Tutu On KAIROS

Desmond Tutu on KAIROS:

'The Church in Southern Africa is deeply indebted to the churches in Canada for their prayers, ecumenical actions and solidarity in overcoming the scourge of apartheid. The initiatives of the Canadian churches through KAIROS have inspired continued faithful ecumenical action not only in Africa but around the world to uphold human rights. The world needs more of KAIROS Canada. It would be an unparalleled setback for the poor, vulnerable and disenfranchised if the voice and work of KAIROS in the global South is muted.'

It isn't that I'm obsessed with the KAIROS debacle; its just that there's not much else in the way of news out there as '09 winds down. Furthermore, given the number of churches associated with KAIROS, reactions like this one seem likely to bubble along for awhile. The story may have legs into the new year.


Interesting, incidentally, that the Archbishop's statement was made way back on the 8th, and only made an MSM outlet (the Star) on the 26th.

Gruending On Who Kenney Was Pandering To

When the Harper-led Conservatives became the government, Kenney was given a key responsibility in winning over new Canadians and certain religiously identified groups to support the Conservatives. One imperative has been to woo Jewish voters and their financial support. Kenney and the Conservatives have clearly chosen sides – supporting Israeli no matter what actions it undertakes. This unflinching support also plays to the fringe elements of the Christian right – who believe that Armageddon in the Middle East would fulfill what they believe is a biblical prophecy that End Times and the rapture are drawing near.

Throw in the fact that KAIROS has been critical of the Federal government's approach to the tar sands' development, and you have a veritable triple-play of pandering--the gov. wielding three wedges at one time, as it were.

Is There Hope For Alberta?

So far I can't find anything on this in the papers. It would have been during this game on the 23rd, I think.

ht

PS. Feeling a bit better this morning. Hopefully I can get into the walk-in clinic down the road when they open. Tamiful rocks.

I Have H1N1

So does the wife; she was mostly recovered when the doctor told her. I haven't been confirmed but pretty clearly I've got what she's got. Will be stealing some of her Tammiflu.

Merry Xmas.

Selley On KAIROS

Heaven only knows what went on here. Maybe it's just general hamhandedness. Maybe they [Kenney et al] hoped the benefits reaped whilst people assumed they'd taken a stand against anti-Semitism and/or for Israel would outweigh the damage reaped by disavowing the idea on a day when everyone's shopping instead of reading the Star. Maybe Ms. Oda really did make the decision on her own, and Mr. Kenney decided he'd try to score some disingenuous points with it in Israel. Whatever happened, it's a complete insult to Canadians' intelligence — and Israelis', come to think of it. And it's proof positive, as if any was needed, that nobody should put any stock in what any Canadian politician says. Ever. About anything.

Well, not Jason Kenney, anyway.

Jason Kenney: I Didn't Say What I Just Said...

...and anyone who says I did is lying. From today's Star:

I did not accuse KAIROS of being anti-Semitic. What I said was that KAIROS has taken "a leadership role in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (against Israel)."

From the origonal speech (which I have not seen reproduced in its entirety anywhere else). the bolding is mine:

Almost at the same time that Prime Minister Harper was visiting Chabad House in Mumbai, anti-Semitic fanatics in his home city, my home city of Calgary, Alberta were spray painting anti-Semitic graffiti on the Jewish Community Centre, Jewish homes, on public transit installations and indeed, spray painting swastikas on our city’s Holocaust memorial. Some of this graffiti called for the end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza -- "Stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

What Prime Minister Harper witnessed in Mumbai, what happened at the same time in Calgary, were practical expressions of the new anti-Semitism. Even though Canada is celebrated around the world as being a successful model of mutual coexistence and tolerance, we too have seen a troubling increase in incidents of anti-Semitism. B’Nai Brith Canada publishes the authoritative registry of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada. In 2008, they received reports of 1,135 incidents of anti-Semitic instances, the highest number recorded in 28 years of the study, an increase of 8.9% over 2007.

[...]

So how have we addressed these growing incidents of anti-Semitism? Well first of all, on the domestic level, our government has worked with the Jewish community to begin a program of recognizing our own history of official anti-Semitism.

