Canada in Afganistan

In the recent Throne Speech, Prime Minister Harper stated that his government ("Canada's New Government" is the mandated phrase to be used) will seek to extend the stay of Canadian troops from 2009 to 2011.

On the surface, this seems like a reasoned extension of the War on Terror. Unlike the Iraq Invasion, the invasion of Afghanistan seemed linked directly to events of 9/11 and terrorist activity.

But events have intervened...

When the Taliban and Al Queda were trapped in Tora Bora, a little push would probably have captured Ben Laden and ended both the Taliban and Al Queda. But President Bush had other plans and the request of the field commander for 600 U.S. Army Rangers went unheeded. Those troops were diverted for the planned invasion of Iraq. Defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory thanks to that Bush/Cheney decision.

So what has happened since then? A surge in drug proceeds as the opium crop grows (by 50%, according to some) provides funding for the new guerrilla warfare. (Think about that for a moment - poppies need fields and time to grow. Only 12% of Afghanistan is available for agricultural crops and poppies can be spotted from the air. A 50% increase clearly shows that we lack the resources to find those fields of poppies growing during the months it takes to grow them). Violence is up and as more than one wag has stated, "Karzai (the Afghani President) is no more than the Mayor of Kabul". The rest of the country is seeing a surge in guerrilla activity as it faces 40% unemployment and appalling conditions, from lack of running water, sewage and electricity. The promised aid has not arrived or, when it has, it has been siphoned off to private pots or used in ways that limit any benefit. A report by the Asia Committee back in 2003 set out the issues and solutions. Few of those recommendations have been realized.
The Taliban, or insurgency, or whatever one wishes to call it, is stronger now than it was several years ago. One Australian report suggests this results from "resentment at NATO bombing of civilians, billions of dollars of wasted aid, a lack of jobs and record crops of opium". With no economy to speak of, the only way for an Afghan to earn money is to grow poppies or become a paid fighter for the Taliban. Pakistan is always there as a training ground. Guns, after so many years of war, are easy to get.
Not noted often is that Afganistan, after many years of warfare, has minefields everywhere. Children are often killed as they are sent out to gather fuel in the treeless country. Indeed, the number of Afghans killed or maimed by mines is staggering and the survivors of those events need special care.

Prior to Afghanistan, Canada had a reputation for providing "peacekeepers" in nations around the world. From Lester Pearson's Nobel Peace Prize and the Suez Crisis to Cyprus, from the Israel border to Bosnia, Rwanda and more, our troops had a unique and special purpose. They were not there to fight but to try - and they often succeeded - to keep warring factions apart. We had a world-wide repudiation for peacekeeping.

I think many Canadians were justly proud of that reputation.

The status of our troops in Afghanistan is very different. We are not there as peacekeepers but as warriors. I doubt that many Afghanis can note any difference between the Canadian troops and the American troops. We used much the same equipment and profess the same goals. While the initial intention might have been noble and just, the failure of the United States to fully complete the mission prior to the Iraq invasion not only gave the Taliban time and resources to continue the fighting but changed the war in character. From a war that would quickly be ended, it became - with limited resources - a war that would drag on forever. This is so as we have Allies that provide only a limited number of troops, not sufficient to accomplish the broad goals stated, and some allies who limit where their troops can be sent to areas that are not active war zones. The number of troops presently available dooms this mission to a endless engagement.

Recently, the President of Afghanistan suggested that the Taliban be invited to form part of the government. Perhaps a practical solution to the mess, but what does that say about our continuing to fight the same Taliban in the same country?

From the British defeats over a century ago to the Soviet defeats in the past few decades, Afghanistan has shown it is easy to conquer, difficult to hold. Our goal is no longer to simply destroy terrorists. Indeed, one has to wonder what the present goals are given the invitation mentioned above. And if we cannot clearly set out what goals we have for our forces in the field, we should not be willing to risk Canadian lives in a war that lacks any clear purpose and promises to have no end.

The Throne Speech followed the establishment of a panel to examine Canada's role in Afghanistan last week. To be headed by John Manley, a hawk certainly, the panel is to advise "Canada's New Government" on what role we should play in that country.

Hey! As we have been there for several years perhaps we might have had a role and mission well thought out before?

Thanks to the early phasing back of American special forces, the opportunity to "win" was lost. All we can attain now is a continual festering sore of a war, one that keeps going long after any Energizer bunny has stopped. So it has always been with Afghanistan, from early days through the Brits and Soviets. If our mission is to train Afghan police, then let's do that without the large contingent of soldiers fighting a group that may form part of the government in a short time.

An Idaho Potatoe

All right. It was early in the evening, late in the afternoon, and we were bored. Rick Sanchez holds little appeal and reruns of "CSI" were repeats of repeats.

Those are amongst the excuses I have for watching the hour long interview with Idaho senator Larry Craig. I tried to read a book while the interview was broadcast, but laughs from my partner, Sonia, get my mind wandering back to the screen.

It was designed to be touching. In their living room, I suppose, Larry in causal clothing, wife in red, and holding hands.

But we have been here before, haven't we?

There has been a lot of time to explore possible answers and the rehearse those answers. We have the story as told by the police officer, with nothing to gain by fabricating, of the tapping and touching foot and the left hand palm upward motion, complete with wedding band. Then the predictable denials, familiar to anyone who has watched even one episode of "Dateline Predators". "Of course I didn't do that".

What destroys any credibility are the actions Craig took after, while still in the heat of the spotlight. Forget that weeks past after the event before he was discovered, forget that as a U.S. Senator he knows both how laws are made and followed, but which lawyers to call when need arises. To borrow from securities work, he is a "sophisticated lawbreaker", not a rube.

Remember instead the sad "resignation" speech in downtown Boise. My "intention" to resign, coupled with the misdirected but recorded telephone call to his lawyer. Those two, taken together show a duplicity that is astounding. Clearly he wanted people to think he was going to resign, encouraged that view while being nefarious and sneaky with wording that allowed an out, just as his recorded statement to the police after the incident. This guy is a pro. Worse yet, a Republican.

Yet there he sat, wife in hand, woefully commenting that his "friends" in the Senate and Romney did not call, did not say goodbye. The poor soul, abandoned by all but newly minted innocent, with full intent to clear his name by not only appealing from his admission of guilt but now appealing the decision to uphold that guilty plea. Now I ask you, how many times on each court day is a plea of guilty for such offences taken and confirmed. Would Joe Q.. Public be afforded the opportunity to recant and claim innocence. Not even "Judge Judy" would permit that sort of nonsense. You had the time to reflect, the time to call a lawyer (weeks of time, really) and talked to the prosecutor by phone. Now you wish to say all that was a mistake, one we would not allow for a normal person?

Further, the interview did disclose that this was not the first time - at least for suspicions. The "Idaho Statesman" found lots of smoke, but no fire:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews/story/143801.html

"The most serious finding by the Statesman was the report by a professional man with close ties to Republican officials. The 40-year-old man reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington's Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig "cruised" him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise. The Statesman also explored dozens of allegations that proved untrue, unclear or unverifiable."

Of course, what causes the attention to stay focused is not necessarily the brazen almost resignation, but the fact that Craig has been an advocate and voted always along the lines of "family values" as espoused by the religious right. The world hypocrisy comes readily to mind. Simply put, Craig has been thirty years trying to impose his "family values" on the rest of the United States, while potentially lacking those same values in his own life. Of course, he and his wife attributed this attention to the media seeking to destroy him. Sure. Jay Leno and Anderson Cooper are out to get him, along with every other comedian and reporter in the nation.

"Wide-stance", not really a quote but attributed to Craig just the same, will be the calling card. If indeed his appeal is allowed, will that no open floodgates for traffic tickets and more from those who months after, saw the need to recant a write-in plea of guilt?

Bah! Humbug!

Nightly Rituals

Perhaps my partner, Sonia, and I have too many books...

Or perhaps age is creeping up on us.

I have always been absent-minded. It seems I get into a book or thought and
manage to simply loose track of everything else. When I am summoned back to
the real world I often leave my book, with the page carefully marked, where
I "know" I will find it again or simply in a convenient place. After
whatever interruption has called me is over, I look around in the "normal"
places for the book I was reading. And, in the words of Flanders & Swann, I
"find it missing". This night, "Dear Old Dead" has been found missing...

This starts a great hunt, often tinged with frustration and anger at myself
for doing this again. I revisit all the places in our house and out where I
have been, where I might have left the book in an unthinking moment. No,
not there. Not on the front porch, not in the bathroom, not by my favoured
spot in the front room. Did I go to the kitchen? No, I don't think so, but
maybe, just maybe I did. Not there either. After several minutes of this
meandering about, with Sonia always asking "What are you looking for now", I
see another book that I have been wanting to read. Around this house, there
is "always" another book handy that needs reading.

Time passes and the book is nowhere to be found. So, with some reluctance
but also with some joy, I open the covers of another book and start off.
Hmmm. Lynn Hightower. "The Debt Collector" - that sounds interesting.
Read the blurbs and flaps. Yes, this will do. A chapter is finished, then
another. Five or so chapters in and it is time to head off to bed. With my
nose still in the book, down the hall I go, Little Boots cheerfully
following. Boots chews on his nighttimes dog biscuit then jumps on the bed.
As my eyes follow, I see the long sought book, "Dear Old Dead", resting
right in the centre of my pillow where I casually threw it when interrupted.
Indeed, the moment I see it I instantly can connect all the dots and
remember exactly why I decided at that moment to put it right where it is.

Now comes the great decision. Do I continue to read the "new book" or
return to the "old book"? Both now lie by my pillow and I tend to avoid the
necessary decision. Hmmm. Both novels, both mysteries. You know, I don't
really "feel" like reading a novel right now. Something a bit meatier.
Now, what was it that DAF said about Bush and Iraq? There was an answer to
that on the tip of my tongue, but I know it was in something I read - what
was it? - a week ago or so. So I cast an eye over the shelves of books now
nested by my desk on Clinton, Bush, Cheney and Iraq, Iran, Israel and
Palestine. That's right - it was something Gwynne Dyer wrote. That narrows
it down to three books, so I take out all three from the shelf. Nope, not
the first, it might be the second. Definitely it was in the third book on
the right side of the page.

