Fidel Cas­tro is final­ly dying. It’s obscene that he dies of old age, in lux­u­ry, still in pow­er, after a life­time of suc­cess­ful slave-trad­ing, mur­der, tor­ture, exploita­tion, racism, and homo­pho­bia. I expect to have to endure the effu­sions of thug-wor­ship (mixed with a lit­tle strate­gic mild crit­i­cism) that will come when he dies. They will turn my stom­ach, as they should any decent per­son, but they are cus­tom­ary when any long-lived crim­i­nal dies. But before the cir­cus parade of mythol­o­gy starts rolling, it is impor­tant that good peo­ple remem­ber, and fix in their minds, the truth­ful image that sums up Fidel. This image is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for the world’s Gays to remember.

All Marx­ist regimes have per­se­cut­ed gays, start­ing with Lenin, who sent many thou­sands to tor­ment and exe­cu­tion in the spe­cial White Sea Canal death camps. But no Marx­ist dic­ta­tor was as obsessed with abus­ing gays as Fidel Cas­tro. Even when he was first becom­ing known to jour­nal­ists, at a peri­od when homo­pho­bia was almost uni­ver­saly accept­ed, they were shocked by the para­noid fanati­cism of Castro’s hatred for gays.

Once in pow­er, Cas­tro wast­ed no time round­ing up gays, or any­one who appeared gay. Truck­loads of par­ty zealots combed the streets look­ing for any­one who looked like a fag. They were arrest­ed and sent to the infa­mous UMAP slave labour camps. The UMAP [Mil­i­tary Units to Aid Pro­duc­tion] camps were usu­al­ly sug­ar plan­ta­tions. Any­one whom Cas­tro deter­mined to be a “class ene­my” did hard labour in them. This includ­ed any­one who crit­i­cized Marx­ist ortho­doxy, was open­ly reli­gious, com­plained of Com­mu­nist greed or bru­tal­i­ty, or who belonged to some minor­i­ty. But there were spe­cial camps for gays, usu­al­ly with a harsh­er regime, and in which crude exper­i­ments with elec­troshock and brain­wash­ing were perpetrated.

The UMAP camps were described in detail by a doc­tor, José Luis Llovio-Menén­dez, who was sent to one, and was required to act as camp medic. Even the weak­est and most seri­ous­ly injured were forced to go back to the cane-fields, but he could usu­al­ly admin­is­ter some med­i­cine, and in a few hero­ic con­fronta­tions he man­aged to get lenien­cy for some of the most wretched vic­tims. Inmates at the camps worked at exhaust­ing phys­i­cal labour, usu­al­ly cut­ting sug­ar cane, from 4:30 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. Lunch was a slimy bowl of chick­peas. Latrines were fetid hells, swarm­ing with flies. Dis­ci­pline was severe in all the camps, but it was met­ed out to gays with spe­cial sadism and fury. They were rou­tine­ly beat­en in the cane fields, as they worked, were made to stand in the hot sun for eight hours, or were placed overnight, naked, in pits of filth while mos­qui­toes fed on them. Worst of all was the dread­ed “rope pun­ish­ment”, whip­pings with a coarse rope of aguave. If you know the plant, you know it is the ide­al mate­r­i­al for torture.

One image is fixed in the good doctor’s mind:

“As I was leav­ing the office by the back door, reflect­ing on the good for­tune of my trans­fer ― no more work in the fields ― I saw one of the most degrad­ing and depress­ing sights I’ve ever wit­nessed. In the cen­ter of the court­yard, tied by both hands to the top of the flag­pole, there hung a boy of about twen­ty, his body sway­ing in the breeze just below the raised flag.”

The young man was chopped down just in time to save him from los­ing his hands.

Now, I want read­ers to fix this image in their minds, and when Castro’s death is announced, to remem­ber it. This is what he should be remem­bered for. All else is unimportant.

