Referendum on Senate?

NDP leader Jack Layton and Conservative Senator Hugh Segal have proposed a national referendum on abolishing Canada's Senate, the unelected upper chamber of Parliament. Now Prime Minister Stephen Harper has indicated that he would support such a referendum if the Senate cannot be reformed. If Harper is serious about this, he could effectively alienate the west, which is a key Conservative stronghold. In general, westerners prefer to see a "Triple E" Senate — elected, equal and effective. By giving each province the same number of Senators, by having them elected for fixed terms and by empowering them to check the Commons, a Triple-E Senate would more closely resemble the American and Australian Senates.

Needless to say, there is no enthusiasm for such a Senate in Ontario and Québec, whose dominance of Parliament as a whole would be curtailed under the new arrangement. They and New Democrats alike would prefer to see the Senate abolished. However, in supporting such a referendum, Harper would take a potentially huge risk. If voters in Ontario and Québec won a victory for abolition through sheer numbers, and if westerners had voted overwhelmingly to oppose such a move on grounds that it would eliminate any possibility of their having a greater voice in Ottawa, it could conceivably exacerbate the regional divisions in this country and in his own party.

Yet Harper has proved himself to be a crafty politician. He must know all this. Which makes me wonder whether he might have something up his sleeve. Stay tuned.

All Saints

Going ape

Those of us who have read of this primate's seemingly extraordinary communicative abilities will be interested in this item: Chimpanzee famous for using sign language dies. "Washoe, a female chimpanzee said to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the U.S. research institute where she was kept." May she rest in peace.

In the meantime, few may be aware that Cheeta, the chimpanzee from the old Tarzan movies of the 1930s and '40s, is still alive and reputed to be the world's oldest chimp.

Reformation

Four-hundred-ninety years ago today Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Schloßkirche at Wittenberg. On this occasion it is appropriate to alert readers to the Reformational wiki recently posted by Steve Bishop. (Here "reformational" is to be understood as a synonym for neocalvinist.)

Oh, and then of course there's that other occasion being observed today — the one dedicated to begging, the occult, gluttony and tooth decay.

Subverting reform?

The CBC's Don Newman has an interesting take on Stephen Harper's likely ambivalence over the fixed election dates that were part of his package of constitutional reforms: Hard to Get a Date. Prior to adopting this reform, a government could easily time an election by requesting dissolution of Parliament at virtually any moment it deemed favourable to its own electoral fortunes. I myself have favoured fixed election dates because it promised to remove one more of the vast powers of the prime minister.

However, as Newman points out, a clever PM in a minority government may find a way around this. If the principal opposition party is in disarray, as are the Liberals at the moment, and if the opinion polls show the Conservatives in majority territory, the temptation will be great for Harper to engineer the defeat of his own government, as Trudeau did in 1974, in the hopes that he might receive a majority in the ensuing election. That may be what he's doing by proposing legislation he knows will be unpalatable to the opposition. Of course, this could all backfire on Harper if the public perceives him to be subverting his own reform for partisan purposes.

In a multiparty democracy, where coalition rather than minority governments are the norm, a prime minister would not be able to do this on his own, because he would have his coalition partners to answer to. Moreover, if he were leading a coalition government commanding the majority of seats in the lower chamber, the felt need to engage in this tactic would be unlikely to present itself.

This raises once again the issue of electoral reform. Ontario voters just defeated the mixed-member-proportional system (MMP), seemingly indicating that they are satisfied to be ruled by a government most of them opposed. As French political scientist Maurice Duverger demonstrated more than half a century ago, there is a causal connection between electoral and party systems. Proportional representation (PR) tends to produce multiple parties none of which by itself is likely to command a majority of seats in parliament. This forces them to co-operate in coalition governments, as they do in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, which adopted MMP a decade and a half ago, Thérèse Arseneau, a Canadian expat living amongst the Kiwis, defends the new system against its detractors: MMP still the better option.

Off-putting auto

KIA Motors obviously did not have any Greeks working in its marketing department when it came up with the following:



I suspect I'm not the only person to read this as "kill", which could prevent its cars selling in Greece, Cyprus, Toronto's Danforth neighbourhood and Melbourne's Russell and Lonsdale district.

Neoclassicism at Redeemer



The School of Athens




The School of Ancaster

Zylstra Lectures

I promised my Christian Courier readers that I would post the following information here:

Presents the annual

BERNARD ZYLSTRA LECTURES
Wednesday, November 7, 2007


Authority and the Image of God


Dr. David T. Koyzis
Professor of Political Science
Redeemer University College

Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation

Chapel address
11:00 am - 12:00 noon, Auditorium
"Living as Image-Bearers"

Afternoon Panel Discussion
3:00 pm, Executive Dining Room
"What Now? Taking Stock of the Provincial Election Results"

Evening Public Lecture
7:00 pm, Room 213
"Can I? May I? The Reduction of Authority to Power"



Invitation is open and admission is free

For more information please contact

Marlene Raddatz
(905)648-2131 x 4414
mraddatz[at]redeemer[dot]ca

Redeemer in the news

My employer, Redeemer University College, is included in The Globe and Mail's University Report Card, as ranked by participating students at institutions across Canada. The highest scores are reported on Redeemer's website. One place where we scored low: On-campus pubs/bars, for which we surprisingly received a D. I wouldn't want to bring down our overall score, but I should think an F would be more appropriate, since ours is a dry campus!

Incidentally, I have just updated the alumni page at the Political Science Department's website — a task that has become immeasurably easier with the advent of facebook.

Liberal woes

Remember George Perlin's Tory Syndrome, which kept the federal Conservatives out of power through most of the years after 1896? It seems that the Liberals have finally caught this political malady, suggesting that any threat to bring down Stephen Harper's government after last evening's Throne Speech is an empty one. Stéphane Dion would certainly be ill-advised to pick a fight right now.

Later: Oh yes, and then there's this: Chrétien's book revives spectre of house divided. Calling Paul Martin's supporters "self-serving goons" is probably not the way to revive Liberal Party fortunes.

Drum roll please

And now we wait with bated breath: Tories set to unveil throne speech that could trigger election.

