Since I like to try and note things that I at least find noteworthy, here is a broadcast that will last as long as we have computers, inexpensive gasoline and open networks. Happy birthday sweetheart. Love, your Mum and Dad.
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This will be the first American Thanksgiving my family celebrates. Although having lived in the US now for four years, 2010 will be the first year we attempt to formally celebrate whatever it is we are meant to commemorate. In an ongoing series of missives with my friend the author Paul Marlowe, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the holiday. It seems there are a large number of people with a wide variety of opinions about what is Philosophy even today. Simon Critchley of Dead Philosopher’s fame has started an opinion column in the NYT with the heavy title of the Stone where the opening topic is “What Is a Philosopher?” It’s a fine overview that hits the regular ideas minus the vocation. One of the conditions of possibility for Philosophy it seems are to proceed as if Time is not a commodity. In effect, it’s the old theoria vs praxis proposition something I’m interested in exploring. Basically, I want to know more about how Philosophy becomes Philosophy as a discipline. It’s hard to imagine, but I’m still struck by the incredible lack of trees in most Canadian major cities. I say most since I’ve visited most, and recently, Vancouver and Victoria, both really surprise me by their lack of urban greenery. There are spots, like the UBC campus, which abut parks and have green belts, but otherwise from downtown Vancouver to Langley and its casinos there’s not a lot trees. It’s bizarre and disappointing. For example, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax have nothing and Vancouver, which is two and a half hours north of Seattle, which is suffused with trees and parks, has an incongruous forest of condos next to Stanley Park. In Halifax our urban forest was mostly destroyed a few years back from a hurricane and I haven’t heard if it’s being renewed or redeveloped. This is hard to understand, particularly for a country whose national symbol is a leaf. In contrast, New York has committed to plant 1 million trees in the next seven years. Surely Canada can match this? Interesting denouement to the so-called Rushdie Affair. Salman Rushdie, well known Indian/British author, most famous for the Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children, earned an apology today from writers of a tell-all spy book. The writers had included or manufactured anecdotes about Rushdie’s period of protection while he was under fatwah from clerics in Iran. One of the contested facts included, “That Rushdie sought to profit from the fatwa inviting Muslims to kill him for insulting the prophet Muhammad.” That’s hard to imagine when Rushide was principally hoping just to stay alive. It’s 20 years ago this year that the Satanic Verses were condemned in Iran, and sparked the “culture war” that we are still trying to understand. I remember my Dad was on a business trip to Ottawa when the news broke. He came home with a copy of the book. He said he was the only person that morning who had reached over and purchased a copy at a downtown bookstore. The cashier asked him, “Are you making a statement?” to which he confidently said, “Yes. Yes I am.” It’s good to remember these kinds of facts and history, particularly when it comes to censorship or just self-interested defamation. |
 
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