I've been watching, intrigued by the way this man, Obama, speaks.  My grandmother, God rest her, felt that toward the end of her life (just under 10 years ago) that the age of great orators - like Churchill, Kennedy and Pearson had truly gone from the world.  Everything had been distilled down into sound bites and nobody paid attention to lengthy speeches, it had seemed. But in listening to a number of speeches by U.S. Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama, we could be witnessing a return to that lost art to it's most natural home, The White House.  And I, for one, hope it happens.

This isn't me just playing favorites because of my respect for great orators.  Although perhaps not many were great orators, many a silver-tongued devil in my lifetime have wooed there way into elected office only to turn out to be less than model citizens once in office.  Why such interest in Obama then?  Is it is considerable legislative experience?  Many videos sponsored by "the right" on the Internet have cited this question as being foremost on their minds in trying to understand the spellbinding power of Obama.  Typically, its a weakness to not have some legislative experience before becoming president.  But this too is just political rhetoric (does the right know nothing else) as the likes of Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan both readily know that experience is often neither helpful or necessary toward getting elected.  Obama's main excuse on this point, and it's one that's readily apparent, is that he's young.  On one You Tube clip (I lost the link, unfortunately, but it was on an episode of Tucker's show on MSNBC last year) an Obama supporter - some Senator - couldn't name a single legislative accomplishment.

The main reason many people have for electing Obama is because he either has people around him brokering really great ideas around which he can construct convincing speeches, or he himself is great at presenting his own great ideas, leveraging the media, etc. In short, he's just a great communicator.  And my grandma was right - that's a rare thing these days.  But the combination of his (or his team's) ideas and communication skills comes at a critical time when the policies he's espousing are what much of the electorate (and I) think are needed for the world at this point in history.  Ordinarily that would still leave the question about how he's able to so effectively counter criticism - but again, people both respect and admire his ability to respond to criticism in such a forthright fashion in the speeches he's given thus far.

Does all of this qualify him to be President.  Running a campaign on the scale necessary to win the White House is itself a test of leadership ability, no question.  I think Obama has shown a capacity to do that job effectively, at least.  He's been described as a consensus-builder; as someone who can make an honest effort to bring minds together to form an active approach.  I myself have been to leadership and teamwork workshops (gratis my current employer) which outline a number of great, and may I say, effective approaches toward cultivating those skills.  I expect Obama has has a few such experiences; but I can see qualities in his tone and in the content of his public discourse that suggest he may well be a truly "great" leader.

And now the question everyone's asking these days: what about Hillary?  Her campaign has truly run into more than a few snags along the way.  She hasn't had the gaffes Obama has had, but the frustration of competing what Obama's silver tongue is definitely showing.  To me, she's sounded desperate at times.  And I wouldn't blame her in the least if she really were.  But she's gotta know by now that any favouritism toward Obama (whatever his political rhetoric may be) is not coming at the expense of her own personal popularity.  She's just lacking what every politician wants, that quality as an orator that can convince an audience with such apparent ease.  But that gift is extremely rare and if my grandmother, who herself only saw it but a few time in all her life (given that she lived into her 90s), surely it's not a quality accessible to all.

Hopefully, any differences between these two will ultimately be reconciled so that a "dream ticket" with both Clinton's and Obama's name can go forward.  That might be jeapordized if too much division occurs, however.  Obama's camp hasn't yet said whether it would accept Clinton in the nomination for Vice-Presidential candidate.  Still something tells me McCain might be more difficult to beat than anyone thinks and the world simply can't stomach yet another Republican administration.

• Ruling on sale of Radarsat-2, Canadarm to U.S. arms maker delayed

There's a history behind this deal; one that was made very evident on yesterday's edition of Politics on CBC Newsworld.  In the 1960s Canada, under then Prime Minister Diefenbaker, opted to scrap its cutting-edge jet fighter technology - the Avro Arrow - in favour of adopting a battery or two of Bowmarc missiles.  The argument the Americans made was that the Avro was too expensive and the defense of the north (i.e. from the Soviets) would be better served with the missiles instead of the Canadian aircraft.  Diefenbaker, leader of the Conservative party, behaved very typically for Conservative party leaders: he deferred to the Americans' demands, mouthing platitudes of Canada-US alliance and friendship.  It would eventually turn out that the Americans were really more interested in sabotaging Canada's fighter jet programme so that American companies would be facing less competition for their F-series aircraft.  And Diefenbaker, after a string of incompetent decisions, would eventually leave politics one of the most hated politicians in Canadian history - albeit not for his questionable leadership skills so much as his fundamental betrayal of his nation's interests and future.    But before leaving, he made certain that all blueprints, plans and technical data concerning the construction of the aircraft were destroyed; a pathetic attempt to erase his mistake from history.  All it did was exacerbate the damage to Canada's fledgling military industrial complex and destroy any hope Canada would ever again compete with their friends to the south in the area of avionics technology.

