Government Does Right By Deporting American Deserters

There is a ridiculously biased article in the Ottawa Citizen involving the Conservative government and their current deportation policy on U.S. Army deserters. The tone it strikes is immediate:

Jason Kenney’s most memorable assault on U.S. war deserters seeking refuge in Canada occurred soon after he became immigration minister in October 2008.

Kenney dismissed them as “bogus refugee claimants,” a phrase that set off alarm bells among the deserters’ supporters because it was more loaded than anything said before by his Tory predecessors in the job.

How is it an “assault” on anybody to state the absolute truth of the situation? These are not genuine refugees, fleeing a war-torn country or a situation in which their lives are imperiled by actions beyond their control. These were men and women who knowingly and willingly signed into service with the military with the full knowledge of their actions and the consequences of desertion. Some of them even joined up long after the Iraq war had already started.

When you join the Army, there isn’t a checkbox to enter in which wars you want to join. There isn’t a checkbox which indicates what you may or may not morally approve. When you join the Army, you sign up for service for your country. And the consequences are well known. A dishonourable discharge and a possible year in prison is the penalty for abandoning service without permission. That’s hardly a steep price to pay for weaseling out on a contract.

Still, the underlying message in the printed material dating back three years is there is no appetite for intervening politically to do for Iraqi war deserters what Pierre Trudeau did for Vietnam War draft dodgers and deserters in 1969, when his government laid out the welcome mat for both groups. There also is nothing in the documents that suggests the issue has spurred any debate within government ranks.

In a memo to Kenney in February, then-deputy minister Richard Fadden provided a thorough review of why all Iraqi war deserters’ claims for refugee status had failed so far with the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Federal Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal.

There’s a simple reason for this. The Iraq war is not the Vietnam war. And let’s be clear here: while the Vietnam war was unpopular on both sides of the border, Prime Minister Trudeau did Canada no favours by rebuking our allies and letting in the deserters. What makes that situation slightly more valid is the fact that they had, at the time, conscription, so there were many soldiers who did not want to be in Vietnam who were forced to serve. In Iraq there is nobody serving that did not sign on a dotted line. Everyone who is there deserves to be there. They all knew the risks and the consequences when they enlisted. And even during the Vietnam era, not everybody believed that resisting the war meant running to the nearest border. Muhammad Ali, the top boxer in the world at the time, refused to go to Vietnam and surrendered three years of his life to that belief. His actions then became a matter of political objection, and carried weight in the arena of opinion in his country.

As for those who left? Well, much like the current brand running away from duty, they were forgotten about, ignored, or just plain didn’t matter.

If you believe in something strongly, you don’t run away from that principle. Perhaps the Canadian border represents the U.S. Army’s greatest test of character for a soldier. Those who run for it probably wouldn’t have made a competent member of the team anyway.

Canadians Prefer To Return To “Peacekeeping” Role

16 June 2009. Sergeant Erich BraŸn, from La Tuque QueŽbec. Photo: Sergeant Paz QuillŽ

Which is, one supposes, the opposite of what we’re doing now. Which would be war-making. Or perhaps it is our alliance with the Americans which makes so many Canadians so uneasy. It has possibly not occurred to many of them that it is possible to support the Americans on issues of mutual importance to international peace and security.

It’s no secret that the Americans want us to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2011. Whether we’re physically capable of carrying the load remains less relevant than whether we’re up to the job. It’s true that our military is strained by the Kandahar mission, a damning indictment in and of itself of our absolute underfunded and undermanned military, but I fail to see what it is that Canadians think we can do in so-called “peacekeeping” roles. Does that mean we get to post 200 troops to an outpost in Darfur and wait for the United Nations Security Council to authorize whether we may fire upon Janjaweed militia as they slaughter civilians? Or how about a return to the days where the terms of engagements are based upon waiting to be shot at first?

An article in the Canadian Press talks about the discomforting picture of the Afghan war, and the lack of political appetite to extend our military role there beyond 2011. Although for years the opposition were painting the government as war hawks, while for their part the Conservatives were maligning the opposition as “cut-and-run” cowards, the windmill has changed direction with the wind, and now nobody is willing to stand up and say that Afghanistan is the right mission for Canada. Not because we can sustain the mission with our current funding and manpower levels, not because we have the popular support of the people, but because it’s the right thing to do. Fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan has been the most moral decision we’ve made since declaring war against Germany in 1939.

