Undriver = Unperson

A few weeks ago, I came across something rare indeed; a news story about a government initiative that actually makes sense and has the potential to make a lot of peoples' lives just a little easier. The Ontario government had announced that it was offering photo ID cards for people who don't drive.

Because most adults in North America do drive, many may not understand the impact of this announcement on those that don't. The driver's license has become the de-facto standard form of identification for most undertakings that require identification. Some form of photo ID is required if one wants to open a bank account, rent an apartment, vote, stay at a hotel, board a plane and so on, and the most commonly accepted identification is the driver's license.

But what if you don't drive? What if you're handicapped, can't afford a car or, like my wife, simply never learned to drive? Well, my friend, in that case your options get quite a bit narrower. The Canadian social insurance card doesn't work, because it doesn't include your picture. A passport is usually good, but not everybody has one of those either and even those that do don't always carry them around on their persons. Even if you do happen to have one handy, a second piece of identification is usually required because the passport doesn't give your home address. The fact is, for people who don't happen to hold a driver's license, proving that they are who they are is much harder than it should be.

Apparently Ontario's Minister of Transportation, Kathy Wynne, recognized this fact, and decided to do something about it by introducing a photo ID card for those who don't drive. What's even more amazing is that, as far as I can tell, this initiative came totally out of left field. I'm not aware that there was any kind of public lobby urging someone to do something about the situation. Those who lacked a driver's license, like my wife, apparently coped with the nuisance in silence and got by as best they could.

So I applaud Kathy Wynne for taking this refreshing initiative. I don't know who or what it was that brought the matter to her attention, but she has pleasantly surprised this somewhat jaded citizen by doing something about a problem that isn't very high profile and, after all, affects a minority of voters.

Shirley Rieck thought it was an excellent idea too. The seventy-five-year-old pensioner doesn't hold a driver's license and has encountered many of the frustrations that I've already outlined when it came to proving her identity. So she rushed right out to get one of the new Ontario photo ID cards. She brought along her birth certificate, her Ontario health card and an old age security card that included her social insurance number. They weren't enough.

Okay, let's all stop to think about this. She couldn't get the photo ID card because she lacked the appropriate ID. Or, put another way, she couldn't make it easier to prove who she is, because it was too difficult to prove who she is. Somewhere along the line, somebody forgot that people like Shirley Rieck are the very reason why this new ID card was launched in the first place! It's like that old aphorism which says that the only way to qualify for a bank loan is to prove that you don't need it.

It's not like Mrs. Rieck didn't come prepared. The list of cards and documents that she took along with her certainly sounds reasonable enough to me, and I would have thought they'd be sufficient. Unfortunately, the birth certificate wasn't acceptable because it bore her maiden name (she hadn't been married yet when she was born, you see). It also didn't show her picture and, even if it did, I'm sure it wouldn't have looked anything like her. The Ontario health card wasn't any good, because the Ministry doesn't like to ask for that, since it can be used to access confidential health information. You can volunteer it anyway but, even then, they want a second piece of ID (I guess the birth certificate and old age security card don't count, though). The news article through which I discovered all this didn't explain why the old age security card was no good.

Well, hats off anyway to Kathy Wynne. At least she tried. Unfortunately, in the end, bureaucracy won out again.

Better News

Does anybody besides me find the news more and more depressing these days? Great nations (including the United States) mired in debt, economic turmoil, joblessness, climate change, crazies like the tea party calling the shots, no tax hikes for the richest of the rich and no aid or respite for the poorest of the poor... it's enough to make one want to find oneself a nice, quiet cave somewhere and retreat from society. That's why I was so refreshed to find three news articles in my local paper this past week which, although I wouldn't call them "good" or "happy" news per se, at least brought a smile to my lips.

The first item had to do with a new theory that has been gaining acceptance among astronomers that our Earth may once have had two moons, which collided and the victor of that cosmic fender bender was the moon which we see in our night sky today. This theory, which astronomers playfully dubbed the "Big Splat", supposedly explains why the far side of the moon, the side that we never see from Earth, is more mountainous than the side that we do see, making our satellite just slightly lopsided.