Now, half a century later, Canada again faces an American company offering assurances that Canada doesn't need to worry; that we're better off adopting an American alternative to keeping a uniquely Canadian technology in Canada.  Again we're seeing a Conservative government, led by a man known for his intolerance of dissent, considering deferring to his American friends on their amicable and sincere suggestions about what's best for Canada's unique technology.

And I for one worry that history is about to repeat itself.

You won't read about it anywhere so far as I can tell - not yet.  But there's something rather insidious about the U.S. Presidential campaign lately.  Has anyone else noticed how much the neocons and the conservative, right-wing elements (specifically, Republicans) have been behaving since McCain became the undisputed candidate for the Republican party?  On conservative media all over the Internet; all over Fox news and even somewhat on CNN we're seeing conservative commentators go after Democratic front-runner Barack Obama and in some cases even openly supporting the candidacy of fellow hopeful Hillary Clinton.  And that support has now reached a feverish pitch with this latest scandal over the intrepid but controversial musings of Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  All of this rancorous critique from the GOP of Obama seems to have a singular objective: to aid the Clinton campaign because she's seen as the weaker of the two candidates and thus much more likely to increase the odds of an otherwise impossible victory for McCain.

This strategy carries with it the stench of other popular tricks used by those who disrespect the democratic process; stacking nomination meetings, selling party memberships at the door, political patronage, etc.  But it's a hard thing to prove because nowhere will anyone find a document instructing conservatives to rush out to vote for Clinton in Democratic primaries.  (Although there's no need to in some states, since you can request a Democratic ballot at a Republican primary and cast a vote for Clinton that way.)  You won't find Republicans conspiring in a back alley to dawn blue ties and sandals, disguising themselves as to infiltrate Democratic rallies and shout Clinton's name louder than Obama's.  It's not that kind of conspiracy.  It's the kind that happens organically when a critical mass of media and GOP-sympathizers of one sort or another have their own candidate selection process concluded first while a tight race that should (and generally does) work in favour of the Democrats yields a front-runner and presents an obvious opportunity.  For what point is there in going to a Republican primary and casting a ballot for the only name on it, when the far more "constructive" course is to vote for the runner-up in the opposing party's campaign or to encourage others to do so?

If you're a Republican, the ideal course is to maximize this effort by actually attacking the Democratic front-runner not by strengthening the candidacy of his seemingly weaker opponent (because you'll have to face off with her eventually), but to dredge his past for any kind of political dirt that can be found.  Attacking his innocent associations, for example - the people around him, whose views he can't reasonably be held to account for but - even better - whom we can claim influence his views thus casting aspersions both on the voracity of his statements if they're opposite (as they are) in addition to cultivating the same bad judgement, or hatred, or racism - or all of the above - in his mind.  After all, we can't hear what Obama's thinking, can we?

It's fear-mongering at its worst.  Fear of what Obama's not saying because we're not sure what ideas his pastor has put in his head.  It's sleazy, because it's not a contest of ideas - it's mindless mud-slinging; an attempt to tarnish image only.  It's unfair, because there's not even the option for the Democrats to pull the same kind of stunt on the Republicans.

It's the new conservative strategy.

Fortunately, I believe that the convention is still far enough away that there's sufficient time for Obama to stage a recovery from this and an equally sleazy move by that twit in the PMO who leaked confidential discourse with a member of the Obama campaign a few weeks ago - the so-called "NAFTA-gate" affair.  But I still worry about this becoming the new normal for conservative party strategists who are seemingly less and less interested in a real debate on the issues and who worry about winning the election, no matter the cost - with no regard or interest in a contest of ideas.  And I worry that such notions will eventually migrate north to find purchase in Canadian politics, as they often do.

And here's yet another case where I hope I'm wrong.

Chris Hedges' latest book takes aim at the reasoning espoused by detractors of religion whose views seem to have become popular reading in recent months.  Read more @ Amazon.ca...

Finally!  An academic from view opposite of that held by Richard Dawkins is penetrating whatever clique it is that governs the talk show circuit and best sellers lists which ultimately seem pivotal in the process of determining what book(s) the average Joe hears about.  Chris Hedges, author of a new book called "I Don't Believe in Atheists", goes after Dawkins, Christopher Hitchins, Sam Harris et al on their "chauvinism" and "arrogance" about religion which makes their reasoning on the subject indistinguishable from that used to justify religious fundamentalism - the very 'evil' they mean to expose.