Postmortem on electoral reform

Unlike many pundits who assume electoral reform is dead after wednesday's referendum, Andrew Coyne begs to differ: Electoral reform will rise again.

The 37% of Ontario voters who voted in favour of the proposed mixed member proportional (MMP) scheme is within a few percentage points of the 42% who voted for Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals..., who were variously said to have won a massive, historic, decisive majority. It was about as many as voted for the “majority” NDP government in 1990, or the “majority” federal Liberal government in 1997.

Unfair, you say: Mr. McGuinty had more than one opponent. But what is common to all of the other parties is that voters preferred them to Mr. McGuinty’s Liberals. In the race between Dalton and Not Dalton, the Dalton party suffered a decisive defeat. Yet Mr. McGuinty is today congratulated on his majority government, while MMP, in the words of a National Post editorial, “took a pasting.”

What is remarkable, Coyne observes, is that as many as 37 percent of voters in this province voted in favour of MMP, despite a "blizzard of misinformation." "If not quite a ringing endorsement of MMP, it suggests a significant level of dissatisfaction with the status quo — a conclusion amplified by the abysmal turnout, a historic low of 52%."

Another day off

Newly re-elected Premier Dalton McGuinty is now demonstrating his impeccable pro-family credentials: McGuinty proclaims new holiday.

Kudos to ex-veep

Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize. The esteemed former US Vice President thus joins the ranks of Woodrow Wilson, Lester Pearson, Andrei Sakharov and Mother Teresa — not to mention those great humanitarians Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho and Yassir Arafat.

Post-election blues

This is cause for melancholy the day after: Ontario rejects electoral reform in referendum. In the meantime Dalton McGuinty's Liberal Party has won another majority, the first time a Liberal government has won back-to-back majorities since 1937. Yet 57.81 per cent of Ontarians voted against the Liberals, thanks to the distortions of our first-past-the-post electoral system. Adding up these two results can only yield the conclusion that voters in this province like having a single party govern against their expressed wishes. Go figure.

Dust in the wind?

It seems Dr. Minton's heirs live on, as contemporary researchers come once again to a reductionist conclusion: All we are is dust in the wind — from black holes, astronomers say. A Cornell University astronomer notes that this study is "an important step in answering a fundamental mystery of the early universe." One mystery yet remains: why we should pay heed to a study undertaken by so much space dust.

Dressing appropriately

Although I can probably be said to have a somewhat distinctive sartorial style, I have written very little about clothing and fashion on this blog, except for the occasional light-hearted reference to the bow tie and to a certain vest reviled by my beloved wife and daughter. It's not as though I have no views on the subject; it's just that it doesn't interest me nearly as much as other things do. Once I'm dressed in the morning, I pretty much forget about it and attend to more important things.

That said, I thought I would call attention to an essay recently published in Comment that came out in the latest print issue: Making the most of college: The importance of dressing well, by Jeff Cavanaugh. Here's an excerpt:

The baby boomer generation who set the style examples and the corporate dress codes today came of age in the social upheaval of the 1960s, when students everywhere were shedding the styles of their parents—along with their social and moral outlook—for sandals, tie-dye, and free love. Since then, nonconformity has become the established pattern, and everyone tries to set himself apart from all the rest. It's difficult to be rebelling constantly, though, and one is faced with terrible dilemmas: Which, among the dozens on display at the casual clothing store chain of choice, will be the t-shirt with the just-right, witty slogan to display the proper insouciance and show my friends I'm a nonconformist, too—just like them?

There was a time, however, when colleges were the centre of the men's clothing industry. Haberdashers—that's an old word for someone who sells shirts and ties and such to men—spent big money trying to attract the business of college men. Partly this was because campus fashions were at the leading edge of the style world, and partly it was because they knew if they could get a man's custom when he was young, they'd probably have it for life. A certain "Ivy League" look that started at Princeton and Yale became the dominant look for men all over North America in the years after World War II.

I myself am part of the baby boom generation that rebelled against all the old symbols of "conformity" by donning the ubiquitous and homogenizing blue jeans, something I never really took to. When I began university as an undergraduate back in 1973, I deliberately shunned this mode of dress, not quite understanding why my peers preferred to look like adolescents rather than the adults we had so recently legally become. However, instead of adopting a more classic style, I indulged in some of the more bizarre fashions of the '70s, including platform shoes, colourful plaid bell bottoms, and even a paisley faux-velvet blazer! (I shudder to imagine my daughter's response to that.)

This quickly ended after my first year, when I began to take a more serious attitude towards my studies and became newly aware of the importance of issues of war and peace, justice and injustice, and the social and political implications of my christian faith. This still didn't put me into jeans, but I did abandon my youthful foppishness — much, I am sure, to everyone's relief.

I am old enough to confirm Cavanaugh's observation that earlier generations tended to dress better than we do. I can recall seeing old home movies of my parents from around the time I was born, my father wearing a jacket and tie, and my mother a skirt — to a picnic, of all places! People would dress up to travel by train or plane, or simply to go grocery shopping. (My understanding is that Argentines still tend to dress well for such ordinary activities.) From a certain aesthetic standpoint I could wish people still did this. Blue jeans and t-shirts are, quite frankly, dull and uninteresting, calling to mind the drab clothing once ubiquitous in maoist China. Surely we can do better than that? Here is Cavanaugh again:

[D]ressing well shows respect for others. I'm not a teacher, but I've talked to a number of professors who find it frustrating that their students, as a rule, come to class looking like they've just rolled out of bed and would really rather be there still. No professor likes it when students seem not to care, and you can communicate "not caring" by wearing a shirt that hasn't been washed in weeks as well as you can by staring out the window during the lecture.

The look that is common to college students and others today—cargo shorts, t-shirts, jeans, even pajamas—is mainly one that emphasizes comfort and individualism. Walking around in a hoodie and pajamas communicates, "I don't care what anybody else thinks about how I look; I'll wear whatever I want and whatever I'm comfortable in." Dressing up a bit, on the other hand, tells those around you that you care about the image you present to them, that you don't want to give offense, and that you take things seriously, including your studies.

