Liberalism: A response to Extremism

Decline of the west, Extremism, Liberalism, Moral Humility, religion, terrorism, violence

 

I recently commented about the recent uncomfortable rise of violence inspired by religious fervor. This is not a new phenomenon. Our history is soaked in the blood.

The people of Europe have paid a hefty price in lives for disputes over religion. It is estimated that 1 million were killed in the Arian schism, another 1 million  during the Carthaginian struggle, 7 million during the Saracen slaughters in Spain, 5 million during the Crusades, 2 million Saxons and Scandinavians were killed resisting conversion to Christianity, and yet another 1 million  killed in Holy Wars against the Dutch, Albigenses, Waldenses, and Huguenots.  The cost of religion is high.

Of course in the Americas estimated again vary but some have suggested that 30 million indigenous people were slaughtered resisting the benefits of Christianity and perhaps 9 million burned as witches. Of cou8rse religion was usually not the sole cause for slaughter, but often it helped.

Much of Europe was devastated by the Religious wars of the 17thcentury. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648. These were often religious wars at least nominally, but not entirely of religion. Of course we have to remember that these wars were fought by Christian countries and Christian princes. They were not wars against he infidels.  After the Reformation the various Protestant   Christian sects and the former universal Church—i.e. the Roman Catholic Church—were all eager for a fight. These were wars of Christians against Christians.

By the time the major wars of the 17thcentury were over, Germany which was the scene of much of the fighting, was ravaged and one-third of its people were killed. In some areas more than half the population were killed. For example the Swedish army alone destroyed 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages, and 1,500 towns during its 17 years in Germany. For decades mercenary armies and armed bandits roamed Germany like a packs of vicious wolves slaughtering people like sheep.

Most of Europe participated in the wars. It began as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, but ended as a political fight over who would control Europe. Huge swaths of Europe had been scavenged bare and much of Europe by foraging armies. Massive damage was inflicted on churches, monasteries and other religious institutions. By the time the war was ending Catholic France joined the Protestant side because it feared the rise of Catholic Hapsburg power. Many of the European powers involved were bankrupted and famine and disease were rampant.

Although calculations vary, some counted the dead this way:  France and Austria lost 80,000 each, Spain 300,000, Sweden and Finland 110,000, German principalities 400,000. Other countries lost lesser people.

When the wars were over, or at least had subsided, most of Europe was understandably sick of religious wars. Nearly everyone agreed a better way was needed. After that with only minor exceptions, Christianity ceased to be an important motivator for mass scale murder. Someone should be thanked for that, but I am not sure it is God.

I would suggest that as a response to all of this slaughter an important philosophy arose: Liberalism. It is not supported enthusiastically in many places these days. That is a pity, because it is the anti-dote to extremism of all stripes.  And by liberalism I do not mean its bastard offspring such as the Liberal Party or even worse, neoliberalism.  But liberalism was a better way. British philosopher John Locke is often considered the father of Liberalism. He advocated for tolerance, which really means respect for others even if you disagree with them. The world at the end of the 17thcentury and then again at the end of the 20thcentury was in short supply of tolerance. It still is.

The Reformation and the problem of religious minorities were central to Locke’s political philosophy because those were the burning issues (literally burning issues) of his times. Until then this was not an issue at all because values were shared. Everyone in Europe was a Roman Catholic. Until then the issue of minority rights did not arise for there were no minorities.

But after the Reformation and the bloody wars that followed in its wake political theorists had to figure out how can we live together in a society when we don’t all share the same values? That is a problem that continues to haunt us today, as can be seen by the recent spate of religiously inspired murders in the last year.

According to University of Manitoba Professor, Steve Lecce, the key question of modern and contemporary political theory is “How should we live together in society when we don’t all share the same values?” [1]Where values diverge, as they now inevitably do in any post Reformation society, and in particular in modern societies that include immigrants from around the world, how can we live together in peace and harmony without resorting to might is right or without resorting to the ability of the majority to crush the minority? Liberals say that there are some things the majority or the powerful should notbe able to do. First we need a method of settling disputes fairly. Fair tribunals such as courts of law. The state has to be like a referee or umpire.

