On the move!
Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.
Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.
Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!
—Ian King, December 13, 2004
Friday, September 06, 2002
Then there's Hugo Gurdon's homage to jingoism.
Gurdon is correct: jingoism meant quite a different thing in 1878; it meant determination and commitment to fight the good fight. However, dearest Hugo, English words gain new meanings and lose old ones. Now, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines the word as "Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism." (see it for yourself)
In other words, we're always right, they're always wrong, shut your mind, fly the flag, and praise the Lord. Sorry, but periodic examination of what one and one's country are doing are necessary -- especially in a modern liberal democracy, Mr. Gurdon!
Such praise for sheeplike behaviour is as dangerous to liberal democracy as the militant Islam that is widely seen as the great threat to the Western world.
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