"Why would that make me smile," you ask? It's the analogy that's used to describe the collision. The theory says that a smaller moon trailed along behind our surviving, larger moon, the larger satellite's gravity pulling it gradually closer and closer, until the smaller moon finally rear-ended its larger sister. Because both moons were travelling in the same direction, the speed of impact would have been relatively slow (a mere five to six thousand miles per hour which, of course, has been proven to be emminently survivable by countless crash test dummies used by all the major auto makers) so, instead of the cataclysmic explosion that one would normally expect as a result of two planetary (or moonitary, if you will) objects colliding, the effect was more akin to the larger moon getting a "pie in the face". In fact, an artist's rendering (that's the picture at the above left, not the one to the right) really does look something like a freeze-frame of someone getting hit in the face with a pie. Now that's funny! Perhaps legendary silent film director Georges Méliès wasn't so very far off the mark after all!

The second headline that attracted my attention read "Swedish Man Arrested for Splitting Atoms In His Kitchen". Now there's a headline you don't see every day! I, for one, didn't realize that there was a law against that. Apparently Richard Handl, the amateur nuclear scientist in question, also known for composing the famous opera, "Messiah", if I'm not mistaken, didn't either, but he decided to inquire about it with his local police, and was immediately arrested for his trouble. Seems that Sweden, at least, does have laws against possessing nuclear materials, which are sort of necessary if you want to split atoms.

It turns out that Handl is nothing more than a well-meaning hobbyist who even blogged about his activities. I can understand the Swedish authorities becoming somewhat alarmed upon learning that some do-it-yourself-er had been working on a miniature nuclear reactor in his kitchen, and I certainly can't fault them for wondering where he came by the uranium and radium that he used for his experiments, but I would suggest that terrorists don't generally blog about their activities and aren't in the habit of inquiring about legalities with the police. From the pictures in the news story, I would suggest that Handl's greatest crimes were slovenliness and chain smoking.

On the other hand, Handl (on the other Handl?), whom one article aptly describes as "Quite reckless and kind of awesome", admits in his own blog that he has had the odd mishap, like the time that a mixture of Americium, Radium and Beryllium in sulphuric acid exploded on his stove top. If he lived in America, he could have immediately sued the stove manufacturer for failing to affix a bright red warning label on the control panel that reads "WARNING! THIS APPLIANCE IS NOT INTENDED FOR COOKING NUCLEAR MATERIALS! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HEAT ANY INGREDIENTS THAT END IN THE LETTERS 'IUM'"

The final item to warm the cockles of my heart wasn't really a news article at all, but rather an interesting photo depicting a military vehicle rolling over a parked Mercedes with the heading "Parking Wars". The caption beneath the photo read "Vilnius, Lithuania, Mayor Arturas Zuokas drives a tank over a car parked illegally on the city's main street. Zuokas became infuriated with motorists parking their luxury cars illegally around the city".

I'm sure that many of us can sympathize with the sentiment. Some arrogant yuppie doesn't think the rules apply to him or his Mercedes. Let's give him a little something to make him think twice next time. Reminds me of that delicious scene from the movie, "Backdraft", where the Beemer is illegally parked next to a fire plug that's right next to a burning building, so Kurt Russell happily smashes in both the driver and passenger windows with his axe and runs the hose right on through the car.

Just to ensure that the hapless driver really gets the message, Mayor Zuokas should have left a note under the Mercedes' windshield wiper (or what was left of it) that read something like "Terribly sorry. I was on my way to quash an uprising and your illegally parked car got in the way of my tank. Nothing personal". Or, better yet, leave a parking ticket and a bill for repairs to the tank treads. Or maybe just a note that says "Next time, you'll be towed!" There's no end to the fun you can have with this type of situation! And why aren't there more politicians like Mayor Zuokas? If I lived in Vilnius, he'd sure have my vote next time around!

Who's Your Favorite Batman?