This was very important in the Reformation when religious freedom was the critical issue of the time. It is still important. Until the Reformation a common religion bound us all so that this was not an important issue. Religion until then was the social glue that kept us together. After the Reformation, religion became an explosive issue that could blast society apart. And it often did and continues to do. Before the Reformation religion was the basis of societal trust.  After the Reformation religion became an instrument of distrust. We still live in this post-Reformation world.

There were 2 possible solutions to this problem of religion after the Reformation:

 

  • A religion can be imposed by force to achieve religious unity. This was tried with great vigor in the religious wars of the 17th The result was great misery and abject failure.
  • The second possible solution is the radical idea proposed by Liberals like John Locke–toleration. That had never been tried before. It was truly deeply revolutionary. It is important to remember this when modern liberals are often seen as dull and boring theoreticians. They are considered bloodless. Now we should realize that is a good thing. In the 18thcentury this idea was profoundly revolutionary. Many hated the idea of tolerance because they saw it as capitulation to evil.  Liberals said we had to accept differences.

 

Nowadays toleration, a value that was revolutionary in its day, and I would submit, is revolutionary today, can seem like very thin gruel compared to the spicy virtues reflected by much more aggressive and powerful groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, the alt-right, Antifa, Donald Trump, and their ilk. It can seem wishy-washy just like–well—liberals. It can seem humble. I think that is a good thing. The classic liberals like John Locke stand for permitting others to have their say. This is much less sexy than threatening to ban them, or build a wall to keep them out, or kill them. However, in a world charged with the most vicious of religious hatreds like that of Europe in the 17thcentury or our current world in the 21stcentury, tolerance is not wishy-washy at all. After all the 17thand 20thcenturies were the two most violent centuries in the past 500 years according to Steven Pinker. [2]Tolerance is the most vital of all the virtues! Liberals have to step to the plate with vigor and confidence. I would suggest that liberals actually represent our only chance for civilization to endure.  At least so liberals believe. And I tend to agree (in a wishy-washy way of course).

In the 17thcentury there were those who feared the worst from this revolutionary new idea of tolerance.  Would this not lead to the destruction of public morality?  Personal morality should never be permitted to undermine public morality, it was widely believed. This in fact is the essence of Conservatism! It is stillthe essence of Conservatism.

Liberals challenge this view. Liberals hold that we can each freely have our own personal opinions and morality without challenging the social order or value of society. Let people disagree. We can all get along provided each of us accepts limits. This will not destroy society. In fact modern liberals believe that the diversity of modern society will strengthen not weaken society. That means that we must put reasonable limits on our religious values too. We can hold them personally as much as we want, as vigorously as we want, but we cannot imposethose values on others. Even the majority should not do that. Real democracy is not rule by the majority. It is the rule of the majority within limits. That’s what liberal democracy is all about. The goal of imposing religious values was rightly discredited after the religious wars of the 17thcentury. We don’t want to go back there.

[1]Steven Lecce, “Right Wing, Left Wing, and In between,” April 14, 2016 at University of Manitoba

[2]Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, (2012) Penguin Books, p. 51

Slaughter by Divine Right

Extremism, Fellow Feeing, Mass killings, racism, religion, terrorism, violence

Things have been getting strange. Nearly every day it seems like the crazies are winning.

For a number of years Myanmar has been wracked by murderous attacks against a Muslim minority group of Rohingya people. Myanmar is a Buddhist majority country with a significant Muslim minority. The UN states that the Rohingya people of Myanmar are among the most persecuted people in the world at this time. Myanmar security forces have driven the Rohingya people  off their land, burned down their mosques and committed widespread looting, arson and rape of Rohingya women.

