The Guest Blogger Enters the Apse

Hi Mensch:

I always thought God has a sense of humour. After all, if She is the epitome of all that precious, how can humour not be included? There is even a clue to my theory in the Book of Job, where God tells His/Her only joke. Job is kvetching about the flaws of this life whereby evil is rewarded with luxury while good men perish. God says to Job " Where were you when I made the world?" That's a joke, courtesy of God. In today's vernacular, She/He would have said " So, Mr. Genius, what else did I get wrong while designing the universe?"

Which leads me to the Anglican same sex debate. We have these earnest theologians debating about what God would tolerate. God must be laughing. Like any of them know?

My wish. I wish churches would shut up. The only organs that churches should talk about have 88 keys and are great for playing Bach. And the gays should quit asking. Just show up with a marriage licence and stare the Minister down. He'll cave. It's a business. They need sales to survive.

This politicization of marriage is a wrong strategy. It seems that what once was " The love that dare not speak its name" is now "The love that won't shut the fuck up". Marriage should not be approached like a Indian blockade of a railroad. It tends to reduce public support for the cause. Anyway, enough blather. My central point is that God, who created all organs( Yamaha and dangly types), only gets involved if one of us uses our organ to intentionally do harm to the innocent. In that event, I believe God pushes the down button when we die.

Other than that I believe if we can use our funny little organs to bring love, care and gentleness to another willing, knowledgeable soul, God will smile. Actually, God will laugh.

After all, as the great David Niven said when a streaker graced the Oscars; " Such a great fuss over such a little thing".

Go with God.

Le Boulavardier

Too Busy to Care

Many of us don't like living by rules imposed on high. Often, we are right.

And just as often we are ignoring the basic selfishness, greed and stupidity of man.

The Campbell government in its haste to cut through red tape - an admirable enough goal, if done judiciously, and this was not - decided in 2004 to downgrade safety regulations in the workplace to "guidelines." As if every employer has the welfare of his employees uppermost in mind when he begins each day. NOT!

The result has been tragic and predictable: deaths and injuries in the workplace, especially the forests, have climbed dramatically.

Look, we live in an adolescent culture that can't even agree to use traffic circles properly. I've seen police cars, trucks and private cars turning LEFT around traffic circles dozens of times. Here, that is. I've never see that in England or Italy.

As the Sun reported this morning, regulations are "prescriptive," guidelines are "interpretive."

Let's get these safety regs back on the books and stop allowing money hungry employers to "interpret" safety and kill our workers.

By some bizarre coincidence, this issue was dramatized by the case of a young female gas station attendant being sexually assaulted last night because the recommended new regulations have not yet been put in place.

You want to cut through the red tape, Gord? Get these regulations, old and new, on the books today.