As a professor who has taught for just over two decades, I can confirm much of what Cavanaugh writes above. No, I've never had anyone come to class in pyjamas, but I have had to teach some students who, from their appearance, seemed not to respect themselves, much less their peers or me.

Would I put men back into jackets and ties? Well, on some occasions, yes, but certainly not all. I would place the emphasis, not so much on dressing well (read: up), but on dressing appropriately. I generally do wear a jacket and tie in the classroom, but I would never expect my students to do this — the old Ivy League style notwithstanding. I would not dress this way for a picnic, which obviously calls for sturdier clothing that one is willing to have subjected to dirt or stain.

As for the bow tie, I see it as, not only a fashion statement, but a whimsical symbol of the teaching office, communicating at once the weighty character of that office and the unwillingness of its current occupant to take himself too seriously. Yet I don't wear it all the time, especially on days when I'm not teaching.

Though I may disagree with him on specifics, I'm with Cavanaugh on this central issue: dress does matter.

Don't leave home without it

This is for one of my colleagues who claims not to be a card-carrying Dooyeweerdian:

The theremin

The theremin is the only musical instrument that is played without touching it. Remarkably, it is not a new instrument but was invented nearly 90 years ago, appearing in the eerie film scores of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still, where it was employed to great effect by Miklós Rózsa and Bernard Herrmann respectively. Here is Leon Theremin's cousin Lydia Kavina playing Debussy's Claire de Lune on his invention:

Scottish Russians?

Due to the mixed origins of my own last name, I have a continuing interest in surnames from one country that clearly show roots from another. For example, the late Tad Szulc was born in Poland, but his name obviously indicates a German connection. The Dutch names Van Arragon and Antonides would appear to suggest Spanish/Catalonian and Greek roots respectively. Now we read of this intriguing possibility: Scot to bring DNA from Russia with Lermontov. It seems the well-known Russian name Lermontov may once have been Learmonth, with roots in Scotland.

Anglican views on faith-based schools

I imagine I'm not the only one to find reading the Niagara Anglican a singularly unpleasant experience. Two articles in the current issue are typical in this regard: "Religion in Ontario public schools," by retired Archbishop John Bothwell, and "A religious education," by Peter Wall, Rector of Christ's Church Cathedral here in Hamilton. Both Bothwell and Wall oppose the funding of faith-based schools for all the predictable reasons, favouring instead "religious education," i.e., education about the world's religions, in the public schools. Here is Wall:

[John] Tory's suggestion is that faith based schools are just that — faith based, so we have, rather than religious education, religious indoctrination — potentially narrow and exclusive curricula which promote one religion over another. To my way of thinking, it leads to narrowness, intolerance, a lack of breadth of knowledge and awareness, and a preponderance of religious myopia which has in the past and continues today to cause problems between peoples and groups.

The solution? Keep religious instruction in the churches and religious education in the schools. Notably absent from their remarks is any vision for reclaiming education for the cause of Christ, for bringing the gospel to bear on the whole of life, or witnessing to the coming of God's kingdom. We had best keep our private faith in our churches and out of our schools — "our" evidently referring to Canadians, not Christians. Absent as well is an understanding of the reality that someone's worldview, whether or not overtly expressed, will infuse such teaching about religion.

Sadly, Bothwell and Wall appear to have accepted uncritically the secularizing worldview of the larger society. Accordingly, the church functions as little more than chaplain to that society, affirming it in its prejudices and keeping itself respectable within the eyes of its self-proclaimed opinion-moulders. It shies away from all perceptions of divisiveness, narrowness and intolerance, seemingly vindicating the outsider's cynical assessment of Anglicanism as an establishmentarian church founded to sanction a king's divorce. The offence of the gospel and the exclusive claims of Christ over our lives are obviously not primary considerations.

It is far from coincidental that the same issue of the Niagara Anglican contains this sad article: "Why did St. Philip's close its doors?" A church unable to distinguish itself from the larger culture will eventually become superfluous, as it seems bent on becoming in the Niagara diocese.

MMP vs MPP reform

The Work Research Foundation has published two pieces in the run-up to the referendum on electoral reform here in Ontario. The yea side is defended (ably, one hopes) by yours truly: Why Ontarians should vote for MMP. The nay side is taken by my genial nemesis, Russ Kuykendall, Senior Researcher for the WRF: MMP? Or, intestinal fortitude? I can agree with Kuykendall here:

What Ontarians need is more MPPs [Members of Provincial Parliament] who set aside advancing their careers in caucus and cabinet and focus, instead, on advancing issues and policy perspectives. We need more MPPs who argue inside caucus, in committees and the legislative assembly, and in media and public meetings on behalf of issues. We need more MPPs who recruit pro-family volunteers, for example, to their campaigns and hire pro-family staff and interns so the next generation of activists is put in place. We need more MPPs who introduce pro-independent and home-schooling bills so that the law better reflects these concerns for fairness and human flourishing – to achieve what Augustine called “proximate justice.”

This is all well and good, but there is a need for institutional reforms that would facilitate these desirable outcomes, and they will likely have to be implemented within the parties themselves. Simply relying on the courage of individual MPPs will almost certainly be inadequate, because they will need a larger support system to overcome the obstacles posed by current levels of party discipline. I would welcome from Kuykendall more specific proposals for giving effect to this.

That said, these really are reforms for another day. The question now at issue is the one of fair representation, which I don't see Kuykendall addressing as such. I understand the objection to a party leader selecting list candidates. However, this is not so much an argument against proportional representation (PR) as it is an argument against the specific form on which we will be voting in two weeks. The single-transferable-vote (STV) would not possess this perceived defect. Might Kuykendall be more favourable to STV?

Finally, I do not see him addressing the injustice of a single party governing over the objections of most voters. There is wisdom in James Madison's belief that a multiplicity of factions will be less likely to harm a polity than a single faction taking power on its own:

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.

Madison would scarcely think it better for a minority faction to claim majority status and rule accordingly. By increasing the likelihood of multiparty coalition governments, MMP will help to address this danger.

