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Shooting at Canadian Parliament


RevDavidLee

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Cultures that hold antipathy toward guitar such as that of "radical Islam" are not cultures that will function well with those of us that have guitar as part of current culture.

 

m

 

I agree. But the math has to include Wolf Blitzer. Any culture that doesn't have him croakin "ISIS" in every other sentence about a lone whack freak popping off is in better shape than ours. You can't take this seriously after the media, all of the media regardless of perceived slant, get their green scaly mitts on it. Holy CRAP smack my head.

 

rct

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Given that I've been, one way or another, "media" myself for just short of 50 years, I don't think I'll entirely agree with RCT's comment.

 

Yes, you don't wanna know how much "slant" I've seen done by intent. Then too comes the "excite folks by taking an editorial stance in writing a given piece" as well. That latter is often worse because it tends to win "journalism" awards.

 

The problem past and present isn't so much "slant" as "piling on." We see some of that again in the case of the Canadian Parliament situation. Everybody figures some different slant - it need not reflect "politics" as much as "something different."

 

I think in ways the "social media," including us here, should bring recognition that it now is part of the "lets take a slant and get an opinion and the heck with the facts."

 

"Culture" again plays a major role in how "we" regard varying events.

 

In many urban areas, for example, those who'd never use a "racial" or "ethnic" slur will quite happily state that they don't want a military or police force or a politician who acts "like a cowboy." Yet where I live, a "cowboy" as a local ideal is someone who looks ahead, cares for his livestock and neighbors, is honest and open whether it's work or play. That's a world of difference from what is meant by the city folks who seem to have watched too many movies. Urban folks who haven't a clue how to run any sort of business with $1 million investment, let alone a farm or ranch, will howl at "crazy" cowboys and "ignorant rural rubes."

 

Why? They simply live in quite different worlds with quite different needs and perspectives that reflect in different culture.

 

There's a real problem in interpreting "happenings" through one's own culture. Splits in our general "western European" culture tend to widen at times and then also our various "takes" on various events. Our politics can get a bit odd and nasty.

 

Ignorance of ongoing events would be a more serious problem, and one that frankly seems to be part of how "slant" is reinforced. A habit of "media" in talking to one "person on the street" that happens to support the medium's slant is promoted, those that don't or make the opposition look as ignorant as one interviewee is another version of "slant."

 

What's the answer? Actually I think that at least an hour in the morning or evening television "news hour" watching on a right and left wing newscast, say Fox vs CNN in the U.S., is probably a good idea to see what is covered, and how.

 

And then...

 

One should consider some of one's own cultural prejudices and ignorance. City folk ignorant of agricultural practices should take care in criticism and - by the same token, rural people should do a bit of checking on the sensitivities of urban folks that tend to be quite different.

 

But this is a narrow band of "culture" among all of us, regardless of our personal politics.

 

The big thing that's harder to recognize is just how different some cultures are compared to our own. How it can be "correct" to kill others outside one's own religious or tribal group, for example. How the cultures of others are hated to the point that the guitar itself is seen (rightly perhaps) as an instrument of culture and cultural domination.

 

It's interesting.

 

m

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It was really a bit of a shocker.

Many friends and family were in lock down at their respective places of work. I work about 10 km from the scene but drive right by it twice a day.

Even this morning there were road blocks.

This was an act of terrorism whether inspired by ISIS or whether this was a lone wolf.

This was the second act this week. The first being near Montreal, Quebec where a service man and a civilian were mowed down by an individual in a car who called emergency response himself to declare that he has done Allah's bidding. The serviceman died as a result. As did the assailant after flipping his car and attacking the police with a long knife. He was killed by police. The assailant was known to federal agencies as having been radicalized. His passport was taken away after trying to go to Turkey in July.

Many in Canada were and are shocked that this could happen on our soil.

Sadly, this is not likely the last we've seen of this. Innocence lost.

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Many in Canada were and are shocked that this could happen on our soil.

Sadly, this is not likely the last we've seen of this. Innocence lost.

 

I wasn't surprised to be honest. Once the terrorists hijacked the planes and flew them into the Trade Center etc. I felt it was only a matter of time. Plus we have seen terrorism in Canada before. To radical Islam Canada = USA. Infidels-in-arms as it were.

 

'Innocence lost' actually happened when Canada experienced terrorism from within back in the 60s, culminating in 1970 with the 'October Crisis'. The FLQ (Front de libération du Québec)a radical French Canadian separatist group murdered our Labour Minister: Pierre Laport and kidnapped British Trade Commissioner: James Cross.

 

The FLQ had a lot of support from the Québécois(e) up until this incident, but the kidnapping and murder turned the regular people against the FLQ and it wasn't long before they gave police information that helped them round up the more radical members. Along with a lot of guns and hundreds of pounds of TNT.

