From the ridiculous to the irrational ... !
 

In Mordecai Richler's article on the Insight page of the Van-
couver Sun, Saturday, January 3, 1998, we see how Bouchard and
his cohorts have moved from the ridiculous to the irrational
in their pursuit of making Quebec a sovereign nation: "Reality
has become far more imaginative than satire"

A gravestone maker named Mendy Berson, proprietor of L. Berson
and Fils on St.Laurent Blvd.,in Montreal, had a sign in place
for 50 years that read "monuments" in French, and underneath
five Hebrew characters that spelled monuments. As the Hebrew
letters were slightly larger than the French, the French
language police from the Commission de Protection de la Langue
francais warned that the Hebrew lettering would have to
be effaced or reduced in size, or Berson, 99 per cent of
whose clients are Jewish, could be fined anything from $500 to
$1,400. Bouchard and his comrades are making a laughing stock
of Quebec in the eyes of the world the longer they are stay in
power in Quebec.

In the cosmopolitan world we are now living in today, where
national borders are becoming more meaningless as we move into
the 21st century, the stupid notion of the leaders of the
Parti Quebecois that they can isolate Quebec from the rest of
the world, in their vain attempt to preserve Quebec's distinct
culture and national identity, is becoming more absurd by
every statement coming out of their mouths.

If Bouchard ever attains his goal of an independent nation,
the young people of Quebec will flee the country like rats
fleeing a sinking ship as soon as they learn another language.
And Quebec will wither and die on the vine of national
ignorance. Wake up young French-Canadians and realize how
ridiculous Quebec is beginning to look in the eyes of the
world under the leadership of these narrow-minded leaders!

As Mordecai notes in his article: the province is really
becoming more of a "distinct society" every day - distinctly
ridiculous in the eyes of the world.

Jerry Hall
January 6, 1998
 

First, I'm not talking about anti-semitism here. The main issue
revolves around differences of language & culture used, like many
other good gifts of God, to grab power, money and/or position
Most "English" in Canada love the French-Canadians and their
culture (beautiful churches, music (Celine etc.), literature, sports
and hockey players even if they are the fiercest of rivals. They
keep ourlife interesting (and profitable). We "English" have danced
with them for centuries even if we have stepped on each others toes from
time to time. Let the dance continue!

But this all gives me an opportunity to harp again on my modern appraisal
of Bible myth. I talking about the Tower of Babel thing in
Genesis 11. " Now the whole earth had one language and few words."

For this to be literally true, it would be probably referring to very
early human history when a few clans of homo sapiens existed.
Or perhaps today when English is the big language of the Internet
and business. Of course, as we see here on the Christian NG's the
day of "few words" is long extinct.

Well, the Babel Tower construction crew got their brick for stone and
bitumen for mortar and started upward toward the "top in the heavens."
The Lord mosied down from heaven for a look at this ancient CN Tower.
He was very impressed. And started to worry. Yahweh said "Nothing
they propose to do will now be impossible for them." Of course, Yahweh
saw that this new fangled tower would be an occasion for the
deadly sin of hubris/pride to rear its ugly head. So, said Yahweh,"Let us go
down there and confuse their language, that they may not understand one
another's speech." And it was so. And for the literal minded Christians this
explains why we have the "confusion" of the many different languages of
the world.

The more liberal Christians would have other interpretations.

The Tower of Babel myth wisely perceived that
human pride is tied up with earth's "confusion of languages."
But the myth puts the cart before the horse; man's pride of
bigger is better and trying to operate on the level of God, leads
to social confusion of different lanuages. And realized that basing
social solidarity on ever-grander "public works" schemes as
opposed to everyone doing justice in a society led towards
slavery and not advanced civilization.Thus, according to the myth
human pride leads to differences of language.However, it's more
likely that language differences are used byarrogant humans, in
grabs for power and wealth, to diminish, control andenslave
other language and cultural groups. (Like a lot of big construct-
projects in the ancient world (Egypt, Greek and Roman) Tower
Babel was likely a sweat and blood expenditure of many slaves.)

A realistic view of human history suggests that geographic isolation,
racial differences, etc. gave rise to many different languages. These
various tongues may have been a curse of some description but it
hardly was a punishment of God for anything other than being born.

Still, the Tower of Babel story clearly shows that human pride
is operative in humanity's diversity of languages. Often, in the
ancient past, as now, cultural groups used language differences
to assert themselves as "the people" = the chosen = the apple of
God's eyes - a big put-down of other language groups (considered
as the "barbarian" and hardly worthy of the title 'human.') And even
within language/cultural groups, pride was\is operative too, by
selection of word coupled with elevation of nose, to distinguish
one as high class = more human than the common riff raff,gutter folk.

So forget the literal approach to the Babel myth. But appreciate its
expression of the ancient Hebrews insight: there's a tight connection
between language and the power games that cliques and in-groups
love to play at the expense of the already poor, oppressed or marginalized.
Definitely a no-no on God's list. It's always pride first then the big screw
up of whatever!