Problem Fixed

I fixed the coding problem here and now it appears that my blog works well in both Firefox and IE. Will miracles never cease. If you still have problems getting this page to load, please let me know. A tip o the blog to those of you who brought the width problem to my attention, and to DazzilinDino who helped out with useful suggestions. See we can all get along if we remember the old dictum, we agree to disagree...but help each other despite that. Of course then there are those who are just plain disagreeable.....but I am too full of holiday cheer to pay much attention to them.

Christmas in the Trenches

I have posted here before about the amazing tale of the Christmas Truce of 1914.

And this Christmas day I thought it would be good to remind us all of that sentiment, as our own Troops occupy Afghanistan and Haiti.

Something grand of the solidarity and brotherhood of man despite being forced to aim the bosses guns at each other.

I just heard John McCutcheon's wonderful song Christmas in the Trenches , from his Winter Solstice Album, on the radio so it inspired me to add this reminder of that amazing event. The link above for the album gives a short sample of the song.

It is one of two of my favorite anti-war songs, the other being And the Band Played Waltzing Matilida.

The Christmas truce of 1914 was early in the war, when everyone thought it would be over soon. Had the solidiers mutinied as their officers, on all sides, feared, the war would have been over. Unfortunately it lasted another four years. And was the source of the greatest Revolution of the 20th Century, when the Russian troops left the front and stormed the Winter Palace.

Christmas in the Trenches
by John McCutcheon
My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here
I fought for King and country I love dear.
'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung
Our families back in England were toasting us that day
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Says I, "Now listen up, me boys!" each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
"He's singing bloody well, you know!" my partner says to me
Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony
The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war
As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was "Stille Nacht." "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky
"There's someone coming toward us!" the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one long figure trudging from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shown on that plain so bright
As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's Land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forevermore

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same

Last survivor of 'Christmas truce' tells of his sorrow

The First World War's horrors still move us but one man recalls his moment of peace amid the bloodshed

The words drifted across the frozen battlefield: 'Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht'. To the ears of the British troops peering over their trench, the lyrics may have been unfamiliar but the haunting tune was unmistakable. After the last note a lone German infantryman appeared holding a small tree glowing with light. 'Merry Christmas. We not shoot, you not shoot.'

It was just after dawn on a bitingly cold Christmas Day in 1914, 90 years ago on Saturday, and one of the most extraordinary incidents of the Great War was about to unfold.

Weary men climbed hesitantly at first out of trenches and stumbled into no man's land. They shook hands, sang carols, lit each other's cigarettes, swapped tunic buttons and addresses and, most famously, played football, kicking around empty bully-beef cans and using their caps or steel helmets as goalposts. The unauthorised Christmas truce spread across much of the 500-mile Western Front where more than a million men were encamped.

Christmas Truce in the Trenches

By 1915 the war had expanded from the German French front to the Russian Turkish front. While Canadian and British troops fought in the trenches in France, Russians, Brits and Australians assaulted the Turks at Gallipoli.

It is this assault that inspired the movie, and inspired the song And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda by Eric Bogle.

His website includes a his song and his explanation for writing it including an excellent audio recording of the whole song. He also wrote No Mans Land (THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE), the version here is bilingual English and German, again in memory of the great Christmas Truce., and the recording is excellent.

Like Canada, Australia came of age in WWI. For the first time ever both colonial countries had our own officers. Unfortunately both of our countries also suffered the indignity of being colonial troops, canon fodder for the English ruling class officers. For Canadians it was Ypres and Vimy Ridge. For the Australians it was the murderous assault on Gallopoli.

Thus Bogles song of how the Austrlian Johnny, got his gun.

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Now when I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback,
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915, my country said, "Son,
It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,
And they marched me away to the war.

And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As the ship pulled away from the quay,
And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears,
We sailed off for Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water;
And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was waitin', he primed himself well;
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell --
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
When we stopped to bury our slain,
Well, we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.

And those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --
Never knew there was worse things than dying.

For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda,"
All around the green bush far and free --
To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April, I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask meself the same question.

But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda,"
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda.
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

The great Wobbly poet and song writer Joe Hill wrote this poignant Anti War song in 1915, as the IWW denounced the War and were thrown in jail for sedition.

As the War Amps say; Never Again.

They are one of the few Veterans associations that is Anti-War. And one of the few to recgonize the unsung heros of the Spanish Civil War, the Canadian Veterans of the International Brigades. They have sponsored an album of Anti-War Songs including these above sung by the great Canadian tenor John McDermot.

The Green Fields of France

(Performed by John McDermott)

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride, do you
mind if I sit here down by your graveside. And rest for a
while 'neath the warm summer sun. I've been walking all day and
I'm nearly done. I see by your gravestone you were
only nineteen when you joined the great fallen in nineteen-sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died
clean. Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and unseen.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last post and chorus.
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the forest'.

