Post 182--Irresponsible Boaters Saddle Me with E.coli and Taxes

A Wimpy City Council Enables Irresponsible Boaters

I live in one of the most desirable places in one of the most livable places in the world, as world polsters insist. In fact, my city is often cited as the most livable of all cities.  I suspect that’s an exaggeration, gross even.  Perhaps it’s most desirable for the rich cats, like corporate CEO’s who are parachuted into the city along with their absurd salaries and perks.  It hardly can be the most desirable for the residents of Canada’s poorest postal code, the East Side of the city, popularly referred to as DTES or Down Town East Side. Neither can it be the most desirable for the mostly young people who cannot afford to get into the housing market because it has spiraled out of control and is way beyond them.  But for me and Fran, my wife, it is definitely the best of all cities in the world for a whole bunch of reasons I will not bore you with. 

The city?  If you’ve been reading my blogs, you will know it is none other than Vancouver, British Columbia, on Canada’s Pacific West Coast. We’ve lived on three continents and four countries; we’ve traveled to over 40 countries, but we for ourselves prefer Vancouver as a place to live above every other place, even those we have not visited. 

Our city location?  The West End (WE).  Where within WE?  Davie Village, the very centre of the street at Davie and Bute. The new plaza recently built amounts to our front yard and that has made it twice as pleasant as it already was, what with all the places we need to go within a few minutes walking—groceries, restaurants, dollar store, doctor, dentist, sea wall, Stanley and other nearby parks and swimming place, both in and outdoor--you name it and it’s there all within a few minutes.  Don’t even need a car to get around.  Legs and transit are all you need, thank you. If you have legs stronger than our senior ones, bikes are helpful as well.

But the place is not a paradise; it has its very serious problems and inconveniences—and some yucky places that just plain make you mad. Just four blocks down the steep hill from our rental unit there’s the Sea Wall alongside False Creek, a beautiful place to walk, saunter, sit, relax and enjoy. If you need proof of that, come and check out the crowds making use of the place on any sunny and even not-so-sunny days. 

So what’s the problem?  Crap, that’s what it is. Sorry for the coarse word, but what it describes cannot be put in polite Christian language.  You need a more acceptable word? Well, the article from I am drawing uses the term “waste.”  For me, that doesn’t do it; it’s much worse. It’s the crap that boaters dump into the waters of False Creek and has so contaminated the place that its level of E.coli is too high for safe swimming.  Fran and I cannot swim in that most beautiful and natural swimming place just down the street from us.

And that only because of egoistic and irresponsible boaters who can’t be bothered using the facilities that are in place to dump their crap.  The city has been offering two free sewage pump-out stations for people to use, but you think they care enough to take the trouble?  No, too much trouble.  Jonathan Paetkau, a company that is now providing the new additional  free pump-out service, suggests that “one of the main reasons people are not using the city pump-outs is it takes a lot of time to move your boat off the dock, take it to a pump-out , pump it out and take it back to the dock.”  However, “if there’s a way they can pump out their boats without that stress, they are happy about that.”  Another boater said, “The whole pump-out situation was too messy, too stinky and really haphazard.” So, just dump it into these pristine waters in the middle of a great city and let the community suffer from it. Who cares?

The new facility referred to consists of two pump-out boats that visit the boats and relieve them—again free of charge,  at least, to them, but I pay for it via taxes.  So, here we have another case so typical of this city. Instead of forcing responsibility on people, they find a tax-supported way of evading responsibility for eliminating the problem without forcing a change in behaviour.  Not even when His Handsomeness, the Mayor, admits publicly that these boaters “have no business pumping any of their sewage into False Creek.”  Indeed, but does the Mayor have any business charging me for the privilege of boat life that these people apparently love?  I think not.

I believe I have a better suggestion.  At the beginning of the city’s tax year, charge an annual fee to each boater, enough to cover the average annual cost of dumping and some extra to pay for this programme. When at the end of the year a boater can show receipts for having been a responsible dumper, he gets a rebate or it gets applied to the next year. No receipts, no rebate, and that annual fee will apply each time. If the fee is not paid in time, the boat gets hauled away at owner’s expense.

There may be some problems with this approach, especially legal, lawyers will see to that, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. And that’s the problem with the fathers of this most beautiful or livable of most cities: they have no will. They prefer to crawl around a problem to facing it head-on. A city run by lack of resolve. It’s costing me and in the meantime, I have to go elsewhere to swim.

