Ideals of UN do not match its actions
 

Why should Bush listen to someone who balked at chance of ousting Saddam?
 

Bill C-257 would limit the rights of those who want to work
 

Quebec is not a nation
 

Women no longer need to be coddled, like less clever creatures than men

Harper's Action on Surplus in Best Interest of Canadians
 

Canadian Intelligence to Blame in Arar Case
 

Five Years After 9-11
 

We should not legitimize Hezbollah’s aim of erasing Israel

If Canada were to seek talks with Hezbollah, why not, in the name of consistency, extend a hand to Hamas and Al Qaeda? Better yet, we could remove all three from our terror list. No, we should not negotiate with terrorists, no matter what Kofi Annan, or other proponents of the recent ceasefire in the Middle East might like to believe. A ceasefire, by the way, which offers nothing toward fixing any of Lebanon's domestic dilemmas.
Were we to engage in such fecklessness, what would we discuss with Hezbollah? Its stated desire is the eradication of the state of Israel, with a promise that Jewish and Western targets be attacked the world over.
So would we, say, negotiate a reasonable number of attacks per year?
Or, would we talk about allowing Hezbollah to eradicate a certain percentage of Israelis? They are also fans of Islamic law. Would we negotiate an acceptable number of rights women could give up?
But, say some, Hezbollah helps seniors and orphans. It is a safe bet they kill more of the former and create more of the latter than anything else. Yes, Hezbollah has a political wing. But it remains a terror organization. Inside Lebanon, criticizing Hezbollah and its sponsors, Syria and Iran, puts one in danger. What are we telling the moderate Lebanese, who fear speaking out, if we negotiate with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah?
Hezbollah has, over decades, consistently shown us who it is, with attacks in South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Hezbollah terrorists were famous hostage-takers in the 1980s, suicide bombers (including the truck bomb that killed 241 U.S. Marines), and hijackers (the group that hijacked TWA Flight 847 was linked to Hezbollah).
Even were one to romanticize Hezbollah as a "resistance" movement, born of Israel's ill-advised invasion of Lebanon, what "justifications" can currently be given? Israel has not occupied a centimetre of Lebanon since 2000. What, exactly, is Hezbollah resisting? Oh right. I forgot. The continued existence of that pesky Jewish state. Let us not give its goals legitimacy by talking with Nasrallah, or his acolytes.
This past week, Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj amassed his share of headlines.
But the words of one of his travelling companions on the trip to Lebanon, sponsored by the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, deserve attention. New Democrat Peggy Nash was quoted as saying, "If the political parties in Lebanon who may disagree with Hezbollah, and be opposed to them and their philosophy, can figure out a way to work with Hezbollah and try to get along internally, then perhaps we should take a cue from that."
We should take cues from Lebanese politics? Okay. How about Canada emulate Lebanon's Chronic Political Assassination Syndrome? Or its sectarian violence? Or its civil war?
Instead, let us take a cue from common sense, and not talk with Hezbollah, or remove it from any terror list. It took us far too long to put it there.

The safety of residents and protestors are being sacrificed to fear

It seems to me a fairly basic tenet of common sense, that bad behaviour should not be rewarded. This is true for children and adults alike. Yet for six months, a band of Six Nations protestors in Caledonia, and some assorted non-native hangers-on, have seen their bad behaviour indulged. The behaviour in question has included ignoring court orders, erecting barricades, blocking rail lines, roads and bridges, digging up streets, setting fires, causing blackouts, dragging police officers out of an SUV and attacking them, attacking cameramen and more. The lawlessness has, at times, been returned by residents of Caledonia.
The natives say they have a land claim on Douglas Creek Estates, a housing development. This may well be true, but it doesn't strike me as justification for their current activities. In June, the Ontario government purchased the disputed land — with taxpayer dollars — with no promise from the protestors that they would desist. If that weren't stupid enough, the province then indicated it would continue to negotiate the claim. Thankfully, Ontario Superior Court Justice David Marshall ruled this week that negotiations should be suspended until the protestors vacate Douglas Creek Estates.
Mind you, Marshall ordered the same thing months ago. He also ruled that if protestors would not leave willingly, they should be removed by police. But his orders were, in his own words, "blatantly disregarded." That hasn't been the only blatant disregard. Many residents of Caledonia have complained that police have not protected them, and instead have stood by throughout the violence.
One can deduce why. Premier Dalton McGuinty is paralyzed by the memory of Ipperwash. In other words, the safety of residents in Caledonia, as well as the safety and best interests of the protestors, are being sacrificed to fear. Add a dose of historical guilt and sound judgment is scarce. No one wants to be seen confronting natives, as though allowing criminal behaviour from radical elements will make up for centuries of injustice. One wonders: How, exactly, does it compensate?
There is no painless solution, especially since it has been allowed to drag on. McGuinty should personally urge protestors to abandon their intransigence and leave willingly. Because if they don't, police will have to be dispatched, and it won't be pretty. Had things been properly dealt with in March, there is no telling how much aggravation could have been avoided. Echoing Justice Marshall, John Tory stated last week that, "We shouldn't be carrying on negotiations until court orders are being followed, until the law is respected by all people at all times." It confounds that this needs to be said.
Ontario's premier had one shining moment of backbone last fall when he announced he would prohibit all religious-based tribunals to settle family disputes. It was the right move, because there should be one law for all Ontarians. Does he no longer believe this?

We have never treated all sides equally

In 1947, Canada voted in favour of the partition of Palestine. In 1948 we recognized Israel and its right to exist. We continue to do so. On the other hand, where Hamas and Hezbollah are concerned, we have officially denoted both as terrorist groups. Neither were given that designation gratuitously, in an effort to please Israel, but rather as a result of their actions.
I don't know, therefore, how Canada can have an "even-handed" approach to Middle East policy, when we do not have an even-handed, or impartial, relationship with all parties involved. We do not treat all sides equally, nor should we. Do we want to be given the benefit of the doubt to Hassan Nasrallah, for example?
We are deluded if we view ourselves as having been historically even-handed, where the Middle East is concerned. Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham wrote last week that the Harper government was "squandering our historic role as Mideast bridge-builder."
It's difficult to squander something you do not possess. We had one bridge-building moment of glory in 1956, with the Suez Canal crisis. That's it. We can be proud of Lester Pearson's contributions, but we were not even neutral back then. De facto, we sided with the United States.
We were not even-handed during the Six-Day War. In fact, in the lead up to the war, Ottawa opposed Gamal Abdel Nasser's blocking of Israeli shipping. (Interestingly, our representative at the UN, at the time, was one George Ignatieff.) It was only during the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin years that we moved away from those policies. And even there, we only moved to a sort of "goad the United States all you can," stance. Perhaps from that childish anti-Americanism was born another myth: That Stephen Harper, as Gerard Kennedy said on CTV Newsnet this week, is acting "in lockstep" with the United States. Yet people close to Harper for years have told me these have always been his views.
Canadians are uncomfortable, polls would indicate, with these perceived great changes. A Decima poll on Wednesday showed the Conservatives losing ground, particularly in Quebec. And Harper is responding with a substantial aid package for the region. Part political expediency? No doubt. But it will also help people.
This does not mean we cannot work toward peace, but it has to be done realistically. We have become accustomed, in this country, to patting ourselves on the back and asserting that we do good. But there is rarely follow-through. We will be able to do more good in the Middle East with a leader like Harper — provided he sticks to what he believes, in the face of apparent backlash. (Would that he were so tough on some national issues.)
Treating the parties involved as they deserve to be treated — not as though Hezbollah and Hamas's actions can be morally equated with Israel's — is the wisest road to a solution.

Disarming Hezbollah first only way to lasting peace

Harper priorities set well before Bush talks

It is difficult to imagine Prime Minister Stephen Harper getting cozy with anyone, least of all another politician. It is also difficult to see how, as Maude Barlow wrote in Thursday's Toronto Star, our current government has gone "to great lengths to please Bush."
Has it? Canadian troops, 2,300 of them, are in Afghanistan, as part of an international force in an internationally sanctioned mission to help rebuild a strife-ridden country and protect it from becoming a welcome mat for Al Qaeda, again. Canada's troops were initially sent to Afghanistan by Liberal leaders, and the recent extension of our work there was voted on in the House of Commons, freely and openly. If we sent troops to fight the Taliban in order to please President George Bush, then I guess it isn't only the ruling party which wants to make the Texan happy.
What else? Harper's de facto abandonment of Kyoto. Harper has never been a Kyoto fan. This is not some posture he has adopted since Jan. 23, part of that notorious "hidden agenda." And I strongly suspect that if he is trying to cozy up to anyone by dissing Kyoto, that anyone would be the province of Alberta, also known as "Harper's base." The latter aren't Kyoto fans.
If Harper were nearly the Bush lackey some Canadians have charged, by now our troops would be in Iraq.
Harper would have waited for Washington's lead before withdrawing funding from Hamas, rather than becoming the first Western leader to do so.
And, when asked Thursday, at the joint Bush-Harper press conference in Washington about missile defence, Harper would have immediately announced plans for Canada to participate, not even bothering to phone the news in to Gordon O'Connor and Peter MacKay. Though, given Kim Jong Il's attention-grab last Tuesday, missile defence may be something we want to reconsider.
Canadians who wrap their identity up in anti-Americanism will find anything short of constant belligerence between our two countries unsatisfactory. But the fact is, by way of geography, history, values and interests, we are "cozy" with the United States.
The ways in which we are similar (love of freedom, democracy and civil society) are more numerous, and far more significant, than the ways in which we differ (the occasional trade disagreement, "free" health care). We are two secular societies. As such, we face the same foes.
Various Islamofascists, and crackpot leaders in Pyongyang and elsewhere, do not care that Canadians deem themselves "nice." More likely, this escapes them, irks them, or makes them snicker. Given our limited military capacity, cozying up with our friendly neighbours seems a wise choice.
It is possible, even probable, Bush will leave Washington before Harper leaves Ottawa. Harper knows that, and knows that his job is to protect Canada's best interests, regardless of who lives in the White House. And Canadians should recognize that more often than not, those best interests dovetail with the best interests of the U.S.

Fealty to multiculturalism makes us reluctant to act decisively against agitators

Moderate Western Muslims, speak up!

In the months following 9/11, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that rather than constantly ask ourselves, "Why do they hate us?", we should instead ask, "Why don't they see us for who we really are?"
I thought about that following the arrests of 17 Canadian terror suspects last weekend. Most were citizens of Canada, born and bred, or residents. The police who announced the dragnet were careful to say that the young males did not represent any specific ethnocultural group - though all are Muslim.
Toronto's mayor, David Miller, after commending the excellent work of Canada's security forces, wondered aloud why young people might get involved in terrorist activities. We need "strategies to try to prevent that from happening again," he said. His earnestness awed me. Can he truly believe there is some "thing" Canadians can do (hold a "Hands Across Canada" event?) to prevent this kind of occurrence?
Canada is not France. Canada's Muslim population is not marginalized out of fear and contempt, not left alone to manage its own affairs. Even though a Toronto mosque had its windows smashed following the arrests, that sort of thuggery and stupidity is not systemic or common. Canada's Muslims are not prevented from attending good schools or holding high-powered jobs. Nor are they, for the most part, unwilling or unable to fit in peacefully and productively. So the mayor's concern was misplaced. His comment should have been something along the lines of, "I wonder what Canada's Muslim leaders/moderate Muslim citizens can do to prevent this kind of thing in future?"
In countries like Canada, or England, or Spain, where citizens have been shocked by the news of home-grown cells, I believe more needs to be asked of Muslim religious and community leaders. Western Muslims are a powerful potential ally in the broader "war on terror." It is true that most Muslims are not terrorists. But we need Muslims themselves to admit that most of the terrorists who threaten us are Muslim.
Aly Hindy, a high-profile imam in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, called the arrests "an attack on the Muslim community." He went on to say that, "We are abusing our boys for the sake of pleasing George Bush." Rather than speaking out against extremism, or entertaining the notion that perhaps his country's security forces know what they're doing, Hindy called the charges against the men "home-grown baloney."
Even moderate Canadian Muslim groups, willing to show faith in Canada's justice system, are mitigating their statements. The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) praised the work of Canada's spy agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But then they scolded the Canadian government for not funding "academic research to diagnose this serious social problem and provide scientific solutions to it." A scientific solution to Islamofascism? Bring it on.
The group also chastised Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper for portraying events "as a battle between 'us' and 'them.' " Following the arrests, Mr. Harper stated that "we are a target because of who we are. And how we live." One wonders - do the members of the CIC not consider themselves part of the "we" Harper referred to, when he spoke of Canadians? If so, that is indeed revealing.
The Muslim Canadian Congress fared only a tad bit better. They praised the police, and expressed dismay that members of their community might be guilty as charged. And then they managed to blame President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and even Harper for the fact that any such terror cells might exist. So far, only the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN) has managed to issue a condemnation of terror, and praise of the police, without tacking on a "but," a "Bush," or a "Canadian troops in Afghanistan."
I was happily surprised at CAIR-CAN's press release. I shouldn't have been. We must expect that Western Muslims will wholeheartedly condemn Islamofascism, without any conditions placed on that condemnation. Without that, we may reach a point of divisions too deep to mend.

Union risks being aligned with likes of Hamas

The CUPE Ontario decision to advocate a boycott of Israel is egregious, and sheer fatuity. In effect, the Ontario leadership of CUPE is showing itself eager and willing to condemn alleged, exaggerated or taken out of context offences of a pro-Western government, over the real villainies of anti-Western regimes. This should not surprise.
One of the characteristics of much of the current left is the tendency to hold anyone pro-American to impossible standards while allowing others the greatest leeway. Were it not so, this boycott would simply be something we could dismiss as sophomoric and embarrassing. Instead, it is predictable and frightening.
Given the weight of CUPE Ontario's membership, should it not have allowed its rank and file to vote on the matter? My guess (my hope?) is that many would have been passionately against the decision. I am not suggesting this was done purposely, to force the measure through. More likely, the leadership vote was a thoughtless and facile decision, much like the resolution itself.
But practical considerations disappear in the shadow of all of the moral, political and historical reasons this boycott is so appallingly wrong. The wording of the resolution indicates that those who wrote it are ignorant of the country they are so keen to condemn.
The boycott calls on Israel to recognize the Palestinian "right to self-determination." Israel has long recognized the Palestinian right to self-determination and has done more to bring that possibility about than have successive Palestinian leaderships, or than have most Arab governments in the region.
Israel has made significant concessions (unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza and parts of the West Bank), provided countless dollars to the Palestinians in both financial and tangible assistance, trained Palestinian security forces, attempted to negotiate peace deal after peace deal, and more. What they have asked in return — the cessation of attacks on Israel and recognition of Israel's right to exist — is hardly unreasonable. Yet neither request has been met with any consistency or sincerity.
The boycott also condemns the Israeli "apartheid" wall, the security barrier Israel has built as a response to attacks from Palestinian suicide bombers. While calling for the dismantling of the wall, CUPE's resolution does not call for an end to the violence that brought about the building of the wall in the first place.
If that were not enough, the resolution demands Israel recognize the Palestinian right of return. In short, CUPE is demanding the destruction of the State of Israel. One wonders whether those who wrote this resolution even understood what they were asking for.
Purportedly, unions protect the "little guy." But the crass action of CUPE's Ontario branch serves only to scapegoat Israel, the little guy under threat from its neighbours — and now, it appears, from a Canadian labour union. CUPE should rescind this boycott, lest it desire being de facto aligned with the likes of Hamas and Iran.

