Can You Own a Colour?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indigenous-leaders-condemn-misappropriation-of-orange-shirt-day-by-protest-convoy-1.6349344

Yes, you can own a colour, if you live in Wokeville. "Orange" is taken. So keep away from it if you don't want to be charged with "misappropriation". It has been pre-appropriated for T-shirts commemorating Canada's residential school students. Of course, it's been taken many times before, throughout history.

This time however, oranges will no longer be sold in BC grocery stores. (That would be micro-aggression, explain produce managers.) Carrots, yams, and peppers of orange hue are similarly banned. "We take the responsibility of reconciliation seriously," shop-keepers assure customers, who are seen confusedly wandering the aisles in search of tomato sauce. 

And of course pink too has been seized. The anti-bullying cause owns pink.

Customers whose Covid masks are orange or pink are asked to leave the stores, being mis-appropriators. Some merely remove them and continue shopping. Security guards cluster in corners frantically whispering on cell phones: what to do? Which group to banish first -- the Covid-deniers, or the Wrong-Veg-eaters? 

Meanwhile, garden nurseries are hastily removing orange pyrocanthus, geraniums and red-hot-pokers from their shelves before any more get planted. White, blue, yellow and green are also taken for various causes. So let your lawn go brown. (But wait, no ... brown ..?) 

Zoom meetings are held across the land to debate the best way of "going forward" with correct ally-ship, and anyone with a spot of orange on an overlooked towel or curtain visible in the background of their Zoom screen is attacked on social media. A new branch of the Apology Olympics has begun. Competitive apologizers apologizing for protesting about the wrong things in wrong hues are being prodded into line by those now otherwise useless red-hot poker plants -- 

As for owning a colour though, orange had in fact been taken centuries ago, by Holland. They got it from France. Then they shared it with protestant Ireland. There have been Orange Revolutions everywhere in history, even Ontario (remember the Orange Wave?) What's with that colour? Must be that to the human eye orange is the brightest wave-length in the light spectrum. But after all that history it certainly doesn't seem like something to get into a possessive snit about now, just because it's in someone else's convoy.  

 

Non-privileged Non-elite Who Made the Country of Canada

The folks who built Canada -- that amalgam of climatic regions within one parliamentary democracy, having the second largest landmass in the world and the longest coastline (on three oceans), inhabited by over 250 ancestral groups -- were not who many think they were.

They were not privileged and elitist "colonials" but often obscure, non-wealthy, and uncelebrated men and women of variegated cultural backgrounds. Even when they emerged from the obscurity they started with into positions of fame (and recently, of blame and denigration), they often remained non-wealthy.

Like who, you ask? Take David Thompson (1770-1857) who fled England as an impoverished street urchin and crossed the Atlantic to work in a freezing northern Manitoba Hudson Bay post, and turned out to be a cartographic genius. He surveyed and mapped, for the first time ever, an astounding 3.9 square km of the North American continent, travelling over mountain ranges and through bush by canoe and snowshoe with aboriginal assistants he met and befriended.

Thompson's maps are still in use, and his achievements, accomplished without modern transport or comforts, are astonishing, although that doesn't stop them being brushed off as "colonialist" by current history pundits ("pundit" being a Hindu world for "learned person"). The officially learned persons of BC (where the Thompson River was named after David Thompson by explorer Simon Fraser) have learned ideological correctness. Thompson, beginning as an impoverished orphan in London, ended his life as an impoverished senior in Montreal, in 1857. His material and reputational rewards were few; nevertheless his unique role in Canada's history is unalterable.

James Douglas too began life on the low rungs of Hudson Bay employment, without personal wealth behind him, and through sheer ability, strategy and energy became a government appointee, lawmaker, landowner, road-builder and Governor of Vancouver Island and then BC. He established Fort Victoria and later, the first elected assembly of Vancouver Island (which was elected as was customary at the time, from among landowners only).

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had a similar life trajectory: going to work as a school-leaving teenager, becoming apprenticed to a law firm, becoming a lawyer and in time entering politics, blending warring political factions and regions into one nation through sheer force of character and allegiance-building, and steering a nation-spanning railroad through the thickets of party- and commercial politics.

