Review: Recipe For Hate “a complex, multilayered mystery”!

— 05.23.2018 01:13 AM

“The Canadian Review of Materials is published weekly from September through June and is an all-volunteer online publication which features reviews of books and other materials that are authored, illustrated and/or published by Canadians and that are produced for/of interest to children and adolescents. CM’s reviewers are teachers, teacher-librarians, public librarians and university professors…”

And here’s what they say about Recipe For Hate in their review!

“[Recipe For Hate is] a complex, multilayered mystery that highlights the energy and passion of youth while pointing a finger at issues like police misconduct, irresponsible journalism and the rise of the alt Right.”

Not bad! Other reviews, to date, are below:

  • Quill and Quire: “Kinsella skillfully blends convincing depictions of both the punk scene and the racist underground with the hoary trope of a band of kids setting out to solve a mystery. The novel is a suspenseful page-turner that also gives considerable food for thought, anchored in realistically drawn characters and an eye for significant detail.” 

  • Publisher’s Weekly: “Adult author Kinsella (Fight the Right) sets this riveting murder mystery in Portland, Maine, in the late 1970s…Tension starts high and stays there in this unflinching page-turner, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the early punk scene and a moving testament to the power of friendship.”

  • Globe and Mail: “Portrayals of rebellious and non-conforming teens can feel reductive or contrived but Kinsella nails it without any stereotyping or embellishment. Though this authenticity will have big teen appeal, the novel is also part police procedural, part detailed history on the emergence of punk and part gritty murder mystery, all elements that skew more adult. Classification aside, it’s absorbing, jarring and raw.”

  • Toronto Star: “Warren Kinsella is known mostly as a political operative and pundit, but he also has estimable punk-rock credentials (as punk historian and as bass player in SFH, which bills itself as Canada’s best-loved geriatric punk band). This YA novel is loosely based on real-life events, and concerns the murder of two teenagers in 1979 in Portland, Ore., then the epicentre of the punk scene. It will be of interest to anyone interested in punk culture — not just the music, but the fanzines, art and writing of the period.”

  • Booklist: “Kinsella’s book explodes off the page from the start…a dark and engrossing tale of punk-rock heroes fighting for justice.” 


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The writer’s so-called life

— 05.21.2018 10:17 PM

Every damn word of this is true. I have felt the sting of the betrayal, as the writer puts it, from both family and friends. You try and put it out of your mind, but you never really do.

However: that wonderful email from a stranger, that kind comment from someone you don’t know, out of the blue on social media? Those can you lift you up to the heavens.

You do it for love, not for money, I always say.

But not much love, either.

Read.


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Column: heartless in Gaza

— 05.21.2018 09:11 AM

The email arrived at 6:03 a.m. It was accompanied with a little graphic of a flashing red siren, up near the top, presumably to signal its importance.

“Take action,” the email said.  “Tell the Canadian Government you’re disappointed.”

The email was authored by the “CEO” of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, in Ottawa.   “Yesterday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to acknowledge that it is Hamas – not Israel – that is responsible for the current violence on the Gaza-Israel border.  This is very disappointing – and we must let him know its unacceptable.”

If you clicked on that last part, it mines your data, and then it takes you to a three-paragraph letter to Trudeau.  If you click on some buttons, the paragraphs and the wording get changed around, so that the Prime Minister is under the false impression that the letter-writer authored it him or herself.

In the letter, the lobby group’s “CEO” makes no specific reference to the 104 Palestinians – among them 12 children, one an eight-month-old baby named Leila Anwar Ghandoor – who have been killed during the course of the demonstrations at the Gaza Strip. Nor did his letter mention the number of people who have been injured – more than 12,600.

Oh, and one (1) Israeli soldier has been injured.

(And, before either side bombards my inbox, please be advised that none of the above information comes from Israel or Hamas.  It comes from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who get called in where there’s complex emergencies and natural disasters. Canada helps fund it.)

Also not mentioned in the CIJA letter is the name of one of the wounded: Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency-room physician from London, Ont.  A sniper shot Dr. Loubani in the legs with high-velocity tactical rounds.  At the time, he was wearing one of those distinctive green surgeon’s outfits, and he was standing with several orange-vested paramedics.  He wasn’t near any of the protestors when he was hit.