Federal budget will make Canada more competitive

Biker killings show criminals don't heed law

Prime Minister shows decisiveness and maturity

WAKE UP CANADA - WE'RE AT WAR!

The weekend of March 18, worldwide antiwar protests took place, Toronto included. That day, I was having my hair cut. My Ecuadorian stylist, in Canada four years, proudly asserted, "Canadians are peacekeepers. We don't fight." Wow, I thought, only here four years and you've got the lingo down like a native. I suspect they taught her that in citizenship class.

In 1956, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister (and future prime minister) Lester B. Pearson proposed a peacekeeping force to deal with the Suez Canal crisis. Mr. Pearson was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, and ever since, Canadians have been in love with the image of themselves as blue-hat wearing do-gooders, convincing everyone to get along while never firing a shot. That fantasy took on even greater power during the era of Pierre Trudeau, who welcomed draft dodgers and positioned himself as a Euro-style "citizen of the world."

But that fantasy is being challenged. Through the early months of 2006, the number of Canadian troops in Afghanistan (there since 2002) increased to 2,300, by our standards a huge commitment. Canadian forces in Afghanistan are part of a multinational combat force participating in both the continuing battle against stubborn Taliban remainders and in the securing of the young Afghan democracy. One would think, given the generally accepted role of soldiers and given the easily provable brutality of the enemy in question, that Canadians would understand the inevitability of casualties, both military and civilian.

Yet a cursory look at recent headlines in Canadian newspapers reflects the sad reality: Canadians are in a dream world, and need to be shaken from their sleep. Some examples: "More risk for our troops," "Dangers to Canadian troops in Afghanistan expected," "Canadian deaths in Afghanistan unavoidable: Department of National Defence," and, "Nervous day for Canadian troops after Afghan blasts." On TV and radio, debates about whether our troops should be "exposed to danger" are commonplace. Should it not go without saying that soldiers face risk and danger? The minutiae of each death of a soldier (there have been 11 so far, four from hostile action, three in accidents, four from friendly fire) is parsed, analyzed, given wall-to-wall coverage, exploited by politicians and everyone with an anti-American ax to grind.

And it isn't just soldier deaths that send us reeling. When an Afghan civilian ran a checkpoint in mid-March, Canadian soldiers shot him. The incident sparked Canadian self-flagellation, and the man's family asked to be relocated to Canada and have us pay for the education of his six children. So far, this wish has not been granted, though there are Canadians who feel it would be appropriate. Had we brought over the families of every German civilian killed by Canadian soldiers in World War II, I would be writing this column in German. (Canada played a vital, and decidedly nonpeaceful, role in that war.)

As civilian and soldier deaths continue, Canada will have to learn to deal with harsh reality. Each death also brings about a roller coaster of public surveys. One indicated that 62 percent of respondents were against Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, once it was explained that we were there in "combat" capacity. Have we forgotten that Canadian citizens were murdered on 9/11? Or that we are included on Osama bin Laden's list of target countries? If it weren't so frightening, the idea that a nation was surprised its military might be involved in something, well, dangerous and violent, would be laughable.

And hypocritical. A peacekeeper is a soldier first and foremost, one whose actions, we hope, will bring about and maintain relative peace. He is not a Quaker. More than 100 Canadian soldiers have died in peacekeeping operations in the past 50 years, some from enemy fire. But none of those conflicts got the headlines or attention Afghanistan does, so public reaction was nil to muted. In the Balkans alone, more than 20 Canadian soldiers died. Why the discrepancy? Because soldiers on "peacekeeping missions" did not die in anything openly called "war" - though de facto, that's what it was. Nor was the twisted logic involved in blaming the United States for everything we don't like as much a part of the picture previously as it is now (though in Canada, that habit has not been fully absent in the past 40 years).

In 2005, reports from Canada's military commanders warned that Canada's forces were overstretched and underfunded. But those problems, grave as they are, are nothing compared to the dangers of the Canadian mind-set. Underfunding can be overcome. A firmly entrenched national myth, five decades in the making, is a different matter. Our new prime minister, Stephen Harper, visited Canada's troops in Afghanistan in early March. Paul Martin, his predecessor, in power for two years, never bothered. Mr. Harper's gesture was welcome and overdue. But it was just one step. We have a long way to go. I fear what it might take for us to wake up, and whether that day will come too late.

Blended private-public systems still provide quality care

It is hard to believe Alberta Premier Ralph Klein's proposals for a "Third Way" in his province's health-care system is "too far" a push toward privatization.
It is nothing but another baby step — maybe a toddler step — toward giving Canadians more choice in the kind of health care they would like, and toward reducing pain and waiting time for many patients. It is not the destruction of universal health care for those who need it. Nor is it the handing over of all we hold dear to sinister profiteers.
The changes in Alberta follow similar changes that have already taken place in Quebec, following last year's Supreme Court ruling, which cleared the legal path to private care.
The province now allows cataract surgery and joint replacement to be performed in private clinics if the public system cannot provide those services within six months.
And Premier Gordon Campbell of British Columbia is currently touring hospitals in Europe, as part of a fact-finding mission towards possible changes at home. Many European countries have done a good job of blending private and public systems — but still provide quality care across the board.
The fact that Alberta's plan will allow doctors to function simultaneously in the private and public systems strikes me as particularly innovative. Rather than doctors and other health-care staff fleeing the public system en masse, many could well choose to make some serious money some days (nothing wrong with that) and be do-gooders the rest of the time (also nothing wrong with that). Some private doctors might choose a sliding scale. Many, I suspect, will stay in a public system they believe in. And if they don't, this might tell us something about the viability of our public system.
Concern has been expressed that allowing doctors to jump between the two systems will create gross inequity and the dreaded "two-tier" situation. The dearth of, for example, orthopedic surgeons in Ontario, is often held up as proof that allowing privatization will only make the queue longer in the public system.
But surely we are approaching that problem illogically. If our current system is not motivating enough of a certain kind of surgeon to work here, why would maintaining that system change things? As for the two-tiered scenario, it has already existed for some time. Canadians who can afford it have long gone to the United States for surgery. And private clinics have quietly existed in Quebec for a long time.
Agree or disagree with Ralph Klein's health-care proposals, I believe most Canadians agree with him when he says, "... the health system must change to survive," and, "People are waiting too long. The system is too expensive and growing more expensive day by day." A Leger Marketing poll from June 2004, indicated that a majority of Canadians wanted parallel private health care to be available.
Since most of us would like some kind of motion, let us not panic about these small, but meaningful, changes.

Time we chipped in on continental security

Washington will forge ahead with its missile defence program — essentially, an early warning radar system — whether Canada chooses to be involved or not. The U.S. will defend Canada from a missile attack (and any other kind of attack) as best it can, whether we are involved with the program or not.
In short, we can afford to abstain, knowing the neighbour we frequently hold in such contempt, will continue to sacrifice money, time and lives, researching and carrying out new ways to secure us.
But should we continue in our role as another of the world's many armchair generals? Or should we recognize that while we are not powerful, we have much to offer in the defence of freedom.
I believe the answer is the latter, and it seems that Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor concurs. Last Thursday, O'Connor said Ottawa is willing to reopen ballistic missile defence talks with Washington, provided the U.S. initiated such a discussion. In the complicated "dating world" of foreign policy, it seems the more powerful partner has to make the first move.
That announcement will no doubt send into a tizzy those Canadians labouring under the delusion that our rejection of missile defence somehow enhances this country's sovereignty and pride. For that is really what Canadian objections to missile defence participation are all about, and sadly, the state into which our political mindset has degenerated. In fact, all our abstention does is guarantee that decisions about Canada's safety get made without Canadian input.
One hopes that with a new crew in Ottawa, things might improve. The performance of Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has been less than stellar, so far. But perhaps having a defence minister who served honourably with our armed forces for three decades, and ended his military career as a brigadier-general, will help coax Canadians into the heady world of "realism," at least concerning international matters.
If we swallowed our anti-Americanism and donated some of our considerable Canadian talent (and money) to this venture, we may even get a missile interceptor, or part of the infrared satellite system, or maybe even a command centre, named after us. That might fulfill our need to be "recognized," and to have the "value expressed" for our work, that MacKay claimed we weren't getting enough of last week.
The missile defence system is geared mostly toward rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, both of which have leaders I would generously call insane. With common enemies of that ilk, discussions with Washington can't hurt. We have had too few discussions. And any decision would have to pass a Commons vote.
O'Connor has also said that Canada should expand its role in NORAD, working with U.S. Northern Command. "This will help us exercise our sovereignty, and allow us to strengthen co-operation with the United States ... dedicated to North American security." And that is what this is about: Security.

No obligation to support elected but vicious regime

Canada should cut off aid to the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian proto-state, elected in late January. We can, and should, support the democratic process all over the world, and particularly in the Arab Muslim world, where that process is desperate to thrive, is taking significant (baby) steps, and whence has come our current foe.
But supporting the process does not mean supporting the victors, if the philosophy of those victors is at once murderous and suicidal, and if those same victors are pledged to destroy Israel.
We do not want aid money paying for the means to attack Israel — which is where it likely will go, instead of building schools or feeding children.
Nor do we want to give Hamas a veneer of acceptability and respectability on the international stage. Canada has classified Hamas as a terrorist organization and we should hold them in appropriate contempt.
And surely Hamas, with its contempt for the West, wouldn't want to sullied by accepting Western bankroll.
By cutting off aid to the newly elected leadership of the Palestinians, we are, by extension, cutting the Palestinian people loose. But they have made their choice clear.
Yes, a part of that choice was the rejection of Fatah's corruption and duplicity. But another part was the eagerness to embrace fanatics. And now the Palestinian Authority cannot complain about its inability to control Hamas, or claim ignorance of suicide bombers in their midst.
As the representatives of the Palestinians, Hamas can, if it wishes, declare war on a country it refuses to recognize. It can give that same country an opportunity to defend itself without the world being able to claim there was no provocation and that Israel was simply being a greedy bully of a nation.
Most importantly, as democratically elected representatives, Hamas can now answer to its people.
How will the Palestinians react if they are taxed in order to finance car bombers? If the answer is, "They would love it," all the better we should know that about them sooner rather than later. No more pretense at a willingness to live side by side with Israel.
If the answer is, "They will be furious," then Hamas will have to be accountable, or face the consequences. If the Palestinians have truly only elected it as a rejection of Fatah's sleaze, then it will be interesting to watch as Hamas switches its focus from the external, from fomenting hatred, to providing services and solving internal, quotidian problems.
Fascist parties have come to power democratically in the past. In those cases, more often than not, they did not keep the democratic machinery functioning.
Legitimate re-election is not something fascists like to face. The last thing we should do is help these fascists carry out their plan. The best thing Canada can do is recognize Hamas' victory, but not be friendly — financially or otherwise — with it.

Canadian troops will improve the lives of Afghans

Throughout February, Canadian troops will be leaving for Afghanistan. The number of Canadian troops in that part of the world will increase to 2,000.
Canadian forces will be part of a multinational combat force participating in what one could unceremoniously, but truthfully, refer to as "Taliban killing." No more self-congratulatory claims of "But Canadians are peacekeepers," for us.
And we should be proud of that.
Now, if you don't believe that the current war — what I call the War on Islamofascism — is anything other than a fabrication/exaggeration of a jingoist administration in Washington, D.C., or if you believe Canada is not threatened in said war, then you won't be proud.
But I would then suggest you are delusional. For not only is this war real, we are threatened, as are all Western democracies. Osama bin Laden has put Canada on his "hit list," and he is a man who keeps his word.
And if he doesn't convince you, keep in mind that his particularly deadly strain of Islamist fundamentalism afflicts many the world over and brought homegrown bloodshed to the United Kingdom last summer.
The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 destroyed the comfortable base once provided Al Qaeda and its ilk. By hunting down intransigent Taliban, Canadian troops will be helping improve the lives of Afghans, and helping sustain and increase stability in a part of the world many dismissed as beyond repair five years ago.
A recent BBC poll found that Afghans (and Iraqis) were among the most optimistic in the world when it came to their economic futures. Creating this kind of hope and opportunity for people increases our security and the security of other free nations.
But it does involve violence. Freedom doesn't come without a cost. As much as Canadians would love to cling to the cherished myth of the peacekeeper, the fact remains that you cannot keep peace without first making it. And often, you can't make it without fighting. What pride can we take in leaving that to others?
We refused to help in Iraq. And we have brought our cowering skills to new heights with our "reaction" to the Danish cartoon controversy — another battle in the same war. At the time of this writing, only two Canadian newspapers (one, a student newspaper) have reprinted the cartoons. And Peter MacKay's mealy-mouthed drivel (courageously supporting, and not supporting, freedom of expression) on Wednesday was shameful.
Speaking two weeks ago in Montreal, Major-General Ed Fitch of the Canadian Forces said Canadians are "sleepwalking" in the face of terrorism both in and outside Canada.
He added that Canadians were "generally unaware" of what was going on and that our apathy is our enemies' "greatest delight."
At least in Afghanistan, we can proudly say we are playing a relevant and meaningful role defending democratic principles. A role for which we should never apologize.

There is nothing to fear from a Conservative minority

Will Harper's victory be good for Canada's foreign policy?