And the pre-existing "privilege" of these self-impelled nation-builders was …? 

They weren't the only type who built BC and Canada. Do many people know who Sister Mary Providence was? She travelled to Fort Victoria from Quebec in 1858  to become superintendent of the first school, set up by the order of the Sisters of St. Ann. She was 22 years old. (Many current citizens still haven't "aged-out" of youth-care housing at age 22.) Hardly a member of a rich elite, she was a youthful ascetic dropped into a rugged pioneer environment. 

Mary Spencer was another teacher of humble background, who arrived in BC from Ontario in 1898 and then became a professional photographer (then a very new profession) in Kamloops and Vancouver, before becoming, with her sister, a fruit farmer in the Okanagan. Of the same ilk was hardworking boarding-house owner and sometime gold-miner Nellie Cashman, an Irish-American immigrant who famously in 1874 led a rescue team of men mid-winter to save miners snowed under by a blizzard in the wilds of northern BC. 

These are but a few of the often-anonymous professionals, politicians, surveyors, engineers, educators, farmers, shopkeepers and ad-hoc social workers (anonymous women who adopted orphans and fed the poor) who built the two colonies that became the Province of BC. They didn't bring their energy and abilities to Canada thinking "let's go across the ocean in risky boats to find some people to oppress on the other side of the world". Today, over 150 years after the nation of Canada was formed, they are being quite mean-spiritedly denied the recognition conveyed through landmarks named after them. Signs bearing colonial names are being removed, but as George Orwell and others have pointed out, we can cloud the memory of history, but we can't erase history. 

These figures were indeed an "elite", a word of French derivation which simply means "chosen". They were chosen by fate and the circumstances to which they so staunchly rose. It's interesting how our latest pundits wish to knock them down again, along with the signposts of streets named after them -- but to what end? 

It will also be interesting to see how the next elite is chosen.

(Note: this article was rejected by a Canadian History conference "due to subject matter considerations". What do YOU think of the subject? )

Playing With Censorship

 

Playing With Censorship

S. B. Julian

Cast: Board members of a community theatre:

President, Artistic Director, Publicist, Producer, plus an Assistant who comes and goes.

President:    As President of the Readers Theatre Board I'd like to welcome everyone to this meeting to select our Play Series. We'll choose three that will appeal to tourists and locals alike. Let's start with our new Artistic Director. (turns to her) What do you suggest?

Artistic Director:  (excitedly) I've prepared a list of 20 plays, but my absolute favourite would be Grease. With music, of course.

Pres.  Comments?  (Looks at the others. They pause to think.)

Publicist:     (has a camera around her neck.) I can tell you right now as your publicist, that Grease won't do. It would harm our donations, because it's been banned in the past for "drinking, smoking and a couple kissing onstage”. We'd have the CRD Health Officer shutting us down for breaking the smoking bylaw – even if not actually smoking. 

Producer:    How about something more artsy then, something like Picasso at the Lapin Agile?

Publicist:     (gasps) Even more kissing! And drinking. It has (quotes, reading stagily from a note) “people drinking in bars, and treating women as sex objects”.

A.D.: (dryly) Then how about The Vagina Monologues, where women objectify their own body parts?

Pres.: No. That's a non-starter, it's now accused of “offending transgender audience members”.

A.D.: Lysistrata, then? That's feminist enough for every new-fangled trans version of female you could dream up, isn't it?

Prod: No, that won't fly either, it's been considered "bawdy and indecent”. How about something more comic, like Calendar Girls?

Pub:  That's been cancelled elsewhere because of its “implication of nudity.”

A.D.  “Implication of”? Is that the same as actual nudity? Would our readers be nude?

Pub:  It could be the same. (S/he raises the camera which hangs around her neck) The posters used in Avenue Q were taken down due to “visible puppet cleavage”. You never know when nudity's going to scare the horses.

A.D.: But nude puppets ...?  Honestly, I give up!

Prod: You can't. You're the Artistic Director.

