Yeah, that's me in the beard

In my continuing project to record some of the more interesting anecdotes of my life (you know, before the early Alzheimer’s kicks in), I’m reproducing an old article I wrote for The Podium almost 12 years ago.  A much shortened version was published as a letter in the National Post in 2000.  The original article is here.

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[originally written Oct 4, 2000]

When I was 12 years old, I met Pierre Trudeau.

I think it was 1979 and my junior highschool was visiting Ottawa for all the typical reasons that school kids visit their nations capital: to stroll through dreary museums, read the captions of historic paintings and sculptures, and to suffer the lectures of local scholar/entertainers dressed as town criers and Indian chiefs.

But I and two friends, assisted by a particular far-thinking teacher, escaped from our 8:pm curfew one evening to commit the ultimate uncool act. We gave up sleep and the juvenile joys of our parent-less hotel room to attend a rare night session of Parliament. That evening, our federal representatives were to decide upon the issue of capital punishment. While our friends were no doubt looking for ways to watch cable TV and to steal hotel towels, we were to observe history in the making!

Of course, as I recall it, the MPs voted not to decide, and the evening was over rather prematurely and anticlimactically. But as we youngsters idled in the lobby, putting off our return to hotel imprisonment, the Prime Minister himself emerged from the House, radiating a magnificent presence that I can now only describe as Jesuitical in its meditative genius.

Mr. Trudeau waved the media aside and walked straight up to us three pipsqueaks, bending low his seemingly lofty 5′5″ frame to shake our little hands. I did not know that he was considered a short man, or, for that matter, that his marriage was dissolving at that time, or that he was about to lose an election for the first time ever. All I knew was that this man was a hero to me and my family, a figure that demanded respect and deference.

His image is thus etched into our memories, framed about obsidian eyes that shone with a lively and genuine joy. He muttered to me a very friendly greeting and something about the political process. But our attention was absorbed by the intoxicating ephemera of his celebrity, and then snatched by another source of unexpected joy for 12-year old boys: Trudeaus female chauffeur.

After his departure, followed closely by the obligatory crowd of journalists and unnamed pursuers, political mainstay David Crombie (at that time a sitting Conservative MP) approached us to help explain the Parliamentary event we had earlier witnessed. But, rudely, our juvenile eyes remained fixed on the receding limousine, each of us fully aware that we had brushed close to a great historical figure, our lives perhaps changed for the better.

Those were exciting days for a young citizen to be first exposed to the Canadian political process, capped by the graceful greeting of my generations brightest national figure. Im often saddened that the youth of today are unable to access that brand of optimistic statesmanship, that the casual profundity of a Pierre Trudeau will be forever denied our children. I wept when I learned of his death, and absorbed every media report of our nations communal grief, feeling a very honest and profound loss for the secondary father figure that had been taken from us.

Its a difficult thing to explain to some of my friends who, for whatever reason, see Mr. Trudeau as just another dead politician. Some of those friends are not from this country, so cannot understand his prominence in our lives. Some are too young to recall the air of excitement that Canadian government was able to generate in those days. Others are simply politically unaware. And others lack the very particular perspective of a whole generation of fresh immigrants.

Canada in the early-to-mid 1970s was a place hostile to anything that was not white, English or otherwise mainstream. As new immigrants, many of us endured the vocal and sometimes physical disdain of others on an almost daily basis. I can only imagine that many Canada-born francophones felt the same hostility or foreignness when they ventured beyond their safe environs. To have had the leader of the country, the most powerful voice in our society, declare his unwavering support for our rights and for our access to opportunities was a contribution as valuable as any budget or constitution. He validated us, allowed us to share his dignity. To us, he was a hero….

…And, dare I say it, a national father. It has been said by others that Trudeau is the progenitor of modern Canada. Our multicultural, free-thinking, somewhat just and fair society sprang directly from his vision. These things sound commonplace and obvious now. But they were revolutionary when first introduced. Much like losing a true parent, one is struck by the hollow horror of having to continue on without the deceaseds wisdom, his standard. Only now do we appreciate how much of him we took for granted.