The novels take their place on the bed, Boots takes his, and I hope in with
the third book firmly in hand, turn on the light and roll over. The light
is on a timer - it will go off sometime after I fall asleep. Opps! Forgot
to take my night-time pills! Up I go and grab the bubblepack that seems to
rule my days. Pop the night-pills and down they go with a bit of water.
Now back to the bed and hop in yet again, picking up "Dear Old Dead" as I do
so. Dyer has fallen to the floor on the other side of the bed or has
managed to creep under Boots as he starts to snore.

"As before, when George Demarkian had come to New York. it had been
winter..." Ah yes, just where I was before...

The Hunt for C.S. Forester

I feel in love with C.S. Forester’s “Hornblower” series in my late teens, on a trip to Vancouver and Seattle. The series had just been reprinted in uniform volumes by Bantam and were on display at Shorey’s in downtown Seattle. I bought them all (I thought) in the summer of 1968. I was still in university.

At the time, I was most certainly not a book collector but I was an avid reader. I read all of the Hornblower novels and then stopped in at a small bookstore that used to be just off Jasper Avenue on 101 Street in Edmonton’s downtown. I found a few more books by Forester and, more interesting, a list of books that he had written courtesy of the clerk, a fellow named Tom. In that brief moment, I became a book collector.

Now at that time Forester’s books were being given away and some were still available in “first editions”. Always a book hound, now I started to learn the nuances of collecting from identifying a first edition to searching for them. The used bookstores of the day did not favour Forester that much – his titles were often in the big bins of books available for a quarter or so. If the book was on the shelves inside, the price was not much higher.

So that is how it all started, so many years ago.

Tom, the sales clerk at the bookstore, ordered in what he could (I attended his marriage years later and ended up only a few miles south – he is a teacher in Dawson Creek, B.C.). Beyond prowling in used bookshops in Edmonton and elsewhere when I traveled, after an initial rush the collection grew slowly. I was hooked but not yet starkers mad.

The Forester shelf in my bookcase remained more or less the same.

Then we moved to Vancouver with new used bookstores to explore. Titles were added, one by one. On what had become annual forays to London I discovered another world – one that could find such books for me thousands of miles away. Bookstores in Charring Cross and such became regular correspondents. I remember one on Bond Street, where I finally found Forester’s one children’s book, “Poo-Poo and the Dragons”. Bertram Rota provided regular offerings. In those days I was just about the only person collecting Forester in any manner so the plums fell to me.

To aid in finding new books, the sequels to Forester by Dudley Pope, Alexander Kent, Patrick O’Brien and others (the “shot and sail” novels that take the place of Westerns in the UK). Somewhere along the line I write to Mrs. Dorothy Forester, then still in Berkley California and she replied with a two-page manuscript of his that was duly framed. I started writing as well to the other writers and soon had a lively exchange with Dudley Pope, Douglas Reeman (“Alexander Kent”) and most of the rest. That led to some wonderful times in London and the UK. Reeman took me to the Savage Club and out for supper to the pub where Nelson stopped on his way to Trafalgar. Yearly trips and visits followed. We used to stay and Mrs. Beever’s Bed and Breakfast and I can still remember the address – 53 Cambridge Street, London, and SW1. Just around the corner from Victoria Station.

On one trip, I made my way out to Redding and Angmering-by-the-Sea and met both Dorothy Forester and his cousin, Stephen Troughbridge-Smith. We chatted and had tea; Mrs. Forested added to my collection with a copy of “U-97” - a play by Forester - and Steven regaled me with tales of his uncle. The next day, early on, I made my way to Dulwich and located Forester’s home from his early days. After the milkman arrived I knocked on the door and introduced myself to the occupant who took me up to the attic room where Forester played his games with tin soldiers and wrote his first (rather bad) books.

Later via the Internet I was to meet John Forester, son of CSF by his first wife. John hates his father. Due to royalties and such, he was in a battle with Stephen. That delayed the Hornblower series for A&E in the USA. Suffice to say I am perhaps the only person to know both sides of the dispute directly from the horse’s mouth.

One year, I placed an ad in “The Bookseller” a weekly publication that tells the trade what books are being published in the UK. I got a letter from an elderly woman in the UK who offered twenty of the Forester books, all complete with dustjacket for One pound each. She had collected books all her life and her architect was now telling her that unless she got rid of some her house would fall down. So now I had signed copies of Forester’s books and the collection was complete!

We moved, from West Vancouver to Vancouver Island and Campbell River. A divorce meant moving again, this time to a farmhouse near Courtenay. By this time, the Forester books had their own bookcase, glass fronted and only for them.

It was insurance that caused me to think about divesting. To insure such books out in the country was a long and complicated affair. I was told that I could ship them to San Francisco for appraisal which might be acceptable. Ah well, that would be expensive.

When I first tired to contact Forester’s widow, I had corresponded with a person named Llewlyn Howand III. He was then an editor with Little, Brown in Boston. I knew he had left to start his own bookshop (and to sail some magnificent yachts). So I contacted him and send the books off to Boston for sale. They ended up at the University of Texas for the magnificent sum of $5000 or slightly more:

http://www.mwilden.com/forester/

http://library.tamu.edu/portal/site/Library/menuitem.32cd556b7355d69343aecb5419008a0c/?vgnextoid=152f8944d32e0010VgnVCM1000007800a8c0RCRD

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=C.S.+Forester&sortby=1&x=40&y=11 ("The African Queen" is over $30,000 alone, with dustjacket…)

In today’s inflated Forester market, those same books would bring in over $100,000. C’est la vie.

Along this long road, I had wonderful times and met fascinating people. I may well add to this tale – consider this a work in progress for there are so many stories to tell…

A Good Day

Today I had intended to call a record store and order a CD by Long John Baldry, now deceased. Last week, on CBC Radio, there was in interview with Paul Meyer who has just completed a biolgraphy of Long John. Baldry spend most of his last twenty-five years in Vancouver. The bio sounds interesting and it is now on my Chapters list for the next AirMiles Gift Certificate.

Baldry is the Father of British Blues, creditied with the discovery of Rod Stewart and Elton John. Indeed, he saved Elton's life. The story is that Elton, uncomfortable with being Gay and seeing no answer, had his head literally in the gas stove when Baldry called up and convinced him that being out was the way to go.

During the interview, they played a few tracks, including "Don't Give Boogie Woogie to the King of Rock 'n Roll" and "It Ain't Easy". Both were produced by Stewart and the piano is from Elton John. So with that intention I stopped first at a small local thrift and cast my eye down the rows of cassettes they had for sale (Our van, Eggplant, has a cassette player, not a CD). There it was, "It Ain't Easy" by Long John Baldry, for all of $.25. Better yet, the version of "Boogie Woogie played on CBC did not have the voice over introduction, a long tale of Baldry's arrest in London for busking in London.

(Music wise, one of our best Saturday afternoon sets of CD's is of Chinese music, edited by Yoyo Mah. We recently found, at another thirft, a three CD set of African music which looks equally good. To my major disapointment no cuts by King Sunny Adda but that can be corrrected! King Sunny came to Vancouver years ago and put on a fantastic show at the old Commodore).

Having started the day with that find, it was over to Habitiant for Living, where I found a nice bi-fold door for our hallway, the louvered type which we wanted. I should be able to get that up tomorrow. Sonia's ensuite is complete but needed a medicine chest. The Sally Ann has a very nice one free for the taking, so I did. Wood trim, three shelves and two mirrored "wings". Just what the doctor ordered.

Arriving home, I saw the post office van just leaving and yes, the book order from Chapters was here. Yesterday brought signed bookplates form Olen Steinhaur, all the way from Hungary. Today brought the order with his last two books, "Liberation Movements" and "Victory Square". There are five books in his series, starting off the "Bridge of Sighs". They are mysteries (and spy thrillers) set in an un-named Eastern European country starting in 1948 and continuing to the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Highly recommended.

The third book was not fiction. "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" is by an Israeli historian and I had read some very good reviews of it.

For those who cleave to the mythology that the Palestinians left their homes in 1948 due to Arab radio urging, forget the myth and look at the truth. Documented truth by an Israeli scholar, Ilan Pappe. Pappe's purpose in writing this book is not to denounce his own
country, Israel. Rather, he states clearly that until such time as the
criminal actions of evicting the Palestinians is recognized by the world,
including Israel and the United States, there can be no peace.

Here is the true story - a deliberate plan to removed any Arab from the
territory of Palestine. Far from only isolated incidents of violence, this
was part of Plan "D", a very deliberate and calculated plan to remove
Palestinians from the lands they had occupied since Roman times. That Arab
radio played into the successful propagation of the myth is certain, but
that was well after Plan "D" had been formulated and was being executed.

This is no anti-Jewish screed. It is a well documented and historically
accurate rendering of the crime that continues to drive violence into the
Israel Palestinian conflict.

Most assuredly, if you read this book you will never, ever look at the
Palestinians in the same way. Their removal and subsequent treatment
including the settlements and outposts was and remains part of a plan the
world has ignored. As Pappe points out, others have been brought before War
Crime tribunals for the same acts that were carried on with impunity by the
founders of Israel.

And perhaps, just perhaps, reading this book will give some insight into the
reason why so many Muslims are mad at Israel and its unconditional backer,
the United States. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine forms the root of
Islamic fundamentalism as much as do the oppressive regimes supported by
American foreign policy. If you still believe that Islamofacists are out to
rule the world, especially your part of it, it might be nice to get to the
single issue that has driven that movement right from the state.
Uncomfortable as it may be, this book provides many answers.