Pres:  Let's select an old-fashioned musical then. How offensive can that be? How about The King and I?

Prod: Huh! You're way out of date. It includes a “racist portrayal of Thai people”.

Pres:  Oh. Thoroughly Modern Millie?

Prod: Nope. Thoroughly un-modern – it’s a “racist portrayal of Chinese people”.

Pres:  Peter Pan?

Prod: Offensive to native Americans.

Pres:  West Side Story?

Prod: Stereotyping of Puerto Ricans.

Pres:  Ragtime?

Prod: Uses the N-word.  (The group falls silent)

Pres: Well what CAN we put on then?

A.D.  How about a classic like Angels In America?

Pub:  (shuddering) God no, we'd totally lose our funding, it's been condemned for “homosexual vulgarity”.

A.D.: Well can't gay people fund a revival then?

Pub.: (shrugs) They could, but would they want to? It's old-hat now.

A.D.  How about something “god-yes” then? Maybe Jesus Christ Superstar? Life of Brian? Mohammed Gets A Boner? 

Pres:  Don't even SAY that!

A.D.: What? Jesus Christ?

Prod: Let's be serious. Let's look at the old stand-bys. How about Blithe Spirit?

Pub:  Sorry to tell you, but it's been banned for “encouraging exploration of witchcraft and the occult”.

Pres.: I guess there's always Shakespeare.

Publ: As long as it's not Othello, given recent social-media BLM sensitivities ...

Prod.: Yeah. So forget Aladdin too ...

Publ: And certainly not The Merchant of Venice.

Pres.: Twelfth Night?

Pub.: Nope. Someone accused it of “alternative lifestyle instruction". Because of the cross-dressing, you know.

A.D.: I thought theatre was alternative lifestyle instruction ...               

(A knock on the door. Assistant enters -- man in a wide flowery hat,)                                         

Ass't.:  Can I bring anyone a coffee? I'll "set the stoups upon the table" shall I? Don't worry, the cups won't be poisoned. I may be two-spirited, but not two-faced.

Pres.:  Uh, fine . . . thanks. A coffee would be nice. I'll have a latte please.

Prod: Make mine black.

Assistant: Okay -- one milk and one African-American. Coming up. (He leaves)

Prod.: Now, where were we? (pause) Maybe it's best to stick to political plays then.

Pres:  As long as they're not anti-Israel.

Publ.: Or pro-Israel.

Prod. Anti-U.S. is always fair game.

Pres.: Or anti-Nazi. How about Cabaret? There's a well-loved old stand-by.

Pub.: Except it's been censored in the past for “onstage indecency, immodesty, immorality, and homosexual behaviour”.

Pres.: But that's why it's well-loved!

Pub.: Not now, in these ideological times. Life's no longer a cabaret, Old Chum

A.D.: (shakes her head sadly) Although we're still well-advised to “put down the book”, since words are as dangerous as dynamite. (The others look puzzled. She starts singing) “... put down the knitting, the book and the broom, come to the cabaret ...”  (pauses)  Oh never mind ...

Knock on the door. Assistant re-enters.

Assistant: I've got the newspaper on the phone, they still haven't got your play titles for the Summer Season. They want to know what they'll be. Oh -- and they also add that you lot couldn't even run a dog-and-pony-show.

Pub:  Tell them the titles are classified. Top secret censored ... hahaha ... (Assistant exits)

Pres.: So what are we going to do? What CAN we put on? 

Prod: (gloomily)  How about a dog-and-pony-show?

A.D.: (also gloomily)  How about commissioning something brand new? It could take place in a Trappist Monastery with a rule of silence. No one will say a word. No dialogue, no sex, no skin, no smoking, politics, stereotyping or witchcraft. 

Pres.: Good idea! The cast will consist of three monkeys. For two hours the audience will watch this:

(President puts his hands over his eyes, Producer puts hands over his ears, then Artistic Director puts hands over her mouth. PAUSE.  The publicist jumps up and aims her camera at them.)

Publicist:  Perfect! Hold that pose right there! (She takes a photo)    

  

                   

Change-of-Name Law Looming?