I once wrote that my generation has thus far lacked the newsworthy milestones that serve to link a people to the grand trunk of humanity. I was very wrong. There have been many such instances, I realize now. And, regrettably, the death of this great man is yet one more.

It has been my very great honour to have met some truly gargantuan figures in human history. Among them, Nelson Mandela, the current Dalai Lama and a slew of Canadian political leaders. Of them all, it is Pierre Trudeau, whose hand I shook 21 years ago as a delinquent schoolboy, who most decidedly imprinted himself onto my life. I dont weep for him anymore, but for the rest of us who must continue without his clarity and profundity.

It seems the demise of print newspapers is alarming old loons.  The world is a-changing.

A 23 year old student was telling me today about how shocking it is to consider that her 19 year old sister has never known a world without the internet.  Mind you, I’m pretty sure my student doesn’t really recall the pre-internet times, either.

I then told her that I was born before man walked on the Moon.  This literally horrified her as her jaw fell agape.  Yes, it makes me feel old.  But I’m also rather proud to be of a generation that both pre-dates and created the digital, modern world.  I like to remind people that the Apollo spacecraft had less computing power than most peoples’ wristwatches.  Well, I used to say that, back when people wore wristwatches.  Now, I guess I have to say cell phones.

I also used to say that half the world has yet to make a phone call.  This was, of course, before the mobile phone revolution.  (Mind you, the stat is debatable.)  That’s right, kids: there was a time before you were able to make a phone call or send a message at your convenience.

I was also chatting with a friend’s 16 year old daughter this past week, explaining to her what life was like when I was 16.  It’s both depressing and inspiring to consider the ways in which technology has profoundly changed they ways in which we live, as quickly as a few decades.

When I was 16, it wasn’t unusual to have but one phone in each house.  Usually, that phone was in a central part of the house, so everyone could hear your business.  In most cities, only the caller could end the conversation; if you called someone and didn’t hang up, the other party couldn’t just hang up and end the call.  This was nightmarish for homes with teenagers, since teens thrive on their social contact.  If you have to talk to your friends, or call a girl, you have to wait until the phone was free… and then you had to time it so that the girl’s phone was also free!  Remember: no email, no texting, no cell phones; this was our only option!

In times of extreme need, we’d run across the street to use the pay phone.  But even those were often in use!  Oh… and there used to be pay phones on every corner!

One time, my future girlfriend was waiting for a call from me.  Meanwhile, I was building up the nerve to call her.  Of course, I had to wait for my home phone to be free before I could make the call.  But then, when I finally did, her line was always busy!  Turns out, her Dad was on the phone and she was begging him to get off, without telling him that “a boy might be calling.”  Predictably, he got off the phone for 30 minutes and told her, “Okay, I’m off.  Make your call.”  In retrospect, I sympathize with her frustration as she wanted to scream at him, “It doesn’t work like that!”

If you were really stressed out, you could call the Operator and ask for an “emergency breakthrough”.  She would interrrupt a call in progress and tell the parties that a third party wanted in.  Yes, most of us teens did this at least once.

Oh, and because the house had but a single line, you could never be sure your parents or siblings weren’t eavesdropping on your conversation.  (This became possible when they finally made additional phones available on the same line, sometime in the late 70s, I think.)  You always had to listen for that “click” that meant your parent had put the phone down before you started your private conversation.

Mind you, from a societal perspective, this might not have been a bad thing.  It ensured that a parent was usually aware when their teenager was receiving a call, and usually ensured that parents knew who their kids’ friends were.  These days, they rely on Facebook for that!

Additional phones became widely available (again on the same line, or number) sometime in the 1980s, as I recall.  That’s when they started installing “jacks” so you could plug your phone into the wall.  Before then, we had to wire the phones directly into the wall by screwing the right wires to the right poles.  As a kid, I used to play with the phone wiring a lot, trying to figure out which wires were responsible for what aspects of the signal.  I learned a lot about electronics and telecommunications that way.