Eh bien, not is the time to take of the old hallway doors and put up the new-to-us bifold. As one might expect, nothing goes totally well - it looks as if a half inch or so need be removed from the new door.

The Hunter is Hunted by Her Prey

(The title comes from an old “Girl Groups” song written by Smokey Robinson)

One thing is very clear…

You don’t have to like a writer to enjoy their books.

Some may recall the American poet, hailed by some as America’s greatest poet, Ezra Pound. Pound was in Italy when the United States entered the war and made many broadcasts favouring the Axis powers:

“After the war, Pound was brought back to the United States to face charges of treason. The charges covered only his activities during the time when the Kingdom of Italy was officially at war with the United States......His insanity plea is still a matter of controversy, since in retrospect his activities and his writings during the war years do not appear to be those of a clinically insane person. Treason is potentially a capital offense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound

(The same method had been used with the British World War One hero and poet Sigfried Sassoon. He was confined to a mental hospital in Scotland until he agreed to return to the trenches).

I have been reminded of that in my recent “discovery” of an American mystery writer, Jane Haddam (her real name is Orania Papazoglou). Prolific, Haddam has written two series of mysteries. The most durable are the tales of Gregor Demarkian, “the Armenian-American Hecul Poiroit”. There are over twenty in this series:

Not a Creature Was Stirring (1990)
Precious Blood (1991)
Act of Darkness (1991)
Quoth the Raven (1991)
A Great Day for the Deadly
A Feast of Murder (1992)
A Stillness in Bethlehem (1993)
Murder Superior (1993)
Dear Old Dead (1994)
Festival of Deaths (1994)
Bleeding Hearts (1995)
Fountain of Death (1995)
Baptism in Blood (1996)
Deadly Beloved (1997)
And One to Die on (1997)
Skeleton Key (2000)
True Believers (2001)
Somebody Else's Music (2002)
Conspiracy Theory (2003)
The Headmaster's Wife (2005)
Hardscrabble Road (2006)
Glass Houses (2007)
Game of Solitaire (to be released next year)

There are three main characters. Gregor Demarkian is a retired head of the FBI Criminal Behaviour Unit, and its founder. His wife died shortly before his retirement and he returned to the Armenian section of Philadelphia, bought an apartment and enjoys the quiet close-knit neighbourhood. Bennis Hannaford is first a potential victim, then a friend, and more recently a lover (and soon to be wife?). She hails from a rich but dysfunctional family on The Main of Philadelphia. Last is Father Tibor, an Armenian Orthodox priest who offers sage and often confusing advice.

Various Armenian neighbours, a police chief and would-be mayor round out this cast, and others added as the stories require. Several of the titles involved Roman Catholic nuns. They typical book starts off with a chapter introducing each character, charming little vignettes that present the character and move the plot along just enough. Then, of course, comes a murder, mostly. These are like Agatha Christie in a sense, but far more involved and convoluted. By the time the plot starts to take off, Haddam has made you at home with each of the characters and, if you have been following the series, brought you up to date on the evolving relationship between Gregor and Bennis.

Gregor is not a private detective, as he repeats often enough, but a police consultant. He seems to be invited to all sorts of places, from mansions to colleges, to movie star’s homes and even ships. Naturally, foul deeds are done. Often several. As the plot moves along, the interplay between Gregor and Bennis, and Father Tibor is a delight. Haddam is a person of definite views (more of that later) and interjects politics and political science in very chewable nuggets throughout the text. By making her characters of different political persuasions, she is able to present some funny and also piercing commentary on various views.

Now, what does this have to do with Ezra Pound?

Well, I had never heard of Jane Haddam until I joined a well-established Usenet newsgroup – Rec.Arts.Mystery or RAM. This group has been going for many years, has annual meetings and even a logo. Unlike other newsgroups, this one is not give to flames and ads for sex tonics. Most of the posts are actually about books and mystery writers. Indeed, in the Demarkian novels, Father Tibor is an avid participant in the group.

Father Tibor might join the group in fiction; Jane Haddam joins the group in real life. And that is where I met her – and we instantly disagreed.

To say the least, Haddam and I differ on “American Foreign Policy”, notably the War in Iraq and potentially the War in Iran. So that has lead to some rather hot exchanges. As Haddam’s books are not published in Canada or the United Kingdom, I had not heard of her nor ever seen any of her books. I ordered the first one in with the intention of hating it.

And when it arrived, I tried to hate it. The problem being, like with Pound, I was captured and had to surrender – at least to the books. My first taste was several months ago and now, thanks to my digging deep in cellars and strange out of the way bookshops on line, I have the complete set of Demarkian mysteries and have been reading my way through all of them.

At times, I am ashamed of myself. If I were to stand on principle I would burn them or at the least give them away to some non-English readers. But I simply can’t…

Now, the first books of the series were all written with a holiday in mind. This was, according to what I have read, her publisher’s idea, not hers. So Christmas, Easter, July Fourth, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day and more - each of the early books revolves around a particular holiday. That gets a bit tiring and makes some titles and plots a stretch. I find Haddam’s plots great fun, but in some cases the coincidences do stretch credulity as the story comes together. The first fifteen books, the "Holiday" Demarkians, were published by Crimeline. With Demarkian "16", "Skeleton Key", Haddam switched publishers to St. Martin's Minotaur and the plots were markedly less restrained by the artificial "holiday" theme. In my opinion, the freedom from holidays resulted in much better and more interesting plots. The newer books are indeed my favourites.

While not commonly found in Canadian bookstores, the titles can be found at Chapters and specialist mystery bookstores. For the early titles in paperback, I found all the paperbacks in a used bookstore in Kamloops. Better World Books and BookCloseOuts on the web also have some of the more recent titles.

Haddam has gone outside of the Demarkian series for another short series (the Patience McKenna novels) and two stand alone novels ("Charimsa" and Sanctity", both released under her true name). I have not managed as yet to locate copies of these but I am certainly looking for them.

Instead of hunting Jane Haddam to get the books signed, I often find myself her prey on line…

Back in 1964...

...there was a book written by Richard Hofstadter called "The Paranoid Style
in American Politics". For those too young to remember, those were the days
of Johnson and Goldwater. Hofstader defined this style of politics as
"heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy". These
types view the world as fundamentally hostile. This type of politician
collectivizes his conspiratorial delusions and convinces others that they
share his victimization. Conspiracy for these, he said, becomes the motive
force of historical events".

Typically, this might be the "New World Order" normally depicted by the
United Nations. You can see this at its best in the "Left Behind" series,
mixed in with Revelations and religious dogma.

That was 1964. It seems that it has become the dominant force in American politics. The enemy has changed form the USSR and the United Nations to the "Islamofascist". Ignoring the fact that this group is a small minority of Muslims, it gets front page as the
arch-villain as the recent visit if its President to Co.,umbia University showed all too well.

"I live in a kill zone" says one. Others worry that if Iran gets a bomb
(which according to the international inspectors, it is not doing) a
suitcase bomb will be delivered if not to their doorstep, to a "kill zone"
close by. What has happened to the American psyche to cause this fringe
tactic of politics to become the dominant force?

9/11 was indeed a terrible event, a disaster. Yet countries such as
Germany, Great Britain, Spain and many more have gone through disasters
without becoming paranoid about bombs and fanatics. They respond in a
reasonable manner, with police actions, not bombing a country or invading it
based on mere suspicion made real by lies. And yes, in the case of Iraq,
the evidence is clear that there were indeed lies designed - successfully -
to intimidate and to create this paranoia. The evidence was manipulated to
give the answers wanted, regardless of the root cause (which we many never
know for it certainly has not been given out thus far). Jack Straw in
England saw this clearly and resigned.

Is it because the United States had never had a war on its territory for
over one hundred years? Did that historical and geographic advantage make
its residents too complacent - "It cannot happen here"? I don't know, but
what I see in posts from Americans is a paranoid state driven to
extremes. For it is indeed extreme to speak so casually about bombing
another country that has not attacked yours. Indeed, to speak thus about a country that could
not attack yours given its present state of development. Iran has no way to
deliver any weapon to the USA. And that assumes that it cannot
only make such a bomb, but make one to fit in a suitcase.

I suspect it goes deeper. Canada has not had a war on its soil since the
American attempts at invasion, in 1812 and before. Yet we do not wish to
bomb anyone even if we could - and our technology is well advanced. Nor does
any European country support such antics. Is the propaganda of paranoid
fantasy driven so deep that patriotism is confused with aggression? Has
reason been lost in fear? It certainly seems so. Perhaps it ties in with the rise of fundamentalist Christiainity in the United States. "Revalation and rapture are on the way and we msut speed them up!"

And so every rational thought is answered through the lens of paranoia. To
bomb America or Israel would be for Iran to commit suicide. That is answered by
those who see Muslims as all wishing to go to paradise based on a fringe
fanatical cult of that religion. Even those religious leaders in power wish
to retain power, not in heaven but here on earth. They may have a different
religion but they are not mad dogs. A book presumes that Muslims will take
over Europe and fear comes. The world is indeed changing but not by any
grand Islamic conspiracy. It is simple demographics. Birth rates are down
in Europe and North America. We cannot or will not do certain jobs. So we
import labour and that labour stays and has children. One example showed up
last night on TV. Holland now has one sixteenth of its population as
Muslims - one million out of sixteen million. The fastest growing religion
in Europe is Islam, driving by a population explosion amongst new arrivals.
"Mohammed" is the most common European name. To some, that is seen as a
threat, and from a threat comes fear and conspiracy.

In the United States, the privilege of being the only superpower has brought
unparallel military ability. The US spends over one half of all the world's
military budget. Spending on the military is greater than it was during the
Cold War. Yet a small group of fanatics living in caves whom the world
despises cannot be rund to ground. They have become powerful. The American military has won all the battles but onece again seems liekly to loose the war driven politically and not militarily. Indeed, it seems all military advice, unless it agrrees with the administration, is cast asside. The lesson of Vietnam, not to direct military tactics from
Washington has been not only forgotten, but the error repeated. As a
result, the Taliban is not only resurgent in Afghanistan. It is being asked
to form part of the government.

