My Coming Out Story

 

I wrote this in 2015; it is now 2025; I neglected to post it. 

I didn’t know who Bruce Jenner was until he ‘identified’ as a woman. The story of his gender identity complex has prompted me to tell my own coming out story, which I will do here. To announce that you’re queer or that you are not the gender that you biologically are, this is not very brave in a culture that celebrates perversity. I would not say that my coming out story is brave either. But it’s closer to bravery than Bruce Jenner’s is. 

Between 1995 and about the year 2000, I identified as a Fundamentalist-Dispensational Christian. Then, due to circumstances that I now interpret as the Providence of God, I began to identify as a Puritan. True, I can never be a bona fide Puritan because they lived from about 1550 to 1700. But in 2000 or so I began to identify as a Puritan theologically. The Fundamentalist-Dispensational school of thought began with characters such as Edward Irving and John Nelson Darby in the 1800s; and by the year 1900 it was gaining popularity broadly and swiftly. C. H. Spurgeon lived late enough to witness its ascension, and this lower-grade theology is what took over his Puritan-minded church after his departure from this world.  

The Fundamentalist-Dispensational theology is rudimentary, unrefined, unfinished, inexact, and erroneous on many points. You may be a Christian if you are of its mindset. But if you are truly seeking God for better understanding, and if God answers your prayers for more light, you will not remain in that camp. This camp sees Christianity this way: accept Jesus by your own free will; make your decision to receive forgiveness; then join programs with other Christians while resting on the assurance of eternal security while you focus on end-times. Puritanism sees Christianity this way: receive forgiveness by faith in what Christ accomplished in his life and on the cross; by this you may know that you are accepted by Christ based, ultimately, on God’s election from eternity; then you will gain confidence to persevere to prove your faith until the end by studying the whole counsel of God, focusing on mastering the main and plain things of Scripture. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism is about free will, accepting, deciding, and resting. Puritanism is about irresistible grace, acceptance, reception, and perseverance. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism is about you entering in; Puritanism is about God ushering you in. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism makes it sound like you work to get in the door; Puritanism knows better: that it is the work of God to get you in. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism likes to bask and laze in the notion of security. Puritanism knows better: that a person has a right to feel secure only insofar as he works his salvation out. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism tends to make little distinction between theism and Christianity. This is why Fundamentalist-Dispensationalists tends to treat, as Christians, any person who professes to be one based on a confession of a bare belief in the existence of God. Puritanism knows better: that even the demons are theists. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism is more about God’s love for everyone than his sovereignty over any; Puritanism is about God’s right to single out the objects of his special love and to limit this special love to them alone. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism believes that Jesus died for all; Puritanism knows better: that it is logical that Christ died for persons that God has ordained to single out, which agrees with Jesus praying for saints and future saints alone (John 17.) Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism believes that a Christian ought to love his neighbor as if he were as special as a fellow Christian; Puritanism takes note of that word ‘especially’ in Galatians 6.10, and subordinates neighborly love to love for fellows in the Faith. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism limits itself to faith and blood; Puritanism links faith to justification and links blood to redemption. Fundamentalist-Dispensationalism speaks of Jesus as an exemplar: what would Jesus do? Puritanism speaks of what Jesus did: taking man’s place, and through this act fulfilling the law of God by his life and satisfying the wrath of God by his death.   

That is just a summary sketch, from memory, of what I have learned—of what identifying as a Puritan is about. If you think that becoming a Christian draws opprobrium, try identifying as Puritanical! It is no brave act to identify as gay or queer or transgender in a current that is winding its way towards degeneracy. It is no brave act to wear pink shirts where to refuse to do so would single you out as intolerant to gays. It is no brave act to ‘walk a mile in women’s shoes’ when to play the man instead might get you fired. It is no brave act to paint your nails in support of Bruce Jenner’s new identity when to refuse to do so would single you out as a bigot. It is closer to bravery to identify as a Fundamentalist-Dispensational Christian. But it is closest to bravery to identify as Puritanical because even the loving Fundamentalist-Dispensational saints will hate you then, or at least treat you as an outsider. 

Sometimes I think that we Puritan-minded Christians should wear some piece of Puritan garb and begin wearing it in support of the doctrines of God that the world, the churches, and almost all Christians of every stripe, do not regard and would rather shun than tolerate. Then we might notice each other and become supportive friends. How many people are accepting of Jenner, and even praise him, even though they don’t want to? Is that brave? Here is something approaching to bravery: opposing in word and deed: abortion, feminism, the queer agenda, Islam, environmentalism, and the pseudo-civil-rights movement that opportunistic blacks and radical whites are coercing everyone to accept. 

Bruce Jenner got a million followers in four hours when he came out with his sappy transition story. Will I get a million followers in four hours for stating my theological change? A man who’s attempting to transgender (an impossibility) will gain a large following in a society that resembles Gomorrah and celebrates the behavior of Sodomites; but a Puritanical character will be ignored, and if not ignored, then vilified, in that same society. Who is brave? The man who announces that he will conform even more to what a lewd culture accepts? Or the Puritanical person who announces that he opposes what the lewd culture celebrates? 

Know this, however. I believe that most people in the USA and Canada would like the queer thing to go back into its closet. But the media, the politicians, the teachers, the entertainers, and the queers make the LGBT movement appear much larger than it is. In truth, it is a tiny movement that our societal megaphones blow out of proportion in order to scare traditional citizens into obeisance to new, perverted norms. They are trumpeting like the seven priests in Joshua 6 to make it look like there is more support on their side than there actually is. Today’s Christians and moralists are so far away from their Bibles that heathen people who are as ignorant as Old Testament Canaanites were, are fooling them by biblical tricks. And the remnants of our virtue, freedom, and peace are being plundered by these tricks. These neo-Canaanites are as ruthless as the pilgrims who settled America were holy. If we had just one Puritanical Christian for every ten of them, though, they would soon be eying their closets for a refuge once again. “And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight” (Leviticus 26.8.) With just a little religion like that which came down from heaven during the days of George Whitefield and William Grimshaw, the wicked would make themselves scarce indeed! It would be like in the phrase that is found near the end of Proverbs. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth” (Proverbs 28.1.)