 

It was similar to the situation these days, where many Muslims feel that denouncing terrorism is denouncing Islam. Many French Canadians felt denouncing the FLQ was akin to denouncing the separatist movement. But once they killed a French Canadian and kidnapped a foreign dignitary the average person in Que. could no longer support the terrorist faction. Although many still support the movement through political proxy(as I am sure you are well aware).

 

Additionally, during the 60s the FLQ detonated about 100 bombs in mailboxes(mainly in Montréal) injuring dozens of people; although I don't think anyone was killed.

 

Can't we all just get a song? ;-)

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Given that I've been, one way or another, "media" myself for just short of 50 years, I don't think I'll entirely agree with RCT's comment.

 

Nobody cares.

 

First. A man died. Save your perspective for another thread.

Second. You've been in media for 50 years. You are inherently slanted in your opinion right there.

Third. I do agree with rct. The daily news can be reported in 10 or 15 minutes. Wolf Blitzer is protecting his job on a 24 hour news network

Last. A man died. It's not about what you think.

 

Condolences to his family.

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Nobody cares.

 

First. A man died. Save your perspective for another thread.

Second. You've been in media for 50 years. You are inherently slanted in your opinion right there.

Third. I do agree with rct. The daily news can be reported in 10 or 15 minutes. Wolf Blitzer is protecting his job on a 24 hour news network

Last. A man died. It's not about what you think.

 

 

Two men died.

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I won't ever label all of Islam a "terrorist" religion… and I hope this most recent incident doesn't fan the flames of Islamophobia.

 

However, it's been my opinion for a long time now, that the moderates have got to get a handle on this radicalized element of their religion and squash it. "Outsiders" will always be seen as oppressors or "infidels", etc. So, ultimately, the change has got to occur from within! It's high time…

 

I am heart-broken for the family of the soldier who was killed. He was a new dad, apparently?

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Quap...

 

1. I'm not Wolf Blitzer or anyone similar. I take personal umbrage at your dissing me in a blanket condemnation. All here might be surprised that more than a few "media" people take pride in their professional integrity to the point of quitting or standing up to be fired. And that's not for "opinions" but for finding facts and reporting them for people who do care about the world around them.

 

2. Nobody would have known about any of this without "the media."

 

3. I've had to write of, and photograph not for the media but for "investigators," more death and destruction of various sorts than I wish to recall, but luckily never with this type of circumstance.

 

4. It is about what all of us think, but true, it need not be repeated continually on television - or anonymous threads such as this.

 

5. Thanks for suggesting I would do less than my very best at objective reportage were something similar to happen in the relatively rural communities where I've lived.

 

When I've had to write of unexpected death, murders and other horrid things, it's only too often been of my neighbors and friends or parents/children of friends. If nearly 50 years of such doesn't make one a bit sensitive to the feelings of others in such circumstances, nothing will - certainly not sitting in one's living room watching the tube.

 

m

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I won't ever label all of Islam a "terrorist" religion… and I hope this most recent incident doesn't fan the flames of Islamophobia.

 

 

I share your hope. At the same time ...

 

Mayo provides this definition of 'phobia':

 

"A phobia is an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or situation that poses little real danger but provokes anxiety and avoidance. Unlike the brief anxiety most people feel when they give a speech or take a test, a phobia is long lasting, causes intense physical and psychological reactions, and can affect your ability to function normally at work or in social settings."

 

Recognition and acknowledgement of a significant source of terrorist ideals and activity isn't necessarily 'overwhelming' or 'unreasonable'. This isn't to say that all of Islam is terror driven. But I think it's pretty safe to say that the odds are far greater that a terrorist in these times will be a Muslim than a little old lady born in Iowa.

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Cultures that hold antipathy toward guitar such as that of "radical Islam" are not cultures that will function well with those of us that have guitar as part of current culture.

 

m

 

Wait a minute - I'm learning something here... radical Islam has antipathy towards guitars??? I'm being serious here. I did not know that. What the hell is the problem with the guitar? [confused]

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Given that I've been, one way or another, "media" myself for just short of 50 years, I don't think I'll entirely agree with RCT's comment.

 

Yes, you don't wanna know how much "slant" I've seen done by intent. Then too comes the "excite folks by taking an editorial stance in writing a given piece" as well. That latter is often worse because it tends to win "journalism" awards.

 

The problem past and present isn't so much "slant" as "piling on." We see some of that again in the case of the Canadian Parliament situation. Everybody figures some different slant - it need not reflect "politics" as much as "something different."

 

I think in ways the "social media," including us here, should bring recognition that it now is part of the "lets take a slant and get an opinion and the heck with the facts."

 

"Culture" again plays a major role in how "we" regard varying events.