Billions have been wasted and literally thrown away - $9 Billion is missing from the kitty in Baghdad. A third world population has lost by death over one million souls and another four
million have left for other countries. Twenty percent of its population. Yet if this was not bad enough, the paranoia demands that yet another country, similarly without proof and based on fear of "kill zones" and the like be bombed.

One must wonder. An administration that has lied and deceived its public,
that has the lowest popularity of any - even Nixon - is able to manipulate
fear into yet another war, yet another military adventure.

It is madness, as paranoia is defined.

Letter to the Editor - Iran to be Bombed

Dear Editor,

We seem to be getting closer daily to another American adventure - the bombing of Iran. In the several e-groups to which I belong, many Americans are openly encouraging the Bush administration to bomb Iran.

This attitude is driven by fear. Some say Iran must be hit as they live in a "kill zone", other aver to the religious nature of Iran's government and say the Mullahs have no risk as they believe they will go to paradise.

The Bush administration seems expert at instilling fear based on no more than rumours and supposition. You may recall that the attack on Iraq was preceded by the lies (for it is certain those speaking did know the truth) of Weapons of Mass Destruction and a supposed link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Neither of these premises were true, yet war followed and years of misery for Iraqi civilians and American troops.

This time, we have the demonization of Iran's president. Perhaps not a nice fellow, he has been misquoted in American media regarding Israel. The issue of gay rights is strange indeed, considering the policy of many American states. And Iran, we are told, is building a nuclear bomb.

Iran might be well advised to build such a bomb, given the nature of Pakistan, it southern neighbour. A "one bullet" country (one bullet kills the President and radicals might take over), Pakistan has a large number of Islamic radicals, and it does have the bomb. Israel has over 200 nuclear warheads and no inspection. Iran states that it is building a "threshold nuclear weapons capability", meaning it will be capable of industrial grade plutonium, a long way from weapons grade. Forty countries, including Canada, Australia, Brazil and thirty-seven others have the same capability. All submit to inspection; all can removed themselves from the treaty on three months notice. While Bush, and especially Cheney, insist that weapons grade is what Iran is doing, the Atomic Energy inspectors, as recently as September of this year, confirmed that only industrial grade is involved in production.

So we have a repeat, only a few years after, of lies and deception by the American administration and a population, it seems, egger to bomb yet another Muslim country based on the fear tactics of the President and a book called "America Alone".

Now, Iran has no air force or sophisticated air defence. It has no navy to speak of. What it does have, in abundance and highly efficient, are "long range sea skimming missiles", easily capable of surviving a bombing attack and sinking freighters and tankers in the Gulf of Hormuz. Shipping insurance rates would skyrocket carrying with them the oil prices. Economically and more,an attack by the United states would be a disaster.

Bush is a lame duck with no internal policies to provide a legacy, unlike
LBJ. The only legacy he has is Iraq.- a disaster. His ratings are poor and
many see him as the worst US president in history. So a lame duck can do
nothing for the balance of his term or roll the dice and hope that he can
get it right. Given the manner in which Bush took office in the first term
with not even a majority but acting as if he had an overwhelming victory
(and much the same the second time around), his personality seems geared to
the last roll of the dice. From many of the comments by Americans that I have read recently, it seems he has support for that sort of madness.

Bush, by many accounts, sees himself as a "war president:, referring to
Lincoln, Roosevelt and Truman. The dream of military conquest or victory is
a strong drive. He has managed to get Americans to accept in the breakdown
of civil rights, to accept bombing as a norm, and to support a war by doing
no more that shopping more at the local malls. That is reprehensible. That
he gets his guidance from god is also a factor, for in that he is as
religiously motivated as the mullahs. Simply, he is spoiling for another fight and Iran is the selected (and already target programmed) victim.

Such is not acceptable to the rest of the world. Not even the United
Kingdom. American is alone not due to Muslim radicals, but due to the
policies of its President. If Iran is bombed, it moves from alone to a
pariah, an outlaw state that will attract any terrorist, external or
internal. It will encourage many other countries, some now friends of the
USA, to seek alternatives for trade and more.

*****

This got a reply form one Julia Serup, quoting a book by Georges Sada as her authority. Sada is a Chriistian evangelical. He stated he was told (not that he saw) the WMD were sent to Syria on two Boeing civil aircraft making 56 flights. Similar comments emerge from Israel and the American right wing. Problem - no prooof. The Duelfer report mentions that as a possiblity, but dismisses it as without foundation...

Dear Editor,

As P.T. Barnum has said, "There is [one] born every minute…"

In her post of October 10^th last, Julia Serup quotes one source – Georges Sada. She uses only this source to conclude that Saddam Hussein shipped all the Weapons of Mass Destruction over the border to Syria. Let’s look at that source…

Georges Sada was with second-in-command of the Iraqi air force when he retired in 1986 (almost two decades before the Iraq War). In his book he states that he did not see but was told that all the WMD were flown from Iraq to Syria in two Boeing commercial airliners in 56 flights. The two pilots who allegedly told him this have never come forward.

A Christian, Sada is associated with "World Compassion Terry Law Ministries" as director of the Iraq operations. Others had made similar suppositions lacking in that one essential – proof. Simply put, there is none. Not from Israel, where similar claims have been presented, not from the American military, not from right-wing or religious radio jockeys and not from the investigators sent by the Bush administration to find the WMD.

President Bush would love to have such information and perhaps the best answer to her entire post is that even Bush has now concluded that Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Rather than quoting many sources that deny such a claim, let me simply state that the official U.S. report – the Duelfer Report - denies that Hussein had any such weapons. The head of the investigation, David Kay, resigned his position prior to the final report. As to WMD he stated, "I don't think they existed". "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties." and "It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing." Kay was initially a believer in WMD and would have been overjoyed to find any. The US spent millions trying. Bush and Cheney would have shouted the news around the world.

President Bush himself has conceded this. He stated : "It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.". The lack of WMD was confirmed by Bush in interviews with reporter Bob Woodward for "State of Denial", the last of his "Bush at War" trilogy.

Note that Bush did not say that the WMD had been relocated to Syria, nor did he bomb Syria as would be the case if such had been done.

But Ms. Serup knows better, thanks to one source.

The problem with Ms. Serup’s letter (and her source) is that one can claim anything without verification. UFOs, fairies in the garden, ghosts that haunt Wal-Mart – or even a boom in Prince George. Someone will always be there to believe you. Cutting to the chase, not one news or intelligence agency has verified the hearsay theory of Sada. Nor have the fairies in my garden been substantiated, more’s the pity…

Ms. Serup is free to regard George W. Bush as the greatest president ever if she wishes. Most view him as one of the worst - if not the very worst. His approval rating is in the dumps and even his own Republicans don’t want him around. The NeoCons say his administration is incompetent.

There is no accounting for taste; there is an accounting for citing inaccurate sources for sweeping statements. Ms. Serup, this is yours.

Palestine, Settlements and Outposts

Now, I wish to make a few things clear at the start…

Growing up, I was one of the “outcasts”. At the time and in the place I grew up, those with “funny names” were not as acceptable as those with nice WASP names. My family had “crossed the tracks, literally. The only other kids in a similar situation were the Jewish kids. So we linked together and established long term friendships.

As they did, I supported Israel in everything it did. The family bought – or had donated – trees in Israel. We watched “Exodus” and cheered. Later, we recoiled at the horrible attacks on Israeli athletes and aircraft hijackings. The Arabs, later to be called Palestinians, were terrible!

Time passed, I grew older and perhaps – just perhaps mind – wiser. Looking back, the watershed that caused me to think more carefully about my unquestioned support for Israel was the establishment of the settlements in both Gaza and the West Bank, coupled with the arguments voiced for “Greater Israel” by both Israelis and Zionist Christians. Not being a Christian, none of this made much sense. What did start to make a lot of sense was the simply humanity of the Palestinian cause.

At some time, I wondered late into the night how I might feel if I had been born in East Jerusalem instead of the Canadian prairies. So in 1948, as a two-year old, I might have been bundled up and taken from my home by my fear-struck mother and father. We would have fled to a “refugee camp”, a tent city. Now, over 50 years later, we might well be in that same tent city or perhaps, with luck, in a hovel in the West Bank. Subject to military actions constantly over all those years, watching our neighbour’s homes being bulldozed, hearing from new arrivals of the demolition of their former villages, seeing our friends suffer daily. So at my old age, a son or daughter comes to me and says he or she wants to be a suicide bomber.

After fifty years of hell and seeing no future save more of the same, might I not be tempted to say, “Go with my blessings”? Might fifty years of hell not made me so bitter that even the death of a child would represent a small victory?

Along these lines, I started to see that a bomb was a bomb, the purpose of which was to kill people. Deliver a bomb by a Skyhawk jet and it kills people. Deliver a bomb by a suicide bomber and it kills people. The only difference is the means of delivery. As to targets, an aircraft can drop a bomb anywhere it pleases, given total control of the skies. A suicide bomber has a harder time getting close to military targets. If you have a bomb and are at war, I supposed that you might explode it wherever you could.

Now, the start of this was the establishment of the settlements and “outposts” on the lands captured after the 67 War and more especially, the grounds advanced by Israeli leaders for permitting such to start and continue.

Now, I knew better than to voice these opinions. Why? When I asked myself that question, the answer came quickly. Looking around, I saw that anyone who voiced any negative opinion about what Israel was or had done was quickly labeled an “anti-Semite”. So fear led to self-censorship.

So I kept this opinion to myself. Little by little, I gave voice to it in very private conversations. In Calgary, I tried to explain just a little to a long time friend who happened to be a very devout Jew. The reaction was extreme and I backed quickly off the topic. My fear was certainly justified.

Yet the thoughts would simply not go away. ‘In the age of the Internet, I started to explore more outside the boundaries of North American media.

