Maybe you don’t need more encouragement to be neurotic about the English language… but here it is anyway: (watch)
Canada
Mark Steyn: “America is George Orwell’s Room 101″
I’m going to put a few quotes here this week from Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It”. Amazon’s product description reads as follows:
“In this, his first major book, Mark Steyn–probably the most widely read, and wittiest, columnist in the English-speaking world–takes on the great poison of the twenty-first century: the anti-Americanism that fuels both Old Europe and radical Islam. America, Steyn argues, will have to stand alone. The world will be divided between America and the rest; and for our sake America had better win.”
In case you didn’t know, I am Canadian. Many Canadians are quite anti-American. I am not. I have a cousin, who used to be Canadian and is now a US citizen, that now hates Canada. This is a tad irritating and tends to drive even MORE people to hate America which, unfortunately, is the goal of some Americans. I’m not sure where the lack of mutual respect is greater – there or here.
Anyway, here’s the first quote from the book. Feel free to discuss. I am pulling interesting quotes, not necessarily ones I’m supporting, although there is much truth to this one:
“All dominant powers are hated – Britain was, and Rome – but they’re usually hated for the right reasons. The fanatical Muslims despise America because it’s all lap-dancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it’s all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it’s controlled by Jews.
Too Jewish, too Christian, too godless, America is George Orwell’s Room 101: whatever your bugbear you will find it therein; whatever you’re against, America is a prime example of it.”
If you don’t get the “George Orwell’s Room 101″ reference, read this.
And I Thought I Was Original…
Leamington Mennonite Man Loses $150,000 in Email Scam
Below you can listen to a clip of the CBC news from this week about a man in Leamington who recently lost $150,000 in an email scam. These scammers are relentless and will use any story or lie they think might work on you. In this case, as you’ll hear, they appealed to this man’s faith in God.
You can listen to a CBC News report about the story here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The old adage “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is” still applies, maybe now more than ever.
As always, if you receive an email like this, always check Snopes.com to see if it’s real or a scam. The victim in this case could have saved himself $150,000 by checking out this page.
A way to avoid these emails altogether is to sign up for an email account from Google . “Gmail”, as it’s called, will send 99% of these scam emails directly to the trash where they belong.
The Shack – a review
For a week or so I carried around this book called “The Shack”. It’s one of those books that “everyone” is reading. At the time of this writing it has has sold over a million copies and spent 33 straight weeks at the top of the New York Times best-sellers list for Paperback Trade Fiction. It has also seen a significant growth in sales in recent months while overall book sales have dropped. Those figures are not too bad for a book that was never intended for publication and then launched with a total marketing budget of $300.
Church folk who read it seem evenly split between the opinions that the book is either heresy or this generation’s classic work of fiction. Eugene Peterson’s endorsement is especially effusive: “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of ‘The Shack.’ This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” did for his. It’s that good!”
The book tells the story of Mack, a father whose young daughter is abducted during a camping trip and then murdered in a shack in the woods. Several years later Mack receives an invitation from someone named “Papa” to meet him back at the shack. As it turns out, Papa is God, or more specifically, God in the form of the three persons of the trinity. During the time Mack spends at the shack he is taken through the painful experiences of his life and is shown how God was at work in each of them.
I’ll be honest: I was ready to not like this book. For one thing, I don’t read much fiction. For another, there are people that I respect who think the book is rubbish. Although not a textbook of theology, there is enough theology that it is well placed in the genre “theological fiction”.
Popular Canadian blogger and author Tim Challies (www.challies.com) agrees that the book is not a lightweight endeavor.
“The author is unafraid to tackle subjects of deep theological import,” he say, “a courageous thing to do in so difficult a genre as fiction. The reader will find himself diving into deep waters as he reads this book.”
In the controversy surrounding this book, the words “orthodox” and “heresy” have often been mentioned – at least amongst theologically minded Christians who engage its content. The power and meaning of words like “orthodox” and “heresy” is of course somewhat muted in the current plurality of systematic theologies within Christianity. We generally use these words today to indicate whether what we’re referring to fits into our own systematic theology. If it does, it’s “orthodox”; if not, it’s “heresy”.
There are elements here that are a bit unorthodox to be sure – we are not accustomed to seeing God in the human form, and especially not in the form of a woman. But overall I was struck with just how orthodox the theology in the book is. By that I mean I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Young was saying about the nature of God, predestination, love, etc. Another popular writer and blogger, Michael Spencer, wisely recommends that,
“If you can read this book as what it was meant to be, and not as a chapter of someone’s Systematics, it will work on the level we most need such a story: our own sense of intimacy with God.”
This book has the potential to – and in fact already is – getting into the hands of many people who are not Christians. As an introduction to the faith it is above the level of sufficient. Overly long and analytical and critical reviews of the book (some nearly as long as the book itself!) seem to forget that the book is short and a work of fiction. Yes, there is much that can be said about this or that particular point of theology but overall the book presents an accurate portrayal of God and confirms his goodness at every opportunity.