But rather than fight popular opinion, it’s clear to me that the government wants a quiet exit from our noble service in Kandahar:

Contrary to the picture often painted by opposition parties, Harper is personally opposed to staying beyond the end date and has said privately that if Parliament “hadn’t imposed a deadline” on him, he would have done it himself because an “open-ended war is not in the best interest of the country – or the army.”

Insiders say his view stems from the ever-increasing human and financial toll, where military cost estimates coming before the federal cabinet would literally make him “gulp.”

[...]

A Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey last month suggested almost 90 per cent of Canadians want the troops out of Afghanistan by the 2011 target, if not before.

Smith said he believes the Conservatives and the Liberals before them failed to give Canadians a compelling argument for being in Afghanistan beyond declaring that “the Americans are there – and we should be, too.”

The fact is that nothing about this mission has been very well articulated to Canadians. Yes, we’ve lost 120 soldiers in Afghanistan over seven years, and I wouldn’t for one moment minimize their sacrifices. But what is lacking from this mission is perspective to what the risk has been compared to the reward. Would one say that constructing buildings and bridges and roads in Canada is not worth the sacrifice of the construction workers who die in order to work to their completion? The casualties for this mission have been extremely low compared to historical conflicts, and we’ve accomplished a lot in return for our work, both in repelling the enemy and in improving the lives of the people in Kandahar.

If we’re going to leave Afghanistan, it should be because it’s the right thing to do. Not because we don’t think we can afford it, or whether there is a perception that the sacrifice is too great. We quibble about Omar Khadr and possible terrorists in our midst in Canada, and yet we’re over there fighting real terrorists, and real threats to our security. The real enemy. We must not forget that.

h/t Torch

What Is The Purpose Of A “Gay Pride” Parade?

The struggle in equal rights in our society isn’t one that is entirely over, even in Canada where legislation allowed homosexuals the opportunity to equal status in marriage only a few years ago. I had no objection to gay marriage from the very outset. There isn’t very much that I agree with in Pierre Trudeau’s legacy, but when he said “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”, there is a resonance that appeals to my individualist side. I don’t really care what two, or more, consenting adults do within the confines of their own private abodes, so long as it isn’t advertised to me. I’m not offended by public displays of affection, either heterosexually or homosexually, so same-sex couples kissing or holding hands isn’t a problem for me either. But I am left to wonder, what exactly is the purpose of this gay pride parade that continues in Toronto year after year, and every year seems to get more and more like a south American caribana festival, only more hedonistic?

One would have thought that in a recession, that governments throughout the country could prioritize the importance of expenditures. Saying “apparently not” for the federal government would be an unnecessary understatement. With the feds, it’s either a necessary expenditure, or else it’s just “stimulus”, in which case everything that happens to be spending falls under this category. Even parades which promote a sexual orientation as an identifying demographic.

Pride Toronto received a $400,000 donation from the federal government last week as a recepient of the Marquee Events Program. It’s money which goes toward improving infrastructure and services for people with disabilities during the 10-day festival, along with improving marketing and programming efforts. The government has long ago recognized that Pride week has surpassed whatever original intentions it may have had of bringing social activism and civil rights to the forefront, and replaced it with a happy heteronormative stamp of approval as a tourist attraction. Something to bring the whole family to watch. Costumes, balloons, floats, the whole nine yards. It does draw over a million people, and the tourism revenue is substantial.

Far be it from me to criticize anyone who wants to go to a festival that they enjoy. The parade began back when “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” was an act of political activism, evolving out of the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids which sought to legitimize homosexual rights. But the people attending the parade today aren’t activists anymore. The equality of homosexual rights is enshrined in the Charter, and now protected under hate crime and discrimination laws. To celebrate the pride of equal rights for homosexuals is becoming little more than an excuse to celebrate the “lifestyle” of that demographic.

The lifestyle on display in Pride week is that of a rather flamboyant, hedonistic, overtly sexual nature. These aren’t people celebrating their equal right to sexuality, as Pierre Trudeau put it, in the bedrooms of the nation. They’re celebrating their right to sexuality on the streets of Toronto, complete with women’s lingerie, sado-masochistic leather outfits, and just plain nudity, in all the glory of the organ-piercings on the display. Is that what equal rights is all about? Publicly celebrating unabashed sexual exuberance, a stereotype that is so often misdirected at all homosexuals, even those who live quiet and unassuming lives with their same-sex partner?