As each peace proposal and meeting was hung up over the issue of captured lands and the Palestinians, I dug into some issues. One key find was a site prepared by an Israeli peace group. They provided astounding information on the settlements and outposts:

http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=43

Yes, there were lots of fanatical sites on the issue, but this seemed not only informative but also reliable. More questionable was a site that seemed “real” but… Could all these stories be true? Frankly, my prior bias in favour of Israel kept me from full acceptance. Leery of propaganda, I read article after article, discounting the more obvious hate rants – of which in truth there were very few:

http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/

It seemed to me, after 9/11, that the root cause of the terrorism against the United States by fundamentalist Muslims was all based on the Israeli/Palestine conflict. Currently 450,000 Israelis live in settlemetns and outposts on the West Bank - Palestinian territory. No Israeli government has stopped this takover of Palestinian provate lands. That was certainly the cause advanced. My digging got deeper.

In 2007 came the invasion of south Lebanon by the Israelis. Daily the television showed tanks and planes blasting apartment buildings and houses. Over this, the announcer would state that these places were embedded with terrorists, giving cause for destruction. But during that war, refugees trying to flee were prevented from even that by Israeli military. And the cause for such a heavy hand? The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. That seemed way out of proportion.

By then, of course, the United States had invaded Iraq and the quagmire has started. So, why Iraq? The more I read, the more it seemed to be part of a plan by a group of “neo-Conservatives”, including vice-president Cheney and more. While the reasons for the war emerged as lies (Weapons of Mass Destruction), my reading disclosed that there were in fact two distinct factions within the new-con group. One had predominantly non-Jewish backgrounds. The other was totally Jewish (Pearl, Wolfowitz, Firth and many, many more). Further, these same individuals were on record as advising the Israeli government while purportedly serving as American officials. They supported a party known as Likud, the party that had pushed the settlements and more. The picture emerging was horrible. Not only, in my opinion, was the war wrong, but many of those who supported it had been serving two masters. Was this an American war, I wondered, or a war on behalf of Israel interests? As I read more, the picture emerged of all new-cons wanting a war, but the selection of Iraq as the target seemed to be more the result of the Likudnike faction.

And I hated the answers I was finding. All the time, I was battling myself for the more I read, form writers who were well informed, the more it seemed that there was what I had always denied – a very strong pro-Israeli lobby that had overstepped the bounds of good conduct to push the United States into a war – a war that even Gwynne Dyer wrote seemed to have no real reason for being.

I admit, I became rather obsessed about the Iraq War. As is my custom, shared with Sonia, books arrived to help me understand this strange conflict. I tried to read both sides, those supporting the war and those opposed, but in candor those opposed became predominant. I even read Laurie Mylroie’s book, which was helped by Wolfowitz and his wife. The blatant bias of this screed, which tries to link Saddam Hussein to both World Trade Center bombings, was extreme. Knowing it had been pushed by a major American policy-maker was shocking. And Wolfowitz was clearly a Likudnite. By now, it was clear that not only were there no WMD but that Hussein played no role in the WTC attacks.

One line from Dyer’s last book on the War, THE MESS THEY MADE, struck in my mind. He writes (p. 246):

“Before the invasion, Israel has seriously pushed the United States as hard as it could to invade Iraq. Israel has seriously overplayed its hand in terms of exploiting its U.S. relationship in recent years, taking advantage of the Bush administration’s chronic inability to distinguish between American and Israeli interests, and it may eventually pay a high price if the American public comes to believe that U.S. troops are dying to serve Israel’s purpose”

Yes, that could come to pass. With the reasons for going to war so clouded with uncertainty (and certainly not to bring democracy to the poor Iraqis) many will start to wonder about “Why?” I have long believed that oil is the root, and that certainly seems a strong reason (Dyer disagrees).

Now, more war clouds gather. Iran is on the target list and if one watches, the same tactics are at work. The “demonization” of Iran is easy, following many years of separation following 1979. Next to Cuba, Iran is the nasty and many commentators and others are now comparing its president, who has few powers under Iranian laws, to Hitler. Remember the same type of comparison a few years ago - when–Hussien was compared to … Hitler? Once again, the drums beat based on rumours and not facts. Inspectors found no WMD; new inspectors find no nuclear weapons programs. And then, Iran has no way of bombing the Unites States, but it could bomb Israel, not that such is likely confronted with Israel’s 200 nuclear bombs. The comparison to Bush and Cheney in the wind up to Iraq is repeated, yet it seems the same Passion play resonates with many Americans. “When will they ever learn…”

I must add that everyone should read Jimmy Carter’s book “Peace or Apartheid”. No American president has so clearly set out the reasons for the conflict and the potential ways of solving it – the one-country solution, the two-country solution, the transportation of Palestinians or?

Think of a world where the Palestinian “question” had been solved. At one stroke, the reasons for much of the terrorism, at least those advanced by all but a fanatical fringe are gone. Perhaps the new-con need to create a new-con state might have been better served by using the Palestinians as subjects instead of Iraq.

Strange Reasons for War

This is but one of the many articles dealing with some of the statements made by Iran’s President concerning homosexuals:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/26/iran_gays/

Now, reading that or any of the other such articles one might assume that Iran is the only country where such an attitude is displayed. Having read rather extensively on matters of gender I know that such is most certainly not the case.

Let’s start with Africa. Black Africa, south of the Sahara. Try to find any mention of homosexuality relating to this part of the world. Various leaders have said that homosexuality is a “White Man’s problem” and is “non-African”:

“In Uganda, for example, the practice - referred to as "carnal knowledge of another against the order of nature" - has been outlawed by president Museveni, while Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe claimed homosexuals were "worse than pigs and dogs."”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/africa/2002/africalive/2072057.stm

BBC Africa reported that “A common theme from callers, and within emails, was that homosexuality is un-African and does not exist on the continent”.

Over to Nigeria, where homosexuality is punishable by hanging:

“Among the many myths created about Africa, the belief that homosexuality is absent in Africa or incidental is one of the oldest and most enduring. African leaders, historians, anthropologists, clergyman, authors, and contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked the existence of homosexuality or same-sex relationships and persistently claimed that such patterns were introduced by Europeans.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/32974

In Africa, homosexuality is illegal for gay men in 29 countries and for lesbian women in 20 countries. You may recall that when the Anglican Church moved towards recognition of same-sex marriage, the African bishops rebelled and threatened to withdraw. Of course. Gay sex is “un-African”.

Move to Thailand, the sex-trade capital of the world. Until very recently, within the last few decades, the language had no word for “homosexual” and lesbians were "unknown". Indeed, many Thais assume that homosexual behaviour – the many gay bars and male prostitutes - was introduced by American soldiers on R&R visits during the Vietnam War. Commonly, males in the sex trade explain that they are in it “for the money” and are not Gay.

“Down-low” referred to married men or other men professing to be heterosexual,having sex with other men but identifying themselves as neither homosexual nor bisexual. This is part of Afro-American terminology in the United States. Why? To be out is to risk discrimination.

Further south, in Latin America, the same theme holds true. A male is not considered homosexual for engaging in sex with another man, as long as he assumes the “male role”. That is the cultural answer; transsexual prostitutes report that most clients wished to assume the female role in private.

So before throwing stones at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it might be wise to consider that the North American and Western European approach to homosexuality differs markedly from other parts of the world, from Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia and the Mideast.

Nor must we go to foreign shores to find such an attitude. It was only a few decades ago that men were incarcerated or sent to asylums in the United States (and Canada, I would assume) if caught in a gay relationship.

This does not excuse the comments made by Ahmadinejad. It does however put them in a perspective that is totally lacking from the crowing of much of the American media. The jeering crowd at Columbia University was comprised of young Americans. As with many young, they assume they know all and the jeering gave evidence of that snobbishness. They are sophisticated and wise in the ways of the world – their world, but not that of Ahmadinejad. When you are ignorant of cultural differences, it is easy to laugh at other views.

Many similar comments might be made in respect of the questions regarding women in Iranian society. Prior to the fall of the Shah, Iran - then a secular state as was Iraq - had offered women many advantages they did not enjoy in neighbouring states. Iran had high levels of woman in professions and in higher education. Religious garb was largely in the past, as in Turkey, another secular but Muslim State. The return of the Ahotllah certainly changed that, women being forced to return to garb and roles demanded by the Mullahs. Yet even so, the status of women in Iran today compares very favourable with its neighbours. In Pakistan, husbands routinely murder women without any real penalty imposed (according to Amnesty International reports); in Saudi Arabia and other Arab-Muslim countries the role of women is very restricted. We all now know how badly women were restricted in Afghanistan. While there is no doubt that women in the Muslim world do not have the near equality they enjoy in Western Europe and North America, within the neighbourhood women of Iran fare better than in other countries of the region, including those that Americans call allies. Perhaps only Israel has come up to (or surpassed) the gender equality the students of Columbia favour.


Now, I hasten to add that the above does not imply or suggest that I agree with Ahmadinejad or his obvious negative attitudes towards Gays or women’s equality. It does mean that had I been in the audience at Columbia, I would have disapproved of his comments but not joined in the jeering and booing that followed his remarks on this issue. I might have reflected on the need to educate Iran and the rest of the world on such matters.

Try to imagine a reverse of the Ahmadinejad speech at Columbia – George W. Bush speaking at Tehrain University. Someone asks a question on Gay rights in the United States. Well, Bush and his major voting block, the fundamentalists Christians, may not kill Gays but there is no doubt that many do not wish them well. It is only a difference in degree and with many of Bush’s supporters it is hard to say where along the line they would stop. While the students at Columbia may wish to espouse equality, Bush’s supporters certainly do not.

This exercise is really nothing more than further demonization of Iran, a necessary step in the move towards yet more unilateral action and “pre-emptive” military steps. If indeed the United States or Israel attack Iran, as many now expect, for two issues to be discrimination against Gays or women’s rights is indeed strange.

