Whispers from the Myth Teller

I was listening to President Obama's speeches on the situation in Haiti and reading about the various countries (including Canada) rushing to help the victims of this devastating quake.

While listening to this speech, I was reminded of a broadcast given by the late, great Gordon Sinclair entitled The Americans. It's amazing how timeless and still pertinent this broadcast still is today, especially in light of current events.

I've pasted the text of his broadcast here, but if you can click the link and listen to the raw power of Sinclair's voice, I doubt you will be disappointed (except for the cheesy organ music playing in the background). You can clearly hear Sinclair's rage and indignation in the speech, especially when he makes a point ("And I was there... I saw that!"), then stumbles slightly in the next sentence, try to regain his composure. As a storyteller, it gives me great pleasure to hear the talented rantings of such a great orator.

"LET'S BE PERSONAL"    Broadcast June 5, 1973     CFRB, Toronto, Ontario

Topic: "The Americans"
Click Here to Listen

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Well, Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. And I was there. I saw that.

When distant cities are hit by earthquake, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan... the Truman Policy... all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

Now, I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto, most of them... unless they are breaking Canadian laws... are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the bonds, let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters... with the year less than half-over... has taken it all and nobody... but nobody... has helped.

ORIGINAL SCRIPT AND AUDIO
COURTESY STANDARD BROADCASTING CORPORATION LTD.

(c) 1973 BY GORDON SINCLAIR

PUBLISHED BY STAR QUALITY MUSIC (SOCAN)

A DIVISION OF UNIDISC MUSIC INC.

578 HYMUS BOULEVARD

POINTE-CLAIRE, QUEBEC,

CANADA, H9R 4T2

I remember after the Columbine shootings and then the shootings at Taber in Alberta, the public reaction went haywire. People were jumping out of their skins at the slightest abrupt move from the young people in their midst. The subsequent reactions were insane with students being suspended or severely punished for actions that had been previously mundane. No one wanted to be caught off-guard by the boogey-man again and for a change, geeks were feared.

I can already see this happening at people start the recovery and healing process. The gunman's website has been yanked, but not before the photos and the rhetoric were copy/pasted in every media canvas as possible.

On the radio and print media, people are reporting having read the gunman's journal and stating that the threat should've been recognized and dealt with before it became deadly. All the indications are there, they're saying. We should've been able to keep this guy from hurting anyone, apparently.

Even with inflation being what it is, hindsight is still trading at 20/20.

No one is saying exactly HOW this guy could've been stopped. Hoopla Harper wants to legislate the problem away, but illegal guns, by their very nature, exist outside the system. And last time I checked, as long as it was registered, it was still legal to own these semi-automatic rifles as long as you had a permit.

So what do we do? Lock up everybody who has stuff on the Internet that is deemed inappropriate, violent, too dark, or could lead to violence against others? Do all the Goth websites need to come down and their authors locked up just in case they act on their darker desires?

If that's the case, here's a list of people you should be looking at right now. These people celebrate violence, death, and destruction through their art, their work, and their published works.

Quentin Tarantino
Anne Rice
Anne Coulter
Clive Barker
Stephen King
James Wan (director/writer of Saw)
Wes Craven
Horror Writers Association
Ambrose Pierce
Edgar Alan Poe
Shirley Jackson
Bram Stoker
and others...

Of course, the main difference between these people and the Dawson gunman's website is that these people have a budget and are supported by their fans.

As always, the answer is neither black nor white, if there's an answer at all. The media folks are all wondering why this guy did what he did, but what's the big mystery? He was suicidal, but instead of just taking himself out, he decided to take out the people he viewed to be the reason he was so miserable.

And the worst of it is, there's a little bit of this gunman in all of us. Tell me that in high school, when you thought about the people who bullied you, beat you up, took your lunch money, and made your life difficult, you never thought about getting some kind of revenge.

Of course, you didn't act on your darker desires, but why didn't you? Why did he? What would have made the difference?

Tough questions, difficult answers, always searching.

