Words Fail : The change in "O Canada" lyrics is insufficient

The unfortunately-current Canadian government has put forward an incomplete bill that only addresses half of a problem, completely ignoring the other equally large half.  No doubt intentionally.

The bill proposes that Canada's national anthem "O Canada" remove a masculine noun in favour of a gender neutral noun. 

Current lyric: "In all thy sons command"

Proposed lyric: "In all of us command"

This is a start, but it is only half the job required.  A modern country that purports to be a democracy has no place promoting theocracy.  All promotion of religion should be purged from official documents and ceremonies.  When you promote one, you give it official status and discriminate against others.  You also allow them to argue for their religion in government.

Current lyric: "Mythical being keep our land glorious and free"

Proposed lyric: "Let us keep our land democratic and free"







A secular state is not an atheist state, no matter how many times the religious repeat the lie.

Should ‘O Canada’ lyrics be gender-neutral? Other countries have tweaked their anthem in the past

In 2013, Switzerland ran a public contest looking for more modern lyrics for its national song The Swiss Psalm, which critics said were too religious, (When the Alps glow bright with splendor / pray to God, to Him surrender,” for example.) A winner was announced on Sept. 12, 2015, but the Swiss government has not yet voted on the change.

Yesterday, Mourn: Why does the death of celebrities affect us so much?

As I'm sure you well know, the formerly living person known as Prince died the other day.  I don't have much to say about him other than I respect him as a musician, someone who still recorded and performed with instruments both in the studio and on stage.  That's becoming an increasing rarity.  Rather, his death and the reaction of many made me ask why we react so strongly to such news.  I know I reacted strongly a few months ago when Rush said, after 40 years of touring, that last year was their last major tour.

Writers don't elicit large reactions from the public when they die.  They tend to produce sporadically and appear publicly only rarely.  Even those who are influential, hugely popular and/or produce large amounts don't engender the same emotional response.  Harper Lee wrote a massively important book with a second released and highly talked about shortly before her death, but there still wasn't a "national mourning".  There wasn't such a response when Carl Sagan or Kurt Vonnegut died, and those three got a lot more attention from the media after their deaths than most writers will.  Even when J. K. Rowling eventually dies, people won't travel by the thousands to her gravesite.

On the other hand musicians and actors are unlike other artists in that there is not just an ongoing body of work but a constant visible presence through the media.  Actors make movies and/or TV series, musicians record albums and perform on tours.  Both do interviews and are photographed, living their lives in parallel with their audience's lives.  We see, listen to and think about them almost daily for decades, sometimes as much as we do our family or friends.

As the audience, we grow up with musicians and actors and identify as much with them personally as with what they do.  We become invested in their lives, for lack of a better word.  They die, bands break up or retire, they lose popularity, they get arrested or imprisoned, etc.   It's not surprising that it affects us when their life's work ends.

The IOC Games: South Korea's fascist government rounded up and imprisoned homeless people and pro-democracy activists

An investigative journalist has reported that during the 1980s the South Korean government rounded up and imprisoned homeless and poor people (falsely labelled "vagrants" to dehumanize them) in the years leading up to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.  During their captivity, these people (men, women and children) were subjected to abuses like beatings, slave labour, starvation, torture, rape and murder.

South Korea was still a US-backed (and armed) fascist government in 1981 when the 1988 Olympic bid was awarded.  That was only a year after the May 27th massacre of as many as 2000 pro-democracy protesters by the military (the government claims only 200-300, the families say differently).  In 1985, the torture and murder of a university student became the rallying point, leaving to the South Korean fascist regime giving up power in 1987.

That means many of the abuses of the homeless and poor continued after South Korea had allegedly become a free country.

South Korea covered up mass abuse, killings of 'vagrants'

In 1975, dictator President Park Chung-hee, father of current President Park Geun-hye, issued a directive to police and local officials to "purify" city streets of vagrants. Police officers, assisted by shop owners, rounded up panhandlers, small-time street merchants selling gum and trinkets, the disabled, lost or unattended children, and dissidents, including a college student who'd been holding anti-government leaflets.
They ended up as prisoners at 36 nationwide facilities. By 1986, the number of inmates had jumped over five years from 8,600 to more than 16,000, according to government documents obtained by AP.

Nearly 4,000 were at Brothers. But about 90 percent of them didn't even meet the government's definition of "vagrant" and therefore shouldn't have been confined there, former prosecutor Kim Yong Won told the AP, based on Brothers' records and interviews compiled before government officials ended his investigation.

Equally appalling, the current South Korean govenment is showing obscene hypocrisy and duplicity.  They have demanded for decades that Japan pay reparations to Korea's "comfort women", women who were forcibly held in brothels and raped by Japanese soldiers during World War II, more than seventy years ago.  And yet now that same South Korean government refuses to investigate and hold accountable those who participated in the imprisonment and abuses of their own citizens less than forty years ago.


One of those responsible was Park Chung-hee, South Korean dictator from 1962-1979, and the father of current South Korean president Park Geun-hye.

Water Tabled: Peru's ancient genius wasn't limited to the Nazca plains

Many ancient cultures have disappeared without written records to tell their story or preserve their language.  Often, all we have is their works.

It's easy to arrogantly assume that cultures are "less developed" because they never discovered things like the wheel, written language or metalwork.  We need to put aside our arrogance and chauvinism, and realize that human intelligence is intrinsic to all of us.  Invention and discovery is most often a matter or need and cultures sharing of information via trade. 

The ancient Peruvian mystery solved from space

In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiralling holes form lines across the landscape. Known as puquios, their origin has been a puzzle – one that could only be solved from space.

The holes are from the Nasca region of Peru – an area famous for the Nasca lines, several enormous geometric images carved into the landscape; immaculate archaeological evidence of ceremonial burials; and the rapid decline of this once flourishing society.

What adds to the intrigue in the native ancient people of Nasca is how they were able to survive in an area where droughts can last for years at a time. 

The puquios were a “sophisticated hydraulic system constructed to retrieve water from underground aquifers,” says Rosa Lasaponara of the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, in Italy. And they transformed this inhospitable region.