Hello, Matt. I got word while I was working that you had entered the League of Parenthood today. Mom said that you had endured 36 sleepless hours culminating with the safe appearance of little Samantha. I know what you felt and saw.

The fear for your woman’s safety, the lurking guilt that somehow you had caused her discomfort.

The adrenaline, the feeling of being helpless to lessen her pain and fear.

The awareness that you stood upon the edge of no return, about to be thrust into a new reality unknown to you.

The exhaustion, the relentless waiting out the hours, where the clock seems to stand cruelly still in defiance of your wanting the labour to be mercifully quick.

The compulsion to not leave her side even for a second, despite suggestions from nurses and Mom to go eat, take a walking break, perhaps even to nap.

Trying to keep her spirits buoyed and focused on positives.

The brief moments of tenderness and love expressed between you and your woman between contractions, between her small lapses into sleep, giving focus and light like the sun shining momentarily through breaks in the clouds on a stormy afternoon, reminding you that beyond the turbulence is a greater and permanent strength.

Amniotic fluid. Blood.

The appearance of your baby’s head, the first glimpse of her wet hair and face, shock of wonder as she emerged, making three out of what was formerly only two; seeing for the first time the real little person, who for so long had been kept secret from you safely nestled within Erica’s tummy.

The sudden and total nullification of your importance by a small, pink, wet newborn, the joyous, soul-cutting sound of her first cry, proclaiming her being and protesting her having been hurled from her familiar warm, dark abode into this realm of sharp sounds, smells, bright light, alien colours and chilly air.

The crash of emotions. Your breath arresting in your chest as your eyes begin to fill with tears of relief, of amazement, of being blown totally away from what has happened, of feeling the former You sliding away into memory, because you are now irrevocably changed, both of you, and bound together more tightly from this wondrous thing.

The strangeness of now being Dad. A greater appreciation of your own dad. Wondering if your wife still loves you after all that. (She does, and needs you now more than ever.)

Then later, sitting next to your sleeping wife, holding Samantha, talking quietly to her in adoration, taking in the magic of her soft breathing, her eyes, her tiny hands and feet… wondering about the future – feeling hopes and dreams begin to coalesce, seeing fleeting images of times to come and the years ahead. The mantle of responsibility. Wondering how on earth a schmuck like yourself can raise her, see her through it all safely.

You will, dear brother, you and Erica together. The first few months are the hardest for both of you, but you’ll get through it. The ride has just begun.

A kiss to Erica and little Samantha; to you a hug, a handshake and a cigar.

Welcome to the fold of Parenthood.

Once again it is the time of year when we remember the ultimate sacrifice paid by the men and women of our armed forces in securing freedom not only for ourselves but also those of distant nations, by wearing a red poppy on our attire, symbolic firstly of those who served, died and were buried in WWII in Flanders Fields and elsewhere, but secondly of the deeds of those who survived, and by extension, all those who have similarly sacrificed and served in the decades since that hellish chapter of history in various other conflicts.

Inevitably each year in advance of Remembrance Day, the problem of how to securely fasten the poppy to a garment with its straight pin arises. I have heard and read of numerous ideas to prevent it from slipping loose, with some solutions being temporary at best, others a waste of effort.

The method I will describe is ridiculously simple, requires no extra materials and is guaranteed to fix the poppy resolutely in place, while remaining easy to remove if so desired. A considerable bit of force would be required to tear it off.

It is this: attach the poppy as usual, passing the pin through the fabric of the garment, but then back the pin up a bit and push it through the curled edge of the poppy so it effectively acts like a brooch.

I don’t believe this method is new, but I have yet to see anyone else employ it, not even service personnel or veterans. I’m hoping it will catch on and end the annual poppy-pin conundrum. This needless little aggravation should no longer mar the wearing of such an important symbol.

I’m sure that a percentage of poppy sales are actually replacement purchases for lost pins. This method will make certain you won’t lose yours – but might result in a decline in poppy sales if adopted by enough people! I certainly won’t advocate something that will reduce the revenues collected by veterans, so I make this suggestion: when you see a poppy box, regardless of the fact that you won’t require another pin, make a donation anyhow. It will be appreciated.

And by the way, to some of you: the proper place to wear the poppy is over the heart, not on the brim of a hat like fishing tackle, or other demeaning places. The difference actually means something to the people around you.

So it’s Hallowe’en. What does that mean?

