introduction and then leave the rest for you to read on the website:

On Pentecost, the Church of God steps onto the world stage as the Catholic World Church. Originally, the Church was universal or catholic—the meaning is the same. It was so during early days of life in Eden and in the days of Noah , even during the time that Terah, the father of Father Abraham, wandered in the area Ur of the Chaldeans and Haran, that is the modern land of Iraq.

However, since the call of Abraham, the universal Church was narrowed down to one people and nation and, eventually, enclosed within the national borders of Israel. From this point on, the church was no longer universal or catholic but became a volkskerk, a national church in the strictest sense of the word. She retained that status until the day of Pentecost, when she laid down the trappings of a national church and once again morphed back into the original universal Church, catholic in its higher Scriptural import.

This development flowed out of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven. From the Ascension on, the Head of the Church no longer has His seat in the earthly Jerusalem on Mount Zion, but in the Jerusalem that is above, from where He rules His Church for all peoples and nations alike. The Apostle Paul especially has abundant praise over this mystery in his touching epistles to the Churches of Ephesus and Rome. Thus the Ascension and Pentecost belong together in one single unity. He ascended into Heaven in order to pour out the Holy Spirit. It is because of that unity that this bundle offers you meditations on both of these aspects of salvation history together. These meditations first take you into the heavenly Jerusalem, into the Tabernacle made by God without human participation. From that point, they descend with you back to the Church on earth, but now together with the Comforter, that is the Holy Spirit.

Abraham Kuyper May 1, 1888

Post 109—Transparency Revisited

Happy and Unhappy

Transparency is once again an “in” topic.  On the one hand that makes me happy, for it seems governments and their agencies at all levels constantly need to be pushed towards transparency.  So I’m happy that people keep pushing it. On the other hand, it makes me unhappy, for why should governments and their agencies need constant pushing?  Why don’t they just be up front with how they spend the people’s money without being pushed, without needing laws to force them—and then still try to squeak by with all kinds of tricks, legal or otherwise? This makes me not only unhappy, but actually raving mad, angry, and every synonym along this line you can think of. Any official elected or appointed who resists transparency in my book does not deserve to continue in his/her post, let alone be re-elected or re-appointed. It should be the natural thing to do and done automatically without discussion. 

The Vancouver Situation

The latest local development took place in Vancouver’s City Hall last week. Opposition Councilor George Affleck put a motion to the Council asking that the Mayor disclose all of his expenses, including so-called discretionary funds, on a quarterly basis.  He wants the same for the councilors.

It’s a simple matter of yes or no, Affleck argues. Are you going to disclose or not? Why not? he asks. “Be transparent about it. If you think it’s what you need to operate your office, then what’s there to hide? Just let us know and justify it to us.”  Indeed, seems simple doesn’t it?  It should be, of course. On what basis can anyone refuse and still be trusted?  It should not take a motion  or a freedom of information request. It should be out there for anyone to access without any hindrances put in the way.  Alas.

It’s not that the Vancouver City Council does not practice any disclosure.  Most expenses by the councillors are disclosed quarterly, but not those of the Mayor’s office. Nevertheless, however the information was gained, the article discloses some of the Mayor’s spending. Mike Magee, the Mayor’s outgoing chief of staff, indicated that he had approved some of these expenditures and that “they all meet auditing scrutiny.”  I am more than happy to recognize that things are on the up and up. But still, why this hesitancy concerning full, regular and automatic disclosure?  It only arouses suspicion on the part of the tax payer—and the electorate is sure to remember at the crucial time.  (See Matt Robinson, “Councillor pushing mayor to disclose all office expenses,” Vancouver Sun [VS] of April 29, 2016.) 

Fortunately, it turns out that the Mayor is backing Affleck’s motion. He claims pretty well every expenditure is already reported and publicly available. Affleck’s motion will bring “an added layer of transparency to City Hall,” he said.  In spite of this mayoral explanation, “It took a protracted effort by a local journalist to obtain those records under Freedom of Information rules.”  (Anonymous Brief in VS, April 30, 2016, p. A10). I would expect that with this kind of mayoral support, such information will from now on be readily available to anyone. That would be an unusual situation. Maybe the Vancouver City Council will one of these days be featured in Guinness’ Book of World Records? In view of the Mayor’s almost childish eagerness to have Vancouver recognized as a “world-class” city and his strenuous efforts in that direction, one could argue he deserves it.

Now the above issue is mostly, it seems, one of principle. Disclosure is just the right thing to do. There is no indication of massive corruption in Vancouver. I for one, deeply appreciate that. Although I do wonder sometimes about corruption in the relationship between the City Council and Councilors on the one hand and developers on the other hand, but that's another, though related, issue.

The Quebec Situation

But there are other and larger issues of disclosure in other structures in the country where it is more serious, where it is not merely a matter of principle but of resistance to disclosure because of massive fraud. Of course, this has long been a serious problem in the province of Quebec, but I have not followed that very closely. It’s so far removed geographically from where I live here on the West Coast, even though I know that indirectly that affects me also by way of Federal transfers to the provinces of huge sums of money. But in spite of Quebec’s massive fraud, the average citizen there still lives a fairly comfortable life. Brian Lee Crowley, author of the Canadian game changing book Fearful Symmetry, asserts that “If Canada were removed from the equation, in 1953 Quebec’s income per person would have made it the second-richest society in the world after the United States” (p. 69)!  Now who would have ever thought that of our poor abused and mistreated Quebec. 

I suggested above that people will remember such issues at election time. But now I ask, “Will they really?  Michael Den Tandt is much more on top of these things than I am. Speaking of federal budgets, he writes bluntly, “Nobody cares.” He writes that “the most notable about…critical post-mortems of the Trudeau…first budget” is precisely that: “No one cares” (“Liberals hiding budget plans,” VS, April 8, 2016). 

Let’s sleep on that one and take it up from here in Post 110.