The Civil War in the United States was "to free the slaves". How bizarre for the United States to fight a new war against Iran for Gay and Women's rights. What some people won't do to drum up support for a war!

Winter is Here... Almost...

Another dreary rainy day in River City…

Winter is definitely on the way. One can feel it. The sky is filled with dull grey clouds, puffy and darker in parts. Leaves have turned yellow but not yet fallen; the flowerbeds and garden are dead and dying. It feels cold enough to snow, cold enough certainly to make your breath visible and to frost car windows at night. Autumn came and went quickly, winter arrives before it is due.

Winter is my favourite season. I enjoy the cold air, the snow on the ground (Prince George looks much better when covered under several feet of snow!). One can always layer clothing and keep warm. Indeed, from years of experimenting, the trick is not to keep too warm. This year I finally discarded the duffel coat that has been my primary winter jacket for years. Frankly, it has seen better days and has been a Trojan in all sorts of weather. The new jacket is more fashionable, most certainly. In reserve is the –40 or so parka complete with snow waist and furry hood. When I wear that, only my eyes are visible. Being a long time fan of capes, I have several for the cold weather. My favourite is a loden cape with a military collar and in a distinct yellow shade. For colder days, there is a long almost floor-length maroon wool cape and for special occasions, two wool mohair capes one in green and blue squares and the other in maroon. These are for driving without the arm restrictions and a sweater under the cape keeps one very warm.

My normal winter outfit, for the pasts several years, has been leggings topped with a floppy sweater. Some time ago, I saw leggings on sale in many different colours, so I bought a dozen or so. Every time I see a nice sweater in a thrift, often had done, I buy it to go with one colour or another or leggings. Since buying the leggings, I keep looking for more, but it seems that local stores only stock black. Ah well, at least the sweaters provide considerable variety. With such sweaters often selling for as little as $3.99, I overdid things and recently cleared out my closet paring down the sweaters by giving many away to a friend.

Now, up here we have to turn off the outside water taps. If one does not, the pipes can freeze and burst. So yesterday I tended to that little chore, crawling under the house to turn off the copper pipes that feed the outside taps. The next chore when the rains stops for a bit is to move all the outside “stuff” – the swing, chairs, tables, hoses and reels and more into the gazebo and to then cover the gazebo with a tarp and tie that down. We shall be putting up winter drapes in some rooms – a bit heavier and better able to save heat. I have an oil heater in my room, just for those very cold nights, and the winter comforter is ready to keep me toasty warm. The rest of our “winterizing” is already done – windows and door seals checked, furnace filter changed, candles and flashlights in their proper place.

An electric cord has been strung out to where the van is parked, ready to plug in the block heater (for those in the south, a heating coil that goes into the oil pan that heats the oil in the car during very cold nights). The greenhouse is closed up and ready with a single light – one light bulb keeps the temperature just a little higher, enabling plants to survive. This is the same as carrying candles in our car, to light and provide just enough heat if you happen to end up in a snowdrift. The van has all the emergency supplies, from a “jumper” battery to cables, candles and chains in addition to the summer load of spare light bulbs, oil and other fluids, and emergency first-aid.

I suppose preparing for winter is a little like preparing for a hurricane. One of my friends moved to the Yucatan area of Mexico a few years ago, right in the path of Katrina. She spent several days in her home with all windows covered with plywood listening to the howling wind. Emergency supplies are kept at the ready in hurricane season. Well, at least we don’t have to go that far!

Aside from getting ready to confront winter’s blast, things have been quiet here. Well, a few dental appointments and such, but nothing really to get the blood pounding.

I have become one of the frequent contributors to the local “Letters to the Editor”. Prince George has a daily paper (not on Sundays) and a bi-weekly. Both have published my letters. Writing on topics ranging from local planning (or the lack of the same), roads, prostitution and decision by council, I am often amazed at how many people read these missives. From our favourite autobody shop (winter brings icy roads and gravel on highways – great for windshields!) to my credit union, I have emerged as a very local celebrity, it seems. “Oh, you’re the one that writes those letters!” tends to greet me frequently around town. The last letter was regarding the war in Iraq, as might be expected from other entries in this blog.

Remiss I would be for not mentioning the recent events at Columbia College in New York. Sorry, but if you invite someone to your place to speak, even if you do not like what they might say, you are polite – and the President of Columbia College was anything but to the Iranian president. I was particularly struck by the ignorance contained in the Columbia president’s remarks. He denounced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “Let's, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.” (The complete text is :http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature /2007/09/24/bollinger/). His remarks concluded with, “I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.” Sorry, that is not the way to do things. While the Columbia president pandered to the US press and administration, the Iranian president played to his audience in Iran and the Third World, keeping cool under pressure. I suppose the most obvious remark is that under the Iranian system, the president has about as much power as the vice president of the USA, before Cheney. That is to say, not very much. So the remarks were off target, given the limited power his “guest” actually has. (see http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/09/25/ahmadinejad/

Obviously, this is part of the American demonization of Iran, a necessary step before war. The enemy must be made to look “evil”, and Columbia’s president certainly tried. The mullahs rule Iran. Now, I am not saying that I would like to have Ahmadinejad over for supper, any more that Saddam Hussien. Reports also suggest that he be in trouble, politically, at home. Remarks like those made yesterday will only enhance his reputation at home in Iran. Ahmadinejad is not even “commander-in-chief” of the armed forces. Yes, no doubt there are abuses, but Idi Amin would have been better treated. Further, since the 79 revolution, literacy in Iran has gown substantially, from less than half the population to 80%+. The rural nature of the population has shifted to cities. Simply, there have been gains after the Iranian Revolution, periods of calm and growth. Few know that after the Americans took Baghdad, Iran sent a letter to the Americans via the Swiss ambassador offering to meet and settle all outstanding issues, including the nuclear one. The USA, under Bush, not only did not reply, they blasted the Swiss ambassador from relaying the message.

Nor does the American media focus on the real reason, if any, why Iran might want a nuclear bomb. Look at a map. Israel shares no borders with Iran. But to the south lies Pakistan, a Sunni Muslim country with a president who has survived several assassination attempts and a population that is very militant. One shot is all it takes to change Pakistan from a benevolent American ally to a fanatical Islamic state, a Sunni state on Iran’s Shiite border. Pakistan, of course, has a nuclear bomb. Not the nicest neighbour to have, really. But no, to the American media, the only reason Iran wants the bomb is to “kill all the Jews”, something Ahmadinejad has never said (see earlier blogs).

The American media seems to play on ignorance. I recall a recent “test” that found most students surveyed could not locate Washington DC on a map and the silly comments, some of which might be real, when one TV host does interviews on the street. A public must be an informed public, not susceptible to overt lies that the rest of the world (as in the case of Iraq) knows to be lies. If you don’t even know how to find Iraq on the map, you cannot be expected to have a valid informed opinion on war against Iran.

Rumours of War

I have become obsessed with the war in Iraq…

… and the potential war in Iran.

My little library of books regarding the war and the Bush administration has grown to three shelves. While most of the titles favour my own view – that the war is wrong and a blot on humanity – a few titles represent the “other view”. I do try to understand all points of view. With each passing day, that gets harder and harder to do.

Sunday morning, I got up and opened the computer, heading to my daily read of SALON articles, especially the column of Glenn Greenwald. He also wrote one of the books on my shelves – A TERRIBLE LEGACY. After that bit of cheer, it was time to let the dogs out for a morning romp and piddle and then a brief glance at the Sunday morning news programs. Henry Kissinger was on THE LAST WORD, the CNN news Sunday news program with Wolf Blitzer. The topic – bombing Iran. Knowing Kissinger had the ear of Bush II, I listened with some horror as the party line was unfolded.

I greatly admire the work of Gwynne Dryer, a military historian and writer. He has written three books on this war. IGNORANT ARMIES. FUTURE TENSE, and now THE MESS THEY MADE. The first was written before the war, the second in 2004 and revised in 06, and the last in the current year. Dryer, unlike Rumsfeld and Cheney, has been very accurate in his predictions.

It certainly seems as if the Bush administration is determined to go out with a bang. Currently, one report says Bush has decided against the war with Iran, but with US troops patrolling the border and Israel itching to send in bombers, anything could turn the area into a mess.

I recently posted the following to one group:

“Many countries have what is called "threshold nuclear weapons capability".
That is, they have the ability to enrich uranium to the degree necessary for
use in power reactors, just like Canada, Brazil, Germany and Australia
(there are forty such countries). Each of these countries could, if they
wished, "ramp up" the enrichment process to build a bomb. As I understand
it, civil (industrial) use only needs about 20% or less pure, weapons need
90% plus pure. Under the Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty, countries who do this then allow IAEA inspectors in to make sure that only the lower grade is being produced. Under the treaty, any country may opt out on three month's notice and proceed with a bomb.

As with Iraq, the USA demanded vigorous inspection by the IAEA. They found no evidence of weapons building of treaty violation. That was confirmed as recently as February of this year.

Contrast that with current statements of Bush and Cheney.

Now, "Iran wants to exterminate Jews in Israel".

Not quite true. The statement was made in Pharisee in October 05. What was
actually said as translated was that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must
vanish from the pages of history". Many regimes have done so - the regime
in Moscow, East Berlin and many others. Indeed, the speech refers to these,
as well as the regime of Saddam Hussein. It does to mean the people are
eliminated, but that the regime is stopped. He was proposing the "one state
solution" to the Israel/Palestine conflicts - a vote by everyone in the
former Palestine.

Bush and his confederates have distorted this to the "elimination of Jews".

This is sounding more and more like the pre-Iraq distortions. As a lame
duck, Bush can go quietly or roll the dice hoping for a biggie prior to 08.
If his past is any way to predict his future, the dice throw seems very
possible.”