So there I was, sitting in my hot, stuffy little attic office, scratching my ... head, thinking "Man, I should really post something new to my blog". It had been a while and, once again, I was short on inspiration.

It didn't help that my attic office, being an attic office, is the coldest room in the house during the winter time, and the hottest room in the house during the summer time, and we've been in the grip of a record-setting heat wave for the past couple of weeks. I do have a portable air conditioning unit for when it gets really bad but, electricity rates being what they are (especially now that the new "Smart Meters", which should really be called "Gouge Meters", have been implemented), I try to use that as sparingly as possible. But there I go making lame excuses again.

Finally, I decided to browse through the annals of my very own blog for ideas. One thing I've got to say for myself, I'm prolific! I sure have written a lot of blog posts over the years!

Eventually, I stumbled across the most obvious idea in the world. About two years ago, I asked you, my faithful readership, which actor was your favorite in the role of Batman's arch-nemesis, the Joker. Well, I never asked about Batman himself, did I? How'd I manage to overlook that idea?

Okay, so here it is. Who's your favorite Batman? We'll leave out voice characterizations for animated shows. I want to know who, in your opinion, can dress up like an overgrown bat with any kind of credibility. I humbly offer the following list of contenders:

Lewis Wilson/Robert Lowery

Although I'm feeling older and older with each passing year, I've never seen either Lewis Wilson's or Robert Lowery's portrayals of the Dark Knight, as they came a bit before my time (Wilson in 1943 and Lowery in 1949). Therefore, I'm afraid I can offer no opinions or comments on these performances. If anyone reading this can, please feel free to comment. I will say, however, that the costumes are almost painful by today's standards. When I was a kid, my mom once made me a home-made Batman costume which I swear would have given both the costumes pictured above a serious run for their money. And I thought West's costumer was bad! Speaking of which...

Adam West

Sure his portrayal of the Caped Crusader was campy, kooky and often just plain silly but many would argue that West remains the one and only original Batman (he himself certainly would!) He was the first to have some real fun with the role. If he (or his writers and directors) decided to go for camp, perhaps it was because they figured that the character could only be taken so seriously, and that tongue-in-cheek was therefore the best way to go. I further suggest that Adam West's Batman bore the distinction of being the only one that appealed to both children and adults on two whole different levels and for very different reasons.

Finally, West's Batman delivered some of the most memorable, laugh-out-loud funny lines I've ever heard coming from a costumed crime fighter in the most dead-pan serious manner imaginable, which made them even funnier.

"It was noble of that animal to hurl himself into the path of that final torpedo. He gave his life for ours." (Said just after having been saved from an oncoming torpedo by a dolphin that intercepted the projectile.)

"Not you, Robin. They have strict licensing laws in this country. A boy of your age is not allowed in a drinking tavern." (Said just after Robin eagerly prepared to storm a tavern).

And later...

"I'm just going to hang around the bar. I don't want to look conspicuous." (Spoken while in full Bat-garb).

Robin: "You can't get away from Batman that easy!"
Batman: "Easily."
Robin: "Easily."
Batman: "Good grammar is essential, Robin."
Robin: "Thank you."
Batman: "You're welcome."

And who can forget...

"Just a second while I retrieve my beanie, my hair, my tweezers, and my notes."

Man, that utility belt carried absolutely everything! Okay, so he may not be the most credible of all the Batmen but, for pure entertainment and a hardy belly-laugh, it's hard to beat Adam West.

Michael Keaton

You'd think that an actor who first made his bones as a comedian would try to steal Adam West's thunder and go for a few laughs of his own but, no, Michael Keaton decided to play the role in a serious manner, and pulled it off handsomely. Any humor that he did allow to slip in was extremely subtle and delivered without even a smirk, such as the scene in which Vicky Vale and Alexander Knox are wondering between themselves about one of the outlandish costumes in Bruce Wayne's personal armory, at which Michael Keaton (as Bruce Wayne) states, very matter-of-factly, "It's Japanese". Knox, not yet realizing who Bruce Wayne is, asks how he would know that, to which Wayne replies, just as matter-of-factly, "Because I bought it in Japan," resisting what must have been a very strong temptation to add "Duh!"