I am sorry that the WRF has seen fit not to take a position on the issue, given that a number of like-minded organizations (e.g., the Center for Public Justice and Canada's Citizens for Public Justice) are in favour of PR. Yet I am pleased that they have disseminated these two essays to educate further the voting public in this province.

How's that again?

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association appears to believe that allowing parents to determine their own children's education is a violation of their civil liberties: Civil Rights Group Opposes Tory Faith-Based Schools. A number of high-profile people are willing to accept this rather odd reasoning.

There is, however, high-profile support on the other side as well. Canada's newsweekly Macleans has published an editorial arguing that Choice is good, and more choice is better. Bravo, Macleans!

Dino's feathers discovered

Here's the latest from the paleontological front: Velociraptor was just a scary turkey, say scientists. It seems a certain nearby sport team could be in for a name change. I'm sure someone would buy tickets to see the Toronto Scary Turkeys. . . assuming they had nothing better to do that day.

Citizenship and the Cyprus Republic

The Cyprus Mail, located in the Greek-dominated south of the island, is to be commended for publishing this piece by Turkish-Cypriot Alkan Çağlar: Why the Republic of Cyprus is institutionally racist. As readers may recall from an earlier post, Çağlar has argued that Turkish-Cypriots are descended from converts to Islam from the island's Latin and Maronite christian communities after the Ottoman conquest in 1571. His current article calls attention to the plight of a mainland Turkish woman, married to a Turkish-Cypriot, attempting to gain citizenship in the Cyprus Republic. By behaving in such a petty way towards this couple, the legally-recognized government in the south is hurting its own cause by increasing the possibility of a permanent "apartheid" of the island and further tempting the international community to recognize the status of the TRNC.

In his mid-20s, Çağlar is still a young man. However, if Cyprus is ever to be reunified and its people reconciled, people like him will have to move into positions of influence on both sides of the divide.

Rebel without a Cause


Nancy and I recently watched the classic 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause for the first time. With its young co-stars, James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, it was one of the first adolescent angst movies that would capture the imaginations of viewers in that world of fifty years ago. Although the genre has by now become something of a cliché, its contemporary impact can nevertheless be appreciated in retrospect as we recall the huge changes occurring in North American popular culture in the years following the Second World War. Rock and roll was just gathering steam, and a distinctive youth culture, reinforced by postwar prosperity and overindulgent parents and incubated in the ubiquitous public secondary schools, was exploding into a frequently unpleasant reality — both for parents and for the adolescents themselves.

Rebel captures this moment well. The three principal actors deliver impressive performances, and one can hardly equal the evident interpersonal chemistry among them. The main flaw is that the script's psychologizing is too obvious and heavy-handed. Dean is rebelling against an overly passive father unable to stand up to his mother's domineering ways. Wood is starving for affection from a father who withdrew his when she hit puberty. Mineo is hungry for parental love, living alone in the care of an ineffectual nanny while his divorced father and mother live elsewhere. Mineo fixates on Dean as a father substitute and, at one point, says to him, "I wish you were my father" — just in case we didn't already get the message.

The film is held together by a nihilistic thread and a preoccupation with death — from the morbid planetarium show to the tragic deaths of two teens. The planetarium lecturer, Dr. Minton, represents adult authority and authoritatively imparts this nihilistic worldview to his young audience:

And while the flash of our beginning has not yet traveled the light-years into the distance, has not yet been seen by planets deep within the other galaxies, you will disappear into the blackness of the space from which we came - destroyed, as we began, in a burst of gas and fire. The heavens are still and cold once more. In all the immensity of our universe and the galaxies beyond, the earth will not be missed. Through the infinite reaches of space, the problems of man seem trivial and naive indeed, and man existing alone seems himself an episode of little consequence. *

While apparently believing in the ultimate meaningless of existence, the adults in the film nevertheless manage to live respectable lives. Yet in the larger scheme of things there is no compelling reason for them to do so, and the youth have picked up on this. They are simply living out their parents' worldview, even if their parents are unable to comprehend this. Constantly flirting with death, they live as if there is no tomorrow. Tellingly, in the film's timeline there is indeed no tomorrow. The action occurs over a period of just 24 hours.



All three of the film's stars died tragically. Dean was killed in an automobile accident in September 1955, a month before the film opened. Mineo was murdered in 1976. Wood drowned in a boating accident in 1981. The film's title is perhaps misleading: the cause of the adolescents' rebellion is, paradoxically, the ultimate lack of cause for acting differently - for conforming to their parents' expectations when the parents themselves can offer no justification for doing so.

Faith-based schools

Education seems to be the number one issue in the Ontario election campaign, somewhat surprisingly. The two major parties are divided over whether to provide provincial funding for faith-based schools, with John Tory's Conservatives in favour of bringing them into the public system while permitting them (for now) their distinctiveness, and Dalton McGuinty's Liberals favouring an homogenized public system, with grudging acceptance of funding for Catholic schools. Howard Hampton's New Democrats have chosen to sit this one out, labelling it a smokescreen. The Greens favour a completely homogenized system, with no funding for the Catholic schools. (How this will protect the environment is anyone's guess!)

The CBC has posted a brief but informative historical account of the issue, as well as a survey of the differing approaches to education taken by each province: Faith-based schools.

The central issue, as I see it, is whether it is the proper task of government to socialize the young and to create a society based on "tolerance" of differences while at the same time doing everything possible to minimize or trivialize those differences. Or does this go well beyond the normative task of government to do justice? Many of us believe government should play at most an ancillary role to the overriding parental task of educating one's own children.

Unfortunately, despite Canada's multicultural character, the province of Ontario is heir to an establishmentarian mentality that views homogeneity as the norm. At one time this meant a generic protestantism, but for the last 40 years secularism has been the established religion, with the rest of us viewed condescendingly as bothersome dissidents at best. Add a bit of Rousseau's civil religion, courtesy of Québec's Quiet Revolution next door, and you have a pretty toxic mix. Perhaps it's time for another William Lyon Mackenzie to take on this new Family Compact.

Loonie = Greenback

This is remarkable considering that not too many years ago the Canadian dollar was worth $.62 US: Canadian dollar closes in on parity with U.S. greenback.