 

In many urban areas, for example, those who'd never use a "racial" or "ethnic" slur will quite happily state that they don't want a military or police force or a politician who acts "like a cowboy." Yet where I live, a "cowboy" as a local ideal is someone who looks ahead, cares for his livestock and neighbors, is honest and open whether it's work or play. That's a world of difference from what is meant by the city folks who seem to have watched too many movies. Urban folks who haven't a clue how to run any sort of business with $1 million investment, let alone a farm or ranch, will howl at "crazy" cowboys and "ignorant rural rubes."

 

Why? They simply live in quite different worlds with quite different needs and perspectives that reflect in different culture.

 

There's a real problem in interpreting "happenings" through one's own culture. Splits in our general "western European" culture tend to widen at times and then also our various "takes" on various events. Our politics can get a bit odd and nasty.

 

Ignorance of ongoing events would be a more serious problem, and one that frankly seems to be part of how "slant" is reinforced. A habit of "media" in talking to one "person on the street" that happens to support the medium's slant is promoted, those that don't or make the opposition look as ignorant as one interviewee is another version of "slant."

 

What's the answer? Actually I think that at least an hour in the morning or evening television "news hour" watching on a right and left wing newscast, say Fox vs CNN in the U.S., is probably a good idea to see what is covered, and how.

 

And then...

 

One should consider some of one's own cultural prejudices and ignorance. City folk ignorant of agricultural practices should take care in criticism and - by the same token, rural people should do a bit of checking on the sensitivities of urban folks that tend to be quite different.

 

But this is a narrow band of "culture" among all of us, regardless of our personal politics.

 

The big thing that's harder to recognize is just how different some cultures are compared to our own. How it can be "correct" to kill others outside one's own religious or tribal group, for example. How the cultures of others are hated to the point that the guitar itself is seen (rightly perhaps) as an instrument of culture and cultural domination.

 

It's interesting.

 

m

 

Ok well, I surely need to clarify what I was trying to say. You said that their culture and guitars etc. I agree.

 

Our culture, here in America, has quite a good number of 1 BILLION DOLLAR PER YEAR EACH media outlets that prop up bloviating buttwipes and turn on the camera and let them go and call it news. That has been a growing problem, and in recent years seems to be growing exponentially. It is a serious problem with our culture. It isn't the slant or the perspective of the viewer or the politics of it all or left or right or anything like that.

 

Present company excluded, American Media contributes much to the growing sense of shame I feel for our country, and my sad resignation that the kids today, the little kids, are going to grow up into a so fukked up world it isn't funny, and Big Media will have been a big part of it.

 

Yes, their culture has problems, and I don't give a sh1t about them, because just trying to tell me about it via those that control the content and distribution is one of our biggest problems as a culture. That's all.

 

rct

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I don't wish to detract from such a serious topic but just to clarify one point, the implications of which are considerable, raised earlier by the OP;

 

Wait a minute - I'm learning something here... radical Islam has antipathy towards guitars??? I'm being serious here. I did not know that. What the hell is the problem with the guitar? [confused]

It's not limited to guitars, Rev; it's ALL music and the arts.

This is an extract from a recent official governmental report into schooling here in the U.K.;

 

"...the interpretation of Islam that's sweeping through the Muslim world......seeks to deprive children of any exposure to the arts, which it condemns as idolatrous. Even listening to music is "haram", forbidden. The underlying teaching is that the arts, by seeking to create beauty, blaspheme by detracting attention from the only source of true beauty, Allah, which can be appreciated only in the natural world he created."

 

Nor is this a recent phenomenon.

Destruction of religious artefacts of other faiths by muslims goes right back to the founding days of Islam with the destruction of non-Islamic religious sites in Mecca in the early part of the 7th century.

Notoriously in 2001 the 6th century Buddhas of Bamiyan were dynamited after the Taliban government declared them to be 'Idols' and, as such, their destruction was "...merely about carrying out Islamic Religious Iconoclasm..." according to the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan at the time of this sacrilegious act.

 

P.

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I don't wish to detract from such a serious topic but just to clarify one point, the implications of which are considerable, raised earlier by the OP;

 

 

It's not limited to guitars, Rev; it's ALL music and the arts.

This is an extract from a recent official governmental report into schooling here in the U.K.;

 

"...the interpretation of Islam that's sweeping through the Muslim world......seeks to deprive children of any exposure to the arts, which it condemns as idolatrous. Even listening to music is "haram", forbidden. The underlying teaching is that the arts, by seeking to create beauty, blaspheme by detracting attention from the only source of true beauty, Allah, which can be appreciated only in the natural world he created."

 

Nor is this a recent phenomenon.