Now while I welcome Hedges work, I haven't yet read his just-published book on this subject.  I've only seen a couple of video segments in a talk-show/interview setting.  Eventually, I'll likely have that opportunity - but I worry that his work may also be lacking the subjective depth this debate really deserves.  Last year, I write a critique of Dawkins views (citing references in his published works) wherein I was critical of the immaturity of many of the arguments.  So far, I haven't heard anything to justify taking this view of Hedges work although unlike Hedges, I didn't explicitly argue that Atheism in a radical form, in part, because the whole idea of taking Dawkins reasoning and applying it toward atheism would, to me, only be something of a validation of his reasoning.

At this point, I can only hope Hedges won't take the argument in this direction.  Arguing that having a view characterized as "fundamentalist" is always wrong is just as dogmatic as any other ideologically-based argument.  My preference, and I think the preference of the true student of philosophy, needs to be arguing ideas on their own merit.  Characterizations are only a means to summarize, after all.

Links related to this article:

• An Interview with Chris Hedges on Salon.com

While cheerfully coding away this afternoon (delving into the intricacies of Commerce Server 2007's Staging subsystem), I had the television on in the background again monitoring the world through the lens of CBC Newsworld when on came Muhammad Yumus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who brought forth his concept of "Social Business".  Perhaps Mr. Yumus is a better writer and academic than a presenter, because from the dialogue in the short piece on Newsworld, I couldn't readily distinguish the difference between his concept and an existing institution (that's been around for quite a while): the non-profit corporation.

So, curious to find the answer to my question, "what is the difference?", I tried to find other sources of information through Google that could provide an answer.  And, good 'ol Google, jackpot!  A nice, new-age, granola-crunching, health-oriented cycling website provided some meaningful analysis:

"Social business departs from the current for-profit structure that places profits above social needs. It also departs from the non-profit structure because leaders improve products, inventory turns and marketing instead of leaning on fundraising."

-- One Street Newsletter, February 2008.

To learn all about Yumus' ideas, one would have to read his book "Creating a World Without Poverty" and, to be fair, I haven't yet had the chance.  However, while Yumus has aptly characterized the merits and basic strength of the structures that support capitalism, I'm concerned that simply mirroring those structures isn't going to offer much additional success for non-profit endeavours.  If his basic thesis is that non-profit organizations are merely institutions that generate fundraising drives for one cause or another because they aren't organized with the same operational structures as their for-profit counterparts - I think he may have actually overlooked the basic forces that are responsible for the success of capitalism: starting with greed.

By creating artifacts like stock markets and other such metrics to replace currency in this model (he suggests a number of alternatives), there is no guarantee that anyone will be any more interested in achieving charitable ends.  But, even so, the idea is fresh and interesting.  Hopefully, these new ideas aren't pillaged by hype peddlers on the Internet or elsewhere to serve distinctly non-charitable ends.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting a little sick and tired of hearing about Mexican authorities abusing Canadians and serving all kinds of injustices on travelers to that country.  In the past year, there have been at least 3 major news stories about Canadians visiting Mexico and encountering injustice of one sort or another while there:

Brenda Martin could face 15 more years in jail if convicted of money laundering and conspiracy. (Photo courtesy of CBC)

• a Canadian couple was found murdered in their hotel room and not only did Mexican authorities botch the investigation, it refused to cooperate with Canadian law enforcement officials attempting to find out what happened or even so much as facilitating access to pertinent evidence,
• a Canadian woman, Brenda Martin, has been left to rot in a Mexican prison for over 2 years, charged in a large criminal affair but apparently innocent and - most importantly - never tried on the charges that are still outstanding, and
• another Canadian travelers vacationing in Acapulco was wrongfully jailed and beaten to death while in Mexican custody.

The current governing (Conservative) party has done precious little to defend the interests of Canadians abroad and has earned itself an atrocious track record of not serving its citizens detained by regimes around the world.  But these incidents are not examples of Conservative incompetence.  While the fact the Conservatives form the government certainly doesn't help Canadian victims of the banana-republic-style justice system operating in Mexico, but it's high time that instead of being part of the problem, these yokels got off their butts and did something!  Even the most red-necked, yodeling, hillbilly Conservative has got to have at least some compassion for such extreme cases - particularly when they all seem to come from one place!

And travel agents should be advising customers of these instances and what the risks are of becoming involved with a Mexican policeman while risking the tourism south of the Rio Grande.