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed then forever behind the glass frame
In a old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And fade to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last post and chorus.
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the forest'.

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze. it makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last post and chorus.
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the forest'.

I am Willie McBride I can't help but wonder why
Did all those who lie here know why did they die
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end war
For the sorrows, the suffering, the glory. the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Merry Christmas!

Make War No More!

Tags anti-war / war /Christmas Truce /WWI /songs/ veterans

Problems With Page

If you have problems with reading this page try IE rather than Firefox. Currently some code or missing code in my template is buggering Firefox but you can read the page perfectly well in IE.
I hope to get this fixed soon.

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Well here is another nail in the coffin of the 'Junk Science' deniers of Global Warmning. It comes from that well known group of hysterical outspoken envrionmentalists known as NASA. It was reported in the Independent last week but got little notice in the media.

World is at its hottest since prehistory, say scientists

The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as Nasa reported that 2005 has been the hottest year ever recorded.

In Canada the Climate Change Conference was wrapping up. Paul Martin was in the news for wagging his finger at the U.S. over Kyoto, while doing nothing about his governments record of failure to follow up on its Kyoto commitments.

And those Climate Change deniers who claim that the 'Record' violent Hurricane season and the wicked Monsoons we experienced this year were not due to Global Warming, well once again these science fakirs and apologists for 'big business' are exposed by the authentic empirical science of NASA.The worst weather ever? At $200bn, it's certainly the costliest

Asked if he thought it was appropriate for a major American oil company to be funding a lobbyist targeting European companies, [ExxonMobil-funded lobbyist Chris Horner] replied: 'Everybody else does.' How America Plotted to Stop Kyoto Deal

Also See:

After Montreal A View From the Past

Capitalism=Climate Change

Kyoto Be Damned

Tags
science/ environment/ global warming/climate change/ Kyoto/ junk science

CTV Liberal Bias

Various Blogging Torys have discovered that CTV political reporters seem to have a Liberal bias. Or a bias in favour of the Liberals. No more so than Mike Duffy.

Conservative Life hits it on the head when he writes about the conflict of interest in the managment of CTV/Global Media and the fact that Charles Bird is the Ontario Liberal campaign manager and vice-president at Bell Globemedia (parent company of CTV and The Globe and Mail).

This is a conflict of interest but in Canada this is business as usual between the media and political parties. It is no different than Lord Blacks backing of the Reform/Alliance through his creature the National Post.

Or the Asper families editorial interference in the Canada.com papers by providing editorial content they had to run. Their direct interefence in stories about the middle east, defending Israel and labeling and opposition to Israeli as 'terorist'. And the Aspers also were long time funders and supporters of the Liberals.

While the Blogging Torys cry about CTV or the Globe and Mail bias in favour of the Liberals, their party is not on the recieving end of this bias as much as the Bloc is.

Duffy on his Mike Duffy Live and Countdown, literally oozes and gushes when he reports on the Liberals in Quebec taking on the Bloc. And it is not often he has any BQ spokespeople on his program. Whenever he has a federalist on whether a Conservative or Liberal he fawns over them if they take on the nasty seperatistes of the Bloc. It's the closest he gets to editorializing.

Mind you the NDP also get short shrift on Duffy's programs, for instance on his afternoon show, which runs opposite Don Newmans Politics on CBC Newsworld,
he has a segment called He Said She Said between Conservative and Liberal strategists. No NDP no BQ. What are only two parties running in this election.
One would think so watching Duffy's shows.



The same bias cannot be said of CTV's Question Period, where they have all four parties represented. Though apparently some is detected by Conservative Life and his readers, which is simply nit picking on their part much as they did recently over a change in a newstory on the CTV web site. Its called editing, but they saw in it a more nefarious conspiracy. Though again the Pro Federalist bias is still there.

Marc Garneau hopes to keep Canada together Liberal candidate Marc Garneau has represented Canada in space, but now he wants to represent a riding in Quebec to keep his country together.

On Don Newmans Politics, the supposedly 'liberal' (though not Liberal) media,CBC, all four party's are represented in debates between Party strategists or Media spokespeople.

Such was not the case last election in 2004. The bias was claring in the abscence of any Bloc prescence on either Politics or QP. I think in no small way my emailing and writing about this helped push Politics at least to finally invite the Bloc spokespeople on more often.

I mean here you have a party that was the Official Opposition, has the majority of seats in Quebec, and is the third party in the house and they get no recognition or very little on English Canadian media. As Monte Solberg would say, that's alien-nation.

So to the Blogging Tory's welcome to the wonderful world of corporate capitalism, where convergance means interlocking boards of directors, and interconnected management between corporate media and political parties. Where those in power in the corporate sector and the media sector want to be on the inside of political power. And for the last twelve years the Natural Ruling Party has been the Liberals. So you are surprised that the movers and shakers at CTV/ Bell Globemedia are Liberals?