There have been a lot of mass shootings recently involving religious groups from around the world.   We read about a shooting in a mosque in Quebec City in January 2017 where 6 worshippers were shot and killed while 19 more were injured. The lone gunman opened fire just after evening prayers.

In October 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg Pennsylvania 11 people were murdered and 6 more injured by a gunman. This was the deadliest attack against the American Jewish community in U.S. history. The massacre was an unprecedented act of violence against American Jews—but it is by no means the first time that anti-Semitism has manifested itself in deadly violence against Jews in the United States.

In March 2019 there were 2 consecutive terrorist attacks at mosques in Christchurch New Zealand during Friday Prayer. The gunman who came all the way from Australia, launched two consecutive attacks that began at one mosque and continued at an Islamic Centre.  This case was also distinguished by the fact that the gunman live-streamed his first attack on Facebook. 50 people were killed and another 50 injured. These were the deadliest mass shootings in the history of New Zealand. The 28 year old gunman was described as a white supremacist and part of the alt-right movement that many Christians in America support. Just before the shooting he played “Serbia Strong” a nationalist song celebrating Radovan Karadžić who was found guilty of genocide against Bosnian Muslims.

In April 2019, on Easter Sunday, 3 Christian churches across Sri Lanka and 3 luxury hotels were targeted by  suicide bombers in series of coordinated suicide bombings. Approximately 253 people were killed and another 500 people injured. This attack was believed to be in retaliation to the shootings in New Zealand. This is the fact caught my eye. Sri Lankan government officials said the attacks were carried out by Sri Lankan citizens associated with National Thowheeth Jama’ath a local militant Islamist group with suspected foreign ties. The group was  previously known for attacks against Buddhists. The direct linkage between the two attacks was questioned by some experts. Yet these were clearly coordinated slaughters by a group of extremist Muslims apparently in retaliation for the recent attacks of the mosque in Christchurch New Zealand.

Then a couple of days ago, 6 months to the day after the slaughter at the synagogue in Pittsburg, there was another attack near a synagogue in California  where a man shot 4 people and killing one of them.  The suspect who turned himself in posted an 8-page manifesto online in which he boasted about being from “European ancestry” and expressed hatred of Jews.  He even said he had taken inspiration from the New Zealand mosque shooter in March of this year.

What do all of these events have in common? Violence? For sure. But violence of a particular sort. Violence in favor of or against a particular religion.  This is deeply disturbing. Have we entered the era of religious world wars?  They are happening everywhere.  What is happening here?

One of my favorite poets, William Butler Yeats, seemed to understand it best. As he said in his great poem “The Second Coming” which he wrote nearly exactly 100 years ago:

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

 

The Second Coming!

Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

Although this poem presages a “Second Coming” in the poem it is a nightmare. Just like the Roman World was shocked by the arrival of Christ, Yeats suggests, our world will be shocked and rocked by the new arrival. It will happen he suggest, about 2,000 years after Chris was born. About now in other words. It will be a “rough beast” that slouches toward Bethlehem waiting “to be born.” It will “trouble our sight”.  It will loose another “blood-dimmed tide” and may drown “the ceremony of innocence” once again. As the narrator of the poem seems to fear, it will no doubt wreak havoc and terror.

Is this the terror that is approaching? Is the beast moving its horrifying  “slow thighs?” Things are falling apart and the centre no longer holds. “Mere anarchy” is loosed upon the world. Why “mere” anarchy? The Extremists are taking over. The religious wars are back again. The rest of us are doomed.So it seems.

As I have said elsewhere, when religion leads to hate it is no longer religion. What we have is actually a toxic brew of hate and racism. All of these are inimical to genuine religion, but find fertile ground in the soil of pseudo-religion.

Some people (too many people) seem to believe that they have the divinely granted right to slaughter other people as a result of having been issued a licence to kill by their personal revengeful god. How can this be? Where do we go from here?