The lack of email and cell phones meant that when you made plans to meet your friends, you had to abide by those plans!  There were no last minute changes, or texts/emails with, “I’m running late!”  You had to show up and trust that your plans held up.  This was the source of much confusion, miscommunication and frustration, especially when trying to coordinate group activities.

(Don’t get me started on the revolution of ATM machines!  Prior to their arrival, again sometime in the mid-1980s, you had to rely on whatever cash you happened to have on hand.  This meant planning your weekend expenditures well in advance, since banks were never open on Saturdays.  And, of course, no one had a credit card, and the debit card had yet to be invented!  In retrospect, this was a good system for saving money, or at least for avoiding extraneous expenditures..)

Answering machines became prevalent in the early 80s.  Electronic voicemail about a decade later.  Before this development, you had to wait by the phone if you were expecting important information.    In other words, the phone compelled geographic stagnancy!

Okay, I’m droning on.  Next, I’ll be complaining about them dang kids in my yard with their boogie-woogie music.

It’s often said that our society has progressed to a point where intellectual achievement is not as celebrated as it used to be, superseded by semi-literate entertainers and other attention-seekers.  And so it is doubly sad when those who are among the precious few well known public intellectuals slip from mortal existence.

This week we famously lost Christopher Hitchens, who finally succumbed after a year long battle with Cancer.

And now, less than hour ago, news has come that playwright, revolutionary and Czech leader Vaclav Havel has died.  Havel has always been an inspiration to me, and I am a tad troubled that he is dead, more so because he is 4 years younger than my beloved father (who is, of course, the greatest inspiration to me).

I’m not one for citing famous quotations.  But I make an exception for one of Havel’s, which I have taken to giving to my global health class on the final lecture of every year. It is this:

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who have found it.”

RIP, Vaclav Havel, 1936-2011

Most people know who the first man in space was.  It was, of course, Yuri Gagarin, who was also the first man to orbit the Earth.  Gagarin’s flight took place in 1961, just a short period before Alan Shepard Jr. became the first American in space.  Shepard’s flight was suborbital, however.  It wasn’t until John Glenn in 1962 that an American orbited our planet.

But most people don’t know that prior to Project Mercury, the Americans had had another plan to put men into space. It was called the Man in Space Soonest (MISS) program, and existed solely to beat the Soviets into the void.  MISS’s plan involved rocket planes, most notably the X-15, which still holds the record as the fastest manned rocket plane ever flown.  Amongst space geeks like me, the X-15 has a special place in our hearts.  You can see a crash of an X-15-like vehicle in the opening credits of the Six Million Dollar Man.   Here’s another X-15 crash.

The amazing thing about the X-15 was that it actually succeeded in putting men into suborbital space… twice.  In July and August of 1963, American civilian pilot Joseph A. Walker flew the X-15 above 100km,  officially earning his astronaut wings.  This feat made Walker the first human being to go into outer space twice, and the first American civilian to do so a first time.  He was joined in the program by Neil Armstrong, who did not take the X-15 into the realm of space, but who, of course, ended up being the most celebrated astronaut in history.

Joseph Walker was killed in a crash in 1966, never seeing the culmination of the American space program on the surface of the Moon.  It’s a tragedy that his pioneering efforts are largely unknown to the world.  Yet he was undeniably one of the early greats, a man with truly the Right Stuff.

Part 5 is over here.

I can’t be the first to have noticed this one…

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and

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PS, got a new article over at Skiffy.ca.

This is the special “Bowie edition” of Separated At Birth. For the true part 5, click here.

Matt Smith, the current Dr Who

David Bowie, 1974

Comparing the gangly Matt Smith to timeless sex symbol David Bowie is perhaps the best gift Smith has received in a while.  But Smith is the first person I thought of when viewing Bowie’s 1974 interview with Dick Cavett.  It’s actually an interesting interview, among the first Bowie ever did on an American talk show.  Check out the first segment; you can plainly see how thoroughly coked up Bowie was.  In the final segment, the otherworldly charm of Bowie really shines through.

