The Omnifarium

Voting for Change?

Category: Politics
Fri, 31 Mar 2006, 16:30

Prime Minister Stephen Harper often says that the people of Canada voted for change. I, for one, am getting tired of hearing that. Did we vote for change? Well, no, not really. With only about 35% of the popular vote, it's clear that most Canadians did not want change. Or if they did, it wasn't the change that Harper promised.

Harper may feel pretty proud of gaining the position of most powerful politician in the country. But he has to be aware of one sobering fact. The Conservatives ran a flawless campaign. Harper was on the front page of most newspapers almost every day of the campaign. On the other hand, the Liberals wallowed in what had to be their worst campaign ever. All the breaks went to the Conservatives. No one could possibly claim that the Conservatives did not get their message out. And yet, in spite of everything going their way, they only achieved 35% of the popular vote. In spite of everything, 65% of Canadians still chose to mark their "X" in a different circle. This has to be discouraging to Conservative insiders.

What's Harper to do? As a leader of a minority government, he must tread carefully, and work with the opposition parties to get things done. As Joe Clark amply demonstrated, he can't afford to govern as if he had a majority. Can Harper craft consensus? We'll have to wait and see. But so far, he seems to be making a fine mess of things. He's already demonstrated hypocrisy by luring over a Liberal with the promise of a cabinet position less than two weeks after the election. He's insulted Ontarians by giving cabinet positions to former ministers in Mike Harris's cabinet. And he still insists he will cancel billions of dollars in child care support leaving cities like Toronto in the lurch.

Perhaps he thinks he can get away with this since few Canadians want another election soon. He may be right. The Liberals probably won't be in a position to fight another election for the next 12 months. On the other hand, Harper is cold and calculating. Maybe what he really wants is to force an election this summer, well before the Liberals can mount a credible response. We'll see. Once things start to happen in the legislature, he'll have to learn how to play nicely with the kids on the other side of the playground.

Hans

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The Worlds Tallest Freestanding Telecommunications Tower

Wed, 29 Mar 2006, 08:18

The CN Tower recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. For all of that time, it has held the record as the worlds tallest free-standing tower. Many people make the mistake of calling the CN Tower the worlds tallest building. However, architects do not classify it as a building since it does not have contiguously occupied floors.

Actually, some Torontonians get very upset when this fact is pointed out. Likewise, some Torontonians get huffy when it's pointed out that Yonge Street cannot possibly be the worlds longest street. Perhaps having superlatives such as these satisfies some emotional need to turn Toronto into a "world-class" city? Anyways, having the worlds tallest freestanding telecommunications tower is still nothing to sneeze at.

Thirty years as record holder is quite remarkable, especially considering that everyone expected higher towers sooner. Actually, the semantics quibbling over the title "worlds tallest building" will soon be over anyways. A building currently under construction in Dubai, the Burj Dubai, is expected to reach 705m in height, 170m taller than the CN Tower. Furthermore, if all current proposals are built, by 2010, there may be as many as six buildings taller than the CN Tower. These include the Al Burj in Dubai (expected to be taller than the Burj Dubai), the Fordham Spire in Chicago (610m), the Inchon Towers (610m), the Russia Tower in Moscow (600m), and the Freedom Tower in New York (541m to the top of the radio tower).

Even with all of these buildings, the CN Tower, at 535m, will still remain the tallest in its class, the tallest freestanding telecommunications tower. Given current technology, such as fiber optic cable and telecommunications satellites, there may be little need for such a tall telecommunications tower anywhere else in the world, and the CN Tower will hold its record for a long time to come.

Hans

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Religious Freedom in the 21st Century

Category: Religion
Sat, 25 Mar 2006, 15:34

In Afghanistan, 41 year old Abdul Rahman is charged with converting from Islam to Christianity. Under Afghan law, that act is punishable by death. People of many different faiths find this unacceptable. After all, in a modern world, we all should have the freedom to choose our religion, right? But how much religious freedom do we really have? To start with, let's have a quick look at the history of Christianity.

Christianity began in the ancient Roman Empire. At the time, most people were relatively free to practice the religion of their choice. Sure, there were years during which certain religious groups were persecuted, but on the whole different religions were more or less tolerated. If this wasn't the case, Christians never would have been able to establish and practice their religion. (Reports of vast numbers of Christian martyrs during Roman times are considered to be greatly exaggerated by most historians.)

Of course, things changed drastically during the reign of Emperor Constantine I. Christianity was established as the state religion, and almost all other forms of worship were outlawed and suppressed, often brutally. This included forms of Christian practice that did not conform to the beliefs of the senior bishops in the empire.

For the subsequent 1300 years, the average European had little choice in his religion. The church jealously guarded the rules of orthodoxy, often brutally suppressing any "heresy", such as Catharism and Waldensianism. The Protestant reformation was the biggest challenge to church authority, and millions of people in central Europe were killed during the subsequent wars. Even after peace treaties were signed, the average peasant still had no religious freedom - the religion of a region was still decided by the ruling king, arch-duke, or prince.

Okay then, what about today? Don't most of us enjoy the right to choose and practice our own faith? In theory, yes. But the reality is that most followers of most religions don't choose their faith - it gets chosen for them, usually by their parents. Many children get indoctrinated into a particular church through lessons taught in Sunday School, or in some cases, through religious day schools.

When a child is old enough to make his or her own reasoned choices, few choose to stray from the family's church. Some do, however, which normally isn't much of a problem. However, in some churches, people are often shunned by the family and church. The threat of being shunned is often used as a deterrent against apostasy. Even in churches where this isn't a problem, a person may well stay with the church just to avoid offending or alienating fellow family members.

My point here is that Islam isn't the first religion to take action against those leaving the faith, and won't be the last. But if a church feels it needs to use force or coercion to keep the "faithful" in line, what does that say about the church? Shouldn't a faith attract and retain adherents by the force of argument and reason, rather than the force of intimidation?

Hans

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