Forced Change of Names: First they came for the street names, and then they came for the surnames ...  

Apparently some folks with anti-European leanings consider BC's street names "colonialist", which for some reason to them means "unsafe". (History is dangerous, it seems, so they demand CHANGE. Street signs, addresses, maps … all must be changed, at vast public and private expense. Safety-ism First!

How soon before everyone who shares surnames with certain historical figures will be forced to change them? (New Government Directive produces Discredited Surname List …  If your name is on it you must change it in the name of equity, inclusion and diversity. Plus job prospects, university admission and access to food and housing.)

If you share a surname such as as Macdonald, Cook, Holmes, Pemberton, Dean, Robson, Seymour, Dunsmuir, McNeill, Helmcken, Blanshard, Wallace, Wark, Trutch -- and many others -- you will need to legally change yours, and will then be issued a Non-Colonial-Name Passport, which will allow you to travel, receive services, and possess personal stationery.

Please be advised that Canada Post has committed to a new standard of non-delivery of mail to "triggering" addressees.

The Government will begin this name-laundering reform with public education, but if propagandistic coercion fails to work, fines and social ostracism may be considered.

Some colonial-era explorers' street names will survive (such as Quadra, San Juan, and Gonzales) as they were named for "brown people". Some Anglo-citizens have responded with a nascent #mynametoo movement on Twitter.

Investors' tip: cancelled street signs will one day become valuable collectors' items, like once-censored books are today. Above is one such sign, for a Mr. McKenzie who was the manager of early Vancouver Island's colonial Craigflower Farm (another shady Scot then ...). 

Some obstreperous free-thinker citizens are not reconciled to this name-banning:

In an act of reconciliation, Victoria's Trutch Street gets a new name - Victoria Times Colonist

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-s-trutch-street-lekwungen-truth-1.6351665

Vancouver mayor looks to change street named after colonial B.C. politician Sir Joseph Trutch - BC | Globalnews.ca

Outing your rage -- Please put it back in the closet

Everyone seems to be raging: about race-resentment, gender-confusion, neuro-variance (which looks a lot like neuro-sameness), marginalization, and more. 

Are you among the outraged, or are you the rage-fatigued? Do you need a holiday from opinion, both others' and your own?

Outrage leads to cancel-culture, as moralistic and totalitarian as any Victorian rules, and today's "influencers" are as censorious as Victorians against non-compliance with their ideology.

The Victorian Age actually had an energetic sub-society of transgressors and free-thinkers. So, of course, do we: the non-PC. Victorian Age politicians were afraid to join the transgressors; so are ours. 

Social-media corporations make huge profits monetizing outrage, while politicians check the direction of public opinion so as to know how to follow it.

Regarding outrage the American investigative journalist/editor Ida Tarbell in the 1890s gave her staff at Maclure's Magazine some advice. The magazine's owner/boss (Sam Maclure) was driving staff mad with his erratic bi-polar behaviour. "Try not to mind", said Ida Tarbell, calmly sympathizing with everyone. So simple, so sane, such Stoic philosophy. 

"TNTM" is wisdom in today's unforgiving climate of opinion when everyone feels their tribe is getting the short straw and is full of ideological anger about it. Why is it so hard not to mind when other people's opinions differ from one's own? (Oh ... right ... it's because we're right and they're wrong ...) But you don't need to take your rage for an outing at the drop of every ideological hat. Not minding, once in a while, is such a relief. Be balanced, like Ida. Your identity will survive. 

 

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I want a word with you, CBC Radio & TV

 Never mind, it's all a "First world problem" anyway -- but there's something lame indeed (sorry, but it's the best word for it) about a national broadcaster (like CBC the narrowing-caster) lecturing the public about what vocabulary they're permitted to use. Or hear. Making an actual list of terms to be censored?!?

How can there be something wrong with a phrase like "spirit animal", it being a concept embedded in almost every culture in history? No one owns concepts. Logically, it would seem aboriginal groups that object to Latin & Greek as artifacts of "Euro-centrist colonialism", shouldn't be using the words "spirit" and "animal" anyway, their roots being Latin: "spiritus" (breath) and "animus" ( moving living thing).