The main source for this post is Wanyee Li, “Mobile pump-out service launches in False Creek.”  MetroNews, August 16, 2017, p. 4. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/08/15/vancouver-launches-free-mobile-pump-out-services-for-false-creek-boaters.html.  Thank you, Li.

      

Post 181--Getting Rid of Ants

A couple of months ago I was visiting a relative family in their home in Atlanta GA.  They have a nice brick townhouse that in terms of strength looked like it had it all. No weaknesses, no faults. Good for a hundred years. 

One beautiful morning, I was relaxing in the early sun on the front stoop along a very quiet street. No better way to start your day, provided God and  prayer are included.  Then I saw a couple of tiny ants on the front steps. I took a better look and there they were in the hundreds, marching fearlessly in line towards their goal. Ants may not be noisy, but my quietness was broken. I began to walk around and looked carefully to come to the awareness that this beautiful strong invulnerable brick house was under attack by these tiny beasties.

I called my hostess to show her what was going on. Yes, she and her husband were aware that there were some ants, but had been too busy to take them seriously enough to do something about them. I warned her of the real dangers of these little critters and that they should be serious about curbing the situation.  She agreed and said they would. 

Soon afterwards, I returned home in Vancouver and you know what? Only a few days later the Vancouver Sun featured an article by Scott Brown, who had consulted Mike Londry of Westside Pest Control for advice on the very matter!  I felt this was more than a mere coincidence, something I don’t really believe in anyhow, except in ordinary conversation.  Being a blog writer, I took this as a message, no, more than a message: an assignment to remind you, my readers, about this important subject that can be so easily overlooked or simply ignored and end up with sure regret over time. 

Londry’s advice is very interesting indeed and, hopefully, helpful.  He first of all put Brown at ease, saying ants are not the greatest problem in our lives.  Then he suggested a simple mixture of soap and water—yes, you read that correctly—and spray the area where they enter your house and follow their trail beyond that. It will confuse them and throw them off.  However, do not step on them and kill them, for the survivors will simply regard these “corpses” as fodder. You’ve just provided them with the wherewithal for a great picnic. They will drag them back into their colony to share. 

Another advice is to spread cinnamon liberally around the entrances to your house.

Well, you can read as well as I can write—and probably better. I don’t want to run into copyright issues. So, I leave you with the URL of the article and hope you will open it up and follow the rest of the suggestions. You will end up happy you’re one of my so-called followers. I prefer the term “reader,” but that’s beside the point. So, here’s the URL.

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/youve-got-ants-in-your-house-here-is-how-you-get-rid-of-them .

Blog 180--What of Solar Eclipse?

The other day, on my way back from my weekly visit to the chiropractor in downtown Vancouver, BC, every sunny intersection had crowds of people on the sidewalks, all excitedly peering at the sun’s eclipse. Robson Square in downtown was host to hundreds of people, all equally peering—which is, as you probably realize, is not the same as “equal peers!” Now, in Vancouver we only saw it partly, but more than enough to get a good look at this interesting phenomenon. I had not prepared for it and so found myself without the required glasses. One little kid, perhaps eight or so, saw me standing there empty handed and generously offered me the use of his glasses. How generous and thoughtful—without even being asked!—and how mature.

Of course, a lot of people went to a lot of trouble to see it at its very centre. They didn’t just walk down the block to the nearest intersection; they traveled from afar to the very centre where the sun could be seen totally covered by the moon, somewhere in rural Oregon. Friends of ours from Seattle drove four hours to that epicenter to see it. They found themselves in the midst of such a large crowd camping on some farm way out in the country that the four-hour journey home stretched out to ten hours!  But they had seen it and gladly suffered the inconvenience of a ten-hour traffic jam. Well, each to his own.

But leave it to the enterprising Americans. The owners of that farm charged $170 for a camping spot of which there were 5000! If my math has not totally gone rusty, that amounts to $750,000!  Not a bad intake for a no-effort project that took only a couple of minutes.  Whether that money went to an individual owner or to the local community or some other cause, I have no idea, but enterprising it was for sure! Much more than mere curiosity. 

For still others, an eclipse can be much more than either curiosity or money: it can and has caused wide-spread social panic. Astronomer Derek Kief of the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre here in Vancouver, tells of the first recorded eclipse in China some 4,000 years ago.  “They actually thought it was a dragon eating the sun. It was a terrifying moment—apocalyptic.”  He continued, “Five minutes later the sun came back and everything was OK.”

There is this ancient Chinese story of an emperor who consulted his astrologists, but when they proved helpless, he had them all executed.