The event has become so diluted of whatever message it originally had that now parents come with their children to gawk at the colours and half-naked and naked men and women who walk down the streets. Politicians, not wanting to seem intolerant or out of touch with a voting demographic, show up to wave and smile, safe in the sanitized and municipally-approved message [or perhaps not so sanitary with Toronto's outside workers on strike]. Jack Layton and Olivia Chow make their obligatory appearance for the LGBT community, oblivious to the phallic party favours they wave to the crowd. And then there are the children, dragged along by parents who believe it’s open-minded and tolerant to let them watch naked men and women overtly celebrate sex. That in and of itself, is a criminal act:

Section 173.1 of Canada’s Criminal Code states parading in the nude “in the presence of one or more persons” is a crime.

Section 173.2 states any person who “exposes his or her genital organs to a person under the age of 14” has also broken the law.

So one is left to wonder: what is the purpose of gay pride parade? The celebration of equal rights for all people to engage in the particular sexual orientation that nature has chosen for them in the discreet privacy of their own homes? Or merely a chance to parade naked and wave phallic ornaments in public? And if it is the latter, then surely our federal tax dollars would be better reserved for less specific tastes, and underage children be kept away. Until the parade can become respectful of the common laws of decency observed by all people, I do not see why it can be endorsed and publicly funded, particularly as the civil rights of the movement is no longer an issue.

Sunday Walk

Today we went to the Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver, by Capilano Mountain. It’s It is at the head of the Capilano River, and holds back Capilano Lake which is a reservoir for drinking water for Lower Mainland residents. It’s named of Ernest Cleveland, first chief commissioner of the Greater Vancouver Water District. There is also a Salmon hatchery there, and during the proper season one would be able to go to the viewing area to see the salmon life cycle through a glass enclosure onto the river.

The area is very walk-friendly, and is easily traversable with small children.

The day before, we found a baby bird in our yard, but we couldn’t find it’s nest. Amalia liked the bird a lot.

Abdelrazik Back In Canada

The long journey of Abousfian Abdelrazik is over, for now, as he returned home to Montreal today to reunite with his family and friends. No matter what you think about the case, the government finally did the right thing by allowing his return, and no other decision would have been conscionable within the framework of this case. Many people have referred to this entire six year ordeal as “kafkaesque“, and it is certainly appropriate as a label. I’m not certain how many people have read Franz Kafka’s novels, particularly the The Trial [1925], and The Castle [1926], but there are remarkable similarities in each to the perversion of justice in the Abdelrazik case.

In the novel, The Trial, it is a bank clerk who is unexpectedly arrested by two secret service agents who never wind up telling him what his crime is. They don’t name the authority under which they operate. He isn’t imprisoned, but is instructed to seek out counsel and to wait for instructions from the Committee of Affairs. Throughout his “case”, he is intimidated and threatened, but never told what evidence is before him, nor what crime he has been accused of. Although the ending of the novel is markedly different from Mr.Abdelrazik’s case, as the bank clerk “K” is executed without learning of his crime, the other similarities are unmistakable.

Arrested and confined in Sudan while visiting his mother in 2003, he alleges he was tortured and questioned by authorities, but never told what he was being arrested for or what evidence there was against him. There have been many kinds of unsubstantiated evidence presented, also known as conjecture or hearsay, none of which would stand up in a court of law of any repute, but it’s been enough to taint the man. Just as “K” suffered from the accusations of his tormenters in “The Trial“, setting out to disprove his guilt by trying to find out what he was guilty of, Mr.Abdelrazik had a similarly paradoxical conundrum. Or as Justice Zinn ruled in the case which forced the federal government to return him to Canada:

“There is no direct evidence before this Court that Mr. Abdelrazik supports, financially or otherwise, is a member of, or follows the principles of Al-Qaida. There is no evidence before this Court as to the basis on which the United States authorities concluded that Mr. Abdelrazik has provided support to Al-Qaida and poses a threat to the security of the United States of America.

[...]

One cannot prove that fairies and goblins do not exist any more than Mr. Abdelrazik or any other person can prove that they are not an al-Qaida associate.”