Well let me tell you about a mover and shaker here in Alberta that works for the Conservatives, fundraises, and while not a media mogul has the ear of Ralph. Does Rod Love sound familiar? And he recently was a consultant to the Gomery Comission on democratic reform (sic) something he and his boss would never ever consider for Alberta.

So quit whining. If the Conservatives are ever elected as the Government the same thing will occur in the corridors of power and the media. And the BQ and NDP will still not be on He Said She Said.

The only Free Press belongs to those that own one.

A.J. Liebling





Tags
CBC
Canada
Federal Election
CTV
Globe & Mail
Mike Duffy
Don Newman
Blogging Torys
Conservative
Liberal
BQ
NDP

An NDP Coalition Government

Chatel Herbert in the Toronto Star says so. She is everyone's favorite and respected columnist, usually when she says nice things about their party or bad things about the other guys.

Warren K. was cheerful that Chantel had, like him, discovered that the Harper was now a born again 'progressive' (conservative) just like him. And Greg Staples joy that she likes Harper. She really likes him, Staples gushed.

I found that what Chantel said about the NDP was far more important despit the Harper Headline.

the minority Parliament has given the country a glimpse at a different future for the NDP.By co-authoring a federal budget, the NDP not only gave itself a record to showcase in the campaign but, for the first time in its federal history, the party has also had to defend its choices rather than just criticize those of others. That has forced it to start speaking the language of trade-offs, as Jack Layton did when he admitted that privately delivered health-care services and the Clarity Act were both here to stay. If New Democrats are to continue to hold sway in the Commons, they will have to become even more familiar with the practice of the art of the possible.To most Canadians, the notion that Ed Schreyer, Alexa McDonough, Bill Blaikie or Jack Layton could one day sit around a federal cabinet table alongside Liberal or even Conservative ministers seems far-fetched.But if the NDP ever gets the more proportional election system it is advocating, minority governments would become the rule rather than the exception. And the presence for the foreseeable future of a sovereignist party in the Commons would make the New Democrats the most likely bedfellows of any minority government, regardless of ideology.With the potential advent next month of a Parliament at least as sharply divided as the previous one, the notion of a coalition government may become a reality long before electoral reform stops being a policy abstraction in Canada.




Tags
Canada
Federal Election
Toronto Star
Chantal Herbert
Conservative
NDP
politics

Spellng

I hav alwys beleived that to critisize peuple for there spellng and gramma mythtakes wuz the lowest kinda attak its reely a cheep shoot. It avods discusing the reel argument that I or othrs might make. B-sides ths blogg dsnt alloww four spllchckng. Often I hav speling erors becuase I typo so fast that I make typ os rther than spellng mithtakes. So when you vsit and red my stuf here pleas excus the erors they realli r only typos. On the othr hnd all mythtakes here may b deliberite. Just 2 see IF yu are paying attntion.

Ayn Rand 100

It turns out that not only did 1905 usher in the first Russian Revolution, Dada, Einsteins Theory of Relativity, the IWW, Modernism and the avante garde as I wrote of here earlier, but it was also the year that Ayn Rand was born.

She was the ideologist of glorious unbridled individualist capitalism, sometimes mistaken for Libertarianism; the individualist ideology of Stirner, Netizche, Tucker, and Emma Goldman.

Such was not the case, hers was philosophy for Engineers who never took a liberal arts course. Her novels, dull and pedantic were seen by these same Engineers as great literature.

Her novel the Fountainhead was made into a forgetable movie, at the time that America began the Cold War, and mass consumerism abolished the memories of the pre war Depression. Her hero an architect was her ideal self sufficient individual, of course it helped he was rich and had lots of others to work for him.

Born in Russia she left in 1926. Her writing was influenced by the great Russian writer and individualist Eugene Zamaytin, whom she copied but never surpassed or even matched.

Hers was a materialist philosophy called Objectivism,a radical subjective psychology of making others into objects of appropriation for her selfish indvidual.

In normal situations, each man is responsible for himself and his own life, and that, socially, he should deal with others as a trader, meaning trading value for value, and dealing with others only by mutual voluntary consent. Never initiating force against another human being. Never sacrificing himself to others, or others to himself. That, in very brief, is the essence of the Objectivist ethics.

"Morality, And Why Man Requires It"

As a result her individualist psychology (morality) was that of happy adulter, her individualist morality that of the wife swapper, or in her case the husband swapper. For Ayn liked to wear the pants in the relationship. Her lifestyle like her philosophy was De Sadean. She dominated her circle of friends and students and partners.

She asked in her novel Atlas Shrugged; Who is John Galt? To which the reply is; Who Cares.

For more information click here.

Tags
Ayn Rand
capitalism
individualism
objectivism
psychology
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
libertarian

I Won! I Won!

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Merry Christmaskah

Today is Christmas Eve and Chanuakah
So Don't Be A Scrooge or a Grinch
Share some cheer and mirth
With family and Friends