Keaton brought pathos to the role. He almost made it possible to believe that dressing up in a black rubber bat suit is a perfectly natural reaction for a man who's tormented by an inner duality brought on by an early childhood trauma, and happens to have way too much disposable cash.

Finally, Keaton had the facial features for the role. I've always suspected that the costumers must have used a cast of Keaton's furrowed brows when making his scowling bat cowl.

Val Kilmer

When Michael Keaton decided that he didn't want to play the caped crusader for a third time, Warner Brothers turned to Val Kilmer to don the mantle. At first glance, Kilmer seems a good choice for the role. He's young (or at least he was at the time), handsome, athletically built and an actor who has shown that he can play a great diversity of roles, from Top Gun's no-nonsense, by-the-book, somewhat condescending "Ice Man" to the flamboyant, rebellious and somewhat disturbed Jim Morrison in "The Doors".

As Batman, Kilmer stayed true to Keaton's portrayal, both as Bruce Wayne and his costumed alter ego, playing the roles with a serious, almost pious air. Behind the mask, Kilmer was, in my opinion, the poutiest-looking Batman of the lot. From a purely facial perspective, if I hadn't known better, I might have mistakenly thought that they recruited Corey Hart for the role.

Kilmer had the dubious honor of taking the young protegé, Robin (played by Chris O'Donnell), who had been absent since Adam West's retirement from the role, under his bat-wing. Unlike television's dynamic duo, Kilmer's and O'Donnell's pair didn't always see eye to eye. Kilmer's Batman only accepted his young would-be partner somewhat reluctantly, and O'Donnell's Robin iwas much more headstrong and rebellious and much less conciliatory, than Adam West's young partner. This gave Kilmer's Batman a whole new set of both opportunities and problems. I'm not sure that he fully capitalized on them.

Batman's costume tended to change from film to film, often even while the actor wearing them remained the same (with the noteable exception of Adam West), but Kilmer was the first Batman whose costume changed within a single film. Kilmer's Batman, like Jack Nicholson's Joker, seemed to have different looks for different occasions. After all, Batman wouldn't want his costume's novelty appeal to start wearing thin now, would he?

George Clooney

In my opinion, George Clooney, as an actor, seems hard to dislike, though I can't say I've ever met him personally. He brings a certain easy-going coolness to every role that he plays. Yet herein lies part of the problem. Perhaps Clooney was simply too big for the cape and cowl. Even in full bat-garb, one could somehow never forget that it was George Clooney under there. Keaton and Kilmer managed to lose themselves inside the costume. (West, it might be argued, was the costume). Clooney never quite did.

The second problem is that Clooney, for whatever reason, tried to bring some of West's Campiness back to the character with lines such as "This is why Superman works alone!" (spoken after petulant Robin complained that he wanted his own Batmobile, because "Chicks like the car.") In one of the most painful examples of dialog in the movie, Clooney and O'Donnell, in what I can only assume was intended as an ill-considered homage to West and Ward, uttered the following exchange:

Robin: Holey rusted metal Batman!
Batman: Huh?
Robin: The ground, it's all metal. It's full of holes. You know, holey!
Batman: Oh.

I can almost hear even West's Batman tut-tutting; "Really Robin. Bat puns?"

Like Kilmer, Clooney's Batman seems to have an array of different costumes, one of which comes complete with Bat-nipples. Really Batman? Nipples? Didn't you and Robin get enough suggestive ribbing when you did the '60's serial together in tights?

To be fair to Clooney, I think his Batman was more a victim of poor writing and directing than poor acting. I saw him in an interview about his films during which he commented, in his usual easy-going manner, that he felt that the star of "The Perfect Storm" was not he, but rather the "great big rogue wave" (i.e. the special effects). Immediately afterward, he added with a shrug that, on the other hand, he took the fall for 'Batman and Robin', so he didn't mind taking the credit for 'The Perfect Storm'.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale, like Val Kilmer, is another actor who has shown himself capable of playing a wide range of roles. He's certainly the grittiest, most intense Batman, in this blogger's humble opinion. He admirably re-introduces pathos to the character, accepting the label of "outlaw" (in "The Dark Knight" for the greater good of Gotham City.

