To counter balance your viewing of the cartoon from the University of Saskatchewan student paper (HT: ABF, cf. SDA), the virtual exhibit, “Anno Domini: Jesus Through the Centuries” aims to show the impact that the tomb-breaking Galilean rabbi has had on Western Civilization.

By the way, slanderous cartoons against Jesus are nothing new. The “Alexamenos Graffito” (1st century AD) depicts Jesus on the cross with the head of an ass. The cartoon had a distinct agenda intent on mocking a certain follower of Jesus. Translated, the inscription reads:

ALEXAMENOS WORSHIPS GOD

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The Canadian media is playing up the idea that our troops should not be involved in a war, but merely peace-keeping.

Who is making war? It appears to be the Taliban.  When Canadian troops come in peace to have a sit-down dialogue, the Taliban and their sympathizers are reaching for something handy and medieval.

Into the mix, Mr. Layton said that Canadians should be involved in peace-keeping, not a more ‘war-like’ position. But if Canadian troops are building the network of relationships that will be necessary for establishing consensual government in that country, and yet they still come under brutal attack, does not their ‘peace-keeping’ involve the use of force?

We can be thankful that Canada now has a people like Gordon O’Connor advancing a well-reasoned and responsible approach to re-building the once-proud Canadian military. But we must be wary of the Afghanistan mission becoming a pragmatic political tool for the NDP and Liberals to score points by their opposition.

The terrorists will be more than happy to see some Opposition opportunism on the issue. As the Afghanistan ambassador to Canada, Omar Samad said:

Their goal is to use time and a battle of nerves to tire us, to intimidate us, to make us doubt our objectives, to sow dissension and make it turn it into a contentious political debate.

Let us hope that the present government does not lose its resolve, and that Canadians start realizing that the Afghanistan mission is a part of protecting lives at home.

With the broadcast of the Oscars Sunday evening, the swirl of publicity for Brokeback Mountain is churning once again. Brokeback Mountain is known popularly as “the gay cowboy movie”, and though the press would like to portray it as a ‘love story’, it is little more than a propaganda piece.

If the film was truly about love, then marriages that the cowboys were in would not be thrown aside, but worked at and cherished. Instead, marriage was jettisioned in favor of adultery (not a new Hollywood theme, but neither is it a happy situation for the person left behind). Just as in all adultery, the issue isn’t love, but lust. Of course our pop culture has equated the two, but they are not equivalent. Love is self-sacrificing and dependable. Lust is self-satisfying and libertine.

Even if the movie didn’t have a gay agenda to it, the nihilism of lust it promotes only leaves a trail of pained broken lives. Ask any child of divorce. Ask any spouse left for another. Ask any person sexually exploited.

Many commentators have noted the use of the cowboy as a striking icon to be placed in such a ‘cutting edge’ position. But a nihilistic homosexual advocacy film about cowboys betrays its very propagandist agenda. The reason is that, as the saying goes, “Cowboys don’t cry.” It is not that cowboys never shed a tear, but that the cowboy is epitomized by self-sacrifice and dependability. They seek to be strong for the sake of others. They don’t wallow in self-pity or whine about not getting their way. The cowboy, out of love and duty, does the right thing, even if it kills him.

That Larry McMurtry is involved in the screenplay adds to the cowboy element of the film since he is viewed as the premier Western author of our time, and has real credibility with actual cowboys. But even McMurtry’s constructions in this film would be at best fantasy. Does he know of many cowboys who engaged in ongoing, ‘consensual’ adult gay sex, yet stayed working on a ranch? It just doesn’t fit reality at all. If the Brokeback scenario was real, the two guys would have jumped in the pickup truck and left for the San Francisco.
In reality, if there is any near construct that could be plausible, it would be of a pedophile living alone on a ranch. But pedophilia doesn’t win Oscars (yet). And pedophilia still has difficulties being spun onto suburban screens in wide-release. But if McMurtry wanted to depict the nihilism realistically, he would have made Brokeback a study in sexual exploitation of a child.