The above story was published in the Vancouver Courier of August 17, 2017.  Its rival, Metro, even has its own astrologer, Kelly Benson, She warns in her article “Electrifying time of change,” that the “eclipse may affect the course of our own lives.”  “Astrologically, the sun symbolizes conscious action while the moon reflects our moods and our emotional outlook.” The event “marks an electrifying time of change in leadership, power and influence.” “It invites us to review the ways in which we govern ourselves and communicate.” You are urged “to regain your personal strength and realign your purpose.”  Of all the world’s leaders, President Trump, Benson predicts, is the one who will feel the strength of this eclipse more than any other. Unfortunately, she leaves us in the dark as to how this will affect him in practice. “How it manifests is anyone’s guess.”

Benson is an astrologist and an astrologist practices the “art” of astrology, which comes from two Greek words that indicate “star” and “meaning.” One definition is “the study of the professed effect of heavenly bodies on human personalities and affairs.” Notice the doubt in this definition: “professed.”  In both the Bible and in Christian tradition astrology is basically seen as negative. In the book of Daniel, Daniel is able to make predictions at the request of the king, but he emphasizes very strongly that God alone is the source of the revelation and interpretation. This is in sharp contrast to the wisemen, probably astrologists, who could not make heads or tails of the king’s dreams. When Pharaoh asked Joseph for an interpretation of his dream, Joseph specifically insists that the answer will come from God alone.

The creation story in Genesis 1, specifically assigns the functions of the heavenly bodies to be that of giving light, nothing else. That, too, was in sharp contrast to the pagan nations around Israel who tended to attribute divine power and influence to the sun and stars.  Whether the stars and other heavenly bodies have any influence on our lives, I dare not answer, but the Bible expects us to put our trust in God, not in princes or kings, let alone stars.  We pray only to Him.

So, watching an eclipse just out of curiosity or for interest sake, no problem. Enjoy and perhaps learn some astronomy.  But astrology? That’s a different kettle of fish we should have no truck with.  

Post 179--Faith vs Reason?

Trying to catch up a bit after the long absence. So, another gem for you to ponder today, this time mostly my own.

Today’s subject is hardly new for me or, for that matter, for you. You’ve read similar stuff in earlier posts on this blog, but I return to the subject for two related reasons. One is that secular folks seem never to understand the point I am making today. Even secular friends with whom I’ve had long and deep discussions on this particular issue never seem to comprehend. I’ve been wondering whether this is simply because they cannot or because simply refuse to admit. The second and related reason for returning to the subject is that, because of what seems intransigence on the part of seculars, it has become one of my favourite subjects. I love to challenge seculars on this score, because their view on the subject is the dominant one in our secular society. Our whole society is run on basis of it. That is to say, our whole society is run on basis of a myth!

The subject?  The old saw of REASON VS RELIGION.  Now, you may not be philosophically inclined and kind of crinch at the sound of this topic. But, you know, whether you’re philosophical or not, your life is lived according to the stand you take on this subject. Your stand may be held subconsciously; you may not be aware of it, but it shapes your life.  And the fact that it most likely is subconscious, that makes it worse. In fact, it means you don’t know what you’re doing or why.

John Krakauer published a book back in 2004 by the title of Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. It’s a book about violence within the Mormon community.  He used this story as a demonstration of his conviction about reason vs religion. In his Prologue he wrote:

Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those include by temperament or upbringing towards religious pursuits.  Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion.  And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the peace of God—as the actions of Dan Lafferty vividly attest.

There you have it: “Faith is the very antithesis of reason,” while “injudiciousness” is “a crucial component of spiritual devotion.” Well, I am a man of faith and of spiritual devotion, but none the people here in Vancouver’s West End who know me and have observed me have ever accused me of injudiciousness or of being unreasonable—except two.  And this West End, in case you don’t know area, is thoroughly secular in its culture and mentality. Secularism is the very air we breathe here.

Now I don’t know anything about Krakauer’s life, but I suspect he is pretty ignorant about the role of religion, that he has never spent much time with religious people or in religious institutions. He has never read serious religious books or listened to lectures, including dialogical ones.  If he has religious neighbours or colleagues, he avoids talking about it and, perhaps, avoids them altogether.

