Category Archives: Canada

Best Before: this post is entirely motivated by my wish not to have a stupid quiz at the top of the blog the day I get a direct link from Defamer

Posted on by

Saudi Shopping

There, I said it.

So now I’m just going to up and tell you about the time my mother was offered a quarter of a million for me.

Shoot. There goes the punchline.

So…previously on the ol’ raincoaster blog…my mother used to live in Riyadh with a CIA agent. Her job was at the King Fahd Hospital (I think every Saudi city has a King Fahd Hospital) in medical records, and, as one does, she had pictures of her children on and around her desk.

The Saudis, being relatively new to the modern world, had imported vast numbers of support and technical staff from the West, yea even unto Canuckistan, and occasionally ther would be slight episodes of culture shock in one or more directions.

This was one of those times.

The Saudis, being relatively new to the modern world but nobody’s fools, their Gucci tabs notwithstanding, had sent entire generations of young men to be trained in the West, choosing top of the totem pole jobs like doctor, dentist, etc. You won’t find many Saudis abroad studying to be lab technicians: that’s what Americans are for, duh. Support staff is imported, bosses are homegrown but schooled abroad.

And one of these Saudi doctors was in my mother’s office, no doubt complaining, as they all did, that the medical transcriptionist (who hailed from, if memory serves, Tennessee and had, consequently, great difficulties with English) had mistaken his Oxonian vowels, not to mention his Etonian (or at least Harrovian) consonants, and typed that the pregnant woman was dilated to “twenty-five hundred meters” rather than the “twenty-five sontemeters that he’d actually said.

And his glance happened to fall on a portrait of yours truly. And it is a fact universally acknowledged that a young Saudi doctor possessed of a secure job at the King Fahd Hospital must be in want of wife #1.

So he made an offer.

A quarter mil.

I should be honoured: Brooke Shields‘ mother was only offered forty racing camels. I did the exchange at the time and figured out I was worth about fifteen thou more than she was. Obviously the economies of Riyadh and Milan operate on completely different principles, if not planets.

Mother was nobody’s fool, and also possessed of the same demented and twisted DNA as I, myself: the family anything-for-a-story trait surfaced and she decided to bicker with him.

Fifteen minutes passed and she got the price up by forty k and a couple of pedigreed camels, but he wouldn’t go to three hundred thou, for very good reason.

As he pointed out, there’s got to be something wrong with a girl who’s 23 and not married yet. Smart cookie: it took my boyfriend of the time simply months to figure that out.

Yes, I was marked down because I was past my Best Before date.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

Jack Bauer has his day in court

Posted on by

Imagine if you will Jack BauerJack Bauer, the Dark Knight of the Sunny City, Abyss-staring, Monster-becoming, West Point lunatic-inspiring protagonist of the terrist-huntin’ television hit 24…

in court.

Hmmm. Messy.

There’s all the torture. All the dead people. There’s the gratuitous gunplay, quite palpably not followed up with proper paperwork. I’m even pretty sure there’s a bit on YouTube where you can see him change lanes without signalling.

Background from the Globe and Mail:

Justice Antonin Scalia is one of the most powerful judges on the planet.

The job of the veteran U.S. Supreme Court judge is to ensure that the superpower lives up to its Constitution. But in his free time, he is a fan of 24, the popular TV drama where the maverick federal agent Jack Bauer routinely tortures terrorists to save American lives. This much was made clear at a legal conference in Ottawa this week.

Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge’s passing remark – “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?‘ ” – got the legal bulldog in Judge Scalia barking.

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.

“So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”

What happened next was like watching the National Security Judges International All-Star Team set into a high-minded version of a conversation that has raged across countless bars and dinner tables, ever since 24 began broadcasting six seasons ago.

Jack Bauer, played by Canadian Kiefer Sutherland, gets meaner as he lurches from crisis to crisis, acting under few legal constraints. “You are going to tell me what I want to know, it’s just a matter of how much you want it to hurt,” is one of his catchphrases. Every episode poses an implicit question to its viewers: Does the end justify the means if national security is at stake? On 24, the answer is, invariably, yes.

Because God loves karma just as much as any Hindu, Maer Arar‘s lawyer was also present, and presented his own rather pointed, and highly effective argument: against torture, for trying Bauer.

Practially speaking, over three-quarters of the information gathered through torture is found to be inaccurate or plain lies. It isn’t efficient; it does. not. work. But it’s great television.

When I was studying political philosophy, we got the torture-the-terrorist question on our final exam (hey, some things never go out of style), and oh, how I wish I had that paper with me today, because it was the first perfect paper they’d ever seen in that course. My basic point was that you cannot break moral rules for practical reasons, because you have no control over the outcome (like, if he lies to you), no control over anything whatsoever in this world except one thing: your own actions. If what you actually DO is wrong, then you are wrong. And you must stop.

Can Bauer save your life? Not really; he might be able to postpone your death, but you’re going to die anyway, therefore preventing that through means that might or might not work anyway isn’t a realistic objective. If he gets the right information out of the terrorist, does that guarantee him the time or the ability to do anything about it? Of course not. He can’t control time any more than he can assure immortality.

But seriously, I said it way better, with quotations and everything. The only one I can remember is the most embarassing one, the one I used to conclude the paper, the Chris de Burgh one:

Sweet Liberty is in our hands. It’s part of the plan. Or is it a state of mind?