The weaknesses of the book exist in some unresolved issues Young obviously still has with authority, theological education, and what we commonly refer to as the “church”. At one point, after Mack has met God, he realizes that all of his seminary training was insufficient in preparing him for such a meeting. Well, let’s hope not! Mack must not have done his homework before choosing a seminary.
While Tim Challies recommends staying clear of the book, Michael Spencer says just the opposite:
“William P. Young wants to introduce you to what it means to be loved by the Trinitarian God,” Spencer writes, “and he’s created a compelling story to do so in a way few sermons could ever begin to do.”
Both reviews are worth reading… but read the book first and decide for yourself.
More thoughts on The Shack here.
Canada rated world’s soundest bank system: survey
Four points need to be made here:
(1) Never have I been more grateful for this country’s prudent, risk-averse national character.
(2) Canadians are obsessed with their rank in the world. They should take a bow on this one. Surely this is more important than, say, junior hockey or the pommel horse.
(3) A year ago, the only time anyone wrote about banks was when they were bitching about ATM fees. Time for some perspective: Go hug your banker. And the next time he charges you a buck-fifty for making a $200 withdrawal at someone else’s bank, don’t whine about it, ok?
(4) Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton: Aren’t you now even more ashamed now about your sky-is-falling panic-mongering?
Canada rated world’s soundest bank system: survey
Thu Oct 9, 2008 4:40am EDT
By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Canada has the world’s soundest banking system, closely followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia, a survey by the World Economic Forum has found as financial crisis and bank failures shake world markets.
But Britain, which once ranked in the top five, has slipped to 44th place behind El Salvador and Peru, after a 50 billion pound ($86.5 billion) pledge this week by the government to bolster bank balance sheets.
The United States, where some of Wall Street’s biggest financial names have collapsed in recent weeks, rated only 40, just behind Germany at 39, and smaller states such as Barbados, Estonia and even Namibia, in southern Africa.
The United States was on Thursday considering buying a slice of debt-laden banks to inject trust back into lending between financial institutions now too wary of one another to lend.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report based its findings on opinions of executives, and handed banks a score between 1.0 (insolvent and possibly requiring a government bailout) and 7.0 (healthy, with sound balance sheets).
Canadian banks received 6.8, just ahead of Sweden (6.7), Luxembourg (6.7), Australia (6.7) and Denmark (6.7).
UK banks collectively scored 6.0, narrowly behind the United States, Germany and Botswana, all with 6.1. France, in 19th place, scored 6.5 for soundness, while Switzerland’s banking system scored the same in 16th place, as did Singapore (13th).
The ranking index was released as central banks in Europe, the United States, China, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland slashed interest rates in a bid to end to panic selling on markets and restore trust in the shaken banking system.
The Netherlands (6.7), Belgium (6.6), New Zealand (6.6), Malta (6.6) rounded out the WEF’s banking top 10 with Ireland, whose government unilaterally pledged last week to guarantee personal and corporate deposits at its six major banks.
Also scoring well were Chile (6.5, 18th) and Spain, South Africa, Norway, Hong Kong and Finland all ending up in the top 20.
At the bottom of the list was Algeria in 134th place, with its banks scoring 3.9 to be just below Libya (4.0), Lesotho (4.1), the Kyrgyz Republic (4.1) and both Argentina and East Timor (4.2).
RANKINGS
1. Canada
2. Sweden
3. Luxembourg
4. Australia
5. Denmark
6. Netherlands
7. Belgium
8. New Zealand
9. Ireland
10. Malta 11. Hong Kong
12. Finland
13. Singapore
14. Norway
15. South Africa
16. Switzerland
17. Namibia
18. Chile
19. France
20. Spain
(HT:
“Pansy” Re-enters the Lexicon (pansification)
Here is the clip from tonight’s broadcast of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) where Ron MacLean interviews Helen Kennedy of Egale Canada over the use of the word “pansification” – a term used by HNIC commentator Mike Milbury, who coined the term to describe how the NHL would be softened should the league heed calls to ban fighting.
I have used the word “pansy” more than few times, but never once as a homophobic slur. A pansy is a flower; flowers look nice but don’t do much else. When someone isn’t giving as much effort as they are capable of, I have been known on occasion to call such a person out as a “pansy.”Of course, some words gain and lose and change meanings over time. For example, “gay” once meant happy and “queer” once meant strange. “Pansy” may have at one time have been a more specifically derogatory term, but I don’t believe it has been for a long time.CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay’s response: “The point is, it was no way intended to be a reflection on or offensive to gay people. I think the colloquial use of the term was something they didn’t associate with gay people. The way the language evolves over time, 20 or 30 years ago it would have been seen, reasonably enough, as a direct slur against gay people.”What Egale Canada has done is re-entered this word into the lexicon of homophobic derogatory terms. For the most part, it had dropped off the radar as a homophobic slur – something we should all have been happy about.Now, it’s back on the radar, and those inclined to use homophobic slurs have another weapon in their arsenal.Agree or disagree?