I just finished watching Rare and Unseen, a documentary made up of vintage interviews with Bowie.  Most instructive is an extended session with British interviewer Russell Harty, who comes across as a deeply condescending prick.  Yet Bowie continues to radiate nothing but timeless elegance and intellect.  I particularly enjoy his reference to his young son Zowie, whom he is thankful is not (yet) a prodigy.  If you don’t know, Zowie grew up to be Duncan Jones, a successful Hollywood director.

It sort of saddens me that the youth of today don’t have a mainstream entertainment icon the likes of a David Bowie, someone who was iconoclastic, quietly brilliant, yet humble and mysterious: a genuine artist, with all that that word implies.

Clearly, I’m a fan.  A lot of my fandom has to do with the role Bowie played in inspiring us weird and unusual children of the 70s.  It was an era of long-haired, blue-jeaned stoners.  If you were not one that group, if you were interested in things avante garde or extraterrestrial, you had few inroads into mainstream society. Bowie was one such inroad.

Earlier this year, David Bowie announced that he had retired from making and performing music.  An end of an era indeed.

(For previous installations of “Separated At Birth”, see here, here, here and here.)

Director, Martin Scorcese

Unprosecuted war criminal, Henry Kissinger

In other news, you know those Nigerian diamond scams?  Or any of those “I am a rich foreigner wishing to send you money” email scams?  My uncle just received the latest:

From: Saif Al-Islam <mailmesaif112@yahoo.com.sg>
Date: November 19, 2011 12:17:20 PM EST
To: undisclosed recipients: ;
Subject: From Saif al-Islam
Reply-To: mailmesaif112@rediffmail.com

Muammar Gadhafi

Hello this Saif al-Islam,Muammar Gadhafi Son, i need your help Concerning the money my father keep with Financial Firm in Ghana for safety before his capture by the rebels,this is because of his strong personality with some political mights in the country. My brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi and I want to get it secured in your custody please.

If you can help,I will give you more details on how to receive the money. This is secret no one should know or hear about it,I need your number for effective communication.

Upon your reply I will give the contact of my late father’s Lawyer in Ghana so that he would help you process all the payment papers.

Let trust and honesty be our watch word as I will be pleased to perform similar to you when the need arise.

Thanks From
Saif al-Islam.

Email Me On This : mailmesaif112@rediffmail.com

Today is…

The theoretical birthday of Nigel Tufnel.

“Singles’ Day” in East Asia.  (Think about it…. it’s full of ones… singles.)  As a result, tens of thousands of couples are getting married today.

And, of course, Remembrance Day.  When I was a kid, it was still Armistice Day.  Of this, I will only relate the following very lame story…

A few years ago, a friend was getting married.  For his bachelor party, all he wanted was a day of paintball.  If you’ve never played, it’s a game of pseudo-war, in which teams are armed with paint guns.  You can only get hurt if you’re shot in the face or the testicles.  Even if you’re shot elsewhere, it hurts.  But otherwise, it’s harmless.

Now, some people take it very seriously.  They show up with their friends every weekend, in full military regalia, and with hyper-advanced semi-automatic paint rifles.

Anyway…. on the day of our bachelor party, our little group was thrust onto the field with one of these weekend warrior teams, most of whom seemed to be Serbo-Croatian, based upon their accents.

At one point, I was huddled in a bunker with a friend, whom I call Noj (who is tellingly now a diplomat stationed abroad) as paint shots flew over our heads and dudes in military fatigues zipped around us.

Noj then said perhaps the wisest thing I’ve heard come out of his mouth: “I now understand war,” he said.  “War is being simultaneously bored and terrified while some guy around you is speaking Serbian.”

Here is my life.  I’ve been to some scarred parts of the world.  I’ve had guns pointed at me a number of times.  I’ve been to places officially designated as war zones.  But I’m no tough guy, and I definitely am not a particularly brave or strong person.