Catastrophe pour les Libéraux

It's a safe bet that the federal Liberals will not be bringing down Stephen Harper's minority government any time soon: Liberals shut out in Quebec byelections.

The Jena six

This is the sort of incident we used to hear about in the US 40 or 50 years ago: Apart from the noose, this is an everyday story of modern America. It seems incredible that it could happen at the beginning of the 21st century. The unequal judicial treatment of the black and white youths in this incident is sparking protest and planned rallies. It has also brought the small Louisiana town unwelcome attention from around the world.

Ontario's referendum

Our family finally received in the mail a flier about the upcoming referendum on reforming the province's electoral system. This was published by Elections Ontario, which maintains this website to provide information to voters. I, of course, will definitely be voting in favour of the mixed-member-proportional system (MMP). For those still in doubt, it needs to be emphasized that it entails, not an abandonment of our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, but an addition to it to ensure that every vote truly counts and that the diversity of political visions is better represented in the legislature.

In the meantime, Hamilton's own Sheila Copps defends our current electoral system with this measured and thoughtful op-ed piece: Foolish Ontario could muck up country. To her credit, Copps uses the words extreme or extremist only 5 times, which must have required considerable restraint on her part.

Conservative leader John Tory is hinting that he will vote no in the referendum. Why? Ostensibly "because some MPPs would be 'appointed by party bosses and accountable to no constituents'." The real reason? Both his party and the Liberals would no longer monopolize the political process as they do now. In short, Tory's Tories would lose out.

The October issue of The Walrus carries this article advocating MMP by Daniel Aldana Cohen: Blown Into Proportion. Cohen holds out an intriguing possibility for our future:

If Ontario’s voters opt for change, Canada could follow. Imagine Ottawa’s metamorphosis: a small but strong Green Party; the Bloc Québécois cut almost in half; Liberals and New Democrats from Alberta, Tories from the big cities; a new party or two; many more female and minority members; a bump in voter turnout; the pmo reined in by Parliament; stable coalition governments. For much of the old guard, this would be a nightmare.

No wonder Tory is so skittish. Now we have to convince our fellow citizens of the merits of adopting MMP. It really will give them a stronger voice by ensuring that votes are not wasted. Without adequate information ordinary citizens are inclined to stick with what they know. When MMP is explained to them, they tend to become enthusiastic supporters. Let's break the conspiracy of silence in the corridors of power and vote YES on 10 October!

Today's challenge

English-speaking Calvinists are generally familiar with TULIP:

Total depravity
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints

However, given that some might see TULIP as old hat, today's challenge is to come up with another floral acronym that expresses the truths of Reformed Christianity. For example:

Perseverance of the saints
Authority of scripture
Noetic effects of the fall
Salvation in Jesus Christ
Yes to God’s grace

Entries may be left in the Comments below.

Facebook friends

This report proves that it's possible to be both accurate and uninformative at the same time: It's hard to make close friends on Facebook, study says. Here's the summary: "Social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace aren't expanding people's circles of close friends, but they are creating plenty of meaningless relationships, according to British researchers." It's about time someone funded a study on this for those of us who had assumed otherwise.

REAL Women needs to get real

Gwen Landolt, National Vice President of REAL Women of Canada, has issued a statement opposing the mixed-member-proportional (MMP) system that Ontarians will be voting on a month from today, as reported here: REAL Women of Canada Warns Against Ontario Proportional Representation Voting Change. Landolt claims that "it will undermine our democratic system of government." Admitting that under MMP parties will have to form coalition governments, she raises the spectre of short-lived Italian-style governments plaguing Canada's political process. Landolt also fears that feminist influence within the major parties will increase as a consequence of MMP.

Her objections need to be addressed and put to rest. First, MMP will produce a legislature more, not less, representative of the political opinions of ordinary voters. Under our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, a single party takes all the effective power over the opposition of most voters. Why Landolt would find this democratic is a mystery.

Second, Germany and New Zealand, both of which use MMP, are stable democracies with governments generally lasting as long as they are expected to. The Netherlands uses a straight party list system with no single-member constituencies, and its governments are also durable. Electoral reform and multiparty coalition governments do not by themselves foment political instability.

Finally, Landolt fears that the major parties would pander to special interests, including feminists, in allocating list seats. This misses the point. Under MMP the "major" parties would no longer be as strong as they are now, with other parties, along with the viewpoints they represent, gaining seats in the legislature, provided they receive at least 3 percent of the vote. This could include a party more in keeping with the convictions of Landolt and REAL Women — one that is currently handicapped by FPTP. The Family Coalition Party (FCP) comes to mind here.

Incidentally the FCP favours MMP. Landolt's group should rethink its opposition and consider the possible advantages of MMP to its own cause.

Political leanings hardwired?

This study might encourage those who would reduce political differences to biology: Homo politicus: brain function of liberals, conservatives differs. On the other hand, it could simply be seen as one more piece of evidence that the operations of the mind are dependent on the brain. Now, after reading this article, I can't help wondering what sort of neural patterns would show up in a fanatical moderate.

MMP in Ontario?

In a few short weeks the citizens of Ontario will be voting, not only for a new provincial government, but in a referendum on whether to adopt a mixed-member-proportional (MMP) electoral system. Readers of this blog will know that I am in favour of adopting this form of proportional representation, having contributed a submission to the Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform earlier this year. Two days ago The Globe and Mail's Chris Selley wrote an article drawing on New Zealand's experience with MMP: Wake up and smell the kiwi: What New Zealand can teach us about proportional representation and electoral reform.

Unfortunately, and as far as I can tell, there has been next to no publicity about the referendum either by opponents or proponents. My fear is that the proposal may die for lack of awareness on the part of voters, who will not know what's at stake. Another opportunity like this may not arise, and thus far it's being squandered. Let's hope that changes between now and next month.

Another Byzantine-Rite Calvinist

I am pleased to announce the publication by InterVarsity Press (US) of Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition, written by my esteemed colleague, Dr. James R. Payton, Jr. I have recently acquired a copy of this book and look forward to reading it.

