And so we have a resolution, of a sort, to the whole Omar Khadr affair, which featured successive Canadian governments boldly and decisively aided and abetted in the torture and prolonged incarceration, without trial, of a juvenile Canadian citizen.
Oh, Omar Khadr got his trial in the end. And therein he was given a choice: Admit to being a war criminal, plead guilty, and be free man in a few years, or contes the trial and spend the rest of his life in prison (anybody who thinks the possibility of acquittal was greater than zero is deplorably naive). And hey, look, he admitted to being a war criminal and pled guilty! Well shit, I'm convinced!
Of course, the fact that Omar Khadr was physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured before being put though a judicial process that would give Josef Stalin pause for thought in no way reduces the magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen the family of Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. Compassion for Khadr does not in the slightest degree preclude or prevent compassion for them.
Anyway, I have very little more to say about it, particularly given the volume of material out there on the case already. Here are a couple of good reads, though:
Remember the bad old days? Remember how, back in Medieval times, if the bubonic plague or rampaging Vikings didn't get you, well, there were always the marauding packs of wolves to contend with? Remember that?
Yeah, marauding wolves. Good thing we don't have to worry about them any more!
In unrelated news, here's some surveillance footage of a completely routine traffic stop just outside Rostov-na-Donu, Russia:
And we would be remiss if we were to pass up this opportunity to provide the following musical interlude:
This actually happened a couple of months ago, during the height of the textbook rush. I had spotted a customer who seemed in need of some assistance, so I sauntered up to him, and the resulting dialogue went like this:
Me: Can I help you with anything?
Him: Yeah, is this the textbook for [course number]?
Me: It is.
Him: Ok, how much is it?
Me: It's $98.50.
[Long pause]
Him: Ok. Um, so is there a photocopier in the bookstore that I can use for awhile?
The funny thing was, he was dead serious. He could not understand why I would not let him simply photocopy his textbook rather than buy it.
In the videoclip below, you will see Beppe Bigazzi, a fairly well-known Italian chef and specialist in regional delicacies. You will see him get himself in trouble by discussing, with far too much approbation and enthusiasm, a dish apparently native to the Tuscan region of Valdarno, just east of Florence. A dish that is, I would further note, illegal-with-a-capital-I in Italy.
The best part of the video, for me, is the understandably horrified reaction of his co-host, Elisa Isoardi, who finally ends up seeking mortified shelter behind the salad greens. Here's the clip, and I've provided a translation below it:
Bigazzi: Tomorrow is Fat Thursday...
Isoardi: True
Bigazzi: ...which in Valdarno is called "Berlingaccio," because there's a [indecipherable] Berlingaccio. Furthermore, there's a proverb for Berlingaccio: "He who has no fat kills the cat." Because we're in February...
Isoardi: Excuse me...
Bigazzi: ..."Cat February," and one of the great dishes of Valdarno was braised cat.
Bigazzi: (sarcastic) Because people don't eat rabbit, they don't eat chicken...
Isoardi: (also sarcastic) No! Let's eat cats, since there are so many of them!
Bigazzi: ...they don't eat pigeon, et cetera? A cat, kept for three days in the running water of a [indecipherable] stream, comes out with its meat white. I assure you - I've eaten it many times - I assure you that it's a delicacy. So now there are going to be letters and things... yes, letters from lovers of nature! Why don't they defend rabbits? For these animals they're racists! Ok, it's not important...
Isoardi: Let's talk about vegetables.
Bigazzi: Why should we talk about vegetables?
The response to Bigazzi's little expedition into cat recipes has been, shall we say, noisy and enraged, and rightly so. The eating of cats, of course, is not an unknown phenomenon, even in the West, where it's generally considered taboo. There's an interesting article on the practise here. However, in most places where cats are kept as pets, they are eaten only as a last resort, when instability or other factors have caused severe food shortages.