Majority lets government rule, not just hang on

Open season on the U.S. in Canadian elections

The default setting in Canadian politics is "anti-American," which rears its adolescent head during crises - and elections. A particularly heartbreaking example of the former happened on Dec. 26, when Jane Creba, a Toronto teenager out shopping, got caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting. She died.
Toronto's mayor, David Miller, had this to say: "It's a sign that the lack of gun laws in the US is allowing guns to flood across the border that are literally being used to kill people in the streets of Toronto."
In case we missed the point, he added, "The US is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto." No one knows whether the gun that killed Jane Creba came from the United States, but if it did, Canadian security measures are in part responsible for allowing it in. And the two men accused in the shootout are Canadian. Though Mr. Miller won't face an election until November, he immediately turned to the default setting. As Jean Chrétien, Canada's former prime minister, and a shrewd reader of the Canadian public said in 1998, "I like to stand up to Americans. It's popular."
With a federal election to be held Jan. 23, that observation plays out each day. And it hasn't gone unnoticed by US ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins. Unlike his predecessors, he has commented publicly on the phenomenon. Shortly before Christmas, speaking at a luncheon in Ottawa, he said, "It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But ... all of us should hope it doesn't have a long-term impact on our relationship." He was specifically referring to comments made by Paul Martin, Canada's prime minister, referring to American unwillingness to sign on to the Kyoto treaty.
Mr. Martin accused the US of lacking a "global conscience." (This, in spite of the well-documented fact that in the past 10 years greenhouse gas emissions have risen more rapidly in Canada than in the US.) Martin responded to Mr. Wilkins with, well, a little chest thumping: "I am not going to be dictated to as to the subjects I should raise." Unless it's by a desire to win votes. Martin's Liberal Party has tailored at least four of its televised campaign commercials to Canada's relationship with the US. One concerns the disagreement between the two countries over the tariffs the US imposes on Canadian softwood lumber exports. It features "ordinary Canadians" telling viewers that Martin will "stand up" to George Bush. As though the US were threatening Canada, rather than disagreeing over policy.
Another liberal ad focuses on Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, Martin's chief rival and his purported fondness for the US. It quotes a December Washington Times column by Patrick Basham, in which Mr. Harper is described as "the poster boy for his [George Bush's] ideal foreign leader," and "the most pro-American leader in the Western world." The ad concludes - over the steady sound of a military drumbeat - with this: "A Harper victory will put a smile on George W. Bush's face." Heaven forbid.
It isn't just party leaders who deal with default settings. Former Harvard Professor, Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian, left his job at the university to run as a Liberal candidate in suburban Toronto. At his nomination meeting, he attempted to address the crowd, while people shouted, "American!" It probably wasn't a compliment.
Nationwide, the race is tight. And if the Liberals lose, as polls suggest they will, it won't be from serving Canada too big a dose of anti-Americanism, but because of kickback scandals and their own hubris. It will also be because Harper distanced himself from his supposed ties to the US. He even wrote a letter to the Washington Times regarding Mr. Basham's column, emphasizing that he's no American lackey. As Harper surely knows, the anti-American card is hard to overplay in Canada.

Policies akin to those we embraced in the 1990s

It is hard to fathom how Stephen Harper's policies, at least as he has stated them, will be divisive or harmful to this country. This is the argument his opponents, in particular the Liberal party, have made. They claim Harper will radically change Canada with his tax-cut and social policies. An interesting assertion, but as the saying goes, consider the source.
In one of the famous (or infamous) Liberal attack ads — not the one that was pulled, which insinuated Harper was planning some sort of coup d'etat — a grave voice tells us Harper once gave a speech to some people in Montreal (I think these people are called "Americans"). In this speech, years ago, it seems Harper suggested that Canada's unemployed received fairly decent benefits. (True enough, I might add.) The voice continues over a muffled military drumbeat, appearing to suggest that this proves the Conservative leader lacks compassion and therefore could never be an appropriate choice for prime minister.
Anyone listening to this ad might believe that Harper, at some point, had proposed cutting significantly the benefits given to this country's unemployed.
No evidence is given to back the implied point. Also omitted from the ad is the well-documented fact that employment benefits were substantially cut back over the past 12 years by the Liberal party and its finance minister, Paul Martin.
That was back when Martin was in a position to do as he thought best, including making many cuts and changes to social programs. One could argue that if cuts to social programs were going to divide Canada, it must already have happened. (As though it is cuts to social programs that divide Canada.)
As the Conservative platform stands, a Harper government would reduce the GST; it would maintain planned increases in benefits for the unemployed; it would maintain scheduled transfers to the provinces for equalization and health care.
Harper's final fiscal platform also proposes a $200 million fund offering tax credits to developers who build low-income housing.
On child care, Harper has simply proposed allowing parents to decide for themselves what is best for their children. He is still offering them a lump sum.
The only real difference between the Liberals and Conservatives in proposed policy, is with regard to same-sex marriage. Personally, I support same-sex marriage. But I fail to see why the idea of a free vote in Parliament on the matter frightens people.
Harper says he won't use the notwithstanding clause to eradicate the right to same-sex marriage. So, even if gay marriage was overturned by Parliament — which, in a free vote, seems unlikely — it can't be overturned, ultimately.
None of this sounds scary, or frankly, particularly conservative.
It hardly sounds more conservative, or radically different, than the policies Canada knew in the 1990s.

Harper paying heed to public's concerns

Thugs know they won't be severely punished

There isn't any question that looking at the "root causes" of crime, and funding programs designed to prevent people from turning to violence, are worthy endeavours. But there also isn't any question that once someone belongs to a gang, or is willing to murder, carjack, rape, or steal, root causes are pretty much points rendered moot.
Once the crime has been committed, the fact that the perpetrator may come from a bad neighbourhood or have been the victim of racism or be young, no longer matters.
Plenty of people feel alienated but don't commit violent (or any) crimes. Once someone is behaving this way, our justice system needs to be effective, not only because this might actually deter some potential criminals, but because this would keep actual criminals off the street, hence, protecting the rest of us. Isn't that the point?
"I think," said Prime Minister Paul Martin, commenting on the Boxing Day killing of 15-year-old Jane Creba, "more than anything else, the shootings demonstrate what are, in fact, the consequences of exclusion."
I beg to differ. I think, more than anything else, the shootings demonstrate that Canada's justice system is too soft on violent crime and brutes out there know it.
In downtown Toronto, drug dealing, petty crimes and gang activity go on publicly with the perpetrators oblivious to reprisals. I doubt any of this was "exported from the United States," to quote another great thinker this week.
Passing the buck won't help, but more cops walking the proverbial beat, would. Allowing them to do their job would be useful, as well. Why not subject someone using drugs on a street corner to more scrutiny and police officers to less? The Youth Criminal Justice Act needs changing, too — tougher sentencing for lesser offences, and eliminating "alternative" sentencing (such as attendance in community programs) for offenders.
Proponents and opponents of capital punishment concur that a "life sentence" does not mean as much in Canada. With few exceptions, it means parole. Our justice system allows concurrent sentencing for violent crimes, and conditional sentencing for drug crimes and repeat offenders: We should scrap all of that.
Rather than banning handguns, assuming that were possible, or wasting money on a gun registry (how many of the Boxing Day offenders do you suppose would co-operate with that?), how about a mandatory minimum prison term for gun crimes?
Creba's death was the 78th homicide in Toronto this year. In November, when Amon Beckles was attending the funeral of murder victim Jamal Hemmings, he was shot to death outside the church. Mayor David Miller referred to Beckles' assailants as "despicable thugs." He talked tough, and truthfully. I'd like to hear more of that from every level of government — and reforms to our overly generous justice system.

Vote-hungry politicians fan anti-U.S. sentiment

We don't need Big Brother running children's lives

U.S. doing better than Canada without Kyoto

Payoff is just a flawed bribe to buy silence

The agreement reached between the federal government and former students of Canada's residential schools - $2.2 billion in compensation - is wrong on two levels. First, it amounts to a
bribe Take this money and shut up about it, okay? This is not about a sincere reckoning or accounting of the mistreatment of aboriginals. This is about a payoff. This is also not surprising, given that our "solution" to most problems involving aboriginal peoples seems to involve handing over money and perpetuating the very culture of dependency that has created so many of the problems those same peoples face.
And therein lies the second problem. This payoff is not even a sensible one. It's an extremely flawed bribe.
For example, descendants of residential school students who passed away after May 30 of this year (when Ottawa appointed a former judge to help negotiate a settlement) are also eligible for compensation. Why should someone who did not attend a residential school be given compensation for a traumatic experience they never had? Should I get an apology or money for something my parents went through? At one point, a line has to be drawn. A line should also be drawn in terms of what grievance, exactly, is being paid for.
While money cannot make up for sexual abuse and beatings, it is, perhaps, the best that can be done after so many years. It goes without saying that a child who was sexually abused, or physically abused at a residential school should receive some kind of compensation. (Of course, this is true for children who were abused at regular Canadian public schools, as well.)
But loss of language or culture is impossible to measure and paying people for that loss is counterproductive and counterintuitive. At the time, an attempt was being made to assimilate students at residential schools into white Canadian society. Unlike sexual or physical abuse, this was not being done with ill intent.
Canadians now recognize residential schools as not the most shining moment in our history. But should someone be given compensation for simply having attended a residential school? Attendance at one of those schools does not equal horrific abuse, nor should it qualify someone for compensation. Residential schools were a reflection of an era, not something we would sanction now. But painting all of those schools in the same light is unfair. I think of a close friend of mine, whose late mother taught at a residential school. In recent years, my friend's mother has been hurt by being tarred with the same brush as abusers .
The school this woman taught at was decent and compassionate, and many of her students kept in touch with her until her recent death. Her fondest memory of her time at Sioux Lookout was being made a "blood brother" by her students - hardly a ceremony that would be extended to an abuser.

He might have been young, but Omar Khadr is no Degrassi kid

Will Canadians be better off with Liberal tax cuts?

Few beyond Libby likely to be implicated

Perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice are serious charges. That Scooter Libby has been indicted on those charges is not a small thing for him. But it needn't be turned into more than that, something ominous for his former bosses.
This is the case of a prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, failing to find any White House cabal, or criminal conspiracy, or actual transgressions of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Instead, Fitzgerald charged that a Bush administration official lied to a grand jury about what he said to journalists.
There has been no indictment on the core issue — the disclosure of the identity of Valerie Plame by someone in the White House as supposed revenge against her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for an anti-war commentary he wrote in July 2003, in The New York Times.
It is worth noting that Plame does not fit the definition of "covert," since she had not served abroad for the CIA in the previous five years. And that Robert Novak, who first revealed her "secret," is an anti-Iraq war journalist.
Add that to the fact that, so far, no charges have been laid against presidential aide Karl Rove, (the magnet for much anti-Bush hatred), and one can't blame foes of the war for stretching things. It is a desperate stretch to say, as did Democratic Senator Harry Reid, that Fitzgerald's findings were actually about how Bush and his circle "manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq," and also about the White House wishing to "discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president."
I fail to see how stating the truth is a "discredit." Or if it is, one should look to Wilson as the source of his own discredit. How is it a smear to speak the truth about someone?
One alleged "smear" about Wilson is that his wife got him sent to Niger in 2002, to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium. In his book, Wilson wrote that his wife "had not proposed that I make the trip." Yet, the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that Plame "had suggested his name for the trip."
Wilson also claimed, in his famous commentary, that Saddam had not tried to buy uranium from Niger. Yet the same Senate committee found that Wilson neglected to mention his finding of proof of a meeting between Baathist minions and Niger's prime minister.
Further, according to a June 2004 story in the Financial Times, there is evidence that Niger was trying to sell uranium to an unsavoury bunch of nations, including Iraq. British intelligence reports found the evidence of Saddam's Niger uranium connection to be believable. And French and German intelligence believed Saddam to have been in the market for illicit weapons.
A jury will decide if Libby lied. But even if Rove is charged, or pressured to step down, the only known dissembler here is Wilson, whose anti-war agenda is clear. The question is, "What did Wilson know, and when did he know it?"

Allowing our culture to compete offers more protection than shielding it

I agree with France's culture minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, who commented during the UNESCO negotiations regarding the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, that "culture is not merchandise like any other." It certainly isn't. I feel fairly comfortable allowing democratic governments to decide how many corn on the cobs, say, they import, or how much they charge other countries for wine. I don't feel comfortable having them decide what constitutes my country's "culture." Nor do I want Ottawa to decide whether a TV show is sufficiently "Canadian" for my sensibilities.

Canada's culture minister, Liza Frulla, stated that the Convention was part of an "unshakeable commitment to protect and promote Canada's rich cultural diversity, including our aboriginal heritage and the boundless creativity of Canadians." Apparently, those comments weren't parody.

I concur that some Canadians are possessed of boundless creativity. They ought to be able to see their artistic expression flourish without absurd restrictions; they ought to be able to decide who gets to buy their offerings. I fail to understand how "protecting" our culture means protecting it from competition. Surely allowing it to grow and compete offers true protection.

A great irony is that after 9/11 UNESCO asserted, "intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of peace." If this is true, surely intercultural exchange should be encouraged, not restricted. We are fortunate to live in a time when, thanks to globalization, people can learn about each other through each other's music, movies and other expressions of culture, available to them through unprecedented openness. Why impede such progress? The Convention gets in the way of the very cultural diversity it purports to support, all in the name of something impossible to define or quantify.

It should come as no surprise that the one country that consistently refuses to go along with this kind of protectionist nonsense is the United States — the one country whose culture everyone else is desperate to keep out. The Convention is aimed primarily at the U.S. It is its exports, billions of dollars worth, that so many other nations are eager to shield their citizens from, even though those citizens are happy to pay for the dreaded American culture. One particularly creepy line in the Convention refers to "the importance of culture for social cohesion." Social engineering, anyone?

Few countries are keener to limit the choices their citizens have in terms of foreign cultural content than Canada. Just from a practical point of view, we should stop wasting our time. With the proliferation of personal electronic devices and Internet access, it is hard to stop Canadians from watching/reading/listening to what they wish. More important, though, is the question of whether we want to be a grown-up, confident nation, ready to compete with other grown-ups. There is no reason for us not to be.

Canada doesn't have oil, Alberta does

The United States does not have too much "control" of our oil. The idea that it does — because, under NAFTA, we sell a certain proportion of oil to the United States — shows a failure to understand any number of things.

Who is the "our" in our oil? I don't know many Albertans, but I know enough of them to know they don't think Ontario, or much of the rest of Canada, is part of that "our."

Since Ottawa sold its stake in Petro-Canada, it could be argued that the federal government doesn't control any oil. Albertans do. And Albertans may feel that they kindly allow Ottawa to collect billions of dollars in taxes from that oil.

In short, Eastern oil consumers and Western oil producers most likely disagree about who controls what, and who it "belongs" to.

Control of oil comes from the marketplace, not from any buyer. Let's just imagine that the Canadian government mandated oil sales to China. China would then buy less from everyone else and American firms would still end up paying about the same price on the world market and getting about the same amount.

The only difference? According to John Palmer, economics professor at the University of Western Ontario, "We would force Canadian producers to pay more to ship it to China instead of the United States. In the process, we would further strain Canada-U.S. relations while donating cheap oil, by probably subsidizing the transport costs, to China."

Prime Minister Paul Martin should keep that — among other things — in mind when he decides to use oil to threaten the United States. Speaking two weeks ago in New York, the Prime Minister attempted to address the ongoing softwood lumber dispute. He hinted that Canada would look at China and India as a marketplace for "our" oil, restricting energy exports to the United States, if the Bush administration doesn't smarten up.