But, you know what the real and even more tragic problem is? It is that Krakauer does not even know himself!  He, like seculars in general, thinks that he is a person of reason and not of faith—but that is the grand myth of secularism. Who has ever proven that the philosophy that puts reason at the top is true?  Has been proven?  No one. That itself is a matter of pure faith.  A person living by reason is one living by faith in reason, believes as much and as fervently as the overtly religious person.  And indeed, with the fanaticism of secular believers in reason, all bets can indeed be off, such as the killing of the most vulnerable of all humans, namely babies. That’s the ultimate of extremes and of cruelty. Society’s having become accustomed to it does not make it less extreme or cruel.  And if extreme behavior is the product of religion, well Krakauer has just condemned his own faith in reason.

 I’ll try to get back to Krakauer and similar people over the next few days. In the meantime, ponder where you fit in this faith vs reason thing.

Well, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.   

Post 178--Five Facts About Alt-Right

Hello, I'm back from visiting kids and grand kids. The last visit was in Silicon Valley, where our oldest son and family live.  We were there for a good three weeks, sort of taking over the house, kitchen and all, at their request. Fun but busy, oh so busy, what with shopping, cooking and re-organizing their kitchen and warehouse.  I'll try my best to be more regular again, but when travel comes up, well, not much choice!

I pick up the  pieces with a blatantly American essay about the Alt-right. I do so, simply because Canadian media insist on its parallel(s) in Canada. In fact, tomorrow there will be some sort of demonstration or rally around Vancouver City Hall involving both them and their opponents. So, you're better off to understand the movement.  

This piece is written by Joe Carter of the conservative Acton Institute of Grand Rapids MI, a Catholic think tank with strong cooperative ties with Reformed groups in that city. Here goes Carter:

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A rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend ended in violence and domestic terrorism, as white nationalist groups clashed with counter-protestors. The Unite the Right rally was intended, as co-promoter Matthew Heimbach explains, to unite the alt-right around the “14 words”: “We must secure the existence of our people and the future for white children’—as our primary motivating factor.”

The objectives of the alt-right movement are antithetical to the mission, values, and principles of the Acton Institute and other like-minded groups. Yet the movement is often associated with traditional forms of conservatism and libertarianism even though its supporters frequently rejects issues such as economic freedom and the dignity of all people that we consider foundational.* For this reason, you should know what the alt-right believes and the agenda they work to promote.

Here are five facts you should know about the alt-right:

1. The alt-right—short for “alternative right”—is an umbrella term for a host of disparate nationalist and populist groups associated with the white identity cause/movement. The term brings together white supremacists (e.g., neo-Nazis), religious racialists (e.g., Kinists), neo-pagans (e.g., Heathenry), internet trolls (e.g., 4chan’s /pol/), and others enamored with white identity and racialism. These groups seek to provide an “alternative” to mainstream American conservatism, which they believe is insufficiently concerned about the objectives of white identity, the defining concept that unites the alt-right. “Racial Identity,” said Arthur Kemp in March of the Titans: A History of the White Race, “can be defined as the conscious recognition that one belongs to a specific race, ethnicity, and culture and with that comes certain obligations toward their own welfare.” And the alt-right leader Jared Taylor of American Renaissance defines “white identity” as “a recognition by whites that they have interests in common that must be defended. All other racial groups take this for granted, that it’s necessary to band together along racial lines to work together for common interests.” In this video, Taylor answers the question, “What Is the Alt-Right?”

2. This association of the term alt-right with white identity politics first appeared in December 2008 when Paul Gottfried wrote an article for Taki’s Magazine titled, “The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right.” (The article itself does not use the phrase “alternative right,” and the editor of the magazine at that time, Richard Spencer—the current leading figure in the alt-right—claims to have added the title.) At the time, the “alternative right” was loosely associated with “paleoconservatives” (another term created by Gottfried). Paleocons were self-identified conservatives who rejected the neo-conservatism of the George W. Bush-era. While the group tended to be anti-globalist and anti-war (especially opposed to the Iraq War) it was not necessarily associated with white identity politics. But in his article Gottfried identified “postpaleos” as a “growing communion “that now includes Takimag, VDARE.com, and other websites that are willing to engage sensitive, timely subjects.” The “sensitive, timely subjects” Gottfried refers to are topics that had previously been the main concern of white identity groups, issues such as non-white immigration (“being physically displaced by the entire Third World”) and “human cognitive capacities” (i.e., the belief that certain racial groups are, in general, intellectually inferior to others). In 2010, Richard Spencer launched a website, AlternativeRight.com, to promote these views. Since then, the term has been associated with the white identity movement.

