Shake Hands with the Devil by LGen. Roméo Dallaire

This book is a day-by-day account of the Rwandan genocide as told through the eyes of the Canadian general who was leading the UN peacekeeping mission. We all know about Rwanda and I really have nothing to say in the face of a firsthand account, so instead I'm going to write about my reaction to the book.

It's been ten years since the Rwandan genocide, and in that time I've read a lot of news articles and firsthand accounts, and even handled on one or two Rwandan refugee statements in my professional capacity, so I came into this book with a good idea of what to expect in the way of atrocities. It turns out the book didn't present any new atrocities that I wasn't already aware of, so I found myself having the strange and inappropriate reaction of "This isn't as bad as I expected!" It is bad, of course, and should be seriously upsetting to any sane person who did not know what to expect, but because I had learned about all this before - and done my crying, mourning, freaking out and having nightmares when I first learned about it - I found myself in the shameful position of sitting on the subway reading descriptions of atrocities with complete sangfroid. I'm not sure yet how I feel about that.

The second strange reaction I had to this book was I found myself comparing General Dallaire's authorial voice to that of Roger Caron, which is a completely inapt comparison. I think it's because both men were so heavily influenced by their institutional surroundings. In some parts of the book, the fact that Dallaire is so imbued in military culture comes through very clearly For example, he refers to "deploying" a map, in a completely non-military concept, to describe the act of opening it up on a table. In another part, he realizes that some soldiers are more interested in preserving their own lives than carrying out the mission, and he seems to react with complete incomprehension - like he cannot understand why on earth someone would want to preserve their own life when there's a mission to be accomplished. (Yes, I can see how that attitude would make his job more difficult, but I would think the human condition would at least explain the self-preservation instinct).

Overall, it is not an enjoyable book - not because it's a bad book, but because it's difficult and, well, about genocide - but it is an important one. If you choose to read it, the best thing you could do in respect of the book and it's author is make sure you're wearing your critical thinking hat throughout the whole thing.

Note to self

Here is the Cross Country Canada commodities list

Contentment

One of the nicest feelings in the world is when you wake up in the morning unsure if you need more sleep or not, so you lie there in bed for a while waiting to fall back asleep, and you don't because you've slept your fill.

Delicato Merlot

Despite the name, this wine isn't delicate. It's rich and complex, and, unlike many rich and complex red wines, manages to be so without tannins! It tastes like chocolate and vanilla and various dark red fruits. It's like a velvet dress in a very dark shade of red that looks almost black unless the light strikes it just so and shows off the depth of the red. This is why I love Merlot!

One of the great mysteries of life

Why do supermarket conveyer belts always get narrower as they approach the cashier, so your groceries get all smushed together? Why not keep them just one width? If the wider width is too far for the average cashier to reach, why not make them the narrower width all the time?

A plea to all TTC riders

Today I was sitting on the subway, reading a book and minding my own business. This guy got up out from his seat and put his backback on. As he swung it over his shoulder, a metal whistle that was hanging from his backpack on a foot-long lanyard swung around and hit the metal pole just inches from my head. A few inches over, and it could have hit my face or chipped my tooth or broken my glasses or blinded me. So please, please, I beg of you, anyone who rides the TTC, look at all the things you have hanging off your backpack and think "Would this injure someone if it hit them in the face?" If it would, please put it inside your bag or at least on a shorter string of no more than four inches!

My own version of Star Wars: Episode III

It seems my subconscious mind has written its own version of Star Wars: Episode III. Last night I dreamed I was watching it on DVD, and I've previously dreamed I was watching it on DVD, and both times it was the same.

It starts with a dramatic action scene where there are all these flying droids (like the thing Obi-Wan grabbed onto and flew out Padme's bedroom window in the beginning of Ep. II) and each droid was assigned to track down and destroy one Jedi. A lot of Jedi were killed, but the scene culminates with Anakin destroying like six of these droids and saving the Jedi Order.

In this movie Anakin has two younger siblings, a boy and a girl, possibly twins, and they're enrolled in the Jedi Academy. However, the leaders of the Academy have become corrupt (my dream represented this by having them look like a film crew and spend all day showing the students movies instead of teaching them to be Jedi) so Anakin has to perform a daring rescue to free them from the Academy and then he has to put up with two small children tagging along for the rest of the movie.

I don't remember the rest. All I know is that it wasn't at all following the plot points that need to happen in Episode III. I just find it interesting that I've dreamed the movie in the exact same way at least twice.

Random observation

Have you ever noticed that the people who are loudest about calling for "debate" on an "issue" are always the people who most want everyone to just shut up and blindly agree with them?