Town fairs and world's fairs


Our family spent much of this past saturday at the 149th annual Paris Fair, a local event held in the lovely town of Paris, half an hour to the west of Hamilton at the confluence of the Grand and Nith Rivers. It is basically an ordinary town fair, like many occurring across North America during the summer months. With her zoological proclivities, our Theresa loved seeing the animals, especially the poultry. We were all amused at Clarol the Clown's antics. We saw a pony show. And, of course, what fair would be complete without a midway, boasting various rides and amusements.

Although most such fairs tend to reflect local agrarian pursuits, with their horse and cattle shows and the like, world's fairs have highlighted industrial and technological accomplishments. In fact, the very label "midway" originated in one of the most famous of world's fairs: the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, which I mentioned in passing in a recent post on Daniel Burnham's Plan for remaking that city. The fair was located in Jackson Park, on the south side of the city along the shores of Lake Michigan. Extending west from the Park was the Midway Plaisance, whose other end connected to Washington Park. This was the first "midway," boasting amusements from all over the world, including a gigantic wheel created by George Ferris for the occasion — one that would dwarf most future Ferris wheels.


Although world's fairs are still held, the heyday of world's fairs extended from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, beginning with London's Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, showcasing the achievements of the British Empire, and ending (for all practical purposes) with Montreal's Expo 67, coinciding with Canada's centennial celebrations and marking my own introduction to this country. During this period fairs were held in, among many other places, Paris in 1889, St. Louis in 1904, again in Chicago in 1933-4, New York in 1939 and Seattle in 1962.

Incidentally one assumes that the Rockton World's Fair, in Rockton, Ontario, does not have the official sanction of the Bureau International des Expositions to call itself such.

Learning on the prairies

Judging by the last photograph on this page, Dordt College in Iowa appears to be giving its students a good undergraduate education — at least in one field.

Understanding worldviews

Of the making of worldview books there is no end, to paraphrase Qoheleth. A new one has just been published by Anglican Youthworks in Sydney, NSW, Australia: A Spectator’s Guide to Worldviews: 10 Ways of Understanding Life, edited by Simon Smart. The book as a whole is aimed at the late secondary or early tertiary (post-secondary in North America) student. Each chapter is devoted to a major worldview, including Christianity, modernism, postmodernism, utilitarianism, humanism, liberalism, feminism, relativism, new age spirituality and consumerism. Although I am less than happy with the use of "spectator" in the title (I would prefer something along the lines of "participant"), I am pleased to have written the chapter on liberalism, at the invitation of the editor.

Foretelling the future

Read this, noting the date, and then look at the long term trend here. It seems there is at least one clairvoyant in the blogosphere.

Urban planning in the 'Windy City'


Although I am not quite a native of Chicago, I was born just outside the city limits in Oak Park and grew up in suburban Wheaton, about 40 km west of the Loop. I've not lived in the vicinity for decades now, but Chicagoland still holds a place in my heart, especially the city itself, with its unique neighbourhoods, lakefront parks, architecture, world class museums, railways, and even the perpetually disappointing Chicago Cubs baseball team.

In the space of barely two generations Chicago grew from a small village on the southwest shores of Lake Michigan in the 1830s to a huge metropolis of more than a million people by the 1890s. With such explosive growth the city had put down few roots and commanded little loyalty from its residents, the vast majority of whom had come from elsewhere in the US and, increasingly, from Europe. It was merely a place to make one's fortune with the ever-present possibility of pulling up stakes and moving on. Chicago grew in chaotic and haphazard fashion with little, if any, attention to the provision of basic urban amenities that might have a civilizing and humanizing effect on its people.

This began to change towards the end of the 19th century, starting with the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the great world's fair planned by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Thereafter Burnham and the Commercial Club of Chicago came to recognize the need for a comprehensive plan for developing and improving the entire urban environment for the sake of its people. The fascinating story of this plan — its development, reception and implementation — is told in Carl Smith's The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City (above right).


The Plan of Chicago, often called the Burnham Plan after its principal author, was published in 1909 and was visionary in its proposals for improving and beautifying the city. It took as its model Napoleon III's Paris, as redesigned by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the emperor's prefect of the Seine. The Plan envisioned a system of public parks throughout the city; straightening the south branch of the Chicago River; building a major bridge over the river to connect Michigan Avenue to Pine Street, making a single continuous boulevard connecting the north and south sides; filling land into the lake to create an extensive public park from Lake Park (later Grant Park) to Jackson Park (site of the 1893 fair); widening Congress Street to create the city's major east-west boulevard; and, most important of all, building a domed civic centre at a central place in the Congress Street boulevard (above left).

All of this was set forth in an aesthetically pleasing volume adorned with beautiful illustrations by Jules Guerin and Fernand Janin, thereby making the book itself a visual feast to savour at leisure. A limited number of copies were published and sent to the movers and shakers of industry, commerce and government, and even to the new US President William Howard Taft. (The complete volume can be perused on the Encyclopedia of Chicago's website, albeit not in the most readable format.)

The Plan was remarkable in a number of ways. To begin with, it was spearheaded by a group of self-appointed men prominent in their respective fields. They were idealistic and public-spirited, genuinely believing they had the best interests at heart of all Chicago's people, and not just the city's entrepreneurs. Although they disliked the corrupt municipal government of the day, they placed considerable confidence in government in general to effect change — in a "democratic enlightened collectivism coming in to repair the damage caused by exaggerated democratic individualism," as Harvard President Charles W. Eliot expressed it. In this they were typical men of the Progressive Era, believing in their own superior ability to undertake such a project and assuming that, with the proper public relations techniques, others could be persuaded to come on side of their agenda.


At least some of the Plan was eventually implemented, though not always as conceived by Burnham and his associates, who lived just prior to the proliferation of automobile ownership. Congress Street was indeed expanded and extended as a great east-west corridor through the city, but it took the form of the first of the great expressways to connect the city's heart to its suburbs in the 1950s and '60s. The Civic Center never materialized, and its proposed location is now the site of the Circle Interchange connecting four major expressways. The Michigan Avenue Bridge (above right) was built in 1920. A lakefront park system was indeed built on landfill, though Grant Park did not become quite the cultural centre foreseen by the Plan. Nor does Chicago boast the neoclassical architecture shown in Guerin's and Janin's illustrations. Nevertheless, municipal zoning certainly caught on and is nowadays simply taken for granted in North American towns and cities.