And "tribes" (which were simply groups settled along a river, itself a tributary of a greater river and conTRIBUTING to its flow) means everybody. Their languages flow one into another. To pick up expressions one from another is a way of giving a tribute. And (although CBC social justice warriors won't like this tool) these words are also related to 'tribunal' -- a hearing to confront governments (e.g. Roman senate) in defense of preserving citizens' liberties. CBC seems not to like liberties, like free speech, for example.

Anyone who speaks English or Romance languages speaks Latin; it's embedded in the flow, the confluence, the fluency of these language-streams. More examples among the favourite Latin woke-hates are actually their most-used: 're-conciliation', 'ap-propriate', 'geno-cide' (cidere - to kill, genus - group), 'misogyny' (from 'gynus' - Greek for woman), not to mention the Top Trio: 'diversity', 'equity', and 'inclusion' (vers, aequus, and cludere - to close).

Maybe Canada needs An Act To Defend Threatened Vocabulary, meaning words that stand for concepts we're losing, words like 'skepticism', 'satire', 'irony', 'jocosity', 'ribaldry'. Maybe there should be a contest like CBC's "Canada Reads". Call it "Canada Speaks". A panel would vote on the Worst Words of the Year -- all hysterically disagreeing on which words those were, of course. (The winner would win William Worstword's latest volume of illusional-allyship verse) and get a place on the show "This Thought Has 22 Micro-seconds". 

Worst Words would be chosen in categories, like Worst Adjective ("systemic" would be the favourite), Worst Hybrid ("BIPOC" should win that), Worst Trans-Words meaning nouns converted to verbs (e.g. 'expensing') and verbs to nouns (an 'ask'), and Worst Epithet (if anyone still learns what an epithet is). 

Meanwhile we'll have to ban Halloween and Carnivale (they're full of spooks), and replace savage (wild) with tame, black sheep with harlequin sheep, powwow with bowwow (an off-leash dog meeting), blind spot with failure-to-see spot, and brain-storm with brain-fog, the last 2 being what we've now got.

CBC has a strong objection to the existence of "black-face", but they should be experiencing red-face. It all makes us feel very jocose in anxious times, anyway ... so thank you CBC.

The Race to Innumeracy

 Some School Boards, acting on the calculations of social-justice-diversity-inclusion, have declared that math is racist. The Ontario Ministry of Education has ruled that two "Mathematics" exist (how do they count them?). There is both "euro-centric mathematical knowledge" and "indigenous mathematical knowledge". (Guess which one is "racist"?)

One, says the School Board, is about indigenous shape categories (as for canoes and baskets), and the other is about mathematical probabilities and prediction of how long jail sentences are for non-white criminals who re-offend.

Probably not many Humanities types understand mathematical probability, but we do think it improbable that 2 + 2 suddenly equals 5. And in a dizzyingly unstable world, we want at least arithmetic to hold steady, 100% of the time (that would be 100 of 100 times, in case you only took math recently). We may not have all been great at high school math in pre-woke times, but we count on the fact that some people were. Who wants a banker or an engineer that can't do math, or a pharmacist who can't measure the quantities of medications you've been prescribed? Who wants an accountant who can't add? For them "reconciliation" is about reconciling numbers on the income and the out-go sides of the balance sheet. Let's hope someone can balance it.

It's not rocket science -- except when it is rocket science -- but ordinary measurement, calculation, and balancing of weights, measures and distances do make the world of commerce, construction and transportation go round.

Regarding Math-Humanities Intersectionalism, there's a parallel downward race to innumeracy and illiteracy illustrated by constant media misuse of the term "decimate", as in "their rights are being decimated" -- apparently meaning devastated, although the word actually means reduced by ten percent. (cf. "decimal" etc. -- get it?) One fears that soon, school Math departments will be more than decimated.

If Math teachers are to be replaced by Social Justice Warriors, what will numbers "mean" in future? As for whether public trust in the statistics which politicians, experts and "influencers" trot out -- don't count on it.

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