Cana­da is at war with Pak­istan. It is symp­to­matic of the stu­pid­i­ty, con­fu­sion and cow­ardice that has brought us into this sit­u­a­tion that hard­ly any­one in Cana­da seems to know it, and few of those are will­ing to admit it. In the Alice-In-Won­der­land log­ic of this new mil­len­ni­um, we are at war with a coun­try who is our declared ally. That coun­try’s dic­ta­tor toured our coun­try to loud applause, and cracked jokes on our tele­vi­sion talk shows. Few had the courage to point out the obvi­ous: Pakistan’s dic­ta­tor, Per­vez Mushar­raf, is con­duct­ing a ter­ror­ist war on Afghanistan, a coun­try which we are com­mit­ted to defend­ing, and it is his sur­ro­gates, con­fed­er­ates, and agents who are killing Cana­di­an sol­diers. He is armed with nuclear weapons, his repres­sive regime is the polar oppo­site of every­thing Cana­da is sup­posed to stand for, and he is attack­ing us, killing our cit­i­zens — and yet our lead­ers kiss his bum every chance they get. We are bow­ing and scrap­ing before the man who is killing our sol­diers. Wash­ing­ton has so declared, and our gov­ern­ment zeal­ous­ly obeys. That is what Prime Min­is­ter Harp­er con­sid­ers to be “sup­port­ing our troops”. Read more »

I was look­ing up some bio­graph­i­cal data on Thomas Robert McInnes, a Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of British Colum­bia at the turn of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry, when I came across an extra­or­di­nary piece of Cana­di­an leg­is­la­tion, one that tells us a lot about 19th Cen­tu­ry Canada. 

Why­co­co­magh, in Inver­ness Coun­ty, Nova Sco­tia, Cana­da. It’s name is from the abo­rig­i­nal Mi’k­maq lan­guage, but is local­ly known by a Gael­ic ren­der­ing of Hoga­m­agh. The vil­lage is in the heart a for­mer­ly Gael­ic-speak­ing region. A small num­ber of peo­ple still speak that lan­guage in a dis­tinct­ly Cana­di­an dialect.

McInnes was born in Lake Ainslie, Nova Sco­tia, and lived an adven­tur­ous youth. He was one of the cel­e­brat­ed “Rush Doc­tors” trained in Chica­go at the Rush Insti­tute, and served in the Union Army dur­ing the Amer­i­can Civ­il War. But he returned to Cana­da and, along with a promi­nent med­ical prac­tice, became May­or of New West­min­ster, British Colum­bia, and then an inde­pen­dent nation­al Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. Sub­se­quent­ly, he served as a Sen­a­tor, then Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of BC. His career as Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor was stormy and eccen­tric, rather typ­i­cal of BC politi­cians. He made many ene­mies. In 1890, Prime Min­is­ter Lau­ri­er asked him to ten­der his res­ig­na­tion in favour of the tamer Hen­ri-Gus­tave Joly de Lot­binière. He attempt­ed to get back into Fed­er­al pol­i­tics in 1903, but failed.

His most inter­est­ing deed was his attempt, in 1890, to make Gael­ic the third offi­cial lan­guage of Cana­da. His pro­posed Act to pro­vide for the use of Gael­ic in Offi­cial pro­ceed­ings would have made the Cana­di­an ver­sion of the Gael­ic lan­guage legal­ly equal with Eng­lish and French. The bill made it through first read­ing, but when the Orders of the Day were called, McInnes had not yet arrived in the Cham­ber. In his absence, the bill was dropped. When it was restored to the order paper, mem­ber R.B. Dick­ey of Nova Sco­tia moved an amend­ment that the read­ing be delayed for three months, after which it failed on final read­ing. Read more »

Yes­ter­day (Oct.4), Tim Kyger, life-long friend and expert on space pol­i­cy, wrote:

“49 years ago today, the very first thing of any sort was put into Earth orbit by we puny humans. The begin­ning of a new age; a break­point in history.”

Next year will be the half-cen­tu­ry mark since the begin­ning of space explo­ration. While it began with a Sovi­et project, and there have been impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to it in sev­er­al coun­tries, the Unit­ed States put the most effort into explor­ing space. Some peo­ple, myself includ­ed, con­sid­er the explo­ration of space to be a crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant human activ­i­ty, one which is con­gru­ent with the respon­si­ble stew­ard­ship of the earth­’s ecol­o­gy, respect for human rights, and the fos­ter­ing and cre­ation of the arts. To us, it is sad­den­ing to con­tem­plate how lit­tle has been accom­plished in that half cen­tu­ry, com­pared to what could have been accom­plished. Read more »