The Commercial Club was, of course, an élite group, making bold plans for grand public spaces, monuments, boulevards and buildings. Smith notes that the late Jane Jacobs opposed Burnham's approach to urban planning:

In the introduction to her best known work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Jacobs is particularly disparaging of Burnham's emphasis on civic centers and monumental designs, which, she contends, have degraded rather than improved the neighborhoods around them. It is true that neither the text nor the illustrations of the Plan pay much attention to the quality of the urban street life on which Jacobs focuses so much concern or to how the individual actually experiences the city, other than as a grid to move across as efficiently as possible. With few exceptions, people are either entirely missing from Guerin's and Janin's drawings or completely overwhelmed by the massive scale of the buildings (pp. 156-7).

When I was growing up, efforts at urban renewal often came at the expense of distinctive neighbourhoods, such as the old Greektown on the west side, which was razed to make way for the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago. While I do not deny the need for urban planning, I would reiterate something I wrote three years ago about Planned cities and new beginnings: "justice is more likely to be found in the ordinary activities of a government conciliating diverse interests than in a government bent on capturing its citizens' imaginations and mobilizing them for flashy, expensive projects not immediately related to their genuine needs." Moreover, real renewal of a city requires co-ordinated efforts from multiple agents, including churches, neighbourhood associations, ethnic organizations, and civic societies, in addition to municipal governments.

A national disgrace

There are always casualties in wartime, but this is particularly disturbing because it shows our lack of commitment of adequate resources to support our troops in Afghanistan: Canadians dying three times as fast as their allies.

Canadian soldiers are getting killed in Afghanistan at more than three times the rate of troops from other nations, including those from Britain and the United States also in the thick of the fighting against the resurgent Taliban.

The heavy losses – another three soldiers and an Afghan interpreter were killed in two blasts in the past week – come mostly from massive roadside blasts, which now pose the gravest threat to the Canadian mission in strife-torn Kandahar province.

“We have suffered no casualties – wounded or killed – in firefights,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker, commander of the Canadian battle group just finishing its six-month tour. “The KIAs [killed in action] we have suffered were almost all from IEDs [improvised explosive devices].”

The threat from improvised explosive devices is heightened by the fact that Canadian troops have yet to receive the latest anti-IED technology and lack helicopters to avoid the perils of land transport. . . .

Like other successful insurgencies in Afghanistan's long and bloody history of driving invaders and occupiers out, the Taliban don't need to defeat foreign troops in firefights. They only need to kill enough Canadians to bleed away public support and sap the political will in Ottawa. . . .

Canada is the only major fighting force in Afghanistan with no helicopters.

Other countries make heavy use of them to transport troops and supplies to and from forward operating bases. Canada must instead rely on regular ground convoys travelling predictable routes. Although efforts are made to vary timings, the regular flow of Canadian military vehicles on some roads makes them easy targets.

Successive governments have been quick to respond when called upon to supply peacekeeping troops in trouble spots around the globe, following the precedent established by Lester Pearson half a century ago. In this way they are anxious to maintain Canada's reputation as a good international citizen. During this same time, however, they have continually cut our military budgets, thereby all but decimating our capacity to field a credible presence in these spots. Our troops are thus scarcely able to protect their own lives, much less the lives of others. One might be forgiven for calling this a national disgrace.

Michiana holiday

Last week Nancy and I took a brief holiday in southwestern Michigan and northern Indiana. I spent nearly 7 years in the Michiana region while a graduate student at Notre Dame, so this was a return to familiar territory. Moreover I have deep familial roots in both peninsulas of Michigan, the one state in the US with which I tend most to identify.

The two of us had a wonderfully restful time in this quiet part of the world. We stayed at a bed and breakfast near Jones, Michigan, called the Sanctuary at Wildwood, which I would enthusiastically recommend as a vacation spot for anyone, especially first or second honeymooners. It's set on a large, forested property with hiking trails and a stocked pond for fishing, among other things. Here are some photographs of our stay:



This is the main house, where the owners live and where we were served breakfast:



We tried our hand at rowing. (Well, I'm the one who did the actual rowing!) This was the first time I had done so, and I caught on fairly quickly. Nevertheless, in trying to photograph some turtles sitting on the water lilies, I managed to frighten them into diving back into the water.



On wednesday we drove to Three Rivers, where we discovered a marvellous used bookstore called Lowry's Books. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the vicinity. It's located on Main Street, which can be seen below:



On thursday we drove to Shipshewana, in the middle of the northern Indiana Amish country. It's a tourist town, not unlike St. Jacob's, Ontario. But rather than hitting the shops, Nancy and I visited Menno-hof, an information centre and museum devoted to Anabaptist history. Anyone with an interest in Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, or who claim this heritage as their own, will find Menno-hof fascinating. I had heard about Shipshewana while living in South Bend, but I never got round to visiting it until now.





We saw a lot of these during our visit. Special lanes are reserved for horse-drawn buggies along the roads, but in my estimation they are not sufficiently removed from the danger of fast-moving automobiles, which should be required to drive much more slowly while passing through these communities.



On friday we drove back east towards Ontario and found "the longest of Michigan's few remaining covered bridges." It's located north of Centreville and it spans the St. Joseph River.





We're home again. Back to preparing for the coming academic year.

European Texas?

The prospect of membership in the European Union has to some extent motivated Turkey to try to clean up its act, especially with respect to human rights abuses. If so, then the EU may be taking the wrong approach here: EU urges Texas governor to halt executions in America's busiest death penalty state. Perhaps the EU should actually offer to admit the Lone Star State as a full member on condition that it abolish capital punishment. I can't think of a reason why Texans wouldn't jump at such an opportunity.

Cabinet shuffle

Here is Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new cabinet. Three notable changes: Peter MacKay has been moved from Foreign Affairs to National Defence, Maxime Bernier from Industry to Foreign Affairs, and Jim Prentice from Indian Affairs and Northern Development to Industry.