And SALON had the following article in today’s edition:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/24/ahmadinejad/print.html

This is indeed scary stuff. The war drums in the media are beating as loudly as they did prior to Iraq, and with the same type of lies being advances as a reason for “pre-emptive attack”. Iran would retain the ability to sink tankers in the Gulf and thus oil prices would skyrocket. Oh eyes, the latest word is to expect an “October roll out” for the new product. War, that is…

Somewhere, I forget where, the oil deal mentioned in the SALON article had another item. A pipeline from Iran to China, certainly not what the Americans wish to see.

To me, the war in Iraq was a “perfect storm” type of scenario. A naïve U.S. president with no foreign affairs experience, bad advisors with an agenda that had not been accepted, a desire for revenge (the assassination attempt) and glory (war president), and, of course, oil. Not to bring the oil into the USA, for Canada supplies most of that, but to control it, especially with China. By 2040, barring unforeseen problems, China will be a superpower, India shortly after that. The USA now has a military technology agreement with India, but China? Not forgetting the stated desire of the neo-cons to retain American status as the sole superpower as long as possible, China also owns most of the US debt. Hmmmm…

It bothers me – it really bothers me – that the United States is once again moving towards a war not for its own interests, but for those of Israel. As has been commented on by many, the neo-cons have two factions. One of those is very pro-Israel and is, not surprisingly, mostly if not exclusively Jewish. No, this is not an anti-Semitic statement; it is simply the truth. Pearl, Wolfowitz, Firth and many more are Lukid party supporters in Israeli politics. The list of these is a long one. They offer advice to Israel often yet occupied major policy chairs in the USA. As Dyer has written, it is possible that when Americans find themselves in yet another war, they might be very upset to find that it is waged not in the interests of the United States, which has a large “stay-at-home” minded population, but on behalf of Israel. If indeed Iran does or is on the cusp of having a bomb, such a bomb would not be intended to be used against the USA but might be used against (or more correctly, to counter the threat of) the 200 or so nuclear weapons of Israel.

Another thought as a result of today’s news. The Americans, especially the reporter on “60 Minutes” last night, are very upset that Iran is providing weapons to the anti-American types in Iraq. Mad enough to go to war, it seems. Now, in the many, many years of the Cold War and continuing today, how many countries has the United States armed? In particular, how many countries pick up their planes, tanks and very sophisticated weapons from the USA? In days past, both the former USSR and the USA armed many countries and insurgents. This is unhappily part of life, and the USA is the biggest arms broker in the world. It recently announced massive sales to both Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel, who recently invaded and destroyed Lebanon; Saudi Arabia, a religious monarchy with no democratic leanings. And the US is mad at Iran for possibly providing some weapons to Shiite militia? Sorry, but if that is Bush’s reason for war, or even one of them, it speaks of the weakness of the American reasons for a war against Iran. Another false front, as we saw so recently in Iraq.

The drums, the same drums we heard four years ago, are beating. I hope they do no more that sound. It is not only Americans who will suffer as a result of the drums, but the whole world.

Northern Meandering

Every one or two months, Sonia and I - or myself alone – head down south to Kelowna.

For those not familiar with British Columbia geography, Kelowna is a city located on Okanagan Lake. The lake itself is over 100 miles long, running roughly north and south towards the southern part of B.C. It is dotted with towns, large and small. At the top of the lake is Vernon, then Oyama (named in honour of a Japanese admiral), Lakeside and Kelowna. To the south lie Westbank, Summerland, and Penticton. I have omitted a few. This is a desert made into an orchard by irrigation, and more recently into vineyards for wine making. The wines, especially the ice wine have made the Okanagan Valley famous.

Back in the fifties, when I first went to Kelowna, it was a sleepy little railway and agricultural town. No more. The population has boomed, with recreation year round from boating and swimming in the summer to skiing in the winter. As orchards gave way to wineries, all of the Okanagan towns started to attract retired types from all over Canada. Gated communities now dot the landscape as well as an ever-increasing number of high rise towers. Many have relocated from Vancouver, driving house prices up and up to that equal of Vancouver.

Quite a change from Prince George, where we now call home.

There are two main routes to travel and we tend to vary them. One way is south along the Caribou Trail (the old gold rush trail) which follows the Fraser River. For us, that means heading south to Quesnel, Williams Lake, 100 Mile House and finally Cashe Creek. A turn east takes you into Kamloops.

Heading east from Prince George, one goes for miles and miles with nothing but treed hills and mountains as far as the eye can see. Eventually, you get to McBride where one joins the Yellowhead Highway and follows it south along the Thompson River to Valemont, Clearwater and other small communities into Kamloops. The Fraser and Thompson join at Kamloops then heading south to Vancouver.

This trip, we headed east, enjoying cruise control as the road meandered with slow sleepy turns across the northern forests. No towns along this route, no gas stations or much of anything but trees. You travel for miles until reaching McBride, where the valley broadens out for farming and ranching. A short distance further east and you catch the Thompson and turn south. Unlike the muddy brown Fraser, the Thompson is a wonderful blue-green and it meanders along green valleys surrounded first by trees, then as you go further south, by desert, parched and dry yellow hills and sandstone. By the time you reach Kamloops, you are in ranching and rattlesnake country.

Kamloops has one favourite stop for us. At a Second Glance bookstore is located downtown but with easy parking. Not too large, it is crowded with mostly pocketbooks but it does have a fair selection of hardcovers at “reasonable” prices – not many bargains, but a good place to complete any writer in softcover. They have already provided me with all the Travis McGee books and now, the titles I needed for Jane Haddam. Anyone wanting a complete collection of Robert B. Parker in softcover could probably find all here, stashed away in boxes in the back.

Having left early – around 7:30 AM – we were in Kamloops by 2:00 PM so had lots of time to browse and still head along the way to Kelowna. Again there are choices. We selected the “scenic” route east almost to Salmon Arm on the Sushwap Lakes and then south over the hills to Vernon via Falkland. Falkland’s one (and perhaps only claim to fame is that Buddy Rich (“Come Along and Be My Party Doll”), the early rocker, settled here on a ranch after his brief fame. He died a year or so ago)

Vernon is at the northern tip of both Okanagan Lake and Kalamalka Lake. The two lakes are seperated by a ridge of hills and the townsite. The highway south takes you above Kalamalka – the “lake of many colours”. It is always beautiful, going from deep green to deep blue and all shades in-between. Oyama lies at its southern tip, and at the northern head of yet another lake. You soon get caught up in the new commercialization. Endless strip malls, car dealers and big box stores start here and continue all the way through Kelowna. While Kelowna is blessed by geography in the main, the negative is that all through traffic – and most commuter traffic as well - must go via the highway and bridge. Traffic snarls of two hours or more are not unusual. This after 800+ kilometers of driving

Having been a long-term visitor to Kelowna, I always stay at the same motel. While it has changed hands the staff have largely remained – for the day staff. Evenings are a different matter, and we arrived in the evening. Oh well, not all can go well. It seems that to rent a room following the new rules, one must either pay by credit card or, if paying by cash have sufficient room on your credit card for the full “deposit” of around $300. My credit cards rarely have that much free room unless I plan ahead. So we ended up not staying at our normal motel the first night, a problem rectified by the day staff the next morning. My goodness! It seems that one cannot travel anymore at all. Either that or you are restricted to the really skuzzy motels that neither demand a deposit nor clean up the rooms too often. The next trip, my funds go on my card. Cash, it seems, is dead.

All’s well that ends well. We moved the next morning and Sonia had her chance to swim in the pool during the afternoon.

And I have my medical appointments…

Next morning, it was another medical and then on the road again, this time a new route. We went west, up the Okanagan Connector to Merritt. Merritt is the home of the annual Mountain Music Festival, the downtown complete with paved stars for C&W performers who have appeared at the event. Then, instead of turning north to Logan Lake, we went west on Highway 8 to Spense’s Bridge and the Trans Canada Highway.

Highway 8 is a delight. It follows the Nicola River and is the perfect road for a sports car. I wish I was back in my little MGB, but the Caravan would do. So we twisted round corners, up high over the river then dropping down, around a few bends and more corners, and started all over again climbing the side of the hills. Sonia hung on and kept quiet. I was having great fun! There is not much on the road and scenery limited to a few lush and small valleys amongst the desert hilltops. Rock falls of sandstone and, closer to Spense’s Bridge, hoodoos of strange and out-of-this- world appearance. After an hour or so of total enjoyment (for me, the driver) we came into Spense’s Bridge by the railway, a strange assortment of old houses and buildings that once may have had a purpose.

Now north, on the Trans Canada to Ashcroft and Cashe Creek. Bleak country, round hills and jagged rock outcroppings. Hot, dry and looking like a western movie. Behind some of those hills is a giant landfill for Vancouver garbage.

We stopped in Cashe Creek for an ice cream. I needed a pick-me-up after the drive and we knew we simply had to get home that night. Ahead lay the Caribou Trail, the way to the Barkerville Gold Rush of 1858.

The stagecoach started off at Chase, a town just a few miles up the way. “Historic”, they call this place. I suppose it is but the antique stores were more junque. Billboards show the stages leaving and arriving – we simply passed through, knowing our next stop would be in one hundred miles, at One Hundred Mile House. Along the way, Eighty Mile, Ninety Mile – they seemed to run out of good names when the Rush was on. Still, the countryside was wonderful, treed pastures and old log cabins and barns. The Fraser just off to the left.

The Caribou is a very pretty area. Unlike the never-ending evergreens of Prince George, trees are mixed with small pastures and grazing horses. Occasionally, a small lake comes along, a creek or river.

Williams Lake is a nice town, with a charming downtown that curves along the top of the lake. Next stop, Quennel. It is the gateway to Barkerville and the gold rush of 1858. Barkerville and the charming stage stop, Cottonwood, lie to the east a few miles. While Quennel has a nice riverfront and parkland, the town is studded with pulp mills within the town limits.