The Duty to Rescue

Fellow Feeing, Immigration and Refugees, World of ideas

 

 

The American philosopher Peter Singer designed an interesting thought experiment. He asked people to consider this scenario: Suppose you are alone by a pond and you notice a young child has accidentally fallen into that pond and is crying for help. It is obvious that the child cannot swim and is drowning. Unless you help the child will die. As an innocent bystander you of course are not responsible for the accident. You don’t know the child. He is a stranger. You are a good swimmer and could easily save the child from drowning.  Would you be morally entitled to refuse to rescue the child because you did not want to get your shoes wet? I would think most of us would say no, the bystander has a moral duty to rescue the child. To do nothing would be abhorrent. Such people are not invited out to dinner.

In 1939 before World War II was over but after it was fairly well known that Jews were being persecuted in Germany and the European countries they still occupied, a German ocean liner, the MS St. Louis, was carrying more than 900 Jewish refuges from Germany. They wanted to disembark in Cuban, but were denied permission to land except for a handful of Jews that were allowed in because they had American passports.

The German Captain went to the United States next to try to drop off the refugees there, but they refused to accept the refugees.  After that he went to Canada and Canada refused to allow them in either. It was not our finest hour. He then sailed to various European countries where some but not all of the refugees were allowed in.

Many of those that were left were eventually rounded up by the Nazis and historians have estimated that about ¼ of them died in Nazi death camps. Some later referred to this journey as the “voyage of the damned.” This incident and others like it were instrumental in western countries coming up with a policy after the war of obligating countries to accept asylum seekers who legitimately feared persecution in their home countries. This is now part of part of international law.

Also early in 1939 an unidentified Canadian immigration agent was asked how many Jews should be allowed to immigrate to Canada. His reply is now infamous: “None is too many.” Few of us Canadians are now proud of what we did.

As I have argued elsewhere, the first principle of morality is the golden rule—fellow feeling. It is the basis of all morality. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is fundamental.

As Alexander Betts and Paul Collier argue in their book Refuge, referring to the thought experiment of Singer and refugees from Syria, “Like the drowning child, fleeing Syrians appeal to our common humanity…it is the raw compassion that is at the bedrock of the human condition. We might think of it as the first principle of the heart. It is not saintly to experience such a sense of compassion: it sociopathic not to experience it.”

We have some minimal moral obligations even to far away strangers. We have that obligation just because they are humans. I don’t think we have a duty to be saints. We can never sustain sainthood so I don’t believe we have to accept so many refugees that it would eviscerate our own society. But if the costs are low or even trivial, we have a duty to act. For example I am not sure that we have a duty to rescue a drowning child if it would seriously endanger our own lives. But if the cost is trivial, such as wet shoes or dirty clothes, we must act.

We don’t have to bankrupt our country to save refugees, but if it is readily within our means we should rescue them. If we don’t do that we are already bankrupt.

Pulling up the Castle’s Drawbridge

Immigration and Refugees

 

Immigration is a very emotional subject. Like war, it brings out the best and worst of people. Most people love their country. Many of them love their country passionately. Many people love their country as it is. They don’t want it changed. They don’t want people to come in and change it. I understand that.

However, we also have to remember the difference between immigrants and refugees. Immigrants are looking for a better life. No one blames them for that. We all do that in different ways. But refugees are different. As Betts and Collier have argued, “At its core, refuge entails the principle that when people face serious harm at home, they should be allowed to flee and receive access to a save haven, at least until they can go home or be permanently reintegrated elsewhere.”[1] International law recognizes this important distinction. We should too.

Very few people believe in open borders. I have never met anyone who advocated that anyone who wants to come to Canada should be allowed to do that. Almost everyone agrees that we need to control our borders.

The people who bug me the most are those who are immigrants or children of immigrants and then want to pull up the castle drawbridge and keep others out as soon as they get here . That seems particularly mean-spirited. Our current Member of Parliament—Ted Falk—seems to be one of these. He is constantly accusing the current Liberal government of allowing porous borders that allow illegal immigrants to pour in. He forgets this distinction between immigrants and refugees.