He's also the only one who attempts to change his voice when wearing the cape and cowl so that he doesn't sound like Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately, the raspy grunt that he chooses for his mode of diction when costumed makes him sound like someone who's about to pinch a loaf, somewhat detracting from the seriousness of the character.

I personally dislike his cowl. The ears are too short for my liking, making him look more Doberman Pinscherman than Batman, and the hood is solid, rather than flexible latex. I don't know why that just seems wrong, but it does.

I think Bale takes himself just a bit too seriously as an actor. His Batman movies, while entertaining to watch, are just never going to be high art. Sorry Chris.

Oh yes and, last but not least, there is, of course....

me.


So there it is. Obviously, I've hinted at my own preference. If you think it's all poppycock or want to sound off on the matter, please feel free to do so in the comments. Who's your favorite Batman, and why?

O Canada

Today is Canada Day.

Although I was born in Austria, I grew up in Canada, having immigrated at the tender age of three, and I consider myself to be a Canadian, proudly and unashamedly so. And so, to honour my adopted homeland on her 144th birthday, I offer the following list of reasons why it's great to be Canadian.

1. Smarties, Crispy Crunch and Coffee Crisp are three of the finest chocolate bars (not "candy bars") in the world. All are easily found in Canada and none are available in the U.S.A. For that matter, Americans seem confused about their chocolate bars in general. Their Mars bar, which was also completely unavailable from 2002 until just last year, includes peanuts. Canadian Mars bars have been peanut-free since 2006. The U.S. Snickers bar is actually closer in its ingredients to the Canadian Mars bar, albeit not as sweet, but it is decidedly different from the Canadian Snickers bar, which is closer to the U.S. 3 Musketeers bar. And don't get me started about Kinder Surprise Eggs. Not only are they not available in the U.S.A., they're actively prohibited, having apparently been classified as weapons of mass nougat!


2. The Canadian football field is both longer and wider than its American counterpart (110 yards long by 65 yards wide) and yet Canadian teams have only three downs to cover ten yards rather than four, meaning that Canadian football players are probably generally more fit than their American cousins, since they have to cover more distance in less time. Our balls are bigger as well, as is the regulation pigskin.


3. Baseball, the "Great American Game" is actually Canadian. One of the earliest recorded games that bore a closer resemblance to modern baseball than to the U.K.'s Cricket or Rounders was played in Beachville, Ontario in 1838, a full seven years before Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the sport in 1845. Mind you, there were five bases (called "byes" at the time) as opposed to three (there's that Canadian penchant for doing everything bigger again) but the game was clearly an ancestor of modern baseball.


4. As long as we're appropriating long-standing icons of American culture, apple pie was originally an English dessert and, as Canada maintains closer cultural ties with the U.K. than does America, I maintain that apple pie is much more Canadian than it is American.


5. No matter what our cultural, political or philosophical differences, be we anglophone or francophone, Christian or Muslim, male or female, black or white, rich or poor, there is one thing about which all Canadians can agree, and that is Tim Horton's Donuts. "Timmy's" is the institution which bonds and unites all Canadians. It's not just a place to get our morning wake-up jolt of java. We meet there socially. We commune there. We discuss sports, politics, family and the economy there. In 2001, Krispy Kreme Donuts made an aggressive move into Canada. Speculation was rife as to whether Tim Horton's might actually be facing some serious competition. Even Tim Horton's itself showed early signs of nervousness as they switched their traditional "shoe box" container, which used to hold a dozen of their donuts, to a wider, shallower box designed to imitate Krispy Kreme's. Today, of the 18 Krispy Kreme stores that opened in Canada, out of 32 planned, 4 remain. Tim Horton's never even broke a sweat.