[...]

We have articulated and implemented a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism. What does this mean? It means that we eliminated the government funding relationship with organizations like for example, the Canadian Arab Federation, whose leadership apologized for terrorism or extremism, or who promote hatred, in particular anti-Semitism.

We have ended government contact with like-minded organizations like the Canadian Islamic Congress, whose President notoriously said that all Israelis over the age of 18 are legitimate targets for assassination. We have defunded organizations, most recently like KAIROS, who are taking a leadership role in the boycott. And we’re receiving a lot of criticism for these decisions. I can’t recall how many times I’ve been sued for some of the decisions that we have taken, but we believe that we’ve done these things for the right reasons and we stand by these decisions.

Sounds pretty clear to me.

Incidentally, I don't think any of the Calgary hate messages that Kenney mentions rose to the level of eloquence of "Stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza." Too many words. ARC has a good post on this.

PS. MP Rick Dykstra also has a copy of the entire speech at his website.

Racist Computers?

My favorite line: "I welcome responses to why the HP webcam does not pick up Negros."

Possible explanation here.

He's Done It Before

In 2003, Jim Flaherty was head axe wielder (ie finance minister) for the Ernie Eves government. Late that year, Eves was defeated and Dalton McGuinty's Liberals took over. The end result of years of cuts?
Now Jim wants to do it again. Gawd help us all.

Ezra Goes A Smearing

One nice thing about Ezra's attempts at on-line sleuthing: you usually just have to click through a few links to figure out he's bullshitting (which implies, incidentally, that he's counting on his regular readers to be too stupid to click through the links). Anyway, here's Ezra smearing KAIROS:

If KAIROS aren't a bunch of anti-Israel bigots, then why...

are they furiously editing their website to add disclaimers to links, or remove links outright, to virulently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups?

[...]

But... there was the small problem of their website, rife with calls for political war against Israel, and links to groups who lacked KAIROS's Canadian sophistication about how to phrase their bigotry in the soothing tones of diplomatic gibberish. About a week ago, one of their more sober friends obviously told them, "maybe you should lose the kauft nicht bei Juden business. Mark Holland isn't the CIDA minister, you know." So down the memory hole went page after page of their propaganda -- and up went new disclaimers that their anti-Semitic allies were just being highlighted for informational purposes. Nothing to see here!

As a bit of an aside, note how The Ez can't seem to decide if being anti-Israel is the same thing as being anti-semitic or not. But in any case, here's the allegedly altered page of Israel-Palestine links:

...and here's the google-cache of that page from 2 Oct 2009 19:59:49 GMT:

The formatting is a bit different, but the disclaimer is still there, and all the links appear and are in the same order as the more recent version of the page.

Something those folks who are getting sued for taking Mr. Levant at his word should take note of.

PS. Looks like Ezra has abandoned the speechy Jihad. I eagerly await his next project--a book on the Tar Sands tentatively entitled "Oiled Up".

Update: Welcome Wells readers.

You'll notice if you click through my first link above, the text has changed. I think Ezra read my origonal post and did a bit of redacting of his own. He now writes:

...are they furiously editing their website to delete pages of links to virulently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups?

Now, if you click through this link, you go to a really ugly looking URL that gives you a "404 error"; Ezra claims this page used to be on the KAIROS site, and has been pulled since. True, if you link from one of the pages in the google cache version of the KAIROS site you hit this page. However, if you go to the current site, and click on Human Rights and Trade -> Countries of Concern ->Palestine & Israel, you go here, which is the page Ezra claims is missing. So it looks like he's calling KAIROS anti-Semitic based on his own inability to maneuver around a standard issue website.

Later, Ezra "evidence" mutates further. It appears that he has found the one Palestine-Israel page that previously (in October) lacked a disclaimer as noted above, and uses the fact that one was added later to argue that the site is "rife" with "after the fact editing" and link deletions.

CRU Emails Prove Darwin Wrong!

I've been waiting for this. Science hijacked by the left and etc., authored by the dude from The Discovery Institute.