The Valdarnese proverb quoted by Bigazzi, "he who has no fat kills the cat," in fact speaks directly to this motive. Cats are to be eaten only by someone who is desperately starving. And it is worth pointing out at this point that the Valdarno has suffered periods of extreme privation during its history - during the upheavals of the Renaissance before the Florentines took over the area, for example, and more recently during Fascism and the Second World War. I would hazard that the use of cats for food in the area grew out of one of these periods.
There is also the question that Bigazzi hints at towards the end of the clip: why don't the people who are outraged at the thought of cat-eating get similarly worked up over the consumption of, for example, rabbits? It's a good question, but one with a simple answer: it is because cats are considered pets. This means, among other things, that we tend to view them individually rather than collectively, which is a good and humane impulse. As an example of such a view, take Isoardi's response to the first mention of braised cat. The mental image that obviously comes to her right away is that of the cooking and eating of a specific, individual, animal, and it's no wonder that she responds with horror.
Now, it is true that some animals, such as rabbits, ducks and chickens, do sometimes straddle the line between pets and livestock. However, I would be willing to wager that the people who do keep such animals as pets either do not eat them at all- either the pets themselves or other members of the species, or have a certain amount of difficulty with doing so. I am reminded here of one of James Herriot's anecdotes, about a pig-farmer of his acquaintance. This farmer was apparently a fairly typical example of the hardbitten, taciturn, Yorkshire dalesman. However, when it came time each year to slaughter the pigs, his wife had to do all the work, while he sat in the farmhouse kitchen and cried.
(A minor note about the Times article linked to here: I don't know where they got the "in-show" quotes that they attribute to Bigazzi, but he doesn't utter them in the clip that I've given you here)
To close, I would issue a reminder that Italy does have a specific law against the eating of cats (dogs, too). I think there's similar legislation in Canada, but if there isn't, there should be.
UPDATE:Chorus, in the comments, gives us a heads-up that Bigazzi has now in fact been fired. And indirectly reminds me to link to these people!
Some years ago, when Theo Fleury first started getting himself into trouble, I remember having a conversation about it with a friend of mine. We noted Theo's difficulties, and the fact that he'd played for Moose Jaw under Graham James, and we did wonder a bit if those two things weren't connected. Well, we wonder no more.
Oh, and if you're having warm and fuzzy thoughts about humanity today, a saunter through the comments section of the above-linked story should fix that right up for you! Why do I read those things, anyway?
This made my day, actually. It seems that the Danish police are a ferocious lot when it comes to dealing with the scourge of unbehelmeted bicycling. Behold:
It is occasionally my habit, on the way to school, to bypass the bus-stop nearest home and wander across the local Quik-E-Mart. The bus stops there also, and it allows me to acquire coffee and exchange the time of day with the pleasant family that runs the joint.
However, I was foiled in that this morning. As I approached the little strip mall where the Quik-E-Mart resides, I noticed that the road was closed off by a proliferation of yellow tape with black writing on it. There was also a plenitude of law-and-order types around, all of them carrying large cameras and/or grim expressions. All evidence that Something Bad had occurred.
Fortunately, nothing had happened either to the elementary school two blocks away, nor to the aforementioned pleasant family at the little store. Unfortunately, there had indeed been an exchange of gunfire late last night, resulting in a death.
Now, I am not the sort of person who gets too worked up about the crime rate around here; in general, I think the city is still a fairly safe place. However, I also think that there has been an up-tick recently in the number of people wandering around packing heat and occasionally deploying said heat against their fellow citizens.
So there I am, a couple of weeks ago, returning from a run to the airport in the wee hours of the morning. Close to home, I trundle past a solitary vehicle parked at the side of the road. And lo, the rearview mirror is lit up by a brilliant flash, not dissimilar to that produced by, let's say, a camera flashbulb!
And do you know what? It was a camera! I know this because today I got a letter with a lovely picture of me driving. Hooray!
