International

September 19 — Husband says to wife, “Man, what a bitch you are.” That’s not nice, and so wife demands an apology. “I’m sorry,” says husband, “that you misinterpreted my words.” Question: How long will this marriage last?

According to the Pope, everything has been solved, there is no problem. Benny quoted a medieval Christian text highly insulting to pious and devout Muslims. When they expressed their hurt, the Pope said he would apologize, but instead only pointed out that they had misinterpreted him. That’s when the hurt became outrage, and justifiably so. It would be like the hapless husband saying, “Geze, okay? I’m sorry that you got so riled up over my innocent, misinterpreted comment about you being such a bitch. There, I apologized again, what do you want??”

It’s what the Pope did, and then he also got all his fellow travelers to back him, and then all the commentators in the Western (Christian) press jumped on board, just as if our husband got all his golf buddies to agree that his wife really is such a bitch.

And this from a man who heads up an organization of committed bachelors that presumes sole authority to declare what a marriage is? Sockets are not big enough for that eye-roller.

Canada

September 18 — Given that it was loose control over information that got the Liberal Party in government-toppling trouble two years ago, you’d think the Party would have learned a lesson. Evidently not.

A box of 500 or so envelopes prepared for mailing to Liberal Party members containing news of delegate selection meetings for the leadership convention in December was found abandoned on a downtown Vancouver street corner last week. The envelopes revealed the names and addresses of at least 500 Liberal Party members. The box was found by a Republic operative at Seymour and Dunsmuir. What a good way to recruit new members . . . .

Military

September 20 — Understandably frustrated after four men under his command were killed by a bicycle bomber, David Fraser, the top Canadian commander in southern Afghanistan, called the Taliban “a bunch of cowards,” adding “They're not strong. If they were strong, let's come out in the open field. Let's do this one-on-one. Why don't you want to come out here?” he taunted.

On the same day, his military organization declared the two-week-long anti-Taliban offensive called Operation Medusa a success, having killed an estimated 510 Taliban fighters, and no civilians, while losing only five Canadians, prior to the bicycle bomber’s appearance on the scene.

So, if we are to take the Canadian military at its word, the score was 510 to 5. I’m not sure the Detroit Red Wings could do that against the Vancouver Minor Hockey Pee Wees. How much more of a one-sided slaughter would Fraser like, how much more out in the open field should the Taliban be, if 510 military deaths and no civilian casualties is the result that is so unsatisfactory to him? That’s not man-to-man fighting, that’s man against fish-in-a-barrel fighting.

And there may be a lot of things that could be said about the bicycle bomber, but “cowardly” is not one of them. Blowing yourself up, no matter how heaven-sent the command you might think you’ve been given, is always an act of bravery. What’s cowardly is packing candies on an occupation patrol so that native kids gather around you, protecting you from resistance bombers and snipers. It’s the Canadian Army, huddled in their camps, peering out the bullet-proof windows of their vehicles and tanks, rushing up narrow streets clad in layers of Kevlar, checking in with American spy satellites and drones, and who are not making themselves available in the open field for a one-on-one fair fight with the Taliban, who might be accused of cowardice, relative to the people they are fighting there. Can we please stop misusing the word “coward”?