Sure, the night everybody dresses up and trick-or-treats. We all know that. But why should that be? What precursor to our tradition of putting on superstitions and glutting on candy gathered door-to-door?

Modern society seems to have largely lost any recollection of why it is that we (well, mostly just our kids anymore) should engage in actions that would appear to an uninformed outsider as mass insanity featuring an untoward preoccupation with devilish themes.

Well, here is the explanation, which is as fascinating and entertaining as it is also disturbing.

What we now call Hallowe’en, October 31^st, is in the Celtic calendar Nos Calan Gaeaf – the end of the year; November 1^st is their New Year’s Day, and has been so since the time of the druids. Calan Gaeaf is the night straddling a magical moment – the gap between the old year and the new. And this is when the trouble arises.

I quote Nikolai Tolstoy in The Coming Of The King, a novel woven from fact and lore of the British Isles:

Kalan Gaeaf is the name borne by that unchancy day, but in truth it could be called “No-day.” For it belongs not to the year or the seasons, or to the ageing of the world. It is the allotted time of Him they call the Black Pig, and so it stands beside time. It is said that when the gods first divided up the mounds of the Fair Folk [faeries] and the inhabited places of the earth among themselves, that deceitful Horned One came to where Bran the Blessed and the company of the gods were gathered about the dark-blue Cauldron of Inspiration, demanding that he, too, receive his portion from that cauldron from which no one may depart unsatisfied.

“I have nothing for thee,” replied the Fisher King, his brow darkening. “The division is completed.”

“Then give me,” pleaded the Trickster, “a day and a night in your own dwelling.”

“That I will do willingly,” replied Bran smiling.

Next day the Trickster was ordered to depart to his own people, for his time was up. The nine maidens blew upon the fires that heat the cauldron, and the gods looked mockingly upon the enemy of mankind. But it was he that laughed scornfully as he left their company; for, as he said, “I see now that Night and Day are the whole world, and it is that which you have given me.”

Then Bran and his company saw how they were deceived, for there is Time and No-time, and Space and No-space, and in each case it is the latter that the horned maleficent one has appropriated to himself. So it is that from that day forward it is he who rules over the Wasteland, and the gap between the years when there is no time and the frontiers of kingdoms and the rule of kings are annulled.

So the eve of the New Year is in fact a ‘thin place’ as the Celts termed it, a unique mix of time and location where the barrier between the real and spirit worlds evaporates, and passage can be made from one to the other. Tolstoy then describes the coming of the Wild Hunt which Cernun the Horned God leads on this his given night:

The Wild Hunt is passing overhead, the host of fiends and goblins that ranges the earth each Kalan Gaeaf, coursing through a storm-laden, livid sky behind their master, Gwyn mab Nud. Fiends and goblins, swart and hairy, extinguishing fires, ripping slats from roofs, and plucking babies from their cradles, they course in reckless exultation over the lonely homesteads of abandoned men. One night of lawless rule was Bran the Blessed deceived into granting the Trickster, and on it he exacts his toll of terror. Before the Wild Hunt flies the baying pack of the Hounds of Hell; glittering bright white is their colour, their ears red; the redness of their ears glitters as brightly as does the whiteness of their bodies. Behind skims a shadowy flock of copper-red birds, wide of wing and crooked of beak, blighting crops and slaughtering cattle with their poisoned breath.

So all night long the Wild Hunt battered the world, with people cowering within their dwellings in fear of the madness at their doors.

So it also makes sense that I remember being told as a boy that masks and costumes originated as a defence against the hordes – that by disguising themselves as devils and fiends, people would be perceived by the evil hosts as one of their own – and thus could be overlooked and escape unmolested. Pumpkins and gourds were carved into Jack-O’-Lanterns – effectively gargoyles – to further ward off the evil, carried about or set to guard property.

The knocking at the doors and the offering of treats is symbolic of attempts to appease the devils who come rattling the thresholds to do mischief. Picture demons threatening to toss eggs and soap windows.

By morning, the Hordes flee back to the halls of Annufn, or the Underworld, to bide their time until the next Calan Gaeaf. My kids will retreat to feast on carbohydrates, gum and chocolate for a whole month.

And the partying? That part is the Celtic New Year festivities. The sigh of relief after the storm and the celebration of the harvest.

So that, in a nutshell, is the substance behind the 31^st of October in its modern form.