Nunavik

In 1999 Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories and given separate territorial status within Canada. Now we are told that regional government will be granted to a largely Inuit-inhabited territory in northern Québec, to be called Nunavik. Is this the beginning of a separate province, a separate territory or a tertium quid? How might this affect a future referendum on sovereignty should the PQ return to power? Might Nunavik decide to opt out of a sovereign Québec? Stay tuned.

Les Paul

Les Paul was one of the giants of mid-20th-century popular music, pioneering the development of the solid-body electric guitar and virtually inventing multitrack recording. Here is one of the string of hits he recorded with his wife Mary Ford in the early 1950s:



Multitrack recording has been used by generations of musicians over the past more than half a century, including this obscure Upper Canadian vocal quartet singing Psalm 95 (Text and music copyright © 1986, 1999 by David T. Koyzis).

Jenkins on the christian global south

Five years ago Philip Jenkins of Penn State University published The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, one of the more significant books of that year. In May of this year the Pew Forum convened its twice-yearly Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life in Key West, Florida, with Professor Jenkins as principal speaker. Michael Cromartie of the Ethics & Public Policy Center was the moderator of the discussion, a transcript of which can be read here: Global Schism: Is the Anglican Communion Rift the First Stage in a Wider Christian Split? Among other things Jenkins argues that the world of the Bible is more immediately comprehensible to African Christians than to westerners living in post-industrial societies.

I was once talking to some West Africans about the bits of the Bible that made sense to them in ways that could not make sense to Westerners. They said, "We live in agricultural societies, so things like the Parable of the Sower made great sense." Just talking about it, they started getting teary eyed. Then they mentioned Psalm 126. Psalm 126 is a psalm that is widely quoted, and it goes like this: "The man who goes forth into the fields in tears weeping to sow the seed will bring the sheaves again in joy." You understand perfectly well why a farmer would bring the sheaves again in joy; he's celebrating harvest time.

But why do you weep while you're sowing? "It's obvious," they said to me. "Whoever wrote this psalm was writing at a time of famine, like we had a couple of years ago. You've got the corn that's left, and you can do one of two things with it. You can feed your family with it, but if you do that, you're not a farmer anymore [because you have no seeds left] and you have to migrate to the city and become a beggar, and what's going to happen to your children and so on. Or you can take the corn literally out of the hands of your hungry children and use it as seed corn and sow it. That's why a farmer weeps while sowing the corn. It's obvious."

As I said, it wasn't obvious to me, but there are any number of examples like that where the Bible describes a world that makes immediate, intuitive, documentary sense in a way it can't for us.

Pope becomes Catholic

It's true. Check it out.

Russian novelist on democracy

The German weekly Der Spiegel carries an interview with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that is worth reading. Here is the famed Russian novelist on the role of parties in the political process:

I am a convinced and consistent critic of "party-parliamentarism." I am for non-partisan elections of true people's representatives who are accountable to their regions and districts; and who in case of unsatisfactory work can be recalled. I do understand and respect the formation of groups on economical, cooperative, territorial, educational, professional and industrial principles, but I see nothing organic in political parties. Politically motivated ties can be unstable and quite often they have selfish ulterior motives. Leon Trotsky said it accurately during the October Revolution: "A party that does not strive for the seizure of power is worth nothing." We are talking about seeking benefit for the party itself at the expense of the rest of the people. This can happen whether the takeover is peaceful or not. Voting for impersonal parties and their programs is a false substitute for the only true way to elect people's representatives: voting by an actual person for an actual candidate. This is the whole point behind popular representation.

Loyalists of the old Reform Party here in Canada appear to have a kindred spirit from across the pond.

Unrepentant 'murderer' behind pulpit

I somehow managed to miss this story when it first hit the blogs last year, but an editorial in the July/August issue of Touchstone brought it to my attention: Alma’s Mater: The Violent Hypocrisy of Some Peace & Justice Christians. The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist Church in New York. Last year she wrote an article in Tikkun titled My Choice, in which she confessed to having aborted her fourth child, whom she named Alma. Unlike most people styling themselves pro-choice on the abortion issue, Schaper freely admits to having murdered her child:

I happen to agree that abortion is a form of murder. I think the quarrel about when life begins is disrespectful to the fetus. I know I murdered the life within me. I could have loved that life but chose not to.

She claims to have made this difficult choice "as a mature sexual being" who believes that "birth control and abortion are positive moral forces in history." For her the recommendation of abstinence as an alternative is "immoral to its core." The incoherence of her ethical reasoning is too obvious to warrant further comment.

However, it is worth noting that Schaper recently contributed to Jim Wallis's God's Politics blog, where she commented on the Virginia Tech shootings last April: Worship in a Time of Catastrophe. Someone unacquainted with the complexities of a consistent life ethic might be forgiven for wondering on what basis she would object to the murders committed on that campus (though, perhaps tellingly, she never once uses that word). After all, was not the killer simply exercising his freedom of choice as a mature adult?

A second printing

Now I definitely have something to celebrate during the long holiday weekend:

Bridge collapse

During my years in Minnesota three decades ago I drove on the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi any number of times. Thus the venue for this disaster is familiar to me. The story can be followed live over local television station WCCO. Footage of the bridge can be seen here. Please pray for the survivors and others affected by this tragedy.

No revising the BCP

The recent General Synod of the Anglican Church has decided not to revise or scrap the Book of Common Prayer — yet. However, the 27-year-old Book of Alternative Services will be altered at some point.

Prayer Book conservatives in this country might do well to remind themselves that the 1962 edition of the BCP, for all its undoubted virtues, abridged the Psalter to leave out the more imprecatory sentiments, e.g., the end of Psalm 137 and the entirety of Psalm 58! Whatever one thinks of the BAS, its creators at least saw fit to include all of the Psalms, even the ones that offend modern sensibilities.

Judicial overreach. . . yet again

First a Turkish court claims the authority to strip the Ecumenical Patriarch of his ecclesiastical title. Now a Malaysian court is claiming to judge who is and is not a Muslim, over against the plaintiff's own claim to be a Christian. What next?