9/11: 17 years later and clearer than ever.

I remeber the morning well. I knew the world had changed that day and we would, Canada and the United States would be going to war. Which the British commonwealth did beside Americans.
Something that sadly gets overlooked these strange days.

I remember as the sky’s shut down, towns in the far east of Canada, little more than fishing villages and refueling stops for Trans-Atlantic flights welcomed hundreds of planes, thousands of people and gave them comfort regardless of country, race, religious beliefs or gender.

I remember very sadly as I saw on the noon news when my friends and I left work to watch the news as the second tower collapsed.
Thinking my Good Lord, someone used one of the planes I build with pride and turned it into a fucking bomb.

I remember sitting in Madison Square Garden a few years later talking with people who had actually witnessed their friends jumping to their deaths rather than burn alive. How these tough sons of britches, working men and women., strong people. Cried at the thought of it all years later.

I remember the calls for vengeance that I knew would come against a regime and people who were not our enemies. I remember seeing Canadian bodies coming home from a war that had to happen perhaps but in wholesale different manner and in a completely different country and way.

My High School World Politics teacher used to say that the only coin worth holding was trust. Trust was the coin of the realm, the only thing worth anything. We as a people, both political and basic were robbed that day and days since in ways both gross and sublime.
Slights of hand have happened to basic simple freedoms, taken for granted, unworked for in our generation.

The world as a whole as I look back has changed as I predicted, we went to war, crushed a region and unleashed exactly what the planners of 9 11 had hoped for all the long. Democratic common sense and reason at war with it’s self.

Does organized religion foster intolerance?

As we begin to get together for the holiday season with family and friends I want to put a little nugget to think about in your brain.  Does religion encourage intolerance of those who are different?

Ten Commandments Cartoon

Let’s say for example you’re with the extended family over the break and your favorite uncle or auntie who has maybe had a few too many comes over and attempts to debate how wrong (value x) is.  Let’s also say since they are recently born again into the religion of their choosing, they start to fling bible quotes to back up this belief of hatred.

Bob to Mubarak: You’re Toast.

It seems like the worm has turned once again in North Africa and the Middle East.  People sick of generations oppression and brutal autocratic regimes have started to rise up against their governments and demand freedom.

In Tunisia the Jasmine Revolution has taken root and President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali has been forcibly removed from office after 23 years of iron fisted autocratic rule.  Fueled by high unemployment and poverty all the country needed to ignite into rage was a spark.  That spark came courtesy of a college aged fruit vendor.  Charged with selling fruit in a public market without a permit, the man committed suicide.  Burning himself alive.

A Shrine to Mohamed Bouazizi

Using Facebook and Twitter, news of the tragedy spread and people mobilized in the streets. Promising that with their blood and souls they will sacrifice themselves for the martyr.  The weight of his populace upon him Ben Ali fled the country and the government was toppled.  His bank accounts frozen and family members being held for crimes against Tunisia.

The Tale of the Floating Mosque

Gather round kids it’s time to tell you a story, the story of a floating mosque.  As strange as it may seem there is a mosque floating down the mighty Mackenzie River as we speak bound for the small community of Inuvik in the Canadian Arctic.

What started as a little mosque on the prairie, Winnipeg to be specific, has become a sort of anti-hate rallying point.  The town of Inuvik, located high in the Canadian Northwest Territories is home to a small population of about 100 Canadians of the Islamic faith.

For years they have found space to meet for prayer in trailers and other ad hoc locations.  Wanting a proper space to conduct prayers and educate their children was an essential motivation to raising close to $300,000 it’s taken to get the mosque built and moving northward.

Mosque Stuck on Bridge (Photo - Ryan Murphy)