Apart from how morally questionable it is to suggest that trading with a dictatorship like China is a preferable/equal option to trading with a free country like America, there is also the matter of reality.

Canada is dependent on the American market, which buys approximately 85 per cent of what we have to offer. This is not to mention how our Prime Minister is causing further deterioration of already tenuous Canada-U.S. relations.

In the world market, oil is fungible. Who sells how much to whom is of little import. The price is determined by supply and demand, not a single oil company, or state. Certainly, if American demand dropped, so would the world price, but American firms do not set oil prices.

It would be nice if Canadian politicians would realize all of this and find less childish ways to deal with our largest trading partner. We always seem to be reacting against the United States, rather than carefully thinking through our rhetoric and our options.

Do the wealthy pay too much tax in Canada?

Stronach Shouldn't Feel Proud

Dubya Trouble

Not all Canadians hate George W. Bush, contrary to the received wisdom. There is a secret underground society of Bush fans (three and a half of us, at last count) in Canada. How do I know this? It started with a T-shirt an American friend of mine gave me earlier this year. It has a big "W" on it, next to a wee American flag and an "04."

To clarify, I am a Bush fan, in the way Woody Allen's character, Mickey, in Hannah and her Sisters, wanted to become a Roman Catholic. Mid-existential crisis, Mickey tells a priest that some aspects of Catholicism entice him, but he would prefer to join the "against school prayer, pro-abortion, anti-nuclear wing" of the church. That's how I feel about Bush and his Republican party. I support the against school prayer, pro-war on terror, pro-war in Iraq, pro-war in Afghanistan, pro-pressure on tyrants, pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, thumb-your-nose-at-the-UN wing. And, on a human level, I like Bush, who seems to genuinely like and respect women -- a refreshing break from his predecessor.

Because my own government does not fret about jihadists, I am eternally grateful there is an administration in Washington that does. I don't think I realized how much I wanted Bush to win a second term until he actually did, and my shoulders went back down to where shoulders should be, in sharp contrast to where they had been all last summer, up around my forehead.

Still, I was reluctant to wear my "W" T-shirt in public, given the unfounded hysteria and fear George Bush seems to inspire in Canadians. I thought a good place to start might be my gym, a YMCA, as the Y's battle cry is "inclusivity." My membership card even warns that failure to comply with inclusivity will get me tossed out on my backside.

I told one gym friend of my plans, a fellow I knew to be of a similar political mindset. He is a man I initially started talking to for superficial reasons -- he is dead handsome -- only to discover he had more going for him than looks. That's so rare with men. Handsome Guy said this about my T-shirt: "Tell me when you're going to wear it so I can bring my camcorder."

No one beat me up the first time I wore it, in mid-February, but the furrowed brows and looks of horror were hard to miss (even more than I usually get). One fellow shook his head and said, "It's dangerous to wear that in Canada." Another told a joke about Bush out at a restaurant with Dick Cheney. Bush looks at the menu and orders a "quickie," shocking the waitress. The punchline was that Cheney explains to Bush that what he wants is, in fact, a "quiche." Hilarious! Do you get it? It's so funny, you see, because Bush is so dumb he needs Cheney to help him read menus. Get it? Oh, how funny.

On another occasion, a woman confronted me mid-weight training. "I am deeply offended by your shirt." All I could think to say was, "Then it's a good thing you're not the one wearing it." She asked me how I would feel if she wore a Hitler T-shirt. "Deeply offended," I said. "Well?" she said. "Surely you're not comparing the two," I replied. She was.

At the gym, I have seen T-shirts with various union and political party logos, and I have seen those ubiquitous "Bush-- International Terrorist" T-shirts. None of those offend me, though some make me snicker. None make it hard for me to work out, either, which is the effect my "W" T-shirt had on another lady. She turned to me, after a boxing class, fuming that she could "barely concentrate" during the leaping and punching, due to seeing that damn W in the aerobics studio's mirrored walls. An hour of sweating didn't mitigate her fury. That George Bush is a powerful man.

More recently, an older, 1960s leftover lady I had shared friendly chitchat with asked me if my T-shirt was a joke. I told her no. She looked dubious and told me she was "very far left." "How fun for you!" I said. Days later, she introduced me to a friend of hers. "This is Rondi," she said. "She likes George Bush." She then paused, before saying, desperately trying to convince, "But she's very nice!"

I was tempted, in turn, to introduce her to people thusly: "This is Peggy. She's a leftist." Pause. "But she's not always illogical, infantile and myopic!"

Amidst more of the same, however, the rumblings of a radical uprising could be heard. A guy I'd seen around, but not talked to, sidled up to me one day, whispering conspiratorially, "I like your T-shirt."

I told my brother, who suggested that what this gentleman really liked was under my shirt. Perhaps, but he and I talked about politics, not my chest. He felt our underground society should come up with a secret handshake as a stealth means of identification. I realized that between him, Handsome Guy, and me, Bush had three fans in Canada, rebels all.

Three and a half, figuring in the teenage boy, who, taking a break from basketball one day, asked me if I had "gotten any grief" about my T-shirt. He was curious, he said, because while he had "no strong opinions," he had got into a fracas with friends, when they insisted there was nothing about the U.S. president that was not entirely evil. "I told them," he said, "there has to be something about him that isn't evil."

Now that's hopeful. Nonetheless, I am giving the T-shirt a break for a bit. It's too risky. In the meantime, we three and a half need a name for our group.

I like the sounds of the "Cold Weather Underground," myself.

Borderless Blogs versus Canada Press Ban

A Canadian publication ban and an American blogger clashed last week. The court-ordered ban did not survive the impact. The blogger was overwhelmed with visitors.

And what had been Canada's own private scandal - so private Canadians had been prevented from hearing about it in full - fast traveled the borderless blogosphere.

Publication bans prevent anyone from publishing or broadcasting evidence given or motions made during the course of a trial. Publication bans are not common in Canada, but when imposed they are meant to ensure that a jury pool, or a sitting jury, is not tainted. (One can be forgiven for wondering what the point of jury selection is, if a judge can't feel confident those selected are unable to look solely at evidence presented.) In this instance, however, the ban was imposed on a public inquiry into possible government fraud and conspiracy, involving taxpayer dollars. The word "counterintuitive" comes to mind.

"Adscam" has been making headlines in Canada for nearly two years. It involves an attempt by the federal government - under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Party - to "sell Canada" in Quebec, a province that has twice held (unsuccessful) referendums on the question of independence. Advertising agencies in Quebec were hired - at a cost of more than $200 million (US) - to promote federalism. But allegations surfaced that $81 million of those funds had been funneled back to Liberal Party loyalists. Paul Martin, shortly after becoming prime minister in late 2003, set up an inquiry headed by Justice John Gomery.

On March 29, Justice Gomery issued a publication ban on the testimony of three witnesses. This was done, he said, in order to assure the witnesses receive fair treatment when they face a criminal trial - relating to Adscam - later this year. In his ruling, Gomery stated that the ban included the Internet. With testimony under lock, everyone wondered about its relative explosiveness. A suggestion that the Liberal Party would be forced to call an election due to the hidden information made the rounds - causing Canadians to envision the absurd scenario that we would go to the polls based in part on something we weren't allowed to hear, or talk about.

Enter American blogger Ed Morrissey, or Captain Ed, to his readers. On April 2, in his Captain's Quarters blog, he posted some of the testimony. In the following days, Mr. Morrissey posted more, telling readers that some of the revelations came from a single source, some were corroborated by a second.

It didn't take long for a Canadian site, NealeNews, to link to the captain, though without printing any of the testimony. Still, officials at the Gomery Inquiry said they were considering citing the owner of NealeNews with contempt. American bloggers - including Michelle Malkin and Instapundit - picked up the story. Any Canadian with access to a computer could get the dirt. Morrissey wrote that his blog had been "swarmed with tens of thousands" of hits. He kindly warned Canadian visitors that they may "receive a summons" from their government.

Where a publication ban used to be fairly simple to understand, if not necessarily approve, new questions were being asked. Questions like: If I link to a site with a link to Captain's Quarters, will the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) show up at my house? Or, if I already had a link to Captain's Quarters before it carried the testimony, do I now have to remove it? Are the RCMP going to hire an army of new staff to hunt for untoward links?

A friend sent me an e-mail with the subject line, "The man on the ship," deferring jokingly (I assumed) to the publication ban, by referring to Captain Ed in code.

Canadian networks and newspapers found themselves tiptoeing through this new minefield, trying to report about the blog without mentioning blog names or web addresses. One television network removed a story that contained the blog's name from their website. The Globe and Mail mentioned Morrissey, but not his blog, by name. While some Canadian bloggers defied the ban, mainstream media appeared to lack similar moxie. Coming days after details of the rape, torture, and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi were revealed (she was arrested and murdered in Iran in 2003, for taking photographs of a demonstration), such gyrations seemed feeble.

One Canadian blogger who linked to Captain's Quarters, Angry in the Great White North, says he did so because he does not want his children growing up in a country "where public testimony can be known by government officials and by the media, but by no one else." And Gomery reacted as well, lifting most of the ban last Thursday. Some testimony is still muzzled ... but not for American bloggers or Canadians who can Google, if sources keep talking.

Gomery said he lifted the ban because "it is in the public interest that this evidence with few exceptions be made available to the public." But it is hard to believe the blogosphere didn't play a powerful role in bringing about his epiphany.

The Internet has perhaps rendered publication bans futile. Whether that is a good thing can be debated. Freedom should not be mistaken for license. But given the level of alleged corruption exposed by the secret testimony, first at Captain's Quarters, and now all over mainstream Canadian media, it is difficult to argue that Canadians shouldn't be grateful for this clash of the blog and the ban.

Canada Must Deny Refugee Status to U.S. Soldier

She's baaaack!

Almost exactly a year ago Friday, Martha Stewart was convicted on charges of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a stock sale. Because I'm pro-Martha, I dubbed that day, which happened to be my birthday, "Black Friday."

I'm sure Ms. Stewart enjoyed Black Friday even less than I did, and has a much worse name for it. But I knew, as did fan and foe alike, that if life gave Stewart a prison sentence, she would somehow turn it into cash flow or a highly rated television series. She is already doing both.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (of which she is no longer CEO), can boast stock that has risen more than 100 percent since October, when Stewart went to prison, bringing her net worth up at least $500 million. She has signed up for a syndicated daily show and a reality series with Mark Burnett, a producer not known for prime time that flops.

Americans love watching the mighty falling, especially those presumed to be mighty and arrogant - pride goeth before the fall. Or, in Stewart's case, homemade pie crust goeth before the prison walls. Seeing certain folk chastened can be satisfying. But Americans are also forgiving, mindful that anyone can stumble. Who does not love a comeback, particularly if the person reemerging has been humbled? After five months at a federal facility in West Virginia ("Camp Cupcake"), and a year after Black Friday, Stewart is set to make great vats of lemonade out of a seriously huge lemon crop. Stewart's decision to become a Cupcake camper was savvy. Had she stayed out and fought her conviction, it's unlikely another trial would have been granted. Ultimately, she'd have had to don the Cupcake jumpsuit and down the unpalatable prison grub. This way, she looks tough, which she is; unafraid, which she may not be, but the impression is all she needs; and like someone willing to take her punishment, however unjust she may feel it is.

Still, her lawyers apparently are going back to appeal. Should she win, Stewart will be, in a way, a martyr - even better than being a comeback kid. Somehow, though, I can't imagine Stewart enjoying the martyr role. She is, first and foremost, a hard worker. Her life story - girl from a large, Polish family in New Jersey tackles all she can professionally and personally and always, always, achieves - is not one of inherited ease.

When she is released from prison (possibly as early as Friday), she will be under house arrest for another five months, but we know she won't be idle. We can safely bet she will make use of every last minute of the 48 hours a week she will be permitted to work outside her home. Prior to her release from prison she ordered seeds for planting, her magazine "Martha Stewart Living" reports.

Which isn't to say all she plants will come up roses. Her brand has weakened, losing $7 million in the last quarter due to declines in ad revenue. And even as she was earning mere pennies in the Big House, the "blondenfreude" continued. The fact that she lost a prison Christmas decorating contest was not lost on late-night comics. (I say she threw the competition.) She also faces civil charges from the SEC for insider trading.

Some people fall and never rise again. Some fall, rise up, and fall again. But I am banking on Stewart's enduring success. How can I be sure? I heard she invited hairstylist Frederic Fekkai to Cupcake to discuss postinternment reblondification. The woman has her priorities right.

Once again Canada looks childish and petulant

When Prime Minister Paul Martin announced last week that Canada would not participate in the American-led ballistic missile defence program, he added, "We respect the right of the United States to defend itself and its people." He might have added that we respect the right, and indeed the necessity, of the U.S. to continue defending Canada and its people, regardless of Thursday's announcement. Just as we did throughout the Cold War, we can afford to sit back, knowing our neighbours will sacrifice money, time and lives to take care of us.

Martin might also have added that we have an imagined notion that our rejection of missile defence somehow enhances Canadian sovereignty and pride. For that is really all this is about, and sadly, the state into which our political culture has degenerated.

It is not about principles, any more than our unwillingness to send troops to Iraq was about principles. It is about political pandering on the part of our leaders and delusions of moral superiority on the part of many Canadians.

Missile defence will be deployed regardless of our pouting, and it may well protect us, no matter our contempt. Were we to swallow our indignity and donate some Canadian money and talent, we may even get a part of missile defence named after us, à la Canadarm. One can't help but feel that were any country other than the U.S. setting up this system, we would stand in line to help. This underlines our petulance, only making us look childish.

As does the comment made by Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, when American ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci pointed out that the U.S. would now make unilateral decisions about what to do should a missile be coming our way. "Would it have been otherwise?" said Pettigrew.

In other words, you're powerful, we're not, so we're not helping.

Japan, Australia, South Korea and Israel, none as powerful as the U.S., but grown-ups all, are currently working with America toward a successful missile defence operation. They are willing to acknowledge the frightening truths of our world, the dangers that face democracies. By contrast, our grudging, reactionary stance on the matter puts us in a league with certain European leaders, concerned more with American power than with threats from foes.

In short, our rejection of missile defence will increase our standing in the dream world the majority of Canadians appear to live in, the one where the enemies of the U.S. are not our enemies. It will increase our standing in our own minds, and our popularity with enemies of the free world — inasmuch as any of those people think about Canada, except in terms of how easy we'd be to dominate without the U.S. on our side.

As for the real world, the one we actually live in and the one that ought to concern us, this decision only increases the amount of light shed on our fragile national ego.

Tortured by symbols: A new flag controversy
http://www.techcentralstation.com/020405E.html

I've watched Fox News...and I'm still sane

FREEDOM IS on the march. Fox News is now in Canada.