3. The alt-right is a mostly secular movement that frequently embraces leftist political views (especially on economics) and rejects traditional conservatism. As George Hawley, a University of Alabama professor who has studied the movement, toldThe Washington Post, “the modal alt-right person is a male, white millennial; probably has a college degree or is in college; is secular and perhaps atheist and [is] not interested in the conservative movement at all.” What puts the movement on the “right” is that it shares, along with conservatism, skepticism of forced egalitarianism. But that’s generally all it shares with mainstream conservatism. In fact, many on the alt-right (such as Spencer) hold views associated with progressivism (e.g., support for abortion and opposition to free-market economics). The confusion about the movement’s politics lies in thinking that extremist groups are on each “end” of the left-right political spectrum. It is more accurate to consider them through the lens of the horseshoe theory, a concept in political science that claims the far left and the far right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe.

4. While generally secular, the alt-right sometimes embraces “Christendom” (their version of a white European cultural Christianity) and some (such as Vox Day) claim that Christianity is a “foundational pillar” of the movement. But what they mean by Christianity is often a heretical form (Day rejects the Trinity and doesn’t believe the races are “spiritually” equal) a racialized version of the faith (e.g., the Kinist movement), or “religion as culture” (Spencer says he is both an atheist and a “culture Christian”). The movement is also frequently embraced by neo-pagans. As alt-right leader Stephen McNallen has said, “I am a pagan because it is the only way I can be true to who, and what, I am. I am a pagan because the best things in our civilization come from pre-Christian Europe.” McNallen says he opposes Christianity because it “lacks any roots in blood or soil” and consequently can “claim the allegiance of all the human race.” The true religion of the alt-right is white identitarianism.

5. The alt-right embraces white identity politics and almost all of them embrace white nationalism. But not everyone on the alt-right embraces white supremacy. White supremacy is the belief that lighter-skinned or “white” racial groups are superior to all other racial groups. Modern advocates of white supremacy (such as the KKK) almost always advocate for white identity, though the reverse is not always true. As alt right leader Vox Day says, “The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people, or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native culture it prefers.” White supremacy is also often conflated with white nationalism, the political view that merges nationalism with white identity. White nationalists are racial separatists who believe that to preserve the white race, other racial groups must be excluded or marginalized in “white states” (i.e., countries or regions that have historically had majority-white populations). White nationalists are frequently concerned about miscegenation and non-white immigration because it contributes to what they consider to be “white genocide,” i.e., the replacement of the “white race” by other racial groups.

*Many Christian conservatives and libertarians who do not agree with white identity politics have recently begun to refer to themselves as the “alt-right.” This is a disconcerting trend.

Some who do so simply do not understand the history of the term. They assume it means something akin to “paleoconservative” or is a synonym for “Trump supporter.” They aren’t aware it was chosen several years ago specifically to provide diverse groups who embrace the “14 Words” with a label to rally around. Others have adopted “alt-right” because the media has begun to use the term as a critique of all people on the political right, and so claim it as an act of defiance to the media. A smaller number of people understand what the term means but want to reclaim it for other uses.

But no one who is not a white nationalist, white supremacist, or white identitarian should ever use the label to describe their own views. Here are three reasons why.

First, it delegitimizes conservatives who do not embrace racialism. When decent people align themselves with a label like alt-right it gives the impression such views are considered acceptable within mainstream conservatism.

Second, it legitimizes racist elements within society. If you would not associate yourself with the KKK or neo-Nazis, you should not associate with the alt-right simply because they do not all wear hoods and chant “sieg heil.” (Though they sometimes do.) Conservatives and libertarians should be distancing themselves from fascist movements, not embracing them out of solidarity against the mainstream media.

Third, we can’t take back the term. Whatever legitimate uses the term “alternative right” may have had were destroyed long ago. Eight years ago Richard Spencer—the man who coined the term alt-right—started the website “Alternative Right.” Spencer used the site to flirt with Holocaust denial, promote racist and anti-Semitic views, and to champion the cause of white nationalism. He’s owned the term longer than anyone who now wants to adopt it. Attempting to reclaim the term is about as futile and unnecessary as attempting to reclaim the swastika.

Fourth, at the core of the alt-right movement is idolatry—the idol of “whiteness.” In building their identity on shared genetic traits the alt-right divides humanity and leads people away from the only source of true identity: Jesus Christ. The alt-right is anti-gospel because to embrace white identity requires rejecting the Christian identity. No Christian who loves Jesus should associate themselves with a label that is intended to promote racial separation and hate.