The objections that many have for his return to Canada are all based, unfortunately for them, on logical inconsistencies and outright unsubstantiated beliefs that have nothing to do with reality. For instance, some complained that it was the taxpayer who wound up paying for his ticket home, but that is not Mr.Abdelrazik’s fault. His supporters repeatedly tried to buy him tickets home, but the government refused to process his passport. The Sudanese government also offered to fly him home, but the Canadian government again declined. Another objection is his inability to work because of his presence on a United Nations list, and that his name being on this list constitutes an implication of guilt. Again, this is a law that has nothing to do Mr.Abdelrazik’s intentions to become a burden on taxpayers, but a result of what appears to be a unilateral decision by the United States to put his name on the U.N. Security Council no-fly list of alleged terrorists, a list I might add, that requires no substantiation or corroboration.

I am very unsympathetic to the concept of “Canadians of convenience”, or those people who use our citizenship or passport as a means of extricating themselves from trouble abroad. But again, nothing of the sort happened in this case. It was CSIS that ordered him detained in the first place, a wish that was complied with by Sudanese authorities. If he does sue the government, and it should be likely that he would, your objections should be placed with CSIS for having him arrested without having the proper evidence needed to bring him to trial. Some people ask what he was doing in Sudan since he applied for refugee status in Canada in the first place. That’s easily answered. Mr.Abdelrazik came to Canada in 1990 and became a citizen in 1993. It wasn’t until 14 years after arriving in Canada that he dared to visit his ailing mother.

The fact is that unless the Canadian government has some heretofore unreleased information on Mr.Abdelrazik leading to his prosecution as a man who has aided and abetted in terrorism, he has every single right to sue and seek compensation from the government for unlawfully refusing him repatriation to Canada under Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are a nation that believes in the western liberal principle of the rule of law, and not unsubstantiated allegations from a Kafka novel. For that reason, there is unassailable grounds for Mr.Abdelrazik to press for a full public inquiry in this case.

The Backlash Against Global Warming

Just as climate change was sold to the people of the world with a song and a dance, and a very effective film by Al Gore, there is now a back swing among the amount of people who are skeptical of the idea of man-made global warming. Although the science was “settled” years ago, the attempt to get countries to implement policies which would curtail the emissions believed to cause anthropogenic global warming has been more difficult. That’s why the alarmist rhetoric from the global warming crowd has grown ever more extreme, in an attempt to coerce and frighten people into compliance, and allow the passing of policies without receiving irrefutable proof of the science.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article regarding Australian Senator Steve Fielding, who asked the Obama administration for evidence on the conclusive science of climate change. When he did not receive the kind of assurance he was expecting, Mr.Fielding has been trying to end Australia’s own carbon emissions policies until more evidence comes in. The Obama administration is bringing through the largest anti-economic legislation in the history of the planet on a cap and trade system that is ill-considered and quite probably unnecessary.

Unfortunately, the propaganda associated with global warming is stigmatizing. Much like the story, The emperor has no clothes, although few politicians and policy makers actually understand the science behind climate change, they don’t want to appear to the voting public as being unconscionable to such ideas. And so without fully understanding why they’re doing what they’re doing, they claim to be able to understand perfectly the reasons for it. Failure to comply has left leaders looking weak, inattentive to science, and ultimately against the future of their own species. Such judgments are usually reserved for those who do not believe in a deity, not a scientific theory.

The fact is that the tide against anthropogenic global warming is quickly turning. The Europeans have begun to dissent against the popular wisdom of the day, with some of the most strident voices coming from those who initially supported the theory in the first place. There are now 700 scientists who disagree with the United Nations IPCC, a number that is 13 times larger than those who authored the 2007 climate change summary for international policymakers. Nobel Prize winner for physics, Ivar Giaever, called it a “new religion”. For that is precisely what the punishment is for “heresy” against the science.

Although anthropogenic global warming doesn’t have to be discounted outright, a more honest and forthright assessment of the facts would be far more helpful than the IPCC rampant speculations and fearmongering. Temperatures have levelled off on the globe after having risen in recent decades, and been relatively stable since 2001 despite the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere. It may be that the hysteria involving global warming is not dissimilar to the AIDS pandemic, disproportionately attributing every death in Africa as being a result of the disease. Governments around the world have said that polar ice cap fluctuation, hurricanes, diseases, and forest fires are all related to the ubiquitous “climate change” monster. Shockingly, it’s a load of nonsense that even our federal government in Canada seems to have swallowed.