6. Music. Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, Bryan Adams, Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Neil Young, Rush, Trooper, Celine Dion, Ian Thomas, Carol Pope, Shania Twain, the Rankins, Gino Vannelli, Bruce Cockburn ... the list goes on. Canadian musicians and singers rank right up there among the world's finest, and they have to work about ten times as hard as their American counterparts to get exposure. As Ian Thomas once quipped, being a Canadian performer means never quitting your day job.


7. While Americans were still whuppin' slaves, Canada was smuggling them out of the U.S. and welcoming them as citizens.


8. Canadian kids can play road hockey on ice skates.


9. Only a Canadian can take a pack of canines that are capable of killing and devouring a full-grown human being in under three minutes and get them to pull him and his belongings through the snow on a sled.


10. Canadian strip joints have no compulsory G-string law.


11. Canadian inventions include snowmobiles, jet-skis, velcro, zippers, insulin, penicillin, zambonis, the telephone and short wave radios.


12. Our currency, which some Americans ridicule as "Monopoly money", is a lot harder to counterfeit than American currency.


13. Our elections are always resolved within a day.


14. Canada boasts the only French-speaking soldiers who never surrendered to Germany, or anyone else for that matter.


15. Finally, those Americans who today look upon Canada as their "poor cousin" have obviously forgotten the war of 1812, when Canadians sacked Washington DC and burned down the White House, then left. We weren't really invading you see; we were just making a point. America had pissed us off by attacking Toronto (known as York at the time) so we went down there, gave them a good bitch-slapping, and went back home to finish the Eaton Center, which was still under construction at the time.

Canadians are a mild-mannered bunch. We don't toot our own horns. We just do what we do and let everyone else get on with their own lives. "Live and let live" is the Canadian way. We may have our quirks, but I can't think of any other country in which I'd rather live.

Happy 144th, Canada!

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

Yesterday, I returned home with my family, having been out shopping for wedding dresses for my wife and daughter (that is to say dresses that are appropriate for attending a wedding, not the white ones generally worn by the Woman Of The Hour) to find the neighbor lady, Diane, wandering forlornly between her house and ours, looking somewhat distressed. As we got out of the car, she approached us and explained that she had locked herself out of the house. She had stepped outdoors for just a moment and a self-locking door swung shut behind her. All of her other doors happened to be locked as well.

Diane explained that her bathroom window, which could be slid open and had a fly screen that could be removed without even so much as a screwdriver, was the most promising point of entry, but she herself was unable to pass through it. With the lower pane slid upward as far as it could go, the window offered a rectangular opening roughly two feet high by three feet wide and Diane, being a rather portly woman, couldn't even lift a leg up over the lower sill, which hung some three feet off the ground, let alone fit through the opening.

I tried to climb through. I did somewhat better than Diane, as I was at least able to get a leg over the lower sill. Although I don't exactly boast the most svelte of physiques myself, I might have been able to squeeze through if I could have somehow levitated myself feet-first through the opening in a prone, horizontal position. Unfortunately, I'm also not the most limber of people. Once I had one leg over the sill, I found it absolutely impossible to bend my torso in such a way that it would fit through the opening without contorting my leg in a manner that would have resulted in dislocating my hip joint.

So I called upon my daughter, Jessica. Now, the open window was small enough to pose a challenge even for a seventeen-year-old teenage girl, especially one who's in no danger of becoming anorexic herself it you take my meaning. Robust waistlines appear to be a common trait in my immediate family. Even our cat is fat, although I do grant that she could have easily fit through the open window. I had considered tossing her inside but it's extremely unlikely that she would have obliged us by unlocking the front door for us. More likely, she would have raided an open pantry or amused herself shredding Diane's finest woolen afghan (yes, she still has her claws) or perhaps she would have simply contented herself with a general exploration of Diane's unfamiliar dwelling but I can assure you that the purpose for which I sent her into the house in the first place would have been the farthest thing from her feline mind. Cats are self-absorbed like that.

