They're all Savage Wars

It is rather unusual that Murray Brewster has selected the recent war in Afghanistan as the one deserving of the title The Savage War  As wars go, it's towards the tame side.  No chemical or nuclear weapons have been deployed and combined fatalities (civilians and combatants on both sides) for the entire war clock in around ~9000 per year.  The mean average DAY in World War One had more fatalities than that. 

This isn't to say that it is full of sunshine, rainbows and smiles.  Ultimately it is still a war, and they aren't pretty things.  People die, get wounded, lose thier property and livelihoods.  Brewster, a Canadian Press reporter, tells interesting tales of some of the casualties, how they impact the people around him and how the civilian population suffers.

Though most interesting are the people who are finding ways to survive and even profit from the war.  Brewster facilitated many interviews through local fixers, and their stories are among the more interesting the book has to offer.  And also among the more tragic, as one is imprisoned and ultimately killed because of the nature of his work. 

Brewster's book does little to place the conflict in the history of the world.  He makes a couple of mentions of the previous Russian invasion of Afghanistan, tangentially mentioning the scorched earth policies of the Soviets and stating that several of the weapons used by the Taliban originate from the communist nation.

To gain a bit of insight to that earlier war, it is useful to watch the ITN (a British TV station) documentary Modern Warfare: Russia in Afghanistan.  It is available on YouTube at  Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

While Brewster focuses on the conflict as it influences the life of an individual or tiny group through his writing, the ITN documentary is made with the old-school macro level of analysis.  There are strengths and failings to both.  It is difficult to gauge just what is going on in the total war effort though Brewster's words but with the ITN documentary it is hard to fell any empathy because you never get to know anyone.

Ultimately, Brewster's work is an excellent glimpse into the war, but paraphrasing his own words, it is looking at a panorama through a straw.  It offers fantastic insight to the political decisions back in Ottawa, gives a face to the Canadian war effort in Kandahar, but doesn't quite feel complete. 

And by it's nature as something published so close in time to the war itself, it does not include any reflection on the events in the book.  Luckily, such things can be penned at a later date and included as a new afterward.  I'd certainly give it a read when it came out.

Aboriginal futures

There is no issue more important (and harder) to overcome for Canada to address issues facing its Aboriginal population than racism. 

Though it’s impossible not to be aware of phenotypic differences between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals, it is really time that people stop thinking these differences carry with them a genetic pre-disposition to slothfulness, greed and vice.  I have no idea how this unenlightened position continues to exist or how its subscribers rationalize that a Caucasian drunk is just a person who needs to dry out by an Aboriginal drunk is beyond repair. 

But at the end of the day, a person is a person.  It might be that one has more pigment and perhaps their teeth have a slightly different shape, but these things are overall meaningless.  And although I've never thought otherwise, I was given a nice reminder of this over the weekend.       

I had the opportunity to instruct three Aboriginal grade 10 students on the ins and outs of the workings of a radio station.  Mason, Diandra and Payton are from the Skownan reserve and were in Winnipeg as part of the CareerTrek program. 

They weren't all overly interested in getting jobs in radio, but went through the program and seemed to have a legitimately good time being "on-air" and selecting music to play.  Which is admittedly easy when you don't have to try to adhere to CRTC standards when programming a largely hip-hop centric music station.

The worst I could possibly say of them was their education seems to be lack the knowledge of contributions to the world of music made by Vanilla Ice.  I can’t imagine why anyone would think this an important inclusion in a curriculum, but I can say that the fact that a couple of them through I was talking about icing on a cake which made me feel a great distance from my own days of youth.   

The highest praise I could possibly give is that they all have a fantastic sense of humour.  Some of it is rather dark humour, like a sarcastic assertion that one of the girls might not achieve anything greater than being the First Nations version of the octomom.  And this "most embarrassing moment" story from Mason: http://www.hilderman.info/resource/mp3/mason_story.mp3

And in the end, they were a group of kids probably more connected with the world than some adults I know.  One spoke at length about a former Member of Parliament (I'd hazard a guess that most Canadians probably couldn't name their current MP), there was talk about the need of jobs on their reserve (what's that racist line again? that they all just collect welfare?), and dreaming of the biggest dreams. 

I suspect that none of them will ever have the chance to walk on the moon as they hope, but it's awesome that they aren't ruling it out. 

Take me out to the ballgame

Spring has sprung, the grass has ris

Arizona and Florida are where the baseball is

Real baseball, with commentary, real big-league players and a TV feed.  Look!

Yes, it is only spring training baseball, but with the amount of snow dumped in Winnipeg over the past few days, it will do. 

Baseball is great for stories as there is conflict everywhere.  Each at-bat is it's own little chapter in the game, each run and out are important plot-points.  So here's what happened following the above screenshot.

The 8th inning ends on the next pitch, a flyout to centre.  The Yankees come up in the top of the 9th and add a couple runs.  The score is Yankees 8 and Phillies 2 heading into the bottom on the 9th.  Even the poor Mudville team had a better chance when old Casey was at the bat.

Michae O'Conner is out to pitch for the Yankees and Juan Pierre leads off the bottom of the 9th for the Phillies.  Pierre gets a single by swinging at a pitch so low that he probably gets his knuckles dirty as he brings the bat around. 

The next batter pops out to centre and then Kevin Frandsen takes a pitch from O'Conner deep to left for a two-run homer.  Can the Phillies come back?  Or will the home run kill the rally, as it is so often said to do?

It certainly seems to start that way.  O'Conner gets a little help from his defence when short stop fill-in Ramiro Pena makes a leaping grab to prevent a lob from Freddy Galvis for dropping into shallow left for a hit.  Not a highlight reel grab, but for the first outing of spring, it is pretty impressive.

But the pendulum starts to swing the other way with the next at bat.  Someone feeling chariatble to the young Yankees hurler says that Scott Podsednik shows a bit of veteran poise in turning 0-2 count into a walk.  Someone less inclined to sugar coat things would say O'Connor is suffering control problems as the four consecutive balls that out Podsednik on base were all well outside the zone. 

But spring training is the best time to see how a player will respond to adversity so O'Connor is left on the mound.  Tyler Gilles is up right after Posednik and the first pitch his way is errant and comes dangerously close to his head.  O'Connor settles down and again finds the strike zone, but gives up a RBI double to deep left field. 

Even though the Yanks' lead is cut in half and the tying run is on-deck, nobody motions to the bullpen for another pitcher.  It is the first spring training game that is on TV and in just this half an inning there's already this awesome story line.

Then it all falls apart when the pateience the Yankees have with O'Conner is rewarded when Cesar Hernandez strikes out on three straight to end the Phillies' chance at coming back.  O'Conner has a 27.000 ERA but he is out of the inning and his team wins.

OK, it's a bit "what could have been" from where the Phillies stand and it certainly doesn't come close to the awesomeness that was game 6 of last year's World Series, but it will more than do for the first  spring training game.