I have been watching it for several weeks. Yet I have not done any of the following: Bought a gun,
protested a gay wedding or tattooed a big W on my cleavage.

All of this surprises, given the preconceived notions Canadians have about Fox News.

Fox News was not available to law-abiding Canadians (the non law-abiding ones with illegal satellite dishes were a different story) until a month ago. But in late 2004, the CRTC finally accepted an application by Canadian cable providers to let Fox News in. And so Fox News began beaming into my living room, via digital cable.

I'm impressed with it, in spite of dismissals of the network by Canadian pundits, perhaps concerned that
competition might threaten the status quo from which many of them benefit.

One critic called Fox News "hilarious." Another suggested that Fox News should be subjected to the same strict regulations that the CRTC would impose on Al-Jazeera (not yet available here).

Now, "hilarious" is subjective. But the implied comparison of Fox News with Al-Jazeera is nonsense. A
network that acts as a de facto mouthpiece for Islamofascists and routinely spews anti-Semitism is in a
league all its own.

In October, Maclean's ran a cover story riddled with much of what is supposedly rampant at Fox News --
alarmism, bias, and condescension towards anyone who views the matter at hand differently.

Fox News, we were told, is "relentlessly American." Why would we want to watch it? Goodness forbid we should look beyond ourselves. Don't mention that American television is far more popular in Canada than the homegrown.

Fox News, we were also told, is "rabidly pro-Bush" and "unabashedly navel-gazing." Interesting, coming from a country where people are forced to pay for the CBC -- a network arguably as anti-Bush as Fox is pro.

Not that Fox is that pro-Bush. I have heard, these past weeks, plenty of oppositional voices on Fox News. And it seems to me those voices are treated with more respect than were the oppositional voices on the fifth estate's piece this week dealing with Fox News. As for navel-gazing, I can think of few things that fit the description better than the recent CBC series The Greatest Canadian.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should reveal that I have been a guest, a number of times, on Fox
News -- though I am not paid for the appearances. And I am finding, as I now watch the network, that it
is evenhanded, provocative, and not -- as we were promised -- noticeably loud.

It provides, for Canada, where conservatives in the media have mostly been marginalized, a welcome
balance. I have not heard anyone say "shut up" to date. (I'm almost disappointed.)

I find Brit Hume's Special Report to be one of the better news shows on television and Bill O'Reilly more
measured than we have been led to believe, while other opinion shows are hosted by people who are clear about where they stand. One can take that, or change the channel. The news coverage, national and international, is quite good, not "relentlessly American."

Overall, watching U.S. television makes me painfully aware of how parochial Canadian offerings are. We have nothing to match the debate and lively discourse south of the border, and if we are so insecure
that such discussions frighten us, we've got bigger worries than Fox News.

My mother often says Canadians remind her of the petty government officials in Nikolai Gogol's The
Inspector General, desperately puffing themselves up to impress the wrong person. I am not so
highbrow. I see us as the John Travolta character in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble -- afraid of anything
outside our protective layer.

Except that Bubble Boy had a legitimate fear. Whereas Canadians might find breaking the bubble makes breathing easier.

Blinkered by the "Christian" in Christmas

Mirror Image

Sometimes the news is so frightening it has to be kept from your parents. And while we may try to shield them from certain images, it is impossible to fully protect the innocent from 24 hour news. Late last month, Edvard Munch's famous Scream, and less famous Madonna, were stolen at gunpoint from the museum named for the artist in Oslo. They have probably become currency in the world of art thief gangs, Sharks and Jets with Vermeers and El Grecos under their leather jackets.

When I saw the headlines, I knew the awful truth could only be kept from my Norwegian mother for so long. I decided it was better if she heard the news from me than from Wolf Blitzer. If she and I talked it through, I figured, I could answer any questions she had, and explain to her that though there are bad people in the world, and bad things do happen to Norwegian paintings, most people are good.

Mum's first words, when I told her about the theft, were "Norwegians would never do that. The thieves must have been foreigners." I told her that film taken of the perpetrators running from the scene, guns and canvasses in hands, revealed two men with hoods over their faces. "So we don't know, mum," I said, gently. "They may have been Norwegians." "No," she insisted. "They were probably Swedish and slipped across the border." I told her they apparently shouted in Norwegian. "A lot of those Swedes can speak Norwegian," said mum. "And Norwegians don't shout."

For many outside the Norwegian Diaspora, it is hard to grasp the importance of the Scream. To most people, it is just a creepy painting college undergrads hang on their dorm room walls and Japanese people make into blow-up dolls. But to a Norwegian, it is like a mirror-image, a reflection, if you will. It looks ugly to you. But to us it's like Alice through the looking-glass. We may be tall, blond and blue-eyed on the outside. But our inner Norwegian looks just like a shrieking skeleton with a tumultuous sky behind him, unaware that the United Nations thinks Norway is the greatest place on earth, or that the winner of this year's World Idol is Norwegian.

Apart from the high Norwegian suicide rate, there is Norwegian guilt. I often tell Jewish friends who complain about parental mind games: "You think you know guilt? Let me tell you, Semitic guilt is child's play next to the Nordic kind. Child's play!" Norwegians are taught to never brag, never boast and also, never fail. And by fail, I mean, get an A-minus in something, have a bad thought, or not conform in some way. Of course, success to Norwegians also means not standing out. At all. Between skiing and taking care of your Dale of Norway sweaters, you ought to be able to pull all of that off while you're doing your best impersonation of a drone. Over here in North America, we hear of Norway's socialist system and how you get a cruise to Italy if you have a backache. But that isn't life for Kristofferssens or Pederssens in Ontario or Minnesota.

Mum has always taught me that there are famous Norwegians to look up to, such as...um...well, I used to think Paul Bremer was one. This is because when he was first appointed head of the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority, I read that he spoke Norwegian. I naturally assumed that only a Norwegian would speak Norwegian. I told mum he was Norwegian and she said "that's why he's so handsome." It turns out I was mistaken. One of Bremer's first diplomatic postings was in Oslo where, it is safe to conclude, he had time for Norwegian lessons. Nothing happens in Norway. There are, mum tells me, only about 400 words in Norwegian, so one can learn it quickly. I doubt Bremer had time for Arabic classes in Baghdad. Other famous Norwegians? Sonja Henie, but we don't like her because she was nice to Hitler. I thought I heard that Renee Zellweger was half Norwegian. And we're all pleased Hans Blix is a Swede.  If the Scream thieves are Norwegian, I hope they haven't knocked back too much glog in celebration of their victory. The Scream was painted on cardboard (Norwegians are frugal, and I gather Munch was no exception), easy for drunken revelers to damage. At least they would know how to properly pronounce the artist's name. It sounds like "Moonck." Not "munch" like the verb.

Pundits and anchors have opined that no one would want the Scream on their living room wall. This is true. Especially not a Norwegian, who sees it every time he walks past a pane of glass.

Canada, Al Jazeera, and Fox

Al Jazeera has been deemed acceptable viewing for Canadians ... but Fox News? No. It's currently only available to Canadians with illegal satellite connections. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), a federal agency that decides what constitutes appropriate viewing and listening for Canadians, and that, last month, granted Al Jazeera the right to broadcast in Canada, is a paleo- concept. That culturecrats in Ottawa have, as their mandate, the protection of "Canadian values" and promotion of "Canadian content" reeks of rightthink, doublespeak, and social engineering.

On the surface, the Al Jazeera decision seems to jell with the CRTC's raison d'être, but the reasoning isn't consistent. The commission says Al Jazeera doesn't compete with existing channels. True enough. We don't have a 24-hour Arabic news network that bubbles with anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. We do, however, have a public broadcaster with barely concealed anti-American and anti-Israeli biases. Canadians should perhaps be grateful their taxes don't fund Al Jazeera as they do the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

What Canadians most certainly do not have is a conservative news network. Yet Fox News was told in 2000 that it could broadcast in Canada only if it offered a schedule with 15 percent Canadian content. I'm grateful this proposal never took off, particularly when I see the Canadian version of MSNBC - Matthews, Scarborough, et al., interspersed with a distressing array of Northern talking heads singing the praises of Canadian multiculturalism, social programs, and niceness.

CRTC defenders - and there are many in Canada's arts community - say the agency is simply trying to shield Canadian sensibilities from nefarious outside influences. (Read: conservative American influences.) The reluctance to allow access to a network that might
shake up the status quo is a reflection of national insecurity. The issue isn't whether people will like everything they see on Fox News. CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS all broadcast here sans Canadian content. But they're relatively centrist. And no one seems concerned
that BBC World airs here or that the CBC 24-hour cable channel carries its nightly newscast. So the BBC is competing with existing stations - but it has all the right (or, better said, left) biases. If Al Jazeera were rejected, the CRTC would be called intolerant by many in a nation where moral relativism has become the norm. One man's fatwa is another man's hockey game.

The CRTC is again considering an application from Fox News - a decision is expected in the fall. Curiously, in clearing the way for Al Jazeera, the CRTC included a waiver asking distributors to edit out "abusive comment." This sets a dangerous precedent: If we watch Al Jazeera - and I'm not convinced we shouldn't be allowed to - we should be exposed to what it truly is, not a sanitized version. Not to mention that if Fox News is permitted in Canada, I wouldn't be astonished if "abusive comments" (Read: pro-American) were replaced with a test pattern.

Trapped in ponytail hell

Sitting through Conscientious Objections, a benefit concert for U.S. war resisters held in Toronto recently, one thought ran through my mind: Please, Mother Nature, open up the Earth right now and swallow me whole. On my way in to the Hart House Theatre on the University of Toronto campus, I was handed flyers from Latinos Against Zionism, Lesbians Who Hate George Bush and People Who Don't Want Their Tuition Increased.

It all made compelling reading, but not as compelling as the company I was keeping. I asked the youngish guy sitting behind me if he noticed the rather greying demographic around us: "Yeah," he nodded. "A lot of lifelong activists here."

Never in my more than 35 years had I seen so many silver ponytails, so much turquoise jewelry, so much Indian cotton and so many men who looked almost exactly like Ben & Jerry. Unfortunately, none of them had brought their Chunky Monkey, so I couldn't even play the "take a spoonful of ice cream whenever someone says 'George Bush is a dangerous man' " game. Good thing, as swimsuit season is nigh.

They had, however, brought along their era. I counted twice as many references to Vietnam than to Iraq during the course of the evening. And the emcee confessed that though his heart and mind were still young, his body wasn't.

I can at least vouch for the last part of that statement. The benefit was held to raise money for U.S. refugee claimants Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, and the Quaker families who are harbouring them.

I went at the request of Fox News, with whom I would discuss the show the next day, but I kept that quiet, valuing my life as I do.

Hinzman and Hughey are the two who freely joined a war machine and then drove to Canada when they discovered said war machine was planning to fight a war and, worse, expecting them to hold up their end of the bargain.

According to virtually everyone who was on stage at Hart House Theatre, this makes them "brave."

It also makes them "good Americans," according to Olivia Chow, a.k.a. Mrs. Jack Layton, who spoke at the event. Chow was fairly incomprehensible, and not because I was loopy on the aroma infrequently washed hemp clothing gives off.

She was incomprehensible because she didn't know what she was talking about.

She almost sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons, although some of what I was able to understand amounted to: "they are good Americans," and "I am related to good Americans," and "I have cousins in the States and they are good Americans," and "George Bush is not good."

It was gracious of her to concede that there is such a thing as a good American. But she probably had to, given how many of them there were in the room and on stage.

Most of them were draft dodgers who, when they would say as much, would be greeted with a rousing round of cheers.

The loudest was reserved for Hinzman and Hughey, who both smilingly stood up and accepted the spotlight. They were smart enough to avoid the stage, but I got a clear enough view of them.

At least, the music was good. And there are certainly worse ways to spend a summer evening than listening to Universal Soldier followed by a spoken word recap of America's moral failings.

Still, I had to control the urge to go over and ask Hinzman and Hughey if I could take the bayonets they were so reluctant to use and drive them right through my own heart.

I was Fox News's second choice to discuss the benefit.

Their first choice was one of the performers at the show. He turned them down. On stage that night, he explained why he turned down a chance to appear before a huge TV audience and discuss something about which he purports to care passionately.

It amounted to "they don't agree with me." But before he managed, the concert's organizer uttered the words "Fox News" on stage and was greeted with loud laughter.

He then said that Fox was an acronym for "fascist, offensive and xenophobic." This was greeted with applause and more laughter.

Interesting, given most of the audience had probably never seen Fox News, as Canadians are not allowed.

We might get bad ideas. And we wouldn't want our open minds tainted.

Canada's Romance with US Military Exiles

When I was very young, during the Vietnam War, there was an American draft dodger in our rural Canadian community who had tie-dyed clothes, a guitar, stories to tell, and a number of young followers. They thought him romantic.

But my father - an anti-Vietnam war liberal and big Richard Nixon basher (he brought a TV to our rustic cottage the summer Nixon resigned so he wouldn't miss a glorious minute of the downfall) - was disgusted.

This boy, he said, was no hero. Look up to Muhammad Ali, and to others with the courage of their convictions, he suggested. Look up to the soldiers who are in Vietnam. But you should not look up to a draft dodger, my dad admonished.

He'd be disgusted again, if he saw Canadian reaction to Privates Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Both are US soldiers gone AWOL in Canada - Private Hinzman, 25, lives in Toronto and Private Hughey, 19, lives in St. Catharines. Both say they can't participate in
what they believe is an illegal war. But their values do not, apparently, extend to facing the legal consequences of their beliefs.

Both say they joined the Army to pay for their education. Many others have as well, but have accepted that the military is, first and foremost, about war. But they chose to run from war, in contrast to Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, who turned himself in to the US for refusing to fight in a war he opposes - a move that may earn him respect even as it earns him a court-martial.

Both Hinzman and Hughey are being treated with kid gloves and tepid questioning from media. But this wouldn't have been the case 30 years ago, as the intervening years have seen Canada become more isolationist and Euro-smug. The result is predictable: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), not known for objectivity when reporting on the United States, has barely been able to contain its glee over the problems in Iraq.

So it should not come as a surprise that the baby-faced Hughey has already been featured on two CBC shows, with promos declaring, "For more than 200 years, Americans have been escaping war and strife in the US by heading north," and, "They came during the War of
Independence, the Civil War, the Vietnam War ... and now there's that other war in Iraq. It's only a trickle, but it's starting to happen again."

More disturbing still, some have drawn a comparison between these two and slaves traveling the Underground Railroad - as though someone who voluntarily signed up for military service could rightly be compared to human beings bought and sold as property.

Other news stories claim that both young men "escaped" from the US, that they were "lured" into joining the Army. No one appears interested in the matter of free will, that they joined the Army of their own accord.