So the plausibility of the film as it stands shows the marks of special pleading and spin-doctoring of the first order. I’m sure the cinematography is outstanding, with Alberta’s landscape shown prominently. But all of the beauty of the Rockies and the moral capital of the cowboy icon, do not mask the gaping emptiness of a story about self-satisfaction, self-interest, and self-centredness. It couldn’t be more un-cowboy.

Keeping the status quo in Canadian Health Care is about to be painted as the only morally good option available.  Alternatives will not be permitted.  The only course of action that will be approved will be the addition of more money into the vast communal bowl called ‘equal access’ which mysteriously drains dry before anyone can get their bit of ‘equality’.

And so the culture of entitlement continues to permeate Canadian culture in ironic, though subversive ways.  it is evident in the blind denunciations of shorter wait times and quicker healing.  Yet it prefers  the entitlement of  “equal futility” and “equal pain”.  Of course, the entitlement of incompetent health care workers to their secure jobs sits at the heart of this culture.

Since the ensuing debate will be marked by such morally charged rhetoric, it will not be able to dig deeper into the questions which many people want answered about the steps forward in the Third Way.

There are some legitimate problems with health care in the United States, but can such problems be looked at objectively even as Klein’s Third Way is implemented?  For instance, is a comparison with the US system of health care legitimate in any respect?

Maybe someday we will be able to undertake the hard work of real discourse, rather than relying on the convenience of easy impotencies.

Increasingly our society is foolish.  We are foolish with our votes, our time, and our money.  Schools, governments, and media outlets that are supposed to be bastions of wisdom and rationality are ripe with foolishness.  Why?

An answer in cultural terms comes from the book, Between War and Peace by Victor Davis Hanson (I’m becoming quite a fan) in an essay titled, “Postmodern Palestine: The New Amorality in the Middle East”.  Hanson writes:

I do not think there is some grand postmodern scheme afloat to undermine the legacy of empiricism, history and logic.  Rather, the spread of such amorality is simply a result of our own sloth and timidity—and perhaps ultimately the dangerous dividend of an increasingly affluent and cynical society.  Teachers, professors, and reporters embrace such dubious notions because they bring either rewards or at least the satisfaction of being liked and in the majority. (p.26)

Hanson offered an example earlier in the essay which describes the epitome of so-called ‘Canadian values’:

[W]e live in a society in which playground fights in our schools are now often adjudicated by concepts such as “zero tolerance” and “equal culpability”.  Rather than exercising moral judgment–and investing time and energy in such investigation–our school principals simply expel any student caught fighting, as if the bully and his victimn occupy the same moral ground. (p.25)

Let us hope that leaders in Alberta and the rest of Canada can ‘exercise moral judgment’ rather than resorting to the laziness of convenient postmodern platitudes.

Alberta ought to reflect on the upcoming changes to its culture that will result from increased migration to fill its labor needs. When new people come there are two options:

1. They can preserve their traditions and identity from wherever they came from, and seek to establish this identity as the hallmark of their societal role. In other words they can fit into a cultural mosaic. This is the approach of multi-culturalism and the Canadian government.
2. They can choose to assimilate into the new culture, while maintaining a celebration of their old culture as important, but secondary. This is the melting pot approach which has been the emphasis of the USA up until recent decades

Alberta has a keen identity that needs to be marked out and shared with those who come to the province. It is not to say that Alberta should try to be a cultural misfit in a globalized world. Alberta should be who it claims to be, and work to make those who arrive in Alberta buy into that vision and foundational worldview.

If Alberta choses to ignore these potential changes it may be alarmed one day to see its dominant ethos of personal responsibility, industry, and service evaporating under the pressure of personal unaccountability, entitlement, and self-absorbtion.

The Dominion of Canada has succumbed to the culture of fear to a large extent. Alberta resists this culture. Let us plan for the future so that those who migrate to Alberta come to enhance a culture of prosperity, rather than colonize on behalf of a culture of entitlement and fear.

Our culture is plagued with worry-warts. We are worried about our health and safety, living in fear of transfats, sugar, non-hybrid Chevy’s, bike-riding without a helmet, tap water, and (fill in blank here_____).

