Author: Alan

Cool Scots Traditions

In all the yappitry about marriage and “tradition” recently, in the back of my mind I had that the tradition in Scotland was incredibly free until very recent times. I found a good reference to the principles today:

A `regular’ marriage was one for which the banns had been proclaimed and which was then celebrated by a minister in the parish church. An `irregular’ marriage, under Scottish law, could be of three kinds: per verba de praesenti (a mutual agreement to marry at that moment), per verba de futuro subsequente copula (a promise to marry in the future followed by sexual intercourse), and `habit and repute’ (cohabiting in such a way as to imply that mutual consent to a marriage had been given). It was only the forms of constituting it that were irregular. The marriage itself was in every way as binding as a regular marriage, and with the same restrictions: both parties must be free to marry, they could not be within the forbidden degrees of kinship and they had to be over the age limit (twelve for women and fourteen for men). Neither witnesses nor parental consent were necessary.

All very none of yer friggin’ business. The church, professionals and, indeed, the state are quite the johnny-come-latelies to the issue of marriage as well as most community ceremonies such as funerals. So why someone suggests we need to move back to Christian traditions, those are some of mine – I quite like the principle of “a promise to marry in the future followed by sexual intercourse”.

Gdansk

 

Roaming through .jpg files just now I came across this beer label from 1991 in Poland where semi-attentive readers are aware I lived. Buying beer in Eastern Euope then was hit and miss. Local families, in our district of new suburbs, ran shops out of their bottom floors and the beers for sale were those Pan Sklepu would go and get. Supply lines were a bit erratic as a result. So happy were the days when Pivo Gdanskie would show up as opposed to some rot from Slupsk which used cloves instead of hops – but only on some weeks when their hops supply didn’t come through. Nothing as refreshing as the surprise of a bubbly mouthful of cloves.

Rude Mexico

Chanting “Osama, Osmama” as you are cleaning the clock of the USA 4-0 in pre-Olympic soccer? Mexico, really. That is rude:

GUADALAJARA, Mexico, Feb. 10 — Few of the young Americans had experienced such grown-up soccer antagonism, with blowing horns creating the sound of a throbbing hive at Jalisco Stadium and 60,000 people jeering with the sting of hostility.

The shouted vulgarities began as the United States under-23 team appeared for warm-ups on Tuesday night. The name of each starter was heckled with collective booing. The national anthem was derided with shrieking whistles. The Mexican team, meanwhile, was greeted with fluttering confetti, waving flags and the urgent rhythm of drumbeats.

In the 26th minute, the throng began chanting “Osama! Osama!” at the Americans, but they appeared inured to such taunting and eager for a game of beautiful desperation in an attempt to reach the Olympics. And then, out of nowhere, it all fell apart. Defense had become a vulnerability for the United States in this qualifying tournament, and its opponent deftly pounced on this weakness…

“Soccer is our national sport,” Carlos Placencia, 21, a publicist, said. “We cannot let the Americans beat us at our game.” Diego Gonzáles, 23, a graphic designer, said it would be important for the collective Mexican self-assurance to defeat the bigger, richer country to the north.

“This game is a way to show them that we can win,” Gonzáles said. “It doesn’t matter if it is the United States or another country. We need to show what Mexicans are made of.” Both Placencia and Gonzáles said that anti-American chants of “Osama! Osama!” were meant in large part as a joke, even if a tasteless one. “We make fun of everything,” Gonzáles said. More seriously, he added: “We think the United States exaggerated its reaction about terrorism and security measures. We criticize the reasons why America goes to war.”

From The New York Times today.

I Am So Proud…

…to be a citizen of a country where this happens. From the Toronto Star‘s unlinkable report:

The RCMP’s 125th anniversary in 1999 turned into an embarrassing waste of taxpayer dollars, Fraser said. Public Works contributed $3 million to a trio of ad agencies – Lafleur, Media/I.D.A. Vision and Gosselin – who were responsible for transferring the money to the RCMP. Those three agencies took a combined $1.3 million in fees and commissions and transferred $1.7 million to the RCMP for its anniversary celebration. Fraser’s audit concluded that the RCMP’s Quebec division received its payments through a separate non-government bank account, which violates the federal Financial Administration Act. The transactions were recorded manually rather than in the RCMP’s standard accounting system, and some of the supporting documents were subsequently destroyed.

Just to let Belize guy know, the RCMP is the national police who are supposed to investigate things like…umm…widespread breach of fiduciary duty by public officials. So, I’ll likely be voting NDP if only to give that crowd a kick at the slush fund as the other two crowds have eaten more than their fill. Seriously, how in God’s name can anyone say now that they would do worse.

Is It Hockey or Me?

Today’s column from Damien Cox hits the nail on the head – something big is up:

Those who cling to strains of discredited orthodoxy, suggesting that the NHL doesn’t need to change one single thing about its game, are now clearly the minority. The voices calling out for a faster, more offensive NHL are becoming deafening. In addition, the NHL faces a strike this fall that most think will kill at least one season and sweep away more than a few teams.

All in all, there is a very good chance that what will be played in the NHL in 2005 or 2006 will be a very different game than we see today. That would be a good thing. There are too many clubs, too many games, too few stars and too many grinders. It is now difficult to associate with a sport – even in a market like mine that boasts two top teams within two hours drive – when the games devolve into roller derby tactics along the boards, debates whether eye protection is for sissies and the thrilling spectacle of yet another dump into the corner. For years, I watched at least a full game on the TV once a week, listened to a couple on radio, bought the kids souveniers and caught at least one game live a year. I was a pretty good customer, I would have thought. No more. I’m bored. My remedies?

