(no subject)
All my computer time this week has been sucked up reading election news. I'll resist posting a bunch of stuff here, just a link to http://compellingcomics.justsomeguy.com/CanadaVotes2011/Canada.html. If anyone on my list is debating voting Conservative, I'd love to know why. (I can understand liking some of his policies, though I personally don't like many of them. But how does one support a candidate that has been so dismissive of democracy? Stephen Harper altered the way in which the press has access to him, and has restricted information. He makes scientists answer to politicians before they can speak out. He has been found in contempt of Parliament. He's constantly saying that this election is unnecessary despite the fact that he was provoking it by submitting a budget that he knew none of the other parties could possibly support. He's refusing to answer more than five questions a day. He's encouraging conservative candidates to not show up at debates. People have to register ahead of time to attend any of his public events and people are being thrown out of the events for things on their facebook pages? And one of the campaign operatives attempted to grab a ballot box at a university special ballot initiative. Now there's a question of whether or not his party spent money illegally in putting so many millions of dollars that was supposed to go to the G8 event into unrelated projects in a conservative riding. But... he tells us this is an unnecessary election and despite his holding only a minority of seats he should be able to run the country as though he had a majority? Then there's the old question of organizations that do government funded work - like organizations that help new refugees - being told that they'll be defunded if they speak up against a bad bill his government proposed, and at the same time some of the conservative party sending press released about all different ethnic organizations that they claim supported their bill - ethnic organizations that are apparently so small they have neither a webpage, a mailing address or anything else to identify where they exist. Or the fact that his science minister refused ever to answer whether or not he believed in evolution, because that would be answering a question about his religious beliefs and he doesn't feel he should have to answer questions about his religious beliefs. That's not a religious question people! It's a question of whether a SCIENCE minister believes in one of the major tenants of BIOLOGY.) Okay... I wasn't going to write about the election... but my head was going to explode if I didn't. Who knows, my head might still explode.
Merritt is asking for lunch, so I have to go in a few minutes but I'll try to type fast. Life is fun. I'm busy these days both with my kids and with election related things.
I've been reading about Ancient Greek religion and discussing things about it with Merritt. I'm trying to encourage him to look at it with a sense of wonder and awe. Try to imagine the world as they saw it. Try to see the benefit of the gods as they were to the people involved, rather than view it with the cold scientific skepticism that at six he is already well trained in. There are so many good conversations to be had with him, and so much to learn myself. I'm realizing how little I know about the ancient world. I know bits and pieces but I don't know how they fit together. It is so tempting to study the history of Israel seperate from the history of Egypt, seperate from the history of Greece, seperate from the history of Rome, and really, I want to know how they all fit together. I want to read about Roman and Egyptian religions sometime, because I want to have more of a sense of what religious world Christianity was born out of.