So it fell to Jessica, as I say, to climb in through the window, with a little help from myself. She lifted both legs up and through the window, so that she was sitting on the lower sill and then laid back her upper body in a horizontal attitude, with me supporting her, so that she was able to slide the rest of the way through. It was still a tight squeeze, even for Jessica, who later commented that the narrow lower sill of the window had cut into her back most uncomfortably, but she made it inside.

I wonder if the Beatles realized, in 1969, that they were writing about my daughter, who wouldn't even be born for another 24 years?

So Learned, Yet So Misinformed

In Dale Wasserman's book, "Man Of La Mancha", Dr. Sansón Carrasco attempts to cure Don Alonso Quijana, who believes he is a knight-errant named Don Quixote, of his "madness" by pointing out that there have been no knights for nearly three hundred years. Don Quixote's reply: "So learned, yet so misinformed".

"These are the facts," insists Carrasco.

"Facts are the enemy of truth", counters "Quixote".

Dr. Stephen Hawking, renouned physicist and mathematician, widely acknowledged as one of the world's greatest intellects since Albert Einstein, announced In a recent interview with Britain's Guardian that heaven is a myth; a "fairy story" for people afraid of death.

During his interview, Dr. Hawking made it clear that he does not believe in a god, a heaven or hell, or even the concept of a soul. We are, says Hawking, nothing more than a collection of neurons and synapses firing off in our brains. When our brains die, we cease to exist. The end. That's all she wrote. Thanks for coming out.

Before continuing, let me assure you that this is not going to morph into a rant about the folly of secular pagans who refuse to believe in God and the Holy Bible. Those who know me know that I am not a particularly religious person. I question everything and I don't believe that any one religion or philosophy has a true understanding of the mind of God. I don't even necessarily think of God in the traditional sense; a mystical, all-powerful being who created everything and who manipulates events according to some Divine Plan. On the other hand, unlike Dr. Hawking, I do allow that there are probably things about which I not only have no knowledge, but which my mind may be completely incapable of even imagining or comprehending. I don't assert that Hawking is wrong about there being no heaven, no afterlife and no soul. I do, however, suggest that it's a little arrogant of him to insist that his opinions are unassailably correct.

I do agree with Hawking's suggestion that our time and energy might be better spent improving the world that we live in and the lives of those that live in it, rather than living only for some nebulous promise of eternal bliss once this life has ended. What if Dr. Hawking and his ilk are right, and we really do cease to exist, completely and utterly, once our brains have stopped functioning? That would mean that this life is all that we have. How sad to waste it in the vain hope for something better.

My criticism of Hawking, isn't about his rejection of religious philosophy so much as his refusal to consider that there may be forces and phenomena which he simply does not understand. The fallacy commited by many scientific minds is an adherence to the belief that "If I can't see it, detect it, measure it, quantify it or explain it, it doesn't exist". By insisting that there is an explanation for everything, science does not allow for the notion of miracles.

Ironically, some may argue that Hawking himself is a living, breathing miracle. The motor neurone disease, which has confined him to a wheelchair for most of his life, was expected to kill him within a few years of its original diagnosis. That was over 49 years ago, yet Dr. Hawking still survives.

Certainly, science must get some of the credit for this. Without the advanced medicine and technology that helps him to communicate, to move from place to place and even just to eat and to breath, Dr. Hawking would surely not have lived nearly as long as he has. The trouble with intellects like Hawking is that they give all the credit to science and technology alone, not allowing that there may be something greater, something more intangible and impossible to measure, record or even detect, at work as well.

Most of us are familiar with the old paradoxical riddle that asks, if a tree falls in the middle of a forest with no-one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Dr. Hawking, pondering this question from a purely scientific point of view, might accept this answer; as the falling tree strikes the ground, the impact generates sound waves. The fact that there are no ears present to detect these sound waves is immaterial. From a strictly physical point of view, the tree has indeed made a sound.