RODEO AS REVOLUTION
That’s why I love rodeo. It is an entirely counter-cultural event. Fear is acknowledged, recognized and overcome—every time a ranch-hand nods for the gate before entering a maelstrom of bovine or equine fury.

But most people aren’t into rodeo. They are in pursuit of escape from danger at any and all levels. They are averse to risk. They want the safety that can only be described by the salvific images of the RRSP commercial.

CULTURE OF FEAR
In his article, Culture of Fear: Dealing with cultural panic attacks, Donald Bailey notes, “how many Western countries are losing their cultural nerve, as evidenced by the increasing cultural acceptance of the so-called precautionary principle.” Essentially, the precautionary principle is the avoidance of any proposed action that involves risk. As Bailey observes, this would essentially snuff out any technological advancement or development since all such endeavors entail risk.

The culture of fear treats individuals as those who must be protected—from each other and from themselves. As a result, there is a greater willingness to relinquish personal freedom in order to have this security. The government must hyper-regulate our lives in a culture of fear, lest we get hurt, or even …die.

DEATH STALKS THE LAND
This final fear—death—is the what our culture is truly afraid of. It thinks that with all of the toxin-free food and filtered water it will be able to live longer. Long life is such a nebulous concept. We all know that we will die, and sooner rather than later. But our culture of fear tries to hide its fear of death by being enamored with youth. So the old gal is sipping her nutri-shake on the way to get some Botox maintenance. Yet the fear remains, hidden but ever growing.

Just wait until we see streams of Botox stuffed people begging for euthanasia because of their fears—-fear of shame and pain.

A FEARLESS GENERATION

Contrast the North American pioneers who came from distant lands and toiled steadfastly in overcoming fears at every moment. Many of them had strong beliefs in a sovereign God who desired their ultimate good, even if He allowed temporal hardship. This faith enabled them to press on. They built this land. They knew they would die. But they toiled on, and took a risk for a better tomorrow.

When I think of our culture of fear, I am ashamed to be a part of it. However, I must also not give in to this same fear, but plough my furrow in hope of tomorrow, trusting in a sovereign God who enables us to change toward the good. I also need to go to more rodeos.

Victor Davis Hanson once again reminds us of the lopsided coverage of the war in Iraq by the global media:

It is an odd war, because the side that I think is losing garners all the press, whether by blowing up the great golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, or by blowing up an American each day. Yet we hear nothing of the other side that is ever so slowly, shrewdly undermining the enemy.

Hanson shows that Iraq is predominantly stable in the urban centres and it is only a matter of time before the insurgent terrorists are repelled by newly trained Iraqi security forces. These developments hardly believable based on the quantity of media coverage devoted to every sign of failure by the American-led forces or the Iraq government. Hanson also wonders why none of the media have investigated the whereabouts of the 100,000 criminals that Saddam Hussein released from prison, prior to his removal from power.

One searches in vain for the nobility of journalism anymore.

I am toying with a WORDPRESS.com host for Albertanicus. If you wish to see my musings there go to:
http://albertanicus.wordpress.com

I find that the WordPress template is more difficult to gimmick code in, but offers better concrete features like categories a better text editor for writing paragraphs, among other things.

There are some drawbacks, and I’m still figuring it out, so don’t worry if I haven’t linked to you on the new blog…it is not permanent yet.

I am a bit of a weird hybrid. I teach the grammar and syntax of Ancient Greek, and specifically the ‘common’ dialect by which the New Testament was written—that marvel of literary and spiritual significance. But the teaching part is only my winter gig.

In the summertime I work chasing cattle and driving tractors on my family’s 4th generation homeplace. It is a great life, although living in two worlds can be challenging. For one, there never seems to be any vacation time. I simply have to see it as ‘change is as good as a rest’. In the wintertime my brain aches from wrestling with subjective genitives, while my back aches in the summertime from flanking frisky calves.

I’m planning to be in Alberta year-round starting this summer. It is a welcome return home–to the mountains, to the people, and to worldview that prevails in one of the few bastions of Western Civilization left.

When I get my horse to the summer pasture, one of the first things I plan to do is read the Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, by campfire light. It might seem sappy, but there is nothing like enjoying the beauties of the Creation in Alberta while reading a classic of the West.