June 25, 2006: Bud Talkinghorn

Welcome to Communist Martyrs U

John Fraser, the Master of Massey College, has written a brilliant critique of the political correctness that infects our universities. He uses the disgraceful Margaret Somerville episode at Ryerson as an example. "A university convocation...turned into something of a conclave of the elders of Salem during a witch-hunting season." He shows how the university faculties have retreated, academically, from defending ideas that offend the socialist orthodoxies of the few. If the left cannot give proof of an infraction of racial, gender or other pinkish sacred cows, they employ the broadsword term of "systemic". Even your logical arguments can be defeated by chanting this mantra.

Of course, their illogical stances would mean nothing in the real world if these ideas didn't percolate down from these "toxic towers". They should be relegated to what Henry Kissinger called "the debilitating controversies on campuses..caused because the stakes are so small." However, they have influenced our media because the reporters and editors are a product of this reductive line of thinking. The "neo-colonialist", "systemic racism" line is the mainstay of the CBC and other left-leaning outlets. If you took the anti-Americanism and mockery of the conservatives out of their comedy programs they would probably cease to exist. As Fraser says at the end of his article about the idiocy of so much of university thought, "It is getting increasingly difficult to write good satire."

© Bud Talkinghorn



Muslim countries and the West--How deep is the divide?

A "World Brief" sidebar in The Globe and Mail (June. 23, 06 A-12) shows what the West is up against. A Pew Global Attitudes Project for 2006 found that Muslims and Westerners view each other as being violent and disrespectful to women. 14 thousand people in 13 countries were interviewed. What amazed the interviewers was that a majority of Muslims in the so-called friendly Islamic states of Eygpt, Jordan, Turkey and Indonesia didn't believe that Arabs committed Sept. 11. Presumably, they believe that it was either the Americans themselves or that old devil, Mossad. The report concluded that "Muslims in the Middle East and Asia depicted Westerners as immoral and selfish, while Westerners saw Muslims as fanatical".

Middle Easterners seem to live in some alternate universe, where logic and plain commonsense do not exist. Even after it was conclusively proven that al-Qaeda was the instigator--Bin Laden openly admitted it--I've had a Muslim acquaintance refuse to believe it. Her denial was echoed by 8 of 10 Canadian imams interviewed. I presume that they also refuse to accept Beslan as well. Surely, it was a Russian operation to discredit peaceful Islam. This disconnect between the West and Islam is quite scary in its implications. If supposedly moderate Muslim countries buy into these fantasies, what do the real fundamentalist countries, like Saudi Arabia and Yemen, believe?

The root problem here is not an identity search by Muslims in the modern world; rather it is search for the weapons to destroy any identity different from their medieval vision of a pure Islamic identity. Beneath all this talk of peaceful Islam is the historical reality. Islam spread out of the Arabian penisula by the sword. Convert or die was the battle cry. We Christians (even nominal ones who identiry as Christians) know all about this type of religious persuasion, as centuries ago we practiced the same methods. Now we face an enemy with worldwide support and billions in financial aid, who want to bring back that dark time in our collective histories.

© Bud Talkinghorn--I guess if we threw our women into burqas, subjected ourselves to retrograde sharia laws, and stopped flying kites, we would be shown respect. A deep chasm separates us, indeed.



The Supreme's "rock'm, sock'm" decision

I no sooner get through writing about one absurd ruling by The Supreme Court than CBC announces another of their decisions. This one involves some little psychopath (14 years old) who beat an Iraqi immigrant to death with a 8 ball in a sock. Apparently for no discernible reason, except he was looking at the kids female friends. The appeal of the ONE DAY sentence for his crime made it to the Supreme Court. The court decided that this insane sentence was indeed appropriate.

Advice: Don't give yo'r paper boy no lip, ya heah?

© Bud Talkinghorn



I saw the boys of journalism in their ruin

Anderson Cooper was supposed to be the next Dan Rather. Here was a man who could get behind the smokescreen of politics, Time Magazine told us. Well, last night his big coup was getting an interview with Angelina Jolie on her view of the refugee problem. Tonight CNN is heralding his interview with Cher on Iraq. So enlightening was Jolie's insights that CNN reprised the interview. Tomorrow, we will surely have that authority on nuclear disarmament, Tom Cruise. This will be a follow-up to Larry King, interviewing the teacher who seduced her 13 year old student. Yes, "the station that brings you the world's news" has also been seduced by a mindless culture of celebrity television. I may have to go back to the CBC news; it's that bad.

© Bud Talkinghorn