Mr. Meyer isn't the first to make a connection between the ID vs. Darwin and Climate Scientists vs. Deniers debate. Tim Ball and Tom Harris have already appealed to the Intelligent Design crowd in the name of AGW denial.

Ontario News Watch

...like National News Watch, but smaller, and with all the boring non-Ontario stuff left out.

Its Xmas Time

That means I republish my standard "War On Xmas" post, 1st written in December, 2006. I intend to repost it every year until it becomes an acknowledged seasonal Classic, like that thing by Dickens with the crippled kid and the hallucinating pedophile.

No Virginia, Its All Bullshit!

In December of 1897, sad little Virgnia O'Hanlon wrote to The New York Sun as follows:

Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

To which chief editor Francis P. Church replied with a now very famous editorial called, "Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus". In the spirit of the season, I will reproduce that editorial here, with some of my own comments to little Miss O'Hanlon interspersed:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong.

They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Virginia, your letter wound-up on the desk of a gouty old fart desperately nostalgic for The Good Old Days which, believe me, existed only in his mind. You think kids back in 1897 were bad? You should see 'em now! A more useless gang of pimple face punks has never afflicted this Earth's surface! They've all got green hair, rings through their noses, and they shave their chests and carry 9 mms and smoke crystal meth! Frankly, you and Mr. Church had it easy! He should quit bitching.

Also, Mr. Church works for The Sun, so he's what your father would probably have called a soak, and what in my day we call a lush bucket. This piece of drivel probably got hacked out between shots of cheap whiskey. Rot-gut liquor has been the source of more bad rhetoric than War and Love combined.

And furthermore, what is this "intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth" supposed to be? Looks like your dear editor was using his newspaper to proselytize some version of the Christian Religion at you. These days things such a thing wouldn't fly. A word to the Feds and we could have God-Boy's ass fired so hard out the door that he wouldn't land until next Xmas.

Anyway, Mr. Church keeps on editorializing:

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

What are these... THREATS? If Santa isn't real, Poetry will disappear? The Lights will go out? Holy shit, in my day if some old drunk started feeding a little girl like you such a dose of baloney, they'd slap a restraining order on him!

And what's this about there being no Virginias if kids don't believe in Santa? There wouldn't be a North or South Virginia in the first place if Whitey assholes like Mr. Church hadn't come ashore at Plymouth and slaughtered the peaceful Kis'muk'ti-tuk Indians who were already living there! And what's Santa Claus got to do with any of that? Is Mr. Church insinuating that Santa was leading the charge against the Indian villages in his sleigh, innocent Abo kids impaled on the steel-edged antlers of his android rain-deer?

This guy kills me! But he's just warming up:

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies.... The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

Kid, you've hooked a nutter. Believe me, you can take full pleasure in your lawn without worrying about inadvertently trampling dancing fairies. And if by any chance you do manage to squash one, I hear they're damn good eating.

But seriously, there are many unseen and unseeable things in the world, like Debt and Remorse and Poison Gases and cancer-causing Gamma Radiation from The Sun. However, Fairies ARE NOT AMONG THEM!

If this Church fellow has any knowledge of Fairies, its because there's one fluttering in and out of that booze bottle he's been sucking out of. Yeah, Virginia, these days we've got a word for his kind of fairies: delirious tremblins, we call 'em.

But wait...There's more!

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart.

Kid, don't tear apart any baby rattles. That would be cruel. Besides, there's just this little plastic bean thing that bounces around inside making the sound. It's no big mystery. Leave your little brother's toys alone. He'll cry.

Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.

Magic mushrooms do the same trick. They can also convince you that jam bands like Phish or the Grateful Dead don't suck. But that wears off.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Okay, little sister, here's how Xmas really works. Capitalist society has trained your parents to drool like Pavlov's dog at the sight of a fat guy in a red suit. So, believe The Hype or not, you're going to get piles of gifts at exactly the same time every year. Your folks can't help it, and you couldn't stop them if you wanted to.