Hinzman joined in January 2001 and says he was amazed when he realized he was being trained to kill. He served in Afghanistan, but, pending decision on his application for conscientious objector status, in a noncombat capacity. That status was denied, according to information on his website, when he admitted he would fight in self-defense.

Hughey joined after 9/11 - knowing full well the US had declared war on terrorism. He abandoned his unit just before they were deployed to Iraq.

Both men are refugee claimants, meaning they can stay in Canada if they prove they will be killed or persecuted - not prosecuted - once back in the US where they'd face military prison. The burden of proof is high.

Both men are being represented by the same lawyer, Jeffry House, an American draft dodger who came to Canada in 1970. Mr. House was one of an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 draft dodgers to come here. But it should not be so easy now.

After 9/11, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration" meant to tighten up our long, shared, porous border. It was still porous enough, however, for Hughey to get across in March saying he was going to a Toronto Raptors game, and for Hinzman, along with his wife and young son, to get across (without the Raptors excuse) in January, shortly after his unit received orders for Iraq.

One Canadian paper referred to Hughey as "a mere boy." This mere boy, and the slightly bigger boy, Hinzman, are savvy enough to use the Internet and the political atmosphere that surrounds them. Both were trotted out as "featured guests" at a recent "The World Still
Says No to War" rally in Toronto.

Both have websites soliciting sympathy and donations. Hinzman's features a letter of support from foreign policy and ethics expert Susan Sarandon. Hughey's promises us good karma if we contact our member of Parliament on his behalf.

Hinzman - who has a publicist - would like us to go straight to our prime minister, and he encourages us to read Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom," in which the social philosopher examined the illness of modern civilization and the roots of authoritarianism.

Hinzman implies the points Mr. Fromm makes will help explain why he joined the Army. Hinzman's site also includes a fawning paragraph about Canada's "cultural diversity" and its "wonderful social safety net" (though he says he hopes never to use it).

It is a line from exile Hughey's site, though, that says it best: "Picture being 1,500 miles from everything and everyone you know." Better yet, I say, picture being 7,000 miles from everything and everyone you know, in unthinkable conditions, under fire, doing the duty you signed on for, while former comrades update their websites in Canada.

It's an election, not a beauty pageant

Women's mags: proof misery sells

        TORONTO - Like a repentant cattle rancher turned vegetarian, Myrna Blyth appears to have turned on her former self. The retired editor of Ladies' Home Journal has written a book dishing scorn on women's magazines - "Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America."

        Ms. Blyth accuses an entire magazine genre of marketing anxiety in order to perpetuate the myth of women as victims - and the fur's flying.

        Cosmopolitan's editor, Kate White, accused Blyth of "dragging other people down with her self-loathing." Cindi Leive, of Glamour, said that Blyth was "trying to burn down the whole category of magazines." Ellen Levine, editor at Good Housekeeping, calls Blyth's condition "serious Ann Coulter envy."

        Meow.

        It is fair comment to point out that this book was written after a successful career in the field the author condemns. I wouldn't pretend to know Blyth's motives. Or who she envies. But I'm certain she is right.

        Women's magazines fall into two categories, with occasional overlap. There are the fluffy, and there are the fear-mongering - reflecting the bifurcated legacy of feminism:  be sexy while you file for divorce. The former fill their pages with eyeliner, Armani, and Beyonce's luscious curves. They are, I believe, harmless. The latter fill theirs with infidelity and infertility, and I cannot, for the unfulfilled life of me, see what good they do.

        My experience writing for several such magazines in Canada - Chatelaine, Modern Woman, Flare, Homemaker's - confirm Blyth's claim that editors skew facts, court alarmism, and reject the positive. There's no better (seemingly bottomless) swamp to draw from than the one filled with insecurity and victimology that mainstream feminism has created. At times, I've played along - the pay's good. But one tires.

        Three years ago, I pitched what I felt was an empowering (to use a word I hate) story to several women's magazines. I got the idea from my gynecologist, who, dismayed at my extreme fear of breast cancer, gave me a good talking to about what he termed "the breast cancer hysteria." The 1 in 9 statistic, he said, should read more like "1 in 9 if every woman on the planet lives to be 100." And three times out of four it will not be fatal, he said.

        I hoped to explore in this article the politics of the disease, showing how the threat of breast cancer is disproportionate to the amount of attention and money it receives, and that attention takes away from other problems and, indeed, from the quality of life.

        Editor after editor rejected the idea with no comment, except one at a magazine called Elm Street who snippily e-mailed: "There is no way this story can do anything but trivialize the plight of women with breast cancer."

        That this woman failed to see how condescending she was being to her readers - as though females cannot grasp nuance - should not have surprised me. Ultimately, I wrote the piece for an online Libertarian magazine. This argument has been made elsewhere, notably in "PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine," by Sally Satel, a Yale psychiatrist.

        On another occasion, an editor at Homemaker's hired me to write a feature about the division of housework. I gathered up statistics and anecdotal evidence and found that men were helping and were particularly involved with childcare.

Madame Editor was grim. She told me to "find evidence" men didn't help, but not before going off on a rant about her second or third husband never having lifted a finger.

        She instructed me to interview a friend of hers whose husband was "useless," and specifically told me to begin my piece with a description of this woman "having a meltdown." I attempted second and third drafts, neither of which conveyed sufficient misery for the editor. I gave up. The story appeared in the magazine, bylined by another, replete with meltdowns and lazy lunks, months later.

        Still another time, I proposed a story to several magazines. I wanted to write about having a mother who was in her 40s when I was born. My focus was positive: about how much it benefited me and how close I am to my mum.  Homemaker's bit on the idea.

        I got back, with the first draft, a request that I add some statistics about older mothers and birth defects, the "dangers" of old eggs, and that surely I could think of instances when my mother was "too exhausted" to play with me. I refused but was promised the story would run, nonetheless. It didn't. An e-mail and a call from me went unanswered by the magazine, so I sold the story to the Life section of a newspaper for Mother's Day.

        And that was the last time I bothered with women's magazines - except to read them. But I go for the fluff. I'd rather read the story under the headline that says "Six Ways to Sexier Lips" than the one under "You're Going to Die Barren and Alone and Even If You Don't Your Husband will Probably Leave You" any day.

When embarking or disembarking a plane, or entering a foreign country, people ought to have the expectation of limited privacy. We expect, when we travel, that we will be asked questions, asked to show documents and possibly be searched. Since Sept. 11, 2001, this is not simply something we should expect, but something we should insist upon.

       But the implementation of US-VISIT last week, the new system by which many visitors to the United States will be photographed and biometrically fingerprinted, has not brought out the best in everyone. One Brazilian official made the requisite - and dumb - Nazi analogy and insisted that Americans in turn be fingerprinted when entering Brazil. This caused an American Airlines pilot to lift his middle finger when being photographed at São Paulo International Airport last week. (The emphatic pilot agreed to pay a $12,775 fine in exchange for not being charged.)

       Canadians are exempt from the fingerprinting unless traveling on certain kinds of visas. But previously able to visit the US with only a driver's license, Canadians, since Sept. 11, are now told it is "highly recommended" they bring along a passport. When you've had it easy, any condition can seem like a huge infringement.

       Fingerprinting carries with it any number of negative connotations, which may explain people's ire. But we are not on "Law & Order." And is it really such a violation? Where travel is concerned, I think I am knowledgeable, having lived in France, Japan, and Turkey and having traveled to many other countries. I was once even subjected to a grueling luggage search by El Al (including an interrogation and boot removal), fairly embarrassing at the time, but which ended with a cheerful apology from a cute soldier with a gigantic gun. I looked at it as a small price to pay for safety. El Al has not had a hijacking in more than 30 years.

       In the mid-1990s I worked in a Japanese car-part factory, not far from Mount Fuji. My second day there I spent a fast-paced morning at the local police station being photographed and fingerprinted for what was commonly referred to as my "gaijin card" (foreigner card.) Smack-dab on it was my fingerprint. I was told to take it everywhere and to hand it back to authorities when I left Japan for good. I do not remember feeling as though I had been robbed of my civil liberties.

       Perhaps this is because I had just arrived in Japan after teaching in an Istanbul high school. While my overall experience there was invaluable, it made me uncomfortable that the Turkish version of a gaijin card stated my religion. This I now think was far more a violation of my civil liberties than a fingerprint. After all, one leaves one's fingerprints everywhere, but whether anyone else should know my faith should be up to me, except under the most extreme of circumstances. But when in Rome....I filled my card out and showed it at borders and airports, and in other places on the odd occasion I was asked to show it.

       The US-VISIT system avoids the randomness of what I experienced overseas. By fingerprinting citizens of certain countries across the board, the possibility that persons will be singled out by ethnicity is avoided. By checking against terrorist watch lists, Americans are safer - as are tourists and foreign workers within US borders.What should concern us is just how effective US-VISIT will be. A two-month test program in Atlanta caught 21 people (out of 20,000) wanted on various charges, including rape and immigration fraud, so surely this system can limit crime. But will it prevent another Sept. 11?

       What's certain is that no measure is perfect. US-VISIT is a reasonable response to circumstances brought about in 2001.We have been forced to try out new tactics and forced, sadly, to forfeit trust. And that is what we need to remember as we curse the airport lineups and biometric screens - the ease with which people used to travel has been taken away by Osama bin Laden, not Tom Ridge or George Bush.

       There are those days when -- lost in a sea of debt and worry -- one feels one is a failure. But then there are those days when -- looking at things from a fresh perspective -- one knows without a doubt that one is a failure.

       Last week I read that my former classmate, Mabel Wisse Smit, was set to become a princess. Yes, a princess. Tiaras, carriages, state visits, dowdy suits, great big hats and all. And not of some cut-rate little kingdom like Luxembourg or Liechtenstein, nor of some country where the king rides a bicycle and does his own grocery shopping (like my mother's country, Norway), nor of some country from which the royal family is in exile, spending their days on the Riviera, waiting for whatever regime chased them out to crumble (too many to name). Mabel is set to marry Prince Johan Friso of the Netherlands, the second son of Queen Beatrix. She will be, by marriage, a member of the royal family of a country that behaved nobly during the Second World War, that is at once square and hip, that has brought us great chocolate, beautiful flowers and brilliant painters. That's not too shabby.

       Many full moons in Paris ago -- 1986 -- I was enrolled in a French course at the Sorbonne. It was designed for foreigners and mostly filled with young adult girls. Our teacher was Madame Amzallag, an elegant Frenchwoman who had once lived in Texas. We all found it difficult to picture Madame in Texas. Imagine Fanny Ardant home on the range. I was the only Canadian in class. There was one girl from Chicago and one from Yugoslavia, of whom I have painful memories. With the face of an angel she would stress to us that she was Serbian, not Yugoslav. And she was disgusted with how her country was being "overrun" by gypsies, Muslims and so forth, all of whom, she would say, unselfconsciously, in her beautifully broken English, were "breedink like the rabbits." Ms. Chicago and I would cringe when she spoke like this, wondering what it all meant. Sadly, we found out what it all meant a few years later.

       There were assorted others from Italy, Switzerland, the U.K., Israel, Mexico, Greece, even Ethiopia, a mess of Germans and two from the Netherlands. One of the Dutch girls was Mabel Wisse Smit, whom I remember because a) I have an appallingly good memory (no matter how hard I try there is much I cannot forget) and b) I thought she had the most excellent first name ever. Even now "Mabel" is on my shortlist for a daughter's name.

       Most of us worked as au pair girls. This meant that in the morning we memorized Saint Amant and Villon and complicated points of French grammar; that in the afternoon we got yelled at by Frenchwomen because we screwed up the vinaigrette or -- quelle horreur -- ate peanut butter in front of the children; and that in the evening we got drunk, got lovesick and missed our parents. Perhaps surprisingly, the world-class partiers in the class were not the Dutch. That distinction went to the Germans; some of us would joke that if you could no longer jackboot your way across Europe, there were other ways to crush and conquer.

       Mabel has been described as a "lauded human rights worker." My clearest memory of her was a day when the Ethiopian girl was giving a presentation about Ethiopian cuisine. Mabel spent the entire talk giggling and whispering with our other Dutch classmate. I gather that was before she learned about the human right of Third World citizens to be listened to when they're discussing the food of their people. I believe that's in the Geneva Convention.

       But no matter. She has put me to shame. A brief comparison of Mabel's life with mine makes that clear. Mabel has been linked to Klaas Bruinsma, a Dutch drug kingpin. I once dated a guy who took a lot of drugs. She admits to spending nights on his luxury boat. I once dated a guy who liked to canoe. Bruinsma was murdered in 1991. I have wanted to murder people. Mabel, it is rumoured, "liaised" with the then-married Mohamed Sacirbey, Bosnia's ambassador to the United Nations (now accused of embezzling from Bosnia's UN mission). I once dated a guy named Mohamed. Famous French do-gooder Bernard Kouchner wrote an open letter defending Mabel when her past became public and created problems for her. One of my exes has agreed to be a job reference for me. Mabel was the executive director of the Open Society Institute. I once dated a guy who was fired as executive director of something. Mabel helps children who've had limbs blown off in war. I once dated a guy who only had one eye. Mabel is often described in the press as "a beautiful, blond idealist." I'm blond. And I look OK sometimes. And when my sister uses our mother's handicapped licence to park in a handicapped spot I shake my head and tell her to "at least pretend to have a limp."

       Mabel is going to marry a prince. Mabel's prince loves her so much he gave up his right to be king when his fiancée's history made headlines and upset the Dutch. Consequently, she may not get to be called "Princess Mabel."

       Gosh! Who's really the failure here? Good thing we never stayed in touch. Of all the royal weddings I get invited to, that's one I'd be ashamed to attend.

An Islamic court in Nigeria's northern city of Katsina is expected to hand down its decision on the appeal of Amina Lawal Thursday. Ms. Lawal was sentenced in March 2002 under Islamic law - or sharia - to be buried up to her neck in sand and stoned to death for committing adultery. The carrying out of her sentence was postponed until next January so she could nurse her baby (sharia gets some things right) and Lawal's lawyer used the time to appeal.

       Sharia exists in varying degrees across the Muslim world. There are fairly open, nuanced versions, where a stoning or a beheading would be rare, and there is the rigidity of Saudi Arabia or northern Nigeria, where the majority of the population is Muslim. In countries with secular governments, sharia codes can be adopted by Muslims as a matter of personal choice, much like biblical teachings here in the West.

       Nigeria's southern states are predominantly Christian, and President Olusegun Obasanjo is a Christian. He has said that his government would not dispute the rights of the north to do as it sees fit. He has received, in previous elections, support from northern Nigeria. Still, he cannot be indifferent to international outrage over Lawal's case.