Destruction of religious artefacts of other faiths by muslims goes right back to the founding days of Islam with the destruction of non-Islamic religious sites in Mecca in the early part of the 7th century.

Notoriously in 2001 the 6th century Buddhas of Bamiyan were dynamited after the Taliban government declared them to be 'Idols' and, as such, their destruction was "...merely about carrying out Islamic Religious Iconoclasm..." according to the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan at the time of this sacrilegious act.

 

P.

 

Thank you for explaining that point further. So much has been destroyed, including people, in the name of religion(s) over the history of man that it sickens me. I hoped (naively) that once we went into space and everyone saw the earth in its entirety from out there that we would all learn to coexist better together realizing we're all in this thing together on one relatively small globe in the vastness of space. I was obviously wrong about that (well that and at least a few other things along the way) ;)

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Just a coupla points...

 

1. I'm not at all certain how old the earth is - largely because I think that the initial formations that led to being "earth" weren't exactly what we'd consider somewhere much more friendly to life as we know it than Neptune. In fact, given what is likely about the formation of "our" moon, I'd question in ways whether the "planet" in roughly our earth's orbit was "earth." So... I question the 4.5 billion time on that basis. Or... should it be counted from initial coalescence? I dunno. All kinda games on that.

 

2. I think "religion" is "good" in many ways - however "sects" can at times cause major problems because of specific beliefs. "We" throughout history have a habit of attempting to destroy various sects in one way or another if they espouse perceived culturally-threatening beliefs. That goes way, way back to "politics" surrounding the reign in Egypt of Akhenaten some 3,300 years ago or so. Much depends here on how one defines "religion." Personally I tend to define it as a cohesive belief system that includes ethics and epistemology. "Theology" would in that sense be considered an outgrowth of epistemology.

 

3. My comment on "media" is that "we" have something of a challenge since communications burst from folks talking and writing/copying material by hand into the era of the printing press, then only in the past century the various electronic media bursting into being. "We" have a huge challenge here. As guitar players, note I've frequently commented that this explosion of "media" makes distribution of material both far easier and far more difficult at the same time. It's far more difficult to cope with the past 20 years than in the previous 75 - and the previous 75 saw huge changes. The definition of "news" is, as many terms, evolving. I'm the last to claim I'm pleased with what I've seen in that change. In fact... to the contrary.

 

4. We humans also have this strong tendency toward mobocracy brought by perceived immediate calls to action. That's one reason the U.S. constitution was designed to slow responses with various checks and balances. (Ditto, I'd add, some recent neolithic cultures -as with many Amerind tribes - that have councils of elders able to put the brakes onto the passion of the younger leadership. One might question the value of that due to one's personal politics at a given time, but...

 

5. Pippy... Thanks for your response on the culture and guitar thing. Well done.

 

6. As far as bloviating whatevers on easily-accessed media... one must note that whether one agrees or not, somebody's willing to pay for it because it draws an audience. I'm far from being apolitical, but that's a fact of life whether I agree or violently disagree with the talking head here or there. Better, IMHO, than making any such commentary illegal.

 

m

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6. As far as bloviating whatevers on easily-accessed media... one must note that whether one agrees or not, somebody's willing to pay for it because it draws an audience.

 

I would suggest, based on observation, experience, discussion with people that do that for a living, and fundamentals of accounting that the somebody that is willing to pay for it is simply writing off top end revenue by paying in house marketing to create the advertising, and that the media machine makes money by selling the ad time. The audience just doesn't matter. If the audience actually DID matter, we wouldn't use an archaic, laughable, moronic, terarded notion like Nielson ratings to determine what it is that people will actually sit through. If the audience actually DID matter, the 24 hour news cycle and it's pathetic need for gusting bags of hot air gurgling non-facts about the easiest story to not research would have ended long ago. If the audience actually DID matter, like any other consumer product, somebody would have to at least attempt to hold somebody accountable for the complete bullsh1t that Wolf is spewing as I type this. Or Hannity. Or Matthews, or any other paid, millionaire, idiot talking head that is only on the news because their Broadway career failed miserably the second week and they really hate waiting tables with their Theater Arts degree.

 

The audience has nothing whatsoever to do with it other than the relentless pursuit of the next bigger flatscreen on which to watch this crap. Or not, as they would probably be ashamed to admit if anyone ever actually got real figures on what people are willing to sit through and subtracted that vaporous return on marketing investment that they sure want themselves to believe exists.

 

rct

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Believe me, we're on the same side in terms of the sort of "content" that's involved. Ain't my schtick at all.

 

OTOH... Naaah... the folks paying the bills do have an eye on what's there and the audience specifications, at least at the sort of platforms we're talking about. I may be horridly cynical, but the figures on a poor ad buy will have their consequences as well as the figures on a good ad buy.

 

m

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