I’ve even had the chance to play a commando on TV.  (Don’t ask.)  It involved prowling around a darkened parking lot, in military gear, pointing a machine gun menacingly.

What I’ve learned from all these experiences is that I definitely do not have the “right stuff.”  If I were sent into a combat situation to kill and perhaps die, I’m pretty sure I would shit my pants and probably cry like a baby.  I am not war hero material.

I’m on record of having major problems with organized militaries, with the fake and enforced patriotism of blind support for one’s country’s military actions.  Every year, I get into trouble for my position on wearing the red poppy.  My position is detailed in this post from 2007.

As well, you might be interested in Robert Fisk’s position.

But there’s no denying that those who have the strength and courage to actually take up arms in defense of others, and place themselves in harm’s way, are indeed special people deserving of our respect and remembrance.  This is especially true for those who gave their lives in support of a cause that they felt was moral and necessary.  That’s why Remembrance Day remains an important occasion.  I just wish the duplicitous class wouldn’t politicize it so often, using it as an excuse to shout down criticisms of current military adventures.

As part of my weekly procrastination (yep, papers and grant applications due again), I’ve taken to considering a profoundly ridiculous question: who is the greatest human being to have ever lived?

Obviously, answering this question depends upon the criteria that one believes are associated with “greatness”.  Some factors that come to mind include an impact on society and civilization, perhaps extreme goodness, perhaps genius or courage.

And, of course, in answering this question me must necessarily limit ourselves to the constraints of recorded history.  That means that we know more about people who lived recently rather than a long time ago; more about men than women; and more about representatives of powerful states than about weaker states.  Hence our knowledge of history skews towards white, English-speaking men of the past 200 years.

But this is not a conclusive sort of exercise, merely a time-wasting game to keep me another 30 minutes away from a grant application deadline.

So here are the names that I’ve landed upon:

#5 – Nikola Tesla.  The cult of Tesla has found new life these recent decades, due mostly to the man’s supposed dealings in the occult.  But for most of the time after his death, the world had forgotten him.  Tesla made the modern technological world.  I believe his genius and knowledge of electricity and wireless transmission would still rival that of any living expert.  his genius and imagination were so far ahead of his time that I reel when considering what more he could have done for the world, had he not been hobbled by both mental illness and the small-mindedness of his peers.

#4 – Isaac Newton.  Perhaps the greatest scientist of all time.  In many ways, he singlehandedly usehered in the modern age.  By creating a transformative new mathematics (calculus) and fathoming the laws of physics that govern the whole universe, Newton opened the door to the possibilities of rational, empirical knowledge of the universe.  We all owe him our sagacity and the expanded limits of our communal knowledge.

#3 – Buddha.  Siddhartha Gautama was an Indian prince who forsook his wealth to literally find the meaning of life.  His humility and honesty shine through in his teachings.  His impact was multifold.  He introduced the world to a new way of considering spirituality within a mostly atheistic context, was unjudging and rational, and never proselytized.  More than any other religious leader or founder, I believe Buddha to have been truly great.

#2 – Leonardo.  I, like some others, believe that Leonardo was the most multitalented human being to have ever lived— that we know about today.  Scientist, artist, engineer, philosopher… anything he did, he did with not only world class expertise, but with such supreme excellence that few others would rival his level in all of human civilization.

#1 – Socrates.  We actually don’t know much about Socrates, except that which was written by Plato.  And even in those accounts, it’s unclear how much was Plato’s fiction and how much recorded fact.  But the portrait we have is of a man so committed to his ideals of reason and rationalism that he chose a horrible death strictly for the sake of sustaining his autonomy in philosophy.  I find this act, and the entire way in which he lived his life, to be emblematic of all that I love in Western civilization.  Socrates, to me, is the father of modern science, rationalism, liberal society and truth in thought.  And so I rate him as the greatest human being who has ever lived.