On the Nation­al News, a tour through the com­plet­ed ren­o­va­tions of the Library of Par­lia­ment, in Ottawa. This is no ordi­nary library. Com­plet­ed only nine years after Con­fed­er­a­tion (the for­ma­tion of Cana­da as a nation-state), it is a mag­nif­i­cent High Vic­to­ri­an Goth­ic fan­ta­sy, a cir­cu­lar cone of fly­ing but­tress­es and mul­ti-coloured stone that ris­es atop the cliffs along the Ottawa riv­er. The inte­ri­or is very beau­ti­ful, employ­ing a cir­cu­lar, radi­ant plan. Light streams into it from the sky, in the man­ner of a cathe­dral. In the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, Cana­da still retained its tra­di­tion of fine crafts­man­ship in wood, and the work that was done in this library is the equal of any­thing in the world. On the news item, one Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, who was a jour­ney­man car­pen­ter in his youth, said “this stuff is porn for any car­pen­ter”. Read more »

I’m stretched out on the couch. At the oth­er end, sphinx-posed above my right foot is a cat — not mine, but a long term vis­i­tor. Next to the oth­er foot is my rab­bit Stampy. They are both star­ing at me, with that air of aris­to­crat­ic dis­dain that both have per­fect­ed. Cat own­ers are famil­iar with it, but they may be sur­prised that rab­bits can be just as proud. I’m not going to dis­turb them. I’m grate­ful for the calm. Nor­mal­ly they would be chas­ing each oth­er around the room.

I’m read­ing a nov­el, and lis­ten­ing to some choral music by Chris­tos Hatzis, who may be Canada’s answer to Arvo Pärt. A mug of hot choco­late (made prop­er­ly with cocoa, not some instant junk), cheese and crack­ers on the table beside me. Elec­tric lights have been dimmed and replaced with a small oil lamp, which emits a hint of ros­es from its scent­ed lamp oil.

So I can’t work up any anger over any polit­i­cal news. At the back of my mind, an idea for a new nov­el is start­ing to take form, so I’m not con­cen­trat­ing too strict­ly on the book. In fact, I should prob­a­bly set it aside and read it prop­er­ly lat­er, when my head is not drift­ing into my own fic­tion writ­ing. I do a lot of writ­ing in my head. Not from lazi­ness. My right wrist was severe­ly dam­aged many years ago (bro­ken in twen­ty places), and it is phys­i­cal­ly painful for me to spend too much time at a key­board. Those long stretch­es of work for clients, where I spend many hours fill­ing out data­bas­es on Excel tables, are real­ly hard on me. So I do as much writ­ing in my head as I can, before actu­al­ly sit­ting down to type. I’ll some­times have entire pages in my head, com­posed while walk­ing or rid­ing a bike, before they are put down, though that very process will gen­er­ate all sorts of errors, which have to be cleaned up on rewrite.

Things are improv­ing, finan­cial­ly, very very grad­u­al­ly. I’m deter­mined to trav­el next year, and I’m lay­ing the ground­work to do so.

Stampy sud­den­ly desires a Maria Bis­cuit. For some rea­son, he is obsessed with these tea bis­cuits, import­ed from Spain. He would rather eat them than car­rots. He jumps on my chest, push­es his face under­neath my book and into mine, and pulls at the frame of my glass­es with his teeth. This is his method of issu­ing a non-nego­tiable demand. I’ve always sus­pect­ed that Stampy has trained in spe­cial camps in Afghanistan, or Wis­con­sin, or wher­ev­er rab­bit ter­ror­ists do it.

I cave in to ter­ror­ism. The Maria bis­cuits are kept in a brown cook­ie jar which is with­in reach. The music has shift­ed to Hatzis’ Foot­prints In New Snow, which incor­po­rates that pecu­liar form of Innu­it throat-singing where two women sing direct­ly into each oth­ers’ mouths. The atmos­phere in the room has changed from serene to spooky. The oil lamp, burn­ing down to a short wick, is flick­er­ing, and throw­ing unsta­ble shad­ows on the wall. I have a flash of mem­o­ry or a lone­ly evening on top of a moun­tain in north­ern Que­bec, at the back of the north wind, besieged by cold shiv­ers and thoughts of Wendigo.

The lamp goes out. The cat and the rab­bit dis­ap­pear, off to the bed­room for some secret game. The room has grown dark. I hear voic­es laugh­ing in the street. Red LEDS on the com­put­er and audio equip­ment, burn like fireflies.

You can be in so many places, with­in one room.