Those absolutes that Scalia dismisses, I remind you, include the Constitution of the United States of America as well as the Bill of Rights, both of which he is sworn not only to obey, but to uphold in his work on the Supreme Court.

Subverting the Constitution is not the job of the Supreme Court; it is, quite obviously, the job of the White House. Is Scalia thinking of tossing his powdered wig into the ’08 Presidential race? He’s clearly got what it takes.

And don’t you forget it.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

my mother, the CIA agent, the Filipino forger, and the meaning of Christmas presents

Posted on by

I’m kind of disappointed my blogging diploma isn’t from Miskatonic, but that’s nothing a little hacking won’t fix.

The University of Blogging
Presents to
raincoaster


An Honorary
Bachelor of
Self Portraiture

Majoring in
Cutting

Signed
Dr. GoQuiz.com		 ®

 

Blogging Degree
From Go-Quiz.com

And this reminds me, it does, of the time my mother wanted to buy me a Doctorate from Harvard.

She was living in Saudi Arabia, as one does, shacked up with a CIA agent whose job it was to teach battlefield communications to the Saudis. As one does.

Islam was the bane of his existence, as five times a day no matter what they’d all pull out their rugs and face mecca and present a nice, juicy target to the Israelis. No indeed, this did not take him to his happy place, for yea, he was a very conscientious battlefield communications instructor. Over and over he lectured them, over and over he proved that the Israelis could wipe them all out at any of those five, widely known and unvarying times of day. And over and over they happily replied “if the Israelis kill us we will go straight to Paradise as martyrs,” and I believe one of them even made a reference to that bugger, I can’t kill him when he’s praying scene in Hamlet, obviously stretching to try to find some common ground with Jerry the Baptist, out in the wild Arabian desert.

As a sideline, Jerry ran the local casino and house of ill repute, which brought in several times his salary, and which he was allowed to keep because what his bosses were truly interested in was the blackmail material gathered by the tiny cameras placed strategically around the premises. He also had the local distribution rights for Johnny Walker, which was as the mines of King Solomon in terms of putting out the gelt.

Where was I? Oh yes, about to get to the religious police.

Naturally, Jerry was quite conscious of the activities of the religious police. The main trouble with the religious police was, as you can imagine, that they tended to be quite…well, there’s really no way around this, I’m just going to have to come out and say it… quite religious.

And the whole living-in-sin-with-a-Canadian-and-a-socialist-at-that thing was exactly the sort of thing with which they were Not Cool.

At. All.

Now, Jerry and my mother were by no means originals in their living arrangements, which did tend to give a rather louche reputation to even the primmest Mormon that the Yanks sent over, and so, as always happens where there are problems and lots of money around, a man materialized with a solution.

He materialized at the same time every year, swinging through the Middle East like an olden days tinker would swing through, say, Simcoe County, offering his wares.

He was a Filipino forger, and he was a very busy man.

They took one of the American marriage licenses for $250, which is really cheap for a piece of paper that you show the religious police and they don’t have you stoned, when you think about it, really, and my mother pondered long over the very tempting Harvard Doctorate, but decided that even she was not overpaid enough to spend $500 and besides, what would she get my sister, eh? Answer me that!

That year she got a camel saddle and I got a silver veil. Gee, I guess Mom DID love me best, even if she thought I was ugly.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

Halifax: it’s in your lungs!

Posted on by

Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is the way you do a promotional video. Kicks the ass of that sad-sack wigger squirrel, don’t it?

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

Blogging as Writer’s Practice: June 26th

Posted on by

cross-posted from The Shebeen Club

The Shebeen, yo

 For immediate release:

What: The Shebeen Club: Blogging as Writer’s Practice
When: 7-9pm, Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Where: The Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street in Gastown
Why: Learn the rewards blogging can bring to a writer’s daily practice
Who: Contact lorraine.murphy at gmail.com for more information
How(much)? $15 includes presentation and dinner

Blogging is the most powerful self-publishing tool ever invented; not only is it free and accessible, but it’s easy. Even the least technical can master it quickly. Learn the many powerful ways that blogging can reinforce and encourage your writing every day. Whether you’re working on a book, writing poetry, or working in multimedia, a blog can encourage your creative process and help you spread the word of your own genius!

This is a nontechnical introduction to blogging practices and benefits, not a how-to-blog course.

Your admission includes a dinner of fabulous bangers and mash or vegetarian pasta, plus one glass of pop, wine or beer, not to mention excellent company!

Bio: Lorraine Murphy is a Vancouver blogger, writer, and editor. She has been blogging for many years, both professionally and personally, and her flagship blog, www.raincoaster.com, is ranked in the top 18,000 blogs in the world. She also maintains The Shebeen Club Blog and running through rain, for students of her course Blogging to Personal Growth. Ms Murphy is the author of Terminal City: Vancouver’s Missing Women and a former Small Business Columnist at Business in Vancouver newspaper and Occupational Pursuit magazine.

Lorraine Murphy and Lori Dunn are the co-founders of the Shebeen Club.

7-7:30: meet and mingle
7:30-8: listen and learn
8-whenever: Blogger versus WordPress GoogleJuice Splashdown.