The name Hallowe’en? All Hallows’ Evening. As in the night before All Hallows’ Day, or All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1^st which was instituted by Pope Boniface IV in the seventh century in what historians suspect was an attempt “to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday” (yet another example of the Church’s historic efforts to compete with and render irrelevant the traditions and beliefs of nonchristian peoples).

You want the ultimate Hallowe’en costume? Here’s Tolstoy’s depiction of the Black Pig (brace yourself):

Out of the heart of this satanic brood a huge black horse appeared, from whose saddle sprang the colossal figure of the Master of the Wild Hunt. Over the recumbent form of the stricken saint he limped, a dreadful figure, naked save for a golden torque about his neck, green and hirsute, towering far above the height of mortal men. Forth from his bony forehead branched antlers broad as those of a roebuck in his prime, sprouting amidst upswept, spikey, flamelike hair – [...] His gaze was fierce and smoldering, his saturnine features furred by a reddish-coloured beard, and his full-spread scarlet lips twisted in a malevolent grin. His hands were long and clawed, his belly buttoned by parallel rows of naked udders, while a great hairy phallus swung between his sinewy goat’s thighs. About his left arm was coiled a broad-backed, writhing, ram-headed serpent, and in his right hand he bore an ebony-handled trident. This, then, was Gwyn mab Nud, in whom God has put the ferocity of the fiends of Annufn.

Yikes. Luckily, my kids are going out dressed as Darth Vader, Princess Leia and a Unicorn.

Happy Celtic New Year – er, Hallowe’en.

On Sunday the 16^th of September, a passenger plane bearing 123 passengers and 5 crew crashed due to windshear and heavy rain on the island of Phuket, Thailand.

The initial death count was 66 with 19 missing. As I write this, the dead have risen to 89.

Before I begin to comment, although I am no person of significance, I want to offer the families and friends of the victims, both deceased and yet suffering, my most sincere respects for their loss and earnest wishes for inner peace in the immediate shadow of this tragedy and in their progress through and beyond their dark time.

For so many lives to have been lost and others to have been so dramatically and painfully changed in such a circumstance is certainly an injustice. In the news coverage that poured forth from this, something I read, mentioned briefly, brought me to a full stop and then filled me with such loathing that I felt I must not remain silent about it. I want to address yet another injustice suffered by the dead, dying, and injured, secondary only to being hurled to obliteration from the sky.

This consists of words uttered by a certain Millie Furlong, a Canadian vacationing on the island, who survived the crash: “My boyfriend is all right. When we both got out – he’s Buddhist and I’m Christian – and we both said, ‘Our gods are looking after us.’” Her sister here at home was quoted as saying “God was definitely watching out for her.” To be fair, Ms. Furlong is probably not the only one thanking her god. But therein lies the rub.

It is truly a good thing that Ms. Furlong emerged from the crash so unscathed, as did her companion. I would not like to see her receive any other outcome. But the implication of her words is that no gods chose to help those who did not emerge whole from that carnage; the others can only have been forsaken, being of lesser or no worth. The fact that where she sat – “in the 23^rd row in the back” of the plane – is regarded as being in the area in which one is most likely to survive a crash, is just as or more likely relevant to the survival of herself and the few others as any involvement of the supernatural.

The celebrated oncologist Dr. Robert Buckman, M.D., Ph.D., in his wonderful book Can We Be Good Without God?, discusses this very phenomenon of survivors and faith, and it was his intelligent insight that came immediately to mind. I quote, with some paraphrasing:

We have all read stories like that. For example, in September 1999 there was a horrendous traffic accident involving about eighty vehicles on a highway near Windsor, Ontario. A great deal of fuel was spilled and several vehicles caught fire, resulting in the deaths of seven people. Among the survivors, one woman said that God had been looking after her in there. “God was with me”, she said. “He had to be.” [...] In the same story it was reported that a fourteen-year-old girl had died in that same accident, and that people had tried to rescue her but were beaten back by the flames. She had cried out to them, “Help me, I’m only fourteen!”

…Did the survivor genuinely mean that there was a God who looked over that accident and chose to preserve the life of the woman and to end the life of the girl? I doubt it. It is highly unlikely that if the survivor had been asked the question directly she would have said, “Yes, I am sure that God intended that poor young girl to die” Of course she would not have said that – yet that is the inescapable implication of the story.

