Day: November 3, 2002

Og words sound funny

It amazes me that (according to Google) no one has ever posted an article called The Secret World of Ogg about Xiph’s digital audio format, or The Secret World of Blog about the web-based journals (like this one) that have cropped up everywhere. Then again, Pierre Berton’s book was published ten years before I was born; the kids working on and writing about all this newfangled technology have probably never even heard of it, which is a shame.

Soviet Canuckistan

My brother sent me a note on a recent comment by a (failed) politician from the U.S.A. who calls the country we live in Soviet Canuckistan. I thought it was funny–yet another crackpot trying to get in the paper–but then I looked up the phrase on Google to see the various coverage.

I used to think Pat Buchanan was just a blowhard. I still do, but I’ve recently realized that he’s a dangerous blowhard… and that there are dangerous people in this country who not only don’t have a problem with him, but revere him as the unerring voice of sanity and rightness. I’ve looked at the websites: these people are just this side of skinheads, and will be angered most that this post doesn’t go so far as to actually put them in that category.

I’m not a political person–on the whole it’s a topic that doesn’t interest me in the slightest–but I’m ashamed to share a country, let alone a continent, with people like this.

First They Came

First they came for the Communists.
I was silent.
I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews.
I was silent.
I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists.
I was silent.
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me.

There was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller [adapted from various sources]