Dr. Loubani, who has worked in several war zones as an emergency doctor, told theGlobe and Mail: “I am very seasoned about not being shot at. I know where to stand. I know where to be. I know how not to get shot. Snipers don’t reach me because of mistakes. I did everything right. We were all huddled. We were high visibility. It was quiet at the exact moment I got shot.”

In other words, this Canadian man was targeted by a sniper in the service of a foreign nation.  The sniper would have known he or she was aiming at a doctor.  Perhaps he or she had orders to do so.

One of the clearly-identified paramedics rushed to assist Dr. Loubani.  Later that same day, a sniper targeted him, too, and killed him.

As noted, the CIJA letter said nothing about the attempted murder of Dr. Loubani. The Israeli Embassy apparently didn’t say much about it, either, simply referring the matter to a “fact-finding team” with the Israeli Defence Forces – that is, the organization that attempted to kill the Canadian.  The IDF would investigate the IDF.

All this proved to be a bit too much for Canada’s Prime Minister, and rightly so.  The use of disproportionate force was “inexcusable,” Justin Trudeau said.

And: “We are appalled that Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian citizen, is among the wounded – along with so many unarmed people, including civilians, members of the media, first responders, and children.”

At this juncture, some disclosure: I have been a member of the board of the former Canada-Israel Committee (CIC).  I have been a legal advisor to the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). I have worked for most of my adult life exposing and opposing anti-Semitism.  I love Israel and Israelis.  I am a Zionist.

I parted ways with Canada’s Jewish leadership about a decade ago, however, after a dispute with the aforementioned “CEO.” Someone in the Jewish leadership had decided to ferry two Muslim-hating white supremacists on a junket to Israel.  One of them, blogger Kathy Shaidle, has said this of Muslims:  “Your religion is fucking retarded…[you are] ungrateful belligerent foreign savages…most of them can’t even read…What we really need to do is stop immigration from Pakistan and other crazy Muslim countries filled with illiterate, violent tribal peasants…”  She has also called Muslim children “parasites.”

Parasites.

When I pointed out Shaidle’s statements to the “CEO,” and objected to her being feted in Israel, I was removed from the CIC and CJC.  I haven’t spoken to the “CEO” since.

In the interim, however, the exceedingly-well-paid “CEO” has overseen the elimination of the CIC and the historic CJC.  CIJA has also lurched to the Right, where it has become little more than a mouthpiece for the Likud Party. To many, in fact, CIJA has become a puny echo chamber for Donald Trump’s Islamophobic Middle Eastern policy.

I again looked at the email from the “CEO,” trying to detect a reference to the baby, Leila Anwar Ghandoor – or even for Dr. Loubani, a Canadian who was in Gaza to save lives.  There was no mention of either.

So I looked for the “unsubscribe” button, down at the bottom of his email, and I clicked it.


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#ONPOLI this hand, that hand

— 05.20.2018 09:34 AM

Random thoughts on that startling Abacus poll this morning:

  • On the one hand, the Abacus survey doesn’t entirely take into account regional realities, seat distribution, and turnout – so Doug is still way ahead, as in the 2016 Electoral College in the US
  • On the other hand, the PC-407 mess – which, to be fair, predates Doug’s arrival as leader – isn’t really reflected in the period in which Abacus was polling
  • On The One Hand, um, again, regular readers know my long-held view that “scandal” stuff does not excite voters nearly as much as it does the media or politicos – mainly because normal people think those of us in politics/media are all crooks anyway
  • But back, er, to The Other Hand: the media are frustrated that Doug is winning without (in their view) working for it – so it’s in their interest to drive this 407 narrative to make it more of a race


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Jordan Peterson says witches exist. And they live in swamps.

— 05.20.2018 08:59 AM

From the mouth of the latter-day Father Coughlin, in today’s New York Times.

Mr. Peterson illustrates his arguments with copious references to ancient myths — bringing up stories of witches, biblical allegories and ancient traditions. I ask why these old stories should guide us today.

“It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah,” he says. “Why?”

It’s a hard one.

“Right. That’s right. You don’t know. It’s because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower.”

But witches don’t exist, and they don’t live in swamps, I say.

“Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them.”

Jordan isn’t alt-Right.

He’s just a nutbar with a thesaurus.


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