       But where is that outrage - particularly on our side of the planet? Almost three years ago, a teenage single mother in Nigeria was sentenced to - and received - 100 lashes for adultery. The publicity surrounding her case was extensive. While Amnesty International and women of the African National Congress have petitioned Mr. Obasanjo and marched for Lawal, what have women's groups, such as NOW been doing? The latter issued a press release, and - in its characteristically misplaced sense of equality - expressed concern that "clearly, a man participated in this and yet only Amina Lawal faces death." The Feminist Majority Foundation have been more vocal about Lawal, but other groups, as well as news shows and op-ed pages, have focused on Arnold Schwarze negger's "misogyny" and 24-hour coverage of the absurd Ten Commandments spectacle in Alabama.

       Since the Sept. 11 attacks, we in the West have, I believe, been emasculated when it comes to touching Islam. It is good, of course, that efforts have been made not to demonize an entire faith. No one wants a repeat of the internment of Japanese-Americans, for example. But these past two years have seen something different. A much-reprinted article - particularly on political websites - concerning Lawal, written by two leaders of the Nigerian group Baobab for Women's Human Rights, states that "dominant colonialist discourse and the mainstream international media have presented Islam (and Africa) as the barbaric and savage Other. Please do not buy into this."

       One must agree it is wrong to suggest that Muslims are all primitive. But to say that what might happen to Lawal has nothing to do with Islam is like suggesting the Crusades had nothing to do with Christianity, or the Holocaust nothing to do with Germans.

       This multicultural nonjudgmentalism almost amounts to Western self-loathing - a refusal or reluctance on our part to call out anything negative beyond our shores. It was evident in the "peace" movement earlier this year which suggested we have no "right" to bother with anything outside our borders because we are not perfect ourselves, and that imperfection, it is asserted, brought about Sept. 11.

       A painful display of this was the reaction to the riots over last December's Miss World contest in Nigeria. Not only was attention diverted from Lawal's case, but renowned Jurassic-feminists such as Germaine Greer and Glenda Jackson blamed the uproar on the horrors of pageants - rather than on the intolerance of Islamic fundamentalism.

       It goes without saying that a culture responsible for "Sex and the City" and McDonalds is flawed. But does that make us blind or impotent? One hopes not.

       Sharia is only one aspect of Islam, but it is very real. Ask Amina Lawal. She is being tried under the intolerant influence of what the West faces - hers is one part of a war we all face between free thought and fundamentalism.

       In the 1990s I had the great fortune to teach high school in Istanbul. Some of my Turkish students stay in touch with me. Earlier this year I received an e-mail from one telling me of a stoning in southeastern Turkey. An unmarried pregnant woman, Semse Allak, had been killed to restore the "honor" of her family. In some ways, Turkey is more secular than Canada or the US - but regional influences there allow premedieval realities to rear their ugly heads. Shortly before Ms. Allak's funeral in June, Turkey's parliament approved a bill that, among other things, forced judges to impose full sentences for honor killings.This legal change was made as part of Turkey's effort to secure acceptance into the EU - which indicates that external pressure does make a difference.

       Think what that external pressure could do for Amina Lawal if her stoning sentence is upheld Thursday.

Shortly after the war in Afghanistan began, I appeared on a Canadian TV show, in which a caller opined that George W. Bush was acting "just like John Wayne, just like a cowboy. "Now, I could, and maybe should, have pointed out that there's nothing wrong with acting like John Wayne, or for that matter, like a cowboy. Instead, I mumbled something about Mr. Bush having waited a month after Sept. 11 before beginning operations in Afghanistan, hardly a hair-trigger response.

       "The Searchers," arguably the greatest American movie of the 20th century, was a Wayne vehicle.   Other great Wayne westerns include "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "Rio Bravo."  But people snicker when you defend the western genre, largely out of snobbery and ignorance, the same reasons the term "cowboy" inspires such contempt. And cowboys were - and are, for those who remain - an integral part of American history, vital to the development of the Southwest and among America's most hardworking and underappreciated. And, like most things purely American, they were anything but, having roots elsewhere.

       When Spanish conquerors in Mexico "hired" Mexican Indians to work on their ranches, much of the imagery we know was born - broad-brimmed hats (sombreros) to protect them from the sun, chaparejos (chaps) to protect them from cacti, la reata (which became a lariat) and, ultimately, the original idea of a brave man facing the elements. The vaqueros lived lonely lives and tended herds, as would the original American cowboys, the men who drove cattle to the railheads in Texas in the mid-19th century.

       American cowboys were, like all things American, ethnically diverse - a fact perhaps not reflected enough in the picture we have of them. And, on the frontier of the time, a cowboy's enemies included not only nature but also Indians trying to protect their hunting grounds. A cowboy may have wanted to simply do his job and live in peace, but he rarely was granted that privilege. In short, cowboys were not only not so bad, they were good. Think of some of the historical and cultural clichés one could aim at other nations.

       Let's start with my own people, Canadians. I would much rather be called a "cowboy" than a coureur de bois. The latter were unlicensed fur traders in 17th-century Canada, who stimulated the fur trade, but also helped deplete the beaver population and introduced liquor to our Indians. Their intentions may have been good, but....

       And what of the French? What if everyone went around calling Jacques Chirac a "Jacobin," conjuring up images of beheaded members of the French aristocracy and people stabbed in their bathtubs? "Oh, Chirac, he's such a Jacobin," we could chuckle, as he uttered yet another condescending, anti-American comment, accompanied by an impressive Gallic shrug. Better yet, what if we called Mr. Chirac a "mime"? "Oh, that Jacques, there he goes, walking against the wind again!" Mind you, the idea that Chirac might actually stop speaking is unthinkable.

       And Gerhard Schröder? Oy. I wouldn't know where to begin. We could call him a "Vandal," or a "Visigoth" or ... well, there are some 20th-century German stereotypes I can think of. But Silvio Berlusconi took care of that earlier this summer. So again, "cowboy" wins out.

       What I like about Bush is the straight talking, the refreshingly open crankiness, the lack of pretense. Even when he mispronounces something, I find it infinitely preferable to the Clinton-era debate about the definition of "is" or of "sex." Bush may not be a scholar, but I suspect even a cowboy knows what both of those words mean. So when, in June, he suggested he would appoint a coordinator to "ride herd" on the Middle East peace process, and BBC commentators went wild, alternately mocking the president and calling his comment "patronizing," all I could think was, get along, little dogies! Do we not want someone keeping the herd in line along that trail to Middle Eastern utopia?

       And perhaps the best defense George W. Bush could use against the Euro-snobs, and his own cowboy-phobic citizens, would be to say as much. "I'm a cowboy? And? What's your point?" Of course, if he did that, people would dismiss it as "typical cowboy talk."

It seems odd to tell people they are now free, under the law, to have romantic and sexual relationships, but that others would prefer that they still can't get married. Even after 5, 10, 20, 30 years together. Such is the current reality facing homosexuals in the US.

    The Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas last month gave homosexuals a boost to their right to live a private life as they see fit, while at the same time highlighting in what way that right stands a little bit short of the finish line.

    Gay marriages are legal in Belgium and the Netherlands, and were recently legalized in the Canadian province of Ontario. Other provinces have followed suit, and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has announced he will draft a bill giving legal recognition to same-sex marriages throughout Canada. In the US, only Vermont recognizes "civil unions" between same-sex couples, giving them many of the same rights and responsibilities as married couples, but calling this rose by another name. Opponents of gay marriage may ask, what's in a name, after all? Large corporations increasingly are offering benefits to gay partners, and more and more communities are seeing firsthand that the gay couple next door with the 2.3 kids and the Lab and the minivan is not unlike their own family.

    Surely relative acceptance and "commitment ceremonies" and shared health insurance ought to be enough, no?

    Well, no. If someone decided blue-eyed people couldn't have "marriage," but would be marginalized with only a "civil union," I'd be mighty angry. Because there is growing evidence suggesting that gay people no more choose to be gay than I chose to have blue eyes.

    But our governments are here - in theory, anyway - to represent all of us, to give all constituents equal importance, to give us equal rights. Which makes Senate majority leader Bill Frist's comments supporting an amendment to the Constitution banning same-sex marriages puzzling. "I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament," said the Tennessee Republican.

    As far as I know, marriage is a sacrament only in the Roman Catholic, High Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox churches. Protestants generally don't regard it as such. And what of the many US citizens who are Sikh, Jewish, or Muslim? What about atheists? Will their marriages not be recognized?

    Western nations are supposed to be secularly run societies, living by a separation of church and state. For a church to refuse to recognize gay marriage is its own business, and ought to be respected. But if you don't like it, don't join that church. Or join another. I see no contradiction in a society where both gay marriage and freedom to voice opposition to gay marriage coexist.

    I often feel the natural place for a gay person is on the right. Conservatives should be all about an individual's right to his or her own life, his or her own business, without the interference of hypersensitive, offended others. And it follows that true conservatives ought to support gay marriage, particularly those partial to family values. It's difficult to argue that society doesn't benefit from stable relationships. And what better way to encourage stable relationships than to support gay marriage? It is hard not to snicker at the idea that same-sex marriages would threaten straight ones. We straight people in Canada and the US have done a good job of bringing the divorce rate close to 50 percent all on our own. Rather than weaken straight marriages, gay marriages may strengthen them.

    Being gay is not, I imagine, simply about sex. When a gay man mentions his boyfriend, he's not flaunting his sexuality, as the accusation often goes, any more than I am when I mention mine. Being a homosexual is, I would guess, about most of the things being a heterosexual is about, including the pain and joy of being in love.

    And why, oh why, should only straight people suffer through the family fights, expense, pettiness, grudges, and stress of planning a wedding?

        Last week it was determined that the pilots involved in the friendly-fire deaths of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan would not be court-martialed. The news was greeted the way most things involving our relationship with the United States are here: with hyperbole and paranoia. There were the predictable "they got away with murder" comments. Murder? Manslaughter, maybe. There were even those who suggested the big, bad US was punishing Canada for our lack of support for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Did I mention paranoia?

    Canadians have a "bland" rep. We are bland ... but also whiny, particularly when the cool kids ignore us. When George Bush gave his speech to Congress after Sept. 11, and neglected to specifically thank Canada for its support, the "snub" made headlines. It did not seem to occur to us that a country under attack might have other concerns.

    The decision not to court martial, looked at realistically and not through hysteria-colored glasses, is sensible. It is highly unlikely the US pilots, if court-martialed, would be found guilty. A not guilty verdict would allow them a future of promotions and flying. Convicting a pilot in wartime of manslaughter is tantamount to convicting a driver at LeMans of speeding. The general who made the choice against courts-martial said the pilots would face punishments decided "administratively." In Canadian newspapers, this has been portrayed as a slap on the wrist. But it is a slap likely to keep both pilots from flying again.

    Canadian reaction to this event has been a drop in the bucket compared with the fury that followed the actual deaths of the soldiers. Coverage of their funerals was undignified (at least by Canadian standards of hype). Their remains were dragged across TV screens as every politician who could, managed a sound bite. The deaths of four young men doing their job - a job where death is  real risk - were used as political fodder for anti-American ax wielders.

    A prominent Canadian politician expressed her "rage" at how we are "taken for granted" by the US. One could suggest that we take America for granted, as we will have to depend on the US for help should we be threatened.

    More than 100 Canadian soldiers have died in peacekeeping operations in the past 50 years, some from enemy fire. No over-the-top funeral coverage for them, no politicians, little media. But those 100 did not die at the hands of Americans. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, commenting on the decision not to prosecute the pilots said: "I'm not in a position to comment on systems of justice in another nation."

    Rare shyness from a man, who, only a month ago, criticized the deficits posted by the "right wing" Bush administration. "I'm a Canadian Liberal; he [Bush] is a Southern conservative," said Mr. Chrétien, going on to enumerate differences of opinion between the two men.

     But, our generous leader added, "that has nothing to do with him personally." Chrétien granted that Bush was one of the few world leaders with whom he could talk baseball.

    The message was clear. And it is a reflection of what your average Canadian will tell you. We are pretty smart and sophisticated, while you are nothing but a bunch of redneck, gun-toting warmongers. In the past year, a Canadian member of parliament and an aide to our prime minister have, respectively, called Americans "bastards" and Bush "a moron."

    This smug attitude has been magnified on "Talking to Americans," a segment of a popular Canadian comedy show in which a "reporter" goes to the US to show the stupidity of Americans by asking them questions such as who our prime minister is, or what our national bird is. The silliest answers would be broadcast - like that of the man at Harvard sandbagged by the question of whether the seal slaughter in Saskatchewan should be stopped. His compassionate answer: "Yes." It was funny, of course, as would be something called "Talking to Mexicans," but we wouldn't mock Mexicans.

    In fact, a 2001 poll by Canada's Dominion Institute revealed that Americans knew their own history and civics far better than did Canadians. But we don't dwell on that up here.

    An American friend of mine - living in Canada - says that in the US, greed is acceptable but envy is a sin. In Canada it is just the opposite. I would suggest that envy is our national sport. And no one inspires more envy in us than our southern neighbor. It is a shame, because any legitimate gripes we may have about America get lost in a sea of childish wolf-crying.

    Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart are both driven, powerful, talented, blondish women. Both have suffered marital woes, both have one daughter. Both find their every move vivisected. With so much in common, it's odd how far apart public perceptions of them are.

    Martha, indicted Wednesday in connection with an insider trading scandal, has been demonized. And even before her legal woes began, her leftover Hanukkah-candle bikini waxes were fodder for  comics everywhere, a unifying factor in a world of conflict. Feminists derided her for the double whammy: making women feel inferior if they couldn't keep up with her horrifying combination of skill and energy, and suggesting - oh, the humanity - that looking after a home might be a worthwhile pursuit.

    Hillary is about to release her mightily remunerated autobiography, "Living History," the cover of which looks like a self-titled debut album. But she's no frivolous entertainer, of course. She's devoted herself to worthwhile causes - her husband's career, her career - not silly nonsense like baking cookies and hosting teas. She has made that abundantly clear.

    And overall, she has been treated generously, kindly, even fawningly at times, by the same crowd who gleefully tear into poor Martha. To be sure, Hillary has her critics, but the attacks on her nowhere near approach the vilification Martha has suffered - unjustly, I feel. And the curious combination of victim/aggressor Hillary appears to go mind-bogglingly unchallenged.

    Breathless celebrities extol Hillary's value as a role model for young women, but only occasionally will someone uncomfortably admit they like Martha. Had I a daughter, I don't know how I'd feel about her looking up to the former first lady. To willingly continue in a marriage where you're routinely humiliated as your husband gropes about outside your marriage is an odd thing to emulate. Hillary may well have her reasons for sticking it out with Bill. There can't be any question they're devoted to (now adult) Chelsea, but surely children are better off not living a lie.

    It has been suggested that Hillary's primary motive for hanging on to the mister has to do with ambition and appearance. I have nothing against ambition, per se. But when it comes at such a high price? Hillary, sadly, fits in well with the world of victimology women have created for themselves. They love her, perhaps, because they can relate - for all our progress, we still can make stupid choices and then blame others for our unhappiness.