While the concept of fighting an invisible enemy might have seemed noble a few years ago, the economic meltdown around the globe gives people pause to consider why they should support a theory that isn’t proven, and which would be an enormous cost burden. Some people use language even stronger to describe the kind of policies that were driven through by populist politicians, like B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and his carbon tax, by arguing that this is a greatest mass scam pushed on the people of Earth in history. And the longer that people have to wait for a doomsday that never arrives, the greater that backlash is going to be against that scam.

Michael Ignatieff: Not Hot, But Also Not Not Hot

Jane Taber just can’t help herself I guess. In her session-ending “hot and not” appraisal of the goings-on in Ottawa, she surprises with a “hot” designation for the Conservative Party, which breaks ahead of the Liberals in two recent polls. Her “not” designation next goes to Michael Ignatieff and the boys for being, well, for being boys:

Not: Michael Ignatieff and his boys. Equal Voice, a national organization advocating for women in politics, released a poll last week showing 85 per cent of Canadians support efforts to elect more women to Canada’s legislatures. In that poll, conducted by Environics Research Group, 63 per cent of Canadians say that women are under-represented in the House of Commons. Women make up 52 per cent of the population and represent only 22 per cent of seats in the Commons. Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien used to say about women: “I like them at the table. They are good.”

I’ve never understood the idea of counting the gender and skin colour of our elected officials, particularly as such a thing is pointless in the context of political diversity. As in, who really cares what gender a person is when they’re articulating something important to all Canadians? It’s also disturbing to me that women are only ever under-represented in jobs that might be considered enviable. I’ve never heard anybody lament that women are “under-represented” in my field of work, construction, and that we should be placing quotas to ensure their proportionate increase in an area dominated by men.

So while Michael Ignatieff is “not” hot, both because of his chauvinistic ways for not magically increasing the amount of elected women in the House of Commons, but also by virtue of being the opposition in her “hot” designation for the Harper Conservatives, Ms.Taber ensures that we realize he isn’t too not hot, or otherwise not not hot, but perhaps just right:

Hot: Michael Ignatieff and Zsuzsanna Zsohar . Sean Williamson , who is a special assistant to Mr. Ignatieff for the summer, was forced out of his home by a fire Monday that gutted part of his condo complex. The Ignatieff/Zsohars invited him to move into Stornoway, the opposition leader’s official mansion in Rockcliffe Park, while his apartment dries out. Mr. Williamson says it will be tough to go back to “an unofficial residence” after staying at Stornoway.

David Akin, meanwhile, takes Ms.Taber to task for saying that the Harper Conservatives don’t have any “senior” women in the PMO. It’s strange that we should hear about a lack of prominent women in politics at a time that women have fairly dominated the news in recent weeks. Was it not Lisa Raitt who was implicated in an embarrassing loss of documents thanks to her female aide, Jasmine Macdonnell, and the subsequent and infamous lost tape recording involving another female minister, Leona Aglukkaq? The health minister even represented a recognized cultural minority in the affair, something sure to make the demographers happy.

As for Mickey I, Mark Collins has a post about liberal principles:

“Instead of hiding behind moral certitudes or accusations of fascism, we should, he urged, try to think like ethnologists.”

This Just In: There’s Nothing New Under The Sun

If I were to tell you that a recent poll showed that the Liberals had a slight lead over the Conservative party, you’d probably shrug your shoulders. And if I were to tell you that another recent poll showed that the Conservatives had a slight lead over the Liberal party, you might just yawn deeply, attempt to stifle it with your fist, but then resign yourself to spending the next hour napping on the couch. That’s pretty much the status quo in Ottawa’s gridlocked battle between the two parties, with either one sometimes ahead or behind the other.

A new EKOS poll shows that the Liberals have suffered from their little game of chicken with the Conservatives, putting the latter at a 34.8% approval among decided voters, with 32.6% for the Liberals. The EKOS standings:

Conservatives: 34.8 per cent.
Liberals: 32.6 per cent.
NDP: 14.3 per cent.
Green: 9.3 per cent.
BQ: 9 per cent.