We KNOW North Korea has WMDs. We know where they are and we know North Korea is testing them. If you just look at recent history, you'd think that the US would take a harsh military stance against this.

But all they seem to want to do is write nasty things about them on the bathroom walls in the UN vestibule:

Pyongyang's mother wears combat boots made in Cuba! Damn the commies!
Pyongyang has "failure to launch" issues, know what I mean?
North Korea sucks. USA #1!

The reason? North Korea's main exports include: Clothing and Textiles, Electronic Equipment, Fish, Footwear, Food Stuffs, Iron and Steel, Ships. There's also a fair trade in illegal drugs.

So did you notice what's missing. There's no oil in North Korea. So unless American cars start running on Saki, there's not much point in defending freedom.

Thanks for pointing this out to me MetroDude.

I watched the debate between Paul McCartney/Heather Mills and the Newfoundland premier (Danny Williams) on Larry King last night on the Canadian seal hunt. It was largely disappointing, mainly because the McCartney's weren't really answering King's questions; they kept playing the tragedy/sympathy card over and over.

When Premier Danny Williams came on, the "debate" came down to the following:

HM: Now we don't want to tell you what to do, but the seal hunt is wrong and should be stopped! Bad on you Canada! Bad!
DW: You're largely misinformed, probably because you're getting all your intel from activists.
HM: Rubbish! Cute seals are dying every day because you're clubbing them to death!
DW: Actually, 90% are shot in the most humane way possible
PM: No! That's a lie! And because I have a British accent, I'm more believable that you! Seals are going to go extinct if this continues!
DW: Actually, there are over 5 million seals. If we let the seal over-populate the area, they could all starve
HM: More lies! It's perfectly normal for there to be millions and millions of seals! Lies, lies, lies!
DW: Er... I live here so I think I know what's going on in my own province...
HM: Poppycock!

Personally, I think the seal hunt is vilified so much because seals are so cute and adorable. I don't see too many activists jumping up and down about the cruelties of the Woolly Monkey hunt, the unreasonable persecution of the Wombat, or the tragedy of sharks that get caught in fishing nets.

My stand on the issue is that I don't buy fur products. Should you not buy fur products? It's up to you to decide and it's not my job to tell you one way or the other.

In an unrelated vein, we went to see LLO's production of Patience (my friend Colleen was in it). The women in the production were amazing, but the men were... well... let's just say that since talyesin (and others) left, they've been suffering in the male lead department.

A couple of weeks ago, a few of my fellow Montreal pagans were interviewed by the Gazoo about Christmas and the Pagan perspective. That article appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Saturday (page A-3).

This morning, we had a surprise birthday breakfast for EvilGab (40 attendees). I performed a highly illegal act (I drove the car in my PJs, which is against the law in Quebec) so that EG wouldn't be the only one in his PJs. As the people came in, many of them mentionned their surprise at seeing my mug on the 3rd page of the Gazette, although they all agreed it was a great article and photo.

On Saturday, there was a Yule fair at Concordia with a ritual taking place at 7pm (led by moi). The Gazette coverage really brought in a gaggle of folks to the fair and the ritual. The counts vary, but it seems to fall somewhere between 75-90 people. And I was expecting 40-60! Yikes!

The Ritual went off without too many hitches. There were a few things I hadn't counted on and could've planned for better, but I didn't really have time to work on it this week (with the end of the contract looming and all).

Many thanks to all who helped out, especially to sarahcarotte who made me a gorgeous vest for the ritual.

As I've been keeping track of the devastation in New Orleans, I found this one website that had an article about the SuperDome losing its roof.

As I scanned the page, I noticed this Google Ad right above the picture of the SuperDome roof. Of course, the Google Ads are contextually random (they read the text nearby and display an ad that relates to the text), but I was amused to see this particular ad right above the SuperDome with its roof ripped off:



Talk about opportunistic! If this had been on purpose, it might have been insensitive. But seeing as how it's somewhat random, it amuses me.