    In "Living History," Hillary claims shock and betrayal when Bill confessed to the Lewinsky affair. Is she being disingenuous, or is love truly blind (and deaf and dumb), or is a Yale education not worth much?

    Martha, on the other hand, liberated from her philandering husband, forged on alone and created an empire. It's true, her divorce was acrimonious. But there's something more authentic, refreshingly human, about Martha's reactions to betrayal, particularly when compared with Hillary's Stepfordesque, tight-lipped denials and buck-passing.

    Throughout the ImClone scandal, Martha has so far not blamed anyone, saying the justice system will prove her innocent. Part of Martha's image problem might be jealousy, or the class factor.

    Where the Clinton marriage has been parodied as a trailer park saga, Martha's life, on the surface, looks like a John Cheever story. In reality she's the hard-working daughter of immigrants. She has a good deal of humor about herself, too, something she rarely gets credit for. Before the ImClone scandal, she regularly read disparaging Top Ten lists about herself on David Letterman's Late Show. She has also always been beautiful - since her teen modeling days. We've seen Hillary, on the other hand, through big glasses, mousy hair, headbands, and frumpy gowns - mistakes most of us have made.

    That may give credence to what I've long thought: Feminism has liberated men in a much greater way than women. While men are freed from many of their previous responsibilities and expectations, women are still at each other's throats, and we still hate the Prom Queen.

When I began dating one of my colleagues, a gym teacher named Attila, I assumed I might not be able to buy any birth control without my ring and spouse. But by then, most of my neighbourhood knew that I was not just foreign, but Western, and, therefore, a woman of questionable morality.

Western women, I would discover, had "slut" written across their foreheads in ink that only Turkish men could see. So, interestingly, buying spermicide was a relatively easy task, since everyone assumed I would be going through caseloads of the stuff. I had to tolerate being winked at by the vendor, though, and, I figured, snickered about later on. Which probably happens in Canada, too. It is only too bad we cannot get phenobarbital so easily.

Copyright National Post 2002 All Rights Reserved.

Iran's Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, a government agency affiliated with the Ministry of Education, has developed "Dara and Sara," two dolls meant to counter the popularity of Barbie, who along with Ken, Skipper and the gang, is currently flooding the Islamic nation. Dara, a boy doll, and Sara, a girl doll, promote traditional values with their modest clothing, including headscarfs and long skirts for Sara, and non-blond, non-glamorous appeal. Both dolls are dark-haired and sloe-eyed, and neither has a Dream House, convertible or 40DD bra size and five-inch heels. And no, Dara is not allowed to marry four Saras. Mohsen Chiniforoushan, the Institute's director, said the dolls are a strategic product to promote Iran's national identity. One hundred thousand of the Sara and Dara dolls, which are made in China, were introduced into Iran's market last week amid an impressive publicity rush.

In a country where the average monthly salary is $100, the $15 dolls are not cheap and certainly more expensive than an Iranian Barbie knock-off would be ($3). Genuine Barbies cost $40, but do sell well in Iran. A toy vendor in Tehran, interviewed about Sara and Dara, said that she considers Barbie "more harmful than an American missile." Barbie is, the toy seller said, "wanton" and young Iranian girls who play with Barbies could grow up to reject Iranian values.

As in the West, the focus is on girls, on Barbie, on Sara. No one over there seems concerned that Ken might make Iranian boys reject traditional values and become wanton. No one here seems concerned that Ken might be making boys grow up to be vapid, sculpted and uncommunicative. Of course, Ken has no penis, and therefore might be sending an even scarier message, but again, no one seems concerned.

The arrival of Sara on the doll scene was announced about a week after Mattel came out with "Kayla" a "multi-ethnic" Barbie, wearing something resembling a sari/kimono/bathrobe. Barbie already has African-American, Latina and Asian-American friends, and Mattel were not clear about exactly where Kayla's parents are from, or how they met. She looks vaguely Polynesian, though she has exactly the same figure as all the other Barbies. Even "Becky," the cheerful Barbie-in-a- wheelchair Mattel introduced five years ago has that kick-ass figure, in spite of her paralyzed state.

Which is all fine. For not enough credit is given to young girls in terms of their intelligence -- ironically, usually feminists are the ones doing the underestimating. Of course Barbie is wanton. And she has an impossibly wonderful body (though probably not much good for childbearing purposes) and a silly look on her face. But she is a doll, nothing more.

I loved my Barbie dolls and had all the accoutrements. But I never thought I had to look like Barbie any more than I thought I had to look like Raggedy Ann or Mrs. Beasley. I liked making clothes for Barbie, and playing house with her and Ken, except when my brothers would come along and put Ken in a compromising position with G.I. Joe. But even that did not traumatize me, because I knew they were just dolls.

In the early 1990s, a company called "High Self-Esteem Toys" (that's not a joke) came out with the "Happy to be Me Doll." She had a normal figure, even a little on the tubby side, and she wasn't very pretty. She didn't have great clothes, either. Sales were not good. She was left in Barbie's dust, to the surprise of many do-gooders. But there was nothing surprising about it. Little girls want an ideal. It's the same reason little boys like superhero action figures instead of dolls called "Bob, the miserable, overweight, middle-aged, commitmentphobic loser."

We do not give enough credit to girls for their intelligence or understand who they look up to. My niece, now in junior high, listens to her teachers, though I'm not certain she always should. When she became a vegetarian (like her auntie) her classmates panicked, telling her they thought she was anorexic. She isn't, she just doesn't want to eat dead animals any more. But the girls had been taught in health class that anyone who gives up eating a whole food group has an eating disorder, that eating disorders are widespread, and that Barbie is to blame. Who else?

Copyright National Post 2002 All Rights Reserved.

She turned out to be right -- about the family, at least. The family I got stuck with were awful and crazy, especially the mother. And nothing prepared me for how a French woman views her au pair girl. I was "la fille,'' something she would call me in my presence, that is, when she wasn't referring to me as "elle.''

There was clearly some sort of post-traumatic French Revolution syndrome going on, whereby Madame felt she now had a peasant girl to boss around. Her first words to me when I stepped out of the taxicab -- "Oh my God. You're not fat. Our last Canadian au pair was fat'' -- set the tone for much to come.

My first night there I got screamed at just before dinner. Madame -- who I had to call "vous'' -- spun into hysterics when she saw there was no baguette. How could you, she yelled, have forgotten to buy baguette? How can we have a meal without baguette? Still jet-lagged, I was stunned. I thought about explaining that I didn't come from a country where a national crisis ensues when one is forced to eat a meal without baguette. I thought about explaining to her that there were whole parts of the world where people enjoy meals without baguette. I thought about it but didn't bother. I apologized and never forgot again.

During that first dinner, Madame asked me what religion I was. No one had ever asked me that. I am not baptized, I never went to church except for weddings and funerals. My mother grew up Lutheran, my dad Anglican. So I ventured an answer. "Protestant.'' She got a sucked a lemon look on her face.

Madame and Monsieur were both doctors, and they had two sons. The boys had been looked after  over the years by a succession of Canadian, American, Dutch and Danish au pair girls. In retrospect,  I realize that this accounted for the boys' basic sweetness, something they did not get from maman. Monsieur was nice enough, but he was never around, not even in the evenings. He was with his mistress, whose phone calls I had to field and whose messages I had to surreptitiously deliver. One day she called, asking for Monsieur. I told her Monsieur wasn't home and she hung up. Madame ambushed me. Who was that? she wanted to know. I don't know, I told her, it was for Monsieur. She went ballistic. Why didn't you call me to the phone?

Another day, walking the boys home from school, I was approached by a Frenchman who asked the obligatory, "etes vous Suedoise?'' (are you Swedish?) and then announced his desire to get to know me better. This is not an uncommon experience for a tall, blonde girl in Paris, and I always found it amusing, but the kids were there. That evening they dutifully reported the incident to maman, giggling. She took me aside to tell me that she didn't want her children witnessing "des telles choses'' (such things). I told her I had no control over how Frenchmen behave and she got that sucked-a-lemon look again.

Madame hated that I was vegetarian and made fun of my eating habits. Homesick for peanut butter (the food of the gods) I was blissful when I discovered a small American grocery store. Enjoying toasted baguette with Skippy one night, I looked up to see Madame glaring at me. "Je trouve a degueulasse,'' (I find that disgusting) she sniffed. Well lady, I thought, I find all those snails, slugs and animal vital organs you eat pretty putrid too.

So by the time my first vacation rolled around I was chomping at the bit. I planned a week in Normandy with a couple of the Irish girls (also au pairs) I regularly drank with. I wanted to see the Bayeux Tapestry, but I also wanted to visit my uncle's grave. My mother's brother, Lieut. Norman Christopherson, had been part of the D-Day invasion. Having survived the brutality of that day and the following two months, he was killed Aug. 10, 1944, at Falaise Gap, a German shell to the head. More than 40 years after his death, my mother could still not talk about him without dissolving into tears.

It is hard to imagine, when your biggest problem is your math grade, what living through a world war, with all its loss, sacrifice and nobility, could be like. As a small child my mother and I had a recurring conflict over my desire to watch Hogan's Heroes. She -- understandably -- objected to the portrayal of Nazis as wacky, inept and even lovable. I objected to someone trying to keep me from watching Lebeau, the little Frenchman imprisoned with Hogan, who, I am now ashamed to admit, I had a crush on. I won that battle but it made me think. And visiting the Canadian War Cemetery at Bretteville-sur-Laize, just outside Caen, became a goal.

That week gave me a chance to see another side of the French. When I told the cab driver taking me to Bretteville that I was going to see my uncle's grave, he turned off the meter. Unlikely anywhere, but in a country where cab drivers will yell at you if your tip doesn't suit them, unthinkable. He was youngish as well, about 35, not someone to have been directly affected by the  German occupation.

He became chatty, sentimental, inquisitive and when driving me back into Caen (again with the meter off, after waiting more than an hour outside the cemetery) invited me and my girlfriends to dinner with his wife and family. We got bombed on Calvados that night with them, and practised our mediocre French. It dulled the powerful emotions of the day. I have gone back twice since and the stories are the same -- the same goodheartedness and warmth I found the first time.

And the gifts keep coming. When I ultimately returned to Canada, I wrote an article about my uncle that appeared in a local paper on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. I began to hear from men in my uncle's regiment -- Algonquin -- including a medic and my uncle's "runner,'' Owen Lockyer, a retired gentleman (and quite the charmer) living in New Brunswick. Owen is now a friend of the family,  who sadly, we don't see that often. But he has brought a certain peace and many answers to my mother.

When I returned to the family, they, unfortunately, had not changed. Madame still called me "bete'' (stupid) when I didn't know how to work her French washing machine. I still spent mornings ironing Monsieur's clothes while watching old episodes of Mannix in French. But I felt differently about my time in France and I realized one dysfunctional famille did not a whole country make. I was determined not to let Madame bug me as much. And when my time as an au pair was up, I stayed in France for quite some time, working as an English teacher. I learned to make a mean vinaigrette, I fell in love (and out) with a man from Lyon, I made lots of friends, travelled, and, when I could, took trips to Normandy to put flowers on my uncle's grave. Christiane and I are better friends than ever and as for the Brush family... well, I don't know what happened there. But I hope Monsieur left Madame and ran away with his mistress.

Rondi Adamson is a Toronto writer.
Copyright Ottawa Citizen 2000 All Rights Reserved.

Still, as the Mattel spokesman rather defensively pointed out, when you're attempting to "bring  these things into the mainstream'' there are always going to be critics.

And Share A Smile Becky is indeed a beautiful role model for the physically challenged; great figure, great hair, great face, and a great attitude. Here are some other role-model Barbies that Mattel ought to consider:

Battered Wife Barbie: "Debbie'' will come with removable bruises, cuts and scars as well as a list of excuses for why she won't leave her husband. Instead of a dream home, Mattel will offer a cheerfully painted Just Like Mom's Battered-Women's Shelter where Debbie can periodically visit after a fight with Abusive Husband Ken. This new Ken doll will come complete with five-o'clock shadow, a case of beer, and a list of self-serving reasons for his violent rages.

Bomber Pilot Adulteress Barbie: "Kerry,'' the first Barbie to fly a B-52, will be quite a role model for girls aspiring to a career in the military. Accessories for Kerry will include a pink-and-turquoise B-52, as well as matching bomber-pilot uniform and an assortment of slinky lingerie for her romantic trysts with the husbands of enlisted women. Unlike regular Barbies, Kerry will have changeable facial expressions -- "tough and determined'' when flying, "sultry'' when trysting, and "teary- eyed'' when defending herself on 60 Minutes.

Homeless Barbie: Guaranteed to develop your child's compassionate side, "Marnie'' will be the only Barbie with body odour. Carrying a tiny bottle of booze in a paper bag and pushing a shopping cart full of dirty, discarded Barbie clothes, objects and plastic food. With the pull of a string, Marnie will mumble obscenities and shout at passers-by.

Bulimic Barbie: "Tracy'' will have fingers that can be stuck down an opening in her smiling mouth. She will come with cardboard laxatives and diuretics, fashion magazines for her to obsess over, several bags of chips, and removable padding to reflect her fluctuating weight. The new "therapist Ken'' will help Tracy to deal with her "issues.''

In one group-therapy session, Tracy will meet her new best friend "Super Obese Denise,'' the first fat Barbie. Denise will have no removable padding because, thanks to Therapist Ken, she will learn valuable lessons in self-esteem and accept her fatness as part of who she is.

Radical Lesbian Feminist Barbie: To keep your little girl's mind thoroughly open, buy her nose- ringed, butch-haired, badly-dressed "Jan.'' Jan will be the only Barbie who doesn't smile. Instead she will come with a miniature "Keep Abortion Legal'' picket sign, and work as a volunteer in the Just Like Mom's Battered-Women's Shelter where she'll help Debbie (see at left) understand Ken's role in the patriarchy. Then, when market testing shows the "mainstream'' to be ready, Mattel will launch Jan's cat-loving girlfriend "Mira,'' who will come with five insertable in-vitro treatments so she and Jan can practise family values.

And speaking of "Pro Bono Ken,'' why be sexist? Why doesn't Mattel create "Marcia,'' a working mother and attorney, to represent Debbie (when she finally presses charges against her husband), Kerry (when she fights her court-martial), Marnie (when she fights for her right to live outside of mental institutions), Tracy (when she sues Calvin Klein for causing her eating disorder), Denise (when she joins class-action lawsuit against the airlines for not having wide enough seats), and Jan (when she takes her claim to share her lover's health insurance all the way to the Supreme Court)?

As Mattel will discover, the possibilities are truly endless.

Copyright Ottawa Citizen 1997 All Rights Reserved.

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