Stephen Roney's Blog, page 275

Guilty of Hate Speech?

This is interesting.

I posted my poem "An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home" here recently, and also on my book's Facebook feed.

The Facebook post has now been removed by Zuckerberg and Company, and my account has been flagged for "hate speech."

I repost it below--see what you think.

I guess it could be declared "hate speech" against non-aboriginals. If there really is such a thing as "hate speech." But the same poem won an award as one of the best Canadian poems of 1991.

Times have changed. And not for the better.

Anyone can now be guilty of a thought crime at any time.


An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home

The white man is lazy,
He dreams with his head
Except when he's asleep.
He lives all his life
In one place
And watches his penis make love. 

He looks with his eyes, he cannot hear;
He only listens with his ears, he cannot see. With his nose, he cannot remember.
His hands only touch solid things,
And he holds them in his grasp, not his palms.
Instead of making children
He makes stones move
Then rules them with fingers Instead of song. 

He does no more than he wants,
And what he wants, he does.
He dances only when drugged,
And only says things once.
He does not talk to the birds or lizards
 And he eats them without their permission.  

To understand, he cuts things apart;
Yet never opens the skin.
He finds death simpler than life,
And separation easier than choirsong.
When he dies, he goes straight to heaven,
Forgetting his children's campfires.
Dead, he leaves his body
Faster than he clung to it alive.

It would be good
To be white and do nothing but work all day long;
I grow young, and I weary of play.
It would be good to wake up one morning,
And not be surprised.
It would be good no more to hear this constant din
Of angels in my ears

We report. You decide.
'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Narcissism: Its Cause and Its Cure

Narcissism: Its Cause and Its Cure  -- the podcast.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Narcissism: Its Cause and Its Cure

More at the web page.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Happy News

I hear that, in its second week of existence, Don Cherry's Grapevine is already the number 1 podcast on Apple iTunes.

It's soothing to think of all the revenue his ex-employers are losing.

I spend last weekend with a clan of suburbanites. These were not right-wingers. They were unanimous, for example, in despising Trump. Yet they were also unanimous in saying Cherry was unjustly fired.




'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home

The white man is lazy,
He dreams with his head
Except when he's asleep.
He lives all his life
In one place
And watches his penis make love.

He looks with his eyes, he cannot hear;
He only listens with his ears, he cannot see.
With his nose, he cannot remember.
His hands only touch solid things,
And he holds them in his grasp, not his palms.
Instead of making children
He makes stones move
Then rules them with fingers
Instead of song.

He does no more than he wants,
And what he wants, he does.
He dances only when drugged,
And only says things once.
He does not talk to the birds or lizards
And he eats them without their permission. 

To understand, he cuts things apart;
Yet never opens the skin.
He finds death simpler than life,
And separation easier than choirsong.
When he dies, he goes straight to heaven,
Forgetting his children's campfires.
Dead, he leaves his body
Faster than he clung to it alive.

It would be good
To be white and do nothing but work all day long;
I grow young, and I weary of play.
It would be good no longer to sleep
No longer to dream.
It would be good to wake up one morning,
And not be surprised.
It would be good no more to hear this constant din
Of angels in my ears.

-- Stephen K. Roney

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Mrs. Warren's Impression

Elizabeth Warren’s support down in the Estados Unidos is visibly collapsing, and it seems to be because she rolled out the details of her health plan.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders’s support is steady and now stronger, with a more radical and expensive plan.

The problem seems to be that Warren’s plan now looks like a fudge. She’s delaying the costly part of it three years to mask the real expense. And, of course, she has resisted even saying that taxes would have to go up to pay for it.

This illustrates Andrew Scheer’s problem here in Canada. It is not that his rather mainstream views are too radical. It is that he seems to be fudging. He looks dishonest. Not a good look.

I’m tempted to say the electorate has become too smart for that. But really, they are not that smart. Elizabeth Warren’s dishonesty has been obvious to all at least since her DNA test results. Biden’s has been obvious since the 1980s. It usually takes a while.

This is a big reason for the Tories not to turn now to Peter MacKay. No politician has shown more blatant dishonesty than he, in his pact with David Orchard long ago to take the PC leadership. Electing him would be like grabbing at a grenade with the pin missing.'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

The Kinsella Tapes

CBC has apparently gotten hold of tapes of Warren Kinsella discussing his work on a backdoor social media campaign to smear Maxime Bernier,

Aside from any moral issues, this strikes me as evidence of gross political malpractice by Scheer's team.

First question: where do you suppose the CBC got the tapes?

Almost necessarily, from someone at Kinsella's firm, hoping to discredit the Conservatives.