Clearly, other names could have made my list: Einstein, Darwin, Alexander, Lao Tse, etc.  I have my reasons for excluding these individuals.  How about you?  Who makes your list?

Greetings from onboard a Westjet flight from Ottawa to Vancouver.  Award for funniest line of the morning goes to the Westjet flight attendant who announced, while in mid-air: “Smoking is strictly prohibited on this flight. Anyone caught smoking will be asked to leave the aircraft immediately.”  Okay, so things seem funnier in the air.

The big news in global health and development today is that the UN is due on Monday to annouce that the human population has reached 7 billion people.  The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will publish its insights on this matter in “State of the World Population, 2011.”

Seven billion is nothing to sneeze at.  That’s a lot of people.  In fact, it seems likely that the world will see 15 billion people by the year 2100.  Most likely, the 7 billionth child will be born in India or China.  It’s worth pointing out that, despite those nations’ remarkable economic growth over the past two decades, they still suffer from crippling poverty, due in part to a uneven distribution of wealth and opportunity.  In fact, half of all undernourished children in the world live in South Asia.

When we consider population pressures, two thoughts immediately come to mind: starvation and ecological degradation.  The two items are inextricably linked, of course.  With more people comes increased use of environmental assets, increased pollution and increased weight put upon regional ecosystems.  This also means a decreased ability to potentiate food production, given the increased tendency for people to live upon and build upon arable land.  The irony is that with more people, there are more mouths to feed, and thus a greater need for food production.

In a global health context, when we talk about food security, we usually define it as a construct with two dimensions: availability and accessibility.  The former relates to our ability to produce food, while the latter to social, political and geographical barriers that limit proper food distribution.  Most experts will tell you that accessibility is the true limitation to feeding the world.  In most countries, there is sufficient food for everyone, but due to a variety of factors large numbers of hungry people do not have access to sufficient calories.  Perhaps the most famous person putting forward this view is Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen.

While I agree that accessibility is indeed the dimension of food security we must address first, I think it’s becoming preponderantly more important to consider aspects of food production.  This is because it is inextricably linked to the environment; and given the accelerating negative impact of Climate Change on the most populated parts of the world, I fear that food production will be at a crisis level in a couple of decades, if not sooner.

The reason for this is multifold, but I will list but three points:

1. -One of the great crises in the world is the declining availability of fresh water.  This has a most immediate effect on the growth of agriculture.  Climate Change, pollution and population growth have combined to drastically reduce the world’s groundwater reserves, to render many existing freshwater sources untenable, and to change rain patterns such that previously reliable agricultural zones are becoming less so.
2. -In the past century, human beings have begun doing something really foolish: building on arable land.  In previous centuries, we have lived on rock and barren land, and have reserved arable land for farming.  But due to some strange economics, it has become more lucrative to sell farmland to a strip mall developer than to continue to grow crops on it.
3. -Point #2 seems in conflict with the inexorable truth that the world is increasingly urban.  People the world over are fleeing the countryside to live in squalor in cities, again due to the strangeness of our economic systems.  But an important aspect of this observation is that, while some rural land is being abandoned, other rural land is being absorbed by growing cities to become suburbs and exurbs.

A final thought on this matter is to point out the conflict between our concern over a crisis of potential overpopulation and the demands of our growth-driven economics.   On the one hand, seven billion people represents a strain on our resources and on our ability to manage the planet.  On the other hand, we have created a civilization in which wealth is defined by the sum total of economic activities of its citizenry, meaning that more people often means more sustained wealth.  The Western world bemoans its current demograph trap, wherein the fabled Demographic Transition has created so much personal security and longevity that fertility rates have dropped beneath replacement rates.  There is concern in Canada, Japan and much of Europe that the smaller sizes of upcoming generations are insufficient to pay for the demands of our complex and expensive society.

The obvious solution is two-fold: allow the freer movement of people across borders and seek to recompute how we define wealth.  But both of these require a profound shift in both political will and social vision.  Then again, given that the crisis of Climate Change requires a similar shift, maybe the world is ripe for such a change.