There are two ways of seeing this kind of selectivity in catastrophes. One way is to accept that there genuinely is a divine plan and that yes, God did intend the young girl to die, and that we humans are unworthy to understand the final and perfect objective of that plan. [...] The opposing view is just as simple and intelligible. It is this: the survivor’s claim of divine protection is no more than – and no less than – a perfectly normal reaction to horror. It is socially acceptable (which is why stories like these are on the news all the time) and it is a natural, innate coping strategy that we all use in the face of overwhelming catastrophe. It gives us all, when we survive a tragedy, a sense of meaning. [...] The point is that when confronted with a disaster, most people seek an explanation that involves a plan or design for the universe…

Dr. Buckman’s career certainly qualifies him to speak on human nature in meaninglessly tragic and grave circumstances. His practise involves counselling and caring for patients who are terminally ill with cancer.

So the suggestion that the survivors of the Phuket crash had God with them may at least be explained, if not excused.

Bethan Jones, 22, of the U.K. also survived the crash, and at this time languishes in agony in hospital with burns to 80% of her body, and is not expected to live. I somehow doubt that she shares the same view of Divine Providence as Ms. Furlong. There are others like Ms. Jones, and most likely Christians and Buddhists like Ms. Furlong and her boyfriend, living their final hours in undeserved suffering; who along with their grieving families and friends may also be counted as being outside God’s grace according to this shallow, egocentric logic.

May the gods, if there are any, forgive the assertion of worth by those fortunate enough to still speak.

Info sources:

The Telegraph

Reuters

The Globe And Mail

So I was sitting at the computer about a month ago, having an instant messaging conversation with a friend, which I do from time to time when I can’t visit in person or when someone else is using the phone, when he suddenly veered to another topic:

“So tell me, are you on Facebook yet?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so he explained that it was an online social networking thing where you put up a profile and personal info, and your friends and acquaintances can do the same, etc.

I failed to see the point. I already know who my friends are, and some of their other friends, and as for the friends they have that I don’t know about, who cares? But something about this personal info on the web bothered me more. My son had a situation where he carelessly divulged a bit too much personal bio on his webspace, and the result was an unlisted phone number to try and counter the daily death threat calls.

“Nope, don’t think I’d ever join that sorta thing,” I said. “I’m too guarded of my personal info and I like being a private guy. I just don’t see the point, unless you’re trying to look up old flames and maybe hook up.”

That afternoon, the wife casually remarks, “So I joined Facebook, but I don’t get the point…” The coincidence was a bit bothersome. “Okay,” I said, “so what is it then?” She showed me her profile, which oddly enough under preferences listed “Women, Men, and Random Play”. She showed me how she has a “wall” that her “friends” can write on, and her friends included old high school classmates, etc. “So you can see each other’s friends?” I asked. “Yes…” she clicked on one of her friends (we’ve been together seven years and I have never once heard mention of or met this person), and up pops a gallery of those person’s friends. One of them was a hairy guy wearing only a towel. “So if you can see her friends, and she can see yours, then logically, her friends can see you too, right?” I asked. “Yes”.

“So who’s this towelled Ron Jeremy clone?” I ask. She has no idea. “But honey, he can see you, your first and last name, even where you live, and who your associations are. Doesn’t that bother you? Especially when you’re advertising you like Women, Men, and Random Play? You need to tell me something about your preferences, dear? Maybe about us?”

(Since I started writing this, apparently, after some bad press, Facebook has revamped the security so users can only see profiles of other users when they have been given permission.)

The whole thing makes sense if you see its purpose as a tool for people wanting to locate old crushes or find new romances, or even for identity thieves, stalkers or maybe private investigators. But if you fit into none of the above categories, it’s all pretty pointless. You know who your friends are already.

Next day, my brother arrives from out of town. In the course of his visit, he leans over to my computer and decides to show us some of his website and personal photos. Photos stored where?

Facebook. I slowly felt the creeping horrors.

There was all his personal info on display. As he’s moving the mouse pointer over the photo of him proposing to his then future wife, the people’s names in the photo popped up, including his. “Hey, what’s that all about?” he asks. Oddly, he hadn’t tagged those people. Someone else in Facebook had. More on that in a bit.

His wife had a Facebook profile too. That was it. My resolve was steeled against it.

Let me be absolutely frank. Someone you know in name and maybe talked to a couple of times is NOT a friend. Aristotle posited that the number of true friends a man will have in the course of a lifetime can be counted upon the fingers of one hand, and he was absolutely right. When the chips are down, all the others we ‘know’ are termed ‘acquaintances’. And a friend of a friend of a friend is not even an acquaintance.