It is as though the Scheer team handed a loaded revolver to a known enemy, and painted a target on their t-shirt. What did they expect?

Even apart from this, it makes dubious political sense to try to character assassinate the smaller party over to their right. Granted, the PPC might cause some vote splitting. At the same time, their presence forces the debate rightward, presenting the argument for policies near Scheer's on the spectrum, and making his own look more moderate. Slandering their views as "racist" risks tarring the Conservatives as well, by association. Just in case the adversary missed with that loaded pistol, Scheer's men had a loaded shotgun ready, pointed at their foot.

After all, Bernier a couple of years ago came within a few votes of becoming the Tory leader.

It's all so dumb it almost seems easier to believe Scheer is secretly a Liberal himself.





'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

All Fears of the Forest Are Gone

Favourite song of the CeeGees, my brother's musical duet in the last few years before he died.

It suddenly seems so appropriate.

By the composer, Phil Ochs.



\

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

True Christianity

RIP
At my brother’s recent funeral (and PBOH, as the Muslims say), somebody spoke with a bit of a sneer of his “spirituality” --said as if in scare quotes -- presumably because he was not a Christian, and might have described himself as an atheist.

Here’s how that rolls out.

First Premise: the job of being human is the job of wholeheartedly seeking the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

This is necessarily so because these three qualities are of intrinsic value. Their value does not derive from elsewhere.

This is also necessarily so because a good and honourable God would ensure that the proper purpose of life would be apparent to all mankind, at all times. It cannot be concealed only in this or that book or community.

The value of truth, moral good, and beauty is, moreover, as a visible fact, recognized worldwide regardless of religions. All of mankind indeed understands these value as self-evident. We may disagree about what is true, or good, but not about the desirability of the truth, or good.

Perhaps, it is true, this is less clear for beauty than for the other two. Just as lower animals cannot appreciate moral issues, some humans seem incapable of appreciating beauty. It requires a more refined soul. However, just as the fact that pigs have no morality does not disprove morality, the fact that some humans cannot appreciate beauty does not discount its value—so long as it is felt by all those who do appreciate it.

Second premise: one is not saved by saying one is Christian and going to church. One is not saved by mouthing the name “Jesus” in prayer. One is saved by accepting the cosmic essence of Jesus, the Logos, which Jesus identifies: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In other words, the moral path, the truth, and inspiration. The good, the true, the beautiful.

One can easily do this as a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Jew, or an atheist.

Jesus said “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice.” At the time, in context, he was no doubt speaking of non-Jews; but literally, he was speaking in general of people who had not yet heard of him. Until and unless all the world is nominally Christian, Jesus has sheep outside the nominally Christian fold.

If you claim to be a Christian, but do not sincerely believe Christian teachings, as in the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, you are simply a Pharisee, a hypocrite. You are simply dishonest.

If anyone would assert that truth is a matter of exerting the will to believe, let him be anathema. He is not following God; he is declaring himself God.

It follows that, if you sincerely believe there is no God, and say and act so, you are a good Christian in the true sense of the word.

Similarly, if you claim to be a Christian, but do not practice the good as you see it--or do what Christianity teaches even though you do not believe it is good--you are simply a Pharisee, a hypocrite.

James 2: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?”

And if you claim to be a Christian, are capable of appreciating beauty, and do not seek to nurture and sustain it, you are also a Pharisee and a hypocrite. This applies to both natural beauty and the beauty of art. It is the true basis of our ecological duties, for example.

The obligation to be Christian and to pray the name “Jesus Christ” simply follows from the fact that Christianity is true and a reliable moral guide. At the same time, if one is sincerely not personally convinced of that, to pretend otherwise would be deeply sinful.

It follows that my brother was, in fact, a very good Christian, and a far better Christian than one who would sneer at him and his values at his own funeral.

My brother lived his life seeking truth, and to be good, and, perhaps most of all, beauty.

A comment almost always heard from friends is about the utter sincerity of his smile and of his laugh. He was never deceitful, calculating, pretentious, or manipulative. He always lived the truth as he saw it.

Next, they always say what a gift he had for friendship. There are many stories of how much he would do for a friend. Throughout his life as I knew him, he never showed malice to anyone.

And last, he lived his life for beauty, both natural and artistic. His two great loves were music—he was a brilliant guitarist, and fostered other musicians far and wide—and the natural beauty of Canada’s Thousand Islands district, where he chose to live alone in the woods.

I believe my brother Gerry is a saint in heaven.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Criticism of Andrew Scheer from the Right

This new criticism of Andrew Scheer is at least on the mark. The problem was not that he held "social conservative" positions, but that he prevaricated and would not defend them.

Put another way he failed to show a capacity for leadership.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.