Now what’s the most interesting about this poll being released is that it’s exactly where the Conservative support was on October 10, 2008, but with a notable change. The soft Liberal support that went to the NDP during Stephane Dion’s chronic hand-sitting, seems to have been restored to the Liberals. It is that change that appears to be the reason why the Liberals have done better lately, whereas the Conservatives have practically remained at a constant support since 2006.

Conservatives: 34.7 per cent.
Liberals: 25.4 per cent.
NDP: 19.7 per cent.
Green: 10.3 per cent.
BQ: 9.8 per cent.

Nik Nanos, meanwhile, has a poll showing the Liberals leading, but slipping in their own survey data. He suggests that the election aversion helped Harper in Ontario at the expense of the Liberals, since Ontarians are concerned about an election delaying economic recovery. Employment insurance issues, on the other hand, resonate more strongly in eastern Canada beyond Ontario. A notable quote:

Looking at the net impression scores for the leaders it’s clear that the Tories need to focus on rebuilding Stephen Harper’s brand in the province of Quebec and that the Liberals need to focus on defining the image of Michael Ignatieff – who still lacks significant definition.

Liberals: 36 per cent.
Conservatives: 32 per cent.
NDP: 17 per cent.
BQ: 10 per cent.
Green: 5 per cent.
[Undecided 22%]

But a significant aspect of the Nanos poll that is interesting bases the popularity of the two leaders based on regional polling. Stephen Harper scores very poorly in every region of Canada except the prairies, and is very far back in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Michael Ignatieff, by contrast, has a favourable impression everywhere except in the prairies, which means that the core support for Stephen Harper remains in western Canada. It’s an interesting aspect of the poll because it is assumed that Stephen Harper’s leadership “brand” is the strongest candidacy for the party, but I would argue that as time goes on, without significant improvements, this brand will wane, and his regional unpopularity will become more and more pronounced. Obviously a leader is generally not replaced without a loss in an election, since it’s sort of like pulling your goaltender while he’s winning, but in the case of Stephen Harper it would be wise to keep an eye on this sort of statistic.

Throwing The Book At A Desperate Criminal

In Iran, the protesters throw rocks at police, while undercover revolutionary guards shoot unarmed civilians.

In Canada, a woman throws a pie at Ed Stelmach and, apparently, “the damage to a democracy is great … when this type of action occurs”.

Uh, I guess so:

Political activist Lily Phan has been found guilty of assaulting a sheriff in an attempt to pie the premier, but she’ll have to wait two months to learn her fate.

Provincial court Judge Bill Cummings yesterday convicted Phan of assaulting Sheriff Hady Hammoud while he attempted to stop her from flinging pie filling in Premier Ed Stelmach’s face at a Stampede breakfast on July 9, 2007.

Phan, 31, was found guilty of common assault, assaulting a peace officer and assault while resisting arrest in connection with the attack on Hammoud.

I hear those banana cream pies are almost as serious as a Taliban-planted IED.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

I’m not one to give in to overt sentimentality over the passing of a pop culture icon like Michael Jackson. Certainly, I used to listen to his songs back in the 80’s, and for a certain period of time I, like just about anyone else on the planet, thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. There’s no denying that his Thriller album was the pinnacle of his career, the prime of his physical talent and creativity. He not only redefined pop music, but he reinvented “cool” in a way that only the very honest will look back on and admit to. I mean, the man invented the quirky dance moves that were his signature style, and everybody on Earth has, at some time or another, tried to do the moonwalk.

His career was definitely tainted in 1993 onwards with scandals of child abuse and molestation charges, and his eccentricity began to push him away from the mainstream popularity he had enjoyed, almost without apparent effort since the early 80’s. The Neverland ranch, McCauley Culkin, the surgical masks, and the constant plastic surgeries had a lot of people shaking their heads. But when you look back at his entire legacy, this was still a guy who managed to transcend any racial barriers, and dominate on the top of the charts in a country with the most powerful music industry in the world. And the man could sing.

But nothing is meant to last. Even the greatest grow withered and die. Nothing gold can stay…

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

- Robert Frost

Sony music won’t let YouTube users embed any Jackson songs, so I’ve chosen another oldie and goodie from another artist with sublime talent, eccentricity, and an all-too short life: