[BRIEF NOTE] More on School History Books

• My Grade 12 history class was taught by the late great Herbie Morrison. Mr. Morrison was an excellent teacher: smart, personable, just eccentric enough to be memorable. The class when he played a Boney M LP to illustrate his presentation on the Russian revolution is one of the clearest memories of his class. We were taught more-or-less the same history of the United States that was described in the Washington Post, emphasizing the degree to which the War of American Independence was a civil war and the on-going threat of American invasion throughout most of the first half of the 19th century. The textbook went up to the late 1980s, to cover the first debates on Canadian-American free trade.


• My favourite school history textbooks, though, are my mother's from her childhood in the 1950s and the 1960s. These textbooks describe a Canada deeply implicated in the British imperial project, as a country that took shape thanks to British interest in North America and which (in the wars of the first half of the 20th century) returned the favour by aiding the mother country. It's amazing how quickly the ties of the Commonwealth decayed, really.

[BRIEF NOTE] Indian Alternate History on the Web

Outlook India's website is currently hosting a slew of interesting South Asian what-if questions, including the 1962 Sino-Indian war, an earlier conversion of Dalit leader Ambedkar to Buddhism, the secession of India's Dravidian-speaking southern states, two posts on the potential for an India that didn't undergo Partition, no ban on The Satanic Verses, and more besides.

[BRIEF NOTE] Scotchfort Affairs

I was surprised to hear of the Mi'kMaq reservation at Scotchfort, on Prince Edward Island, come up in the news. Factional violence over the reservation's leadership as The Guardian describes, is unexpected:

Gould said the root of the altercation lies in Jadis’s refusal to accept the results of the August 2003 band election.

“He wants revenge on the people of this community for what happened in the results of the election,” Gould said.

“It’s really just one family and some supporters that Francis Jadis had brought over from New Brunswick.”

Jadis said it is he and his family who have been the victims of harassment.

“We’re just upset about the way they have been running the band. The jobs have all gone to Junior (Gould) supporters,” he said.

“There’s all this fishing going on but they won’t even let me have a clam licence because they’re scared I might make a little money.”

Has anyone heard anything more?

[BRIEF NOTE] Today in the National Post

I've written earlier about how I've always felt that The Globe and Mail has had a reputation of modernity for me. The National Post has never had that kind of reputation with me, since I've got issues with Conrad Black and the sensationalistic tone of the Post's coverage. Nonetheless, early this afternoon I picked up a copy for two quarters from a streetside vending machine.

The "Art & Life" section had some interesting articles. There was a profile of actress Laura Dern that has more coverage of her personal life than of her latest acting careers on the front page. On the back page is a profile of Tal Bachman, second-generation Canadian pop music star ("She's So High"), talking about his problems with his record community and how his Mormon faith evaporated after he began Sunday-school teaching children and realized for himself its historical flaws. (Oh, and in a different article on that page, we learn that there are now Bible-based diets.)

The main section of the Post also has some interesting stuff. We learn, for instance, that David Frum spends summers in Prince Edward County, reads The Lord of the Rings to his children, and is proud that this area of the Western world, this terroir as the French would say, is beyond the reach of international terror. (That was a pun, of course. Don't worry, he tells you if you didn't get it.) The Post also has a full page on international terror, including the testimony of one of the Khadr sons as to al-Qaeda presence in Canada and another detailing the efforts of the Canadian government to deport an Egyptian terror suspect to his homeland despite knowing that he'll be tortured. There's an amusing satire, by Rob McKenzie, of hubris as it is apparently affecting the US performance at the Olympics.

Finally, there's an article by Iranian expatriate and author Amir Taheri concerning the low level of female participation in the Olympics. He traces this to a suspicion of the potential danger caused by the sight of the female body:

Islamist theologians are divided on how much of a woman's body can be exposed in public. The most radical, the Sitris, insist that women should be covered from head to toe, including their faces and fingers. The less radical Hanbalis say a woman should be covered all over, but recommend a mask with apertures for the eyes and the mouth. (A version of this, known as the burwa, was imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban.

The Khomeinist version of the hijab, invented in the 1970s and now popular in many countries, including the United States, covers a woman's entire body but allows her face and hands to be exposed. Hijab theoreticians agree on one claim: A woman's hair emanates dangerous rays that could drive men wild with sexual lust and thus undermine social peace.

But the problem of female athletes goes deeper. Some theologians claim that any form of sporting activity by women produces "sinful consequences." In 2000, for example, the Khomeinist authorities in Tehran announced a ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles. The rationale? Riding bicycles or motorcycles would activate a woman's thighs and legs, thus arousing "uncontrollable lustful drives" in her. And men watching women on their bikes in the streets could be "led towards dangerous urges."

Now, I definitely know that the Islamic Republic of Iran's dictums on sexuality are a far cry from being accurate. I'm also suspicious, if to a lesser degree, of Taheri's suitability as a neutral observer of the Islamic Republic. But does heterosexuality really work that way?