And as for ‘reconnecting’ with relations from past days: sometimes those people are in the past for a reason. Those individuals you really have no desire to find again or be found by. You don’t want, and shouldn’t have to face the customary interrogation as to who you are now and what you’ve done with your time since high school, especially by people you avoided in the first place.

And I’ve seen the kind of exchanges that go on in the wife’s and her friend’s Facebook pages. Users ‘poke’ each other, write on other user’s ‘walls’ and ‘buy each other drinks’, and blather on about their noisy but pointless everyday life. Its all complete adolescent drivel.

But even more insidious is what I have discovered from looking deeper into the Facebook phenomenon. How many users have actually read the agreement when they signed up? Are they aware that Facebook claims posession and exclusive rights to ALL content posted – including the right to retain your personal information, even if you leave, and sell it to third parties? When email addresses are used to send unasked-for Facebook invites, those addresses – regardless of whether the invite is accepted – are still retained by advertisers. The smorgasbord of marketing data that can be harvested from this morass of personal tastes and habits is pure gold to advertisers – your preferred soft drink, soap, and flavour of coffee might be innocuous enough, but what about your sexual preferences, recent purchases, etc? Anybody thought of demanding royalties or compensation from that personal info being used by marketers to make tons of cash?

Not to mention other people who might make use of your life’s happenings. “Hmm, seems Bob just bought a new plasma TV and he’s going to Florida for a week. Think I’ll head over there with my pickup truck…”

Let’s momentarily toss some conspiracy theory into the brew here, too. There’s the rumored connection between Facebook and the CIA and IAO, who want a database of personal details for everyone on the planet, including social affiliations, bill payments, banking info, property holdings, online habits, sexual preferences, interests and hobbies, etc. European travellers already have to give exactly this information to authorities as a requirement for entering the United States. Remember the NSA’s ongoing and contoversial wiretapping program to record and analyse all phone calls made within the U.S.? So this is not necessarily paranoia. There is a big push to document who you are, who you know, and what you’re up to. Social networking sites are essentially an enumeration of people online and their connection to persons of interest. The intelligence industry would be fools to not exploit it.

But enough cloak-and-dagger musings.

I have nothing to worry about, I’m not on Facebook. Right?

Wrong. I’m not a member of Facebook, but I’m on Facebook. In fact, millions of other people who are not members of Facebook are on it too, without their knowledge. Here’s how.

I was speaking to my real-life friend Dave recently. He told me my wife was on Amanda’s Facebook. Amanda, whom I’ve never met, is his roommate’s girlfriend. Dave saw my wife’s picture in Amanda’s photos, with her name tagged on it.

I came home and told my wife. “Amanda who?” she said. I told her the last name. “I’m not on her book, she’s not on mine,” she said. Oh yes, honey, you are. Pictures of a party she had gone to, years ago.

And I am tagged in photos posted by my brother and others. (It’s OK, Bro, I forgive you.) My connections to each person and something about me can then be inferred through the social web. Thing is, I never gave my permission for my image to be dispersed or shared around that way. Which brings me to the question of legality.

Seems to me, under Canadian law at least, no one may use or publish your image without your express consent. This is why media photographers ask if they can take your picture first. I guarantee that almost no one appearing in a Facebook photo was a) asked for their permission (usually someone who doesn’t want to be photographed just says no or steps out of the frame), or b) was advised that their image may be published on Facebook where it would be tagged with their name and could be accessed by millions of users. My wife asked for pictures of our children to be removed from other user’s Facebooks. So far they haven’t been.

So, are you on Facebook? If the answer is ‘no, I haven’t joined’, go check it out anyhow. You might just discover that you are.

I guess its easier for the public to just go with the crowd, sign up to Facebook, spill their life story online and type a stream of useless chaff onto each other’s walls, all blissfully ignorant and content to be ‘connected’ rather than address these issues.

By the way, if any of my friends read this and want to discuss it, there are some cool social networking tools I use. One is called the ‘Phone’, and the others are termed ‘Going For Coffee’ or ‘Visiting’. Socially, these activities are more complicated and personal than using Facebook, requiring such advanced skills as ‘The Art Of Conversation’, but it’s the only way for me.

ADDITIONAL August 4th 2007: See this article, which supports my privacy question about social networking sites: “Online Snooping Gets Creepy”, Time online magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1649121,00.html