If we accept this, let us then change the question slightly. What if a deaf person is in the vicinity of the tree when it falls, and what if that person is not facing the tree? Let's assume that it's a small tree, too small to cause any vibrations that the deaf person might feel when it lands. This person would be completely unaware that a tree has just fallen over, yet the event has surely occurred. The person's inability to detect the sound waves made by the tree does not invalidate their existence.

Scientific minds like Dr. Hawking make the mistake of assuming that they know all that there is to know. They don't allow that there may be phenomena that science is, as yet, unable to detect, record, measure or study.

So learned, yet so misinformed.

I Have No Topic And I Must Blog

I realize, faithful readers, that my blog posts have been increasingly "spotty" of late. There are several reasons for this. In my last post (three long weeks ago) I wrote of how, having thought that my computer had died, I had ordered a new one, only to resurrect the old one afterward. This small victory did not instill in me any sense of obligation to cancel the order for the new computer, however. Far be it from me to forgo a perfectly good excuse for buying myself a new toy, even if that excuse becomes technically invalidated!

Since then, my new computer has arrived and there was a certain amount of disruption caused by the necessity of setting up the new machine and moving all my old files over. However, truth be told, I had the new box up and running, with internet access, the very day that it arrived, so all that hardly prevented me from blogging. It would be more honest to say that I've been more interested in showing off my new toy to myself than I've been in blogging. (Let's see now, I have an hour to myself, during which I could post something to my blog, which I could do perfectly well using my old PC, or I could take a virtual aerial tour of Seattle with the graphical detail turned up to "full". Tough call...)

There is, however, a secondary reason for my protracted silence. I've been suffering from a case of "Writer's Blog", if you will. Somehow, no topics have managed to inspire me over the past few weeks. This is where writers such as myself walk a fine line. As I've said before in this blog, I'm of the opinion that, once one decides to blog, it behooves one to post on a fairly regular basis, lest one's readers lose interest and stop returning. On the other hand, writing is sometimes like speaking. When one has nothing to say, it's often best to say exactly that ... nothing.

I always knew the day would come when I would lack for blog ideas. One strategy that I use to avoid, or at least minimize, this eventuality, is to jot down notes for future reference whenever possible ideas occur to me. These often germinate into respectable blog posts. Unfortunately, I currently have a plethora of random, unrelated ideas that neither promise to flourish into respectable topics in their own right, nor can they be combined into any sort of intelligible whole. Some humble examples:

Under the category of "Things That Bug Me" (see also "Andy Rooney Impersonations)"; Tim Hortons coffee lids whose plastic tabs refuse to stay down once bent back. They invariably pop up while I'm trying to sip my coffee, forming a small, brown, plastic, Hitleresque "moustache" beneath my nose.

Under "Editorials", a news item that I once read about a University of Waterloo professor who noted that about 25% of high school graduates that enter university are failing basic literacy exams, and that includes students who were scoring between 80 and 90 percent averages in high school English. I can only conclude that certain high school English teachers are either incompetent or, at the very least, disengaged.

Staying with literacy and writing, and under the category "Life Imitates Art", I've mused privately about the eerie similarity between acronyms used in e-mail and texting ("OMG! ROTFL! CU L8TR!") and Orwellian Newspeak ("reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unperson rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling"). Both are equally incomprehensible to the normal reader and both share the dangerous characteristic of suppressing the expression of intangible concepts by robbing the English language of expressive words and phrases (not to mention robbing their writers of their grammatical and spelling talents).

Under "Random Musings", I found myself playing a computer game at one time whose typically unimaginative introductory narrative reported that the enemy had developed "The world's most advanced weapons system". My immediate reaction was "What, another one? That's the fourth one this month!" World's most advanced weapons systems are becoming somewhat like PCs. It seems they're obsolete by the time you get them home and unpack them from their shipping crates, having already been replaced by a new "World's most advanced weapons system".

Intriguing ideas, all, yet none independently capable of standing as a blog post in its own right. However, rather than disappointing my readers by greeting them with "It's Alive!" for yet a fourth week, I've seen fit instead to offer up this buffet of bite-sized samplings from the Halmanator menu. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm suddenly feeling hungry...