  • Ditch centres. Five a side all game.

  • Big ice. Watching NHL after a good soccer game on Fox Sports World (with its 22 players in play on a big field) is like watching dogs brawl in a closet.

  • Even smaller goal pads. It is insane how in recent years goalies have started to look like leviathans with shoulders as wide as the crease. Leave something significant to aim the puck at.

  • Five games for any fight minimum. I won’t put a game on the TV these days for fear the kids will watch it. Not because of checking or hammering a guy into the boards. The fights. I would turn any TV show off that regularly shows grown men battering each others faces with their fists until one falls down. With NHL, I can’t be bothered turning it on, if the three and five year old are around.

  • Start the season in late October and finish by the end of April.

None of these things will happen, of course, because the NHL fears change. Bigger ice surface and short seasons means fewer tickets sold. Fights attract a core audience of NASCAR crash droolers. Five on five is too familiar a pattern of play. So, until the strike, I’ll watch the odd game. When the strike is on, I won’t care that much. And when it is back with 2/3’s of the teams, I’ll probably watch the odd game.

More on Sphere of Autonomy

I found this passage on the sphere of autonomy from a recently reported Ontario Divisional Court appeal ruling from last July called Polewsky v. Home Hardware about court filing fees and poverty:

[50] As noted above, at para. 6, Gillese J. considered s.7 in obiter and found that the protection of s. 7 is limited to a person’s physical and mental integrity and does not protect civil and economic rights. However, where it is established that the fees are a barrier to justice, the issue becomes an access to justice issue, rather than one of economic rights.

[51] The appellants argued that for a poor person, “security of the person” must include the right to access the civil justice system, particularly the Small Claims court. The appellant cites Pleau v Nova Scotia (1998), 186 N.S.R. (2d) 1 (S.C., Prothonotary) [Pleau] for this proposition. Having considered Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence on this issue, we are not convinced that the denial of access to the Small Claims Court is properly characterized as a breach of security of the person.

[52] The right to security of the person covers the right to personal autonomy, involving control over one’s bodily integrity and freedom from state imposed psychological and emotional stress (R v Morgentaler [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30, Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General) [1993] 3 S.C.R. 519).

[53] Although the right extends beyond the criminal law and can be engaged in other proceedings, such as child protection proceedings ((New Brunswick (Minister of Health and Community Services) v. G.(J.), [1999] 3 S.C.R. 46) [G.(J).]), not all state interference with psychological integrity will engage s.7. Where the psychological integrity of a person is at issue, the right to security of the person is restricted to protection from serious state imposed psychological stress. For a breach of security of the person to be made out, the state action must have a serious and profound effect on the person’s psychological integrity. Not all forms of psychological prejudice will lead to a section 7 violation (G.(J.), Blencoe v. British Columbia (Human Rights Commission), [2000] 2 S.C.R. 307.

[54] We are not persuaded that the type of harm experienced by individuals who cannot pay Small Claims Court fees is appropriately construed as causing sufficiently serious or profound psychological harm to be in violation of s.7 of the Charter.

Interesting if only because it serves as another example of the courts shrinking from the monster it found in section 7 of The Charter which they now appears to want little to do with.

February

People moan about February but, as an undergrad pal said every year, it goes like a bat out of hell. Three weeks to March and the weather at a balmy -5 needs no hat or chin-zipped parka. We are closer to leaves coming out than falling and it will be in the twenties here someday within a few weeks if only for that freakish day every year that sees you get that sunburn under the chin and on the shins, sun reflected on snow as you walk around outside too long in shorts.

Grammy Show

I watched last night with half my attention elsewhere. Here is what I saw:

  • I like “Hey Ya” and was happy to see how the video was trasformed to a stage performance for live TV. Sooner or later I am going to be able to hire a high school marching band for some purpose in my life, too.
  • If you did not wait to the very end you missed Faith Hill, looking like a Republican’s dream of the girl to be met at the country club, squawking something into the mike to the effect of “the show is over” and walking away as 43 people (who were not going to be invited to that club) representing OutKast celebrated winning the final award for album of the year.
  • The Foo-Fighters appeared, perhaps uniquely, as a rock band playing things like instruments and singing in to microphones without dancers or lights or any other distractions. That was good.
  • The White Stripes were very good.
  • My world just about crumbled when Richard “Dicky” Marks won an award for best song co-written with the living human tribute of the night, Luther Vandross. The king of the mullet was shown and, though shorn at the rear of his head now and though his song is something of a thematic rip of that 80s “love my departed Dad” song by Genesis going by another name Mike and the Mechanics, at least it was not a loser rock song about going down to the river and offing oneself which Dicky Marks was the absolute king of twenty years ago.
  • Warren Zevon starred and won as the guy who recently smoked himself to death. [Ed.: error fixed in replies.]
  • No one got Yoko Ono when she said give peace a chance.
  • No one told Paul McCartney (who is really looking like a muppet who has sat too near the fire and melted a bit) that he was not speaking for all the Beatles as he followed taped Ringo and live Yoko and a nice also live lady who knew George (last year’s guy who won for smoking himself to death) thanking everybody for remembering they were on TV 40 years ago.
  • Christina A. and Beyonce Knowles were the only proponents of the porcine squealy decending decrecsendo pseudo-gospel thing done really well twenty years ago by Whitney Huston, destroyed by everyone ever since – especially the now disappeared Mariah Carey. Perhaps it will soon die.
  • Funk (the music Jesus loved) had its day with Parliament/Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire.

If you take anything from the show, go buy funk.