I'm such a toddler

I don't know if I'm tired or hungry.

See, I slept for 14 hours last night and woke up at 12:30, but since about 2:30 I have felt tired. I don't know if that means I need a nap or food. I tried to have a nap but didn't fall asleep. And I just had some fruit but I don't feel much better. And my eyes are tired. I don't know whether I should be lying in bed and resting or putting on my glasses and making soup.

Watch me revert to adolescence

I'm now on Pondocillin, which really messes up my hormones. So for the next couple of weeks BEWARE! I will be about as cool, rational, and zit-free as a 13-year-old!

Not dead yet (but getting there)

I'm sick, possibly with strep throat, so don't expect much blogging of substance for the next few days. Right now I find it hard to focus on or think about anything but staying warm and drinking juice and counting the seconds until I get to sleep next. I think my teeth are rotting from all the juice and sugary lozenges, but we'll deal with that later. I have to continue going to work until the end of the week because I have a huge project due on Monday and my team's workload is such that no one can cover for me. So two more days of floating through my texts in a DayQuil-induced happyland, then a weekend of sleep and more sleep, and then hopefully I'll be better. If it gets worse I'm getting antibiotics, and if it's still around on the weekend I'm getting antibiotics

Les Jamelles Mourverdre

They say this wine goes with junkfood. I don't have any junkfood right now, but it makes me crave junkfood. Basically it's a smooth, unassuming red that would go with a lot of things. I had it with dark green veggies and it was good, and I think it would go with a lot of other stuff too. Except now I want junkfood instead of veggies.

MSN problems

My MSN won't connect. Is anyone else having problems right now?

I'm such a spaz!

I recently heard that the word "spaz" is apparently offensive. I've never heard of this before! I've spent the better part of my life bandying this word about like any child of the 80s, using it to mean "clumsy" or "flakey", usually in reference to myself. Anyone know how, why or to whom it's offensive? I never intended to go around casually using an offensive word!

How to tell when a quiz is inaccurate

I don't usually post quiz results, but this one is just too funny.

It's called 20 Questions to being a Better Person

I got 99.85%.

You are a pleasure to be with and a pleasure to be. Your friends do not envy so much as admire you, and you lead your life with grace, honor, and dignity. This site is humbled to have you take a test on it.

Which brings one to wonder, what are you doing goofing off on the Internet?

LMAO!

This is why I don't like football

I turn on the TV to watch the Simpsons. Not surprisingly, the football is still going. They start the clock, go for 15 seconds, then stop. Then they start the clock, go for five seconds, then stop. So in five minutes of real time, they've played for 20 seconds.

The Ability to Forget by Norman Levine

This book didn't do much for me. It's a collection of short stories, all of which are decent stories by themselves, but as a collection it's too repetitive. Almost all the stories centre around what feels like the same character, who is clearly based on the author. They don't contain much in the way of plot, focusing more on bittersweet melancholic description. Again, this is perfectly fine, but it gets repetitive when the whole collection is like this. One story stands out: "The Man with the Notebook", where the subjects of a writer's stories all die shortly after he writes about them. But all the other stories are easily forgettable.

Why I love my neighbourhood and other stories

Today I dropped off a prescription at the drugstore, went to the bank, library, post office, LCBO, grocery store, back to the drugstore to pick up my prescription, and back home. I did all this in under an hour, and all on foot. I am so glad I live where I do!

Meanwhile, Leah McLaren seems to have confused collegehumor.com with reality. I'm glad she waited until I in my own apartment (and out of full-time school) to do this - if she'd done it when I was in school full-time and living with my parents or even in res, my parents would have freaked out into a fit of over-protectiveness. It makes me feel sorry for students who have protective parents who read the Globe and Mail. Really, I think the target audience of collegehumor.com is high school students - I've been in post-secondary education since the site was founded, and it has always been quite clear that neither I nor my friends are the target audience.

Strange dream

I had a dream where an anti-same-sex marriage lobby group (now on earth do I hyphenate that? Perhaps I should just say a group lobbying against same sex marriage) bought all the public washrooms in the city where I grew up. They proceeded to knock down the walls between the men's and women's washrooms, and rearrange the cubicles so there were two toilets in each cubicle. They then put either a men's or women's washroom symbol on each cubicle. So the result was a large unisex bathroom with specific cubicles designated for men or women, and each cubicle containing two toilets. Apparently this was supposed to symbolize everything that was wrong with same-sex marriage. I don't know what my sub-conscious mind was thinking, but my conscious mind can't work out the symbolsm of that.