Some Mennonites fit into this category.  They seem to forget that they are descendants of recent immigrants. They also forget that many Canadians did not welcome their ancestors here with open arms. After World War II many Canadians thought they were dangerous Communists or Nazi supporters. Many of the original Mennonite immigrants were seen as dirty unwelcome people. Many Canadians thought Canada could do better.

Isn’t it unseemly for us to deny the right of emigration to others? That doesn’t mean we have to open up our borders so any one can get in. It does mean we should have some fellow feeling for the latest people suffering as a result of displacement in other parts of the world.

Donald Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mike Kelly was considered to be one of the saner heads in his administration. That is not a huge complement. Kelly  was interviewed on TV about immigration. He sounded reasonable. He looked tough but kindly.

Kelly said the United States is an open country that welcomes newcomers but some are a better fit than others.  Most of those who don’t fit in, he said, are rural with a low level of education. Many of these don’t speak the language. They won’t work as well as others. Of course Kelly forgot to mention that his own grand parents were both immigrants. One was Irish the other Italian. His Italian grand father never spoke English. He had a low class job. Yet his grandson became the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States! The family did fit in. Rather well in fact.

Too often the descendants of immigrants believe the funnel into the country should be closed after they get in. Too many of them think we have too many immigrants. Now that they are in at least. Before they got in not so much. We want immigrants with skills, but we don’t want them with too many skills either. After all, we don’t want them taking “our” jobs.

I recognize that immigration policy is tricky. Illegal immigrants in a country like the US are a problem because so many have come in to that country over the decades. I recognize too that it is not fair for people to come in illegally and jump the queue past those waiting patiently to get in, often for years. Yet current policies, particularly in the US are harsh and cause incredible harm and hurt that I believe most Americans would not countenance if they saw it. If they really saw it. I think too many Americans have an irrational fear of immigrants. Fear, like resentment, is such a powerful force that it makes people make irrational decisions. There must be a better way.

 

[1]Alexander Betts and Paul Collier, Refuge, (2017) p. 4

 

 

Trump should trade Americans for Mexicans

Immigration and Refugees, Trump

 

As in many countries around the world, Immigration is a big topic in the United States. People on all sides get very worked up about immigration policies. Many in the US  think that Trump won the last election and will win the next one as well because of his immigration policies. Those policies are very popular. Millions of Americans support him for that alone.

People from around the world want to come and live in the United States. They have been convinced that this is the best place in the world to live. So they want in.

To compound the problem, for decades people have been getting in to the country illegally and staying. That is a fact. People have been crossing the border between Mexico and the United States without permission. I don’t know how many. The truth is that no one knows how many, but the best estimate, accepted by most people is 11 million people. Of course most of these came in to the country legallyat border crossings.  Then once in the country many of them overstay their legal welcome.  Not all of these are from Central America.  In fact, many of them are—get ready for this–Canadians!

It is true that recently the numbers of people arriving at the southern American border have climbed steeply. Many of them are there as a result of Trump’s policies. I will talk about that later.

To make things even worse, Americans have left those illegals in the country often for decades. Many of them were children brought to the U.S.  by their parents without them having any say in the matter. Many of them now know other country as they have lived in the US their entire lives. These are the so-called “Dreamers” that so many Americans are prepared to leave in the country. Sometimes even Trump wants to welcome them, though at others times he is quite willing to dump them–after all he has a very short attention span.

Although Americans fear the damage that will be caused by illegal immigrants (and legal immigrants in some cases) the facts do not support those fears. The border is secure. It is not as porous as many fear mongers claim.

American taxpayers spend roughly $19 billion a year to secure their borders which is about the same that they spend on all other federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined. Obama started “getting tough on illegal immigration, long before Trump made it an issue. He increased Border Patrol Staffing to an all time high of nearly 21,500 in 2011 Even more drastically, during Obama’s administration nearly 2.5 million immigrants were deported. That was 23% morethan during the administration of Republican George W. Bush. In fact, Obama deported about as many illegal immigrants as the previous 17 Presidents combined! That was why he was called by some ‘the deporter-in-chief.’ He was certainly not soft on immigration as some have suggested.[1]

Unauthorized immigration in the US is currently at its lowest level since 1972. The only increase in arrivals has been unaccompanied children fleeing gang violence and drug cartels in Central America whose activities are significantly fuelled by drugs demands in America.According to Ana Gonzales-Barrera, writing for the  Pew Research Center, November 19, 2015 In recent years more Mexicans have been leaving the US than arriving at the border.

Many Americans keep saying the illegals should get in line. Why should they be allowed to jump the queue? The fact is that getting in line is not so easy for most undocumented don’t have the required family or employment relationships to get in line at all. Even if they do there are huge barriers. According to Americans for Immigrant Justice,“For example, married children of US citizens from Mexico must wait more than 20 years for a visa to become available.” An exception has been made for Cubans, who can come to the U.S. and get a work permit while waiting for their visas, and to a lesser extent for Haitians since the 2010 earthquake.

Others think that undocumented immigrants make no genuine contribution to the American economy. For example they think they are all paid cash and thus pay no income taxes on their income. The facts again are very different.  Most make a significant contribution to the American economy. For example, undocumented immigrants paid roughly $12 billion in state and local taxes in 2013. 2/3 of them pay into the Social Security System even though they are not eligible to collect benefits! It is estimated that they pay $15 billion a year into a system for the benefit of Americans!  In fact it has been estimated that if American lawmakers could fix their severely challenged immigration system, the federal deficit could be reduced by about $200 billion.

As I said, many Americans fear immigrants, both legal and illegal. Trump said the day he decided to run for the American Presidency in 2016 that most of them were “rapists and murderers.” Again the facts are different. Most of them are not drug dealers or rapists or any other kind of criminals.

In fact, “A July 2015 report by the American Immigrant Council concluded that undocumented immigrants commit violent crimes at a far lowerrate than native born Americans.  Despite high poverty rates, Latino immigrants in border towns and New York City were more law abiding, with lower crime rates, than non-Latino white and black Americans.”

Many Americans don’t want to admit it, but most criminals and rapists and drug dealers (like most terrorists in the country) are home grown. According to the New York Times,

“The Migration Policy Institute has estimated that 820,000 of the 11 million unauthorized have been convicted of a crime. About 300,000, or less than 3 percent of the 11 million undocumented, have committed felonies. (The proportion of felons in the overall population was an estimated 6 percent in 2010, according to a paper presented to the Population Association of America.)”

Maybe, Trump should be offering to trade Americans for Mexicans!

One of the most fantastic hours of my 70 year old life

Family

 

 

On Easter day I spent one of the most wonderful hours of my 70 year old life!  I was holding my 3 & 1/2 month old granddaughter Stella in my arms and she does not like to be held unless the holder is moving. She demands movement and soon lets the holder know that slacking off will not be acceptable. Well today after walking around the cottage a number of times I wanted to sip my  coffee. I asked Stella to consent to “one sip”. At first Stella grumbled, as expected, but then she settled down. She acquiesced and I had a fine sip of coffee. Then I sneaked one more. And a third and a fourth. Stella was falling asleep in my arms.

I got to hold Stella for nearly an hour as she slept quietly in my arms. As I sat there staring at this beautiful girl only 3&1/2 months old I thought back to an event almost exactly 49 years ago. It happened in Ste. Anne Manitoba at the wedding social of my friends Chris and Laverne Duguay at the Au’ble Dor Hotel. A lot of wedding socials were held there. After all Steinbach was a dry community back then. Well not really dry. Lots of people drank alcohol, especially bad Mennonites like me. Dancing was also a sin. But in Ste. Anne all was permitted.

At this event I met for the first time a lovely young girl—Christiane Calvez. We chatted for a quite awhile before I got up enough nerve to ask her to dance. The dance was a “Butterfly.”  That meant 2 young men would fling a young woman around between them. I was unaware that  Christiane was wearing a cast that stretched from ankle to thigh. She had broken her leg a few weeks ago at another dance and guess what? It was also the butterfly that caused her to sail  into trouble. That day a butterfly was impossible.

Christiane has always falsely accused me of being under the influence of strong drink as a result of not noticing her cast.  Not true. Her leg was under the table and I had no way of seeing her predicament. She could not dance.

After the social was over many people including Christiane and I drove by car to a private house a few miles out of town where the party continued. Christiane and I never got to the house. We sat in the car until it was over chatting about everything. At one point we drove back to the hotel because I had left my bag of dirty laundry there. This was laundry I was delivering home to my mother who had the “privilege” of doing my laundry when I came home from University on the weekends. Lucky her.

Christiane was spending the weekend at the home of her cousin Suzanne in Ste. Anne. So my friends and I dropped her off at this house. Christiane had to sneak into the house as her cousin was nowhere to be seen. So she sat in the living room of her uncle’s house waiting for her to show up while she hoped no one would notice her. Her uncle was very strict  and would have been furious that they were not together.

Christiane had given her phone number to me as I was driving my friend’s car. I had been voted most sober by my friends so I had to drive. She was far from convinced that I would remember the phone number.  But I did! Proving that I was of sober  mind.  I remembered it and the next week called her for a date and she accepted. And the  rest is history.

Well that history—49 years ago—had resulted in 4 beautiful grandchildren. Nasya, Emma, Nolan and now the youngest, Stella. I kept staring at her asleep in my arms thinking about 49 years and how it could produce such a profoundly beautiful child as the girl in my arms. She looked a lot like the beautiful woman who was not in my arms 49 years ago. But eventually she was. What a splendid journey—meandering as it was—that brought us from then to here.

Reflecting on this was one fantastic hour.

The Cabal

Friends

 

 

This secret group may not look dangerous, but governments, fish, and mean-spirited fanatics fear them. They meet about once every month or two in secret. No one really knows why. Not even the participants. The purpose of the meetings is not known but it is assumed they are up to no good. The only thing known about them is that they all went to High School together in Steinbach, Manitoba, in the same class nearly 50 years ago. That seems astonishing given how young and vigorous they appear.

They are known as The Cabal. Although labeled by some as miscreants they have always denied any connection to any insurrectionary forces. Unsurprisingly, no one has stepped forward to vouch for their good character. Some say they are the intellectual leaders of their generation. Others hint of rapidly approaching senility.

Only one thing is certain—they enjoy sposs. Sposs is fun that only Mennonites are permitted to have. Others don’t qualify. For the first time ever I shall (bravely) name them. They are from left to right: Dave Tiger Loewen, the spiritual leader of the group, Chris “Karlokoff” Toews, Lou Reimer, Larry “Clancy” Giesbrecht, John “Hans” Neufeld, and Paul Loewen.

Like Abou Ben Adhem may they go in peace.

More Birds of Arizona

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Arizona, Arizona Photos, Birds

I love these birds because they are willing to pose proudly.  When you find one they are very easy to photograph.

These photos are actually from previous years in Arizona.  This year I photographed this species before the glorious male plumage shown here. Good looking males should be allowed to show off!

A couple of years ago such a heron was a frequent visitor at our neighbour’s house. This bird was spotted near the Phoenix zoo.

I can’t get enough of these wonderful birds. This one was photographed at one of our favourite places–Usery Park in Mesa Arizona.

A lot of people don’t like grackles, but we should be careful about applying human standard to birds. Often their standards are better than ours.

Another of those wonderful wrens. These are much bigger than “our” wrens back home.

This vulture is common in Manitoba as well.  They look so beautiful in the air. On the ground not so much