My letter to the Free Press.

If supporters of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights are having qualms about building over hypothetical ancient graves they should be many times more deeply ashamed building it on the graves of the very real 100,000 aborted children per year. The notion of any such thing as human rights in Canada is only a sad joke until the humanity of the innocent unborn is addressed.

Aren't we going to have five months left over?

In a Monday proclamation, President Barack Obama declared June 2009
to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

I'd like to suggest, to give the rest of us a bit of a break, that the next two warm summer months be declared LGBT Sloth Month and LGBT Gluttony Month. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to LGBT Wrath Month to say nothing of LGBT Lust Month

Volver (2006)

Volver (Returning(?)) is an interesting film by director Pedro Almodóvar starring Penelope Cruz as Raimunda a sister, a mother, a niece, a would-be restaurateur and the daughter of a mischievous ghost. Perhaps I didn't "read" the (Spanish-language) film properly, but the early action in the film coupled with the prevalent theme of returning (from the dead) seemed to promise the viewer a tragic denouement, even as the film's wry humor quite endearingly balances out its darker themes of death, rape and insanity. But when one minor character stubbornly remains quite frozen, the circle is broken and the promise fizzles. I would have given three stars, but I bumped it to four based solely on Raimunda's climactic performance in the restaurant of the title song. The voice double is Estrella Morente: be sure to listen to this longer version in HQ.

A post at Via Media reminded me of this.

The first Buddhist Monk I ever saw close up—it was years ago—was asleep in a departure lounge in the Dorval Airport (now the Trudeau) in Montréal. He was a large man and larger than life in his vivid orange robes; but what my wife and I really noticed was his shoes: a simply beautiful pair of brown brogues that shone like the sun. They must have cost him at least $300—perhaps much more, I dunno—at a time when I had never spent more than fifty bucks for a pair of shoes. They were too stunning even to provoke envy—or worse: some ugly self-righteous attitude of superiority over the seeming extravagance of such a purchase by one who ostensibly seeks detachment—just deep admiration.

Last surviving passenger of Titanic dies anyway,

making all the hundreds of dollars and dozens of man-hours spent in the rescue effort ultimately pointless.

It was the third of June.

{knock knock}
"Why, Billie Joe, I do declare. Come on in. Take a chair.... Uh... How are you?"
"Very well, thanks--though from its tone your quaery would appear to be other than a mere social pleasantry seeming--as it does to me--to be fraught with an unwonted concern I might be otherwise. Hmm?"
"Well, uh, since you ask, er, um... I had heard incidentally that you had, that is to say you may have... I might say, flung--yourself from--from the bridge... the uh..."
"the...?"
"yes, the Tallahatchie Bridge... you're smiling. Why?"
"Ho, ho, ho. Indeed... Yes, I did plummet from a certain venerable edifice spanning that incongruously named body of water-- directly into said body of water, I might add. Indeed, as I say, into the deepest part. Though, I must say, not deep enough to save my feet to the ankle from being plunged into the cool muck on the bottom... albeit to my great delight."
"But... then... your suici--"
"Greatly exaggerated, yes. Gosh, the Tallahatchie bridge is not exactly Mississippi's Golden Gate. It can't be six meters from deck to water's surface. Honestly. It was a lark"
"Ah. Of course. But then, you never did have a lick o sense, Billie Joe McAllister. Have some cake?"
"{Roaring} Ho, ho, ho, ho. Guilty as charged, my friend. And yes, indeed. I don't mind if I do."

{later}

"Um, it's just that, you know, after our throwing that thing off the bridge... you know, the..."
"Ah. I had forgotten about that. Yes, I can see now why you might have been concerned, and for that I certainly do apologize."