The further north you go, the broader the valley, the more distant the hills. By the time you get close to Prince George, you are in flat farmlands, bordered by hills to be sure. You pass the “international” airport on the way in, then over the Fraser to the standard stretch of motels, strip malls and shopping centres. Of all the towns, Prince George is the biggest in the north, about 75,000. It has major depots for industrial supplies, logging, mining and farming equipment. And more pulp mills, this time a short distance out of town to the north.

Prince George is in the middle of nowhere. To the south, Vancouver is a ten to twelve hour drive. East is Edmonton, a bit closer; southeast is Calgary, almost the same distance. Westward is the Pacific and Prince Rupert – a longer trip. The last attempt we made was stopped due to a mudslide. To the north, Dawson Creek and Fort St. James and Fort Nelson. Nothing is close by.

Yet historically, the northern part of British Columbia was the first to have European visitors. Prince George was founded by Simon Fraser in 1780 or so after Alexander McKenzie had passed by a few years before. Then called “Fort George”, after George III, it slumbered as a fur trading post until the 1920s. It was part of New Caledonia, now northern British Columbia with the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Fort St. James. We have been to Fort St. James, past Vanderhoff to the west and on the way to Prince Rupert. It is now a small village on the shores of Stewart Lake.

Paddlewheelers used to ply the waters of the Fraser from Quennel north past Fort George to the headwaters. With the land rush of the early century, South Fort George was south of the old Hudson’s Bay trading post, Central Fort George to the northwest. Haggling over where the railway station should go led to the purchase of the Native Reserve by the railway and the establishment of Prince George between the two. The arrival of the railway during World War One made the towns grow and eventually merge. (One result is a totally crazy pattern of streets in the older parts of town).

South Fort George, on the river, was home to bars and brothels; Central Fort George the establishment types. The Natives on the Reserve complained of drunks walking home to Central from South, one reason why they were happy to sell out.

Alice Dreger, Mike Bailey and Me

For the past five years - five years! - I have been embroiled in an academic feud. It has been one of the nastiest, dirtiest and ugliest wars I have ever witnessed, short of those actually fought with bombs and guns.



Recently, another academic write a "history" of this war, setting out the horrible tactics used by a group of three "politically correct" types. A brief outline is from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/health/psychology/21gender.html?ei=5070&en=c422d8ed38d5dcb2&ex=1189569600&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1189447254-8i1nceAu9Ty+KsQT2rlYyA

Alice Dreger's epic paper on the war is found here:
http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf

After being attacked with "yellow journalism" tactics similar to those of McCarthy, I wrote an article back in 2004 concerning this war. That article was printed in "Transgender Tapestry" by then editor Dallas Denny. It may be coincidence, but that was the last edition that Dallas edited. The next edition with a new editor published several attacks on me. My article may be found at:
http://www.ifge.org/Article298.phtml and
http://www.autogynephilia.org/I%20AM%20ARUNE.htm

After years of watching professionals being attacked by rabid politically correct "activists" it is a relief to have media focused on the foul means used to stifle expression of opinion. My own article details the methods used against me for merely supporting a theory. One of these "activists" uses an interesting technique. Andrea James, or someone action on her behest, writes an accusation to an e-group or newsgroup under an assumed name. The accusation is then picked up and broadcast over the Net as "truth" and spread as widely as possible. In my case, the accusation was that I was a "registered sex offender". Not true. But once posted on a newsgroup, that accusation took on a life. Andrea James then coyly reprinted it on her web pages and spread it to the four corners of the planet. Others - the "cohort" or herd - repeated it endlessly. I know of at least three times that the same tactic was used. Alice Dreger points out other similar tactics used against Dr. Bailey by James, McClosky and Conway.

Ugly. No other word comes even close.

Alice Dreger’s analysis of the “Great Transsexual War” (commenced with the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s “The Man Who Would be Queen” in 2003) has generated the anticipated reaction from some transsexual advocates and their followers. Wherever they gather on the Internet, Dreger has now been added to a long list of professionals and others who may be attacked at will.

Reason, that great capability mankind has to sort out issues, seems to be absent. Instead, raw emotion pours out from those who attacked Bailey in the past and now focus on Dr. Dreger.

Perhaps no one of these screeds is more illuminating than that posted by a former lawyer and current grad student, Katerina Rose from Texas. In the past, Rose has “reviewed” Bailey’s book. Her review (in “Transgender ‘Tapestry’”) ended on this note:

“The Man Who Would Be Queen is a quintessential example of the kind of disingenuous, misrepresenting, anti-scientific, life-threatening atrocity that can be perpetrated by someone with balls.”

One might conclude she did not like it.

Her current screed on Bailey starts out by a statement of her neutrality: “I have no personal connection to the controversy….” This conveniently overlooks her review (which is later quoted). Page Two leads her to arrive at a conclusion. “…There’s a bad smell in the air – the smell of the fix being in”. Remember, this is a supposedly neutral paper. Immediate after comes the comment that “we” must defend ourselves, for if we do not no one else will. The peril is Bailey’s book and the ideas it contains.

So much for neutrality.

Following that, a page or two which may be summarized as “You can judge a book by its cover” followed by “Our ends justify any means”, both rather strange positions for a lawyer, now a student of history, to take. Rose rehashes her objections to the theory as if this were the issue that prompted the NY Times, the National Post in Canada and other media to focus on this issue.

That is not the issue. Some may wish it was and many will try to make it the issue now, but it is clearly not.

Matters of religion and politics are barred from some tables. In our new age, we might include sexual orientation and gender identity. All of these are products, in one way or another, of how we think at our core. We use our religious and political “glasses” to view the world as we also do with sexual orientation and gender identity yet none have a litmus test for science to use. No lab results will conclude that a person was Christian or Muslim, liberal or conservative, gay or straight, or considered their brain to be male or female. Each of these is critical to our “core identity” yet are all products of the mind. Those products cannot be distilled down to a chemical test. Rather, they are expressed as ideas as we speak or write. So important is each of them that many have and will die in defense of their ideas or because of them. For these issues, mankind has reserved special horrors. Torture as in the Inquisition, religious wars, hot and cold wars, and hate crimes. We alone of all the species on this earth have the ability to create these divisions amongst us and the need to fight between ourselves as a result.

As it concerns Dreger’s article, this premise is seen as a motivation for the ugliness of the attacks both on her paper and on her personally.

A reading of the negative comments that now attack Dreger shows a strong need to shift the paradigm from the issues she writes about back to the topics of Bailey’s book or, more recently, Dreger's own work with the Intersexed. The article by Rose is typical. She almost totally ignores what Dreger presents as the issue and instead tries so hard to drag her readers back to the matter raised in Bailey’s book. The antics of Conway, James and McClosky are totally ignored. What she is doing is clear. “Hey! Look over here! This book was so very bad - “disingenuous, misrepresenting, anti-scientific, life-threatening atrocity” - that we will not even mention the tactics used to attack it”. In fact, not only was the book none of these things, her attempt to change the issues is lame and false. She, in common with her allies, is really saying, "Don’t look at what we have done. We saw a greater good. Our good justifies all the means we used to attain it”.

If that greater good was universal, perhaps that position, bad as it is, might hold merit. But others, many others, have found the book to be insightful and informative, as a search of comments on Amazon on Bailey's book clearly shows. Rather, there are many “good ends” that all could justify any means. Amongst nations, we see war as a result. Emotion and not reason (perhaps with motives not yet discovered) govern in such a case.

If one now reads almost all of the posts that attack Dreger one quickly finds that they all share this approach. Rose is not alone – she is simply the best of those targeting Dreger. Dr. Conway, the Lord of these Flies, remains mute; Dr. McClosky demands the right to censor before answering questions and refuses to look at the tactics used by his two co-leaders saying only – and carefully – that “I did nothing wrong”, clearly leaving the blame to James and Conway and all that followed. Need we say that none of these three remained mute when they filed charges against Bailey and made his life hell.

The issue is not Bailey’s book, Blanchard’s theory, or anything else from Nazism to conspiracies. Not now. The issue is the smear tactics and false charges made by Andrea James, Lynn Conway and Deirdre McClosky. They made these slanderous comments not simply against Bailey, but against any person, transsexual or not, who either supported the premises in Bailey’s book or his right to speak and publish. They promoted others to attack as well and a great many transsexuals did indeed do so. They all behaved like spoilt children, politically correct zealots who demanded total acceptance of their idea while repressing other concepts in a malicious and evil manner – by lies, half-truths and slander repeated endlessly.

Certainly the over-the-hill response in this instance demands some consideration. Might it not point to the lack of self-confidence and esteem of those who so relentlessly attacked? A person secure in their own concepts of self does not have the need to vilify and disparage other ideas in this manner. To me, if me alone, this speaks more of a deep insecurity of the inner being of such people. As a transsexual woman, I have no need to reinforce my being by attacking those who might express ideas about the reasons for gender identity issues. I am not threatened (as the mob here so clearly felt itself to be) by alternative ideas.

Conway and McClosky are both professors, retired to be sure. They especially should have known better. Andrea James, the transgender advocate and consultant, has made a business out of being transsexual, selling trinkets and self-published books and tapes from her web site to the unwary. One can only hope that this has been her moment of fame.

Those who followed the threesome worked into a mob-like frenzy by mythical monsters and threats to their being and not excused. As with any mob, one can only hold the leaders accountable. The allies of the threesome – and there were many – were simply mindless drones manipulated to do as mobs do. One always hopes that they have learnt a lesson. Mayhaps so. Some will go to their graves convinced of the nobility of their cause and see their ugly tactics as “necessary means”. Others might reflect that the next time they might even read the book or article condemned before denouncing it and attacking others.

One is drawn to the images at the close of several old Western movies. The sheriff and a few trusty helpers have defended against a mob. The three ringleaders have been shown to be false and misguided. The mob shuffles its feet, heads down, recognising that they have been led astray and sheepishly regretting what they have done. A few still want to or need to believe even when shame and shame alone would put that thought from their heads.

Sheriff Dreger has done her task well.

Religion, politics, gender identity and sexual orientation. Not topics for the dinner table…