And the gift getting part is all that should really matter, for deep down Xmas a time of getting, getting all you can when the getting's good. When you become older and start buying gifts of your own, you'll realize the truth of what I'm saying. Then you'll understand that if the total amount of money you spend on gifts is less than the total amount of the gifts you receive, you've WON Xmas!

...and that is a terrific feeling. And Santa's got nothing to do with it.

Xmas Message From Chief Gov. Whip Gordon O'Connor

Michael Ignatieff's been speaking out about his 'plans' for Canada. Nobody's buying it. And who can blame them? No leadership. No credibility on the economy. No real plan except to raise taxes. Across Canada, the word is out: Michael Ignatieff isn't in it for Canadians. . . . Ignatieff: Just in it for himself.

May you get nothing but coal, Mr. O'Connor.

Independent Jewish Voices On KAIROS

OTTAWA, Dec. 21 /CNW Telbec/ - Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) condemns Immigration Minister Kenny's politicized move to defund social-justice church-group Kairos, which received government funding for 35 years. Kenny said this occurred because, in 2007, Kairos offered a grant to Sabeel, a Palestinian NGO that doesn't mirror Conservative policy.

Not a particularly surprising statement, given the IJV's politics. Nevertheless...

Ruby Dhalla Remains Hot

...even as she lights the diya (an oil lamp) at the re-opening of Lanka Gardens restaurant.

That is all.

(PS. Lanka Gardens is the place that got fire-bombed.)

T.O. Mayor Race Battle Of Baldys?

No way. Jah would never give the power to a bald head. This guy's my man, if he runs. Because its a pity to waste a good politician, and anyway it'd be good to have him tied up when the PCPO decide they want him back.

And who the hell is Rocco Rossi?

Help Keep Monument To SoCon Moral Recidivism Out Of Kapukasing

....scroll down and freep the poll on right. Normally, I don't encourage such games, but this sucker's already been freeped by Lifesite Readers.

Sun Photographers Roughed Up At Olympic Run

Not by native protesters, no, by grey suited security officers.

Photographer Dave Thomas was repeatedly shoved as he tried to take pictures but was not injured. But photographer Ian Robertson, who is about 60 years old and was laden with camera gear so he was unable to defend himself, required hospital treatment for an apparent head injury after he was shoved to the ground by security officers wearing the grey Olympic uniforms.

And who are they using for security at these things? RCMP! Lucky these T.O. Sun staffers didn't get their balls tasered off. The Sun story also notes that four other employees, as well as CP photog Frank Gun, were muscled by security as well

H/T

Alberta Government On KAIROS

Background on the KARIOS cuts and the Harper government's justification for them can be found here. And below, bumped up from the comments to that earlier post, is David Sands , with the Gov. of Alta's Public Affairs bureau (who I have mentioned on this site before). He's talking about when KAIROS representatives went out to Calgary to investigate the state of the Alberta oil sands (which I am calling "oil" rather than "tar" sands so as to be polite to Mr. Sands):

For what it's worth, when KAIROS came to Alberta on its oil sands inquiry, we asked some of our best (and busiest) people to brief them and take questions on impacts on air, land and water, and on health and social issues. These were people involved directly in monitoring and investigating the impacts, not flacks like myself.

I have been told that most of the delegates were open-minded and interested, had done some prior research and had probing, relevant questions. There were one or two who, we inferred, had already reached their conclusions and were suspicious, even hostile. But overall, not a group of NGO delegates with an entirely closed agenda.

We have no stake in or opinion on whether the group should receive federal funding or not. As with any group that takes the time to travel here to see the impacts of oil sands development first hand, we gave KAIROS the best access to the best people we could offer. And, we'd do it again.

- David Sands, for the Government of Alberta

As a rabidly Toronto-Centric, The West Hating BigCityLiberal, it terrifies me that reps from the Gov. Of Alberta should be making more sense on this issue than the Feds.

Our PM In Copenhagen

Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived at the Bella Center, where the summit is being held, at around 9:30 a.m. local time with bloodshot eyes after attending a gala dinner hosted by the Danish Queen that stretched until two o'clock Friday morning.

Reports say the gala would have gone even later, but Harper insisted on playing piano.