A Typical Pentecostal Pulpit

An old friend of mine requested that I listen to a certain minister in his neck of the woods. I did that, and then offered to him the following observations on the man’s latest sermon. I expected the loose interpretation of Scripture and the failed articulation (which I said nothing about in the critique.) But it is the emphasis on ‘signs’ that makes the sermon so representative of Pentecostal preaching. 

Correspondence

September 2013

Hi _____, I put off listening to a sermon from that church you told me about because I suspected that it would be a negative experience. It was just about what I expected, for I know what to expect from Pentecostal ministers. So here, I have prepared some comments on the sermon for you. I may send these notes to the pastor in question, without mentioning your name, of course. I might polish them up a little more before I do that, maybe not. Anyway, here are the notes as they stand so far. 

(Now I don’t doubt for a moment that this man is ‘a nice guy.’ What is his pulpit performance like? This is the question that you need an answer to.)

The Critique

Brantford Worship Centre, Pastor Norbert Lava, September 1st, 2013, Defining Moments, Judges 6. 

To summarize very briefly, Mr. Lava teaches this: We all have defining moments; they set the course for our lives; we ought to get involved and not hide, for God wants to bless us. Some defining moments in the lives of Bible characters are rehearsed for us in order to bring the message home. The main point of the sermon, though, is that God is okay with granting us a sign to confirm some defining moment in our lives, and he may do it through this prophet or that. 

Not long after the sermon begins, mention is made of a pastor who prophesied over ‘certain people’ (probably some members of Mr. Lava’s church.) The instance is mentioned in order to show how hard it is to interpret a prophecy like that to our lives. Then Mr. Lava has the nerve to denounce false prophets! Who are the false prophets? The false prophets are those who ‘prophesy’ over us and then allow us to be in confusion over it. The true prophet interprets the word of God instead. What is the difference between God bestowing to Gideon a sign and these modern-day Pentecostal prophets prophesying over us? The sign from God can be readily interpreted. If God is okay with us asking for a sign, as Mr. Lava says, then be sure of at least this: he will entrust that sign to someone better equipped to give it than the man who prophesied confusion over this people at the Brantford Worship Centre! And how equipped is Mr. Lava? He is not equipped to teach, much less be a medium to convey signs!

Pretty soon the subject turns to bodily healing and healing from demonic oppression. “Mighty man of valor! Mighty woman of valor! That’s your potential!” How will this people interpret exclamations like these? Because of what Mr. Lava focuses on, the congregation will interpret them in a materialistic way. The people will hear, in such exclamations, promises of fame, health, or prosperity. Their eyes will be turned to earthly things that are ready to perish instead of virtues, graces, and things above. 

This message is calculated to puff people up, not humble them before God. It will make people proud. ‘I can’t’ should not be part of our vocabulary, says the pastor. What if we, unlike Gideon, are pursuing a path (maybe because of some ‘sign’ or ‘prophecy’ from a wacked out pastor) that is not the one we should be on? Would it not be good to say ‘I can’t’ in that instance? I think it might be a good thing to say ‘I can’t’ go to the Brantford Worship Centre to get taught the Bible, especially since the pastor there denigrates education in his sermon. 

In addition to examples from the Bible, a defining moment from the pastor’s life is used to teach about defining moments: when his church came up with, or gave out, 100 backpacks. Is that the best example the man can give? I hope not. He should be able to come up with some better example than that, especially considering that he has personally witnessed a person being raised from the dead! Yes, with that tidbit of information, we know right where this pastor is at. He’s right on the Pentecostal track, swallowing deceit and spreading lies. If there are resurrections going on and apostles in the midst, like he asserts, why all the effort to produce an experience near the end of this sermon by playing music in the foreground of the message? The man is interactive with his audience during the main part of his message (asking them to repeat this and that phrase or word) because his sermon and preaching have no power. And then near the end he hopes that music will do the job. The worst of it is that he makes false promises of great magnitude too, like: “You shall not die.” People die every day, Mr. Lava, even Pentecostal persons, no matter what defining moment they’ve had, no matter what sign they think God gave, and no matter what lying prophecy the last Pentecostal minister belched out of his blasphemous mouth. 

I append some correspondence (my side of it) about the sermon and my critique of it. 

Correspondence

Thanks _____, I will listen to that sermon one more time to make sure of all the points that I made. I usually listen twice to everything I critique. It is a given that a person who goes to a Pentecostal Assembly to learn (not to listen critically) cannot be very swift. If he were swift, you would not find him there trying to learn something because he would know better. 

Correspondence

Yes, these people are ignorant about history and what's going on in the world. But they know a lot about movies, toys, and the latest program line-up on television. More importantly, they are ignorant of the most important doctrines of God: like justification, redemption, and the substitution of Jesus on the cross. Because Pentecostal ministers are so ignorant, proud, and misleading, I pull no punches in my criticisms of what they preach. The resurrection of Christ means little to these people; but the rumor that someone might have been raised from the dead around town somewhere, this is everything. The truth seems like nothing to them, while lies take center stage. I get a little angry about that because it is through diversions, lies, and deceit that souls are being led down the path toward hell.

Correspondence

Yes, I get what you say. Well, I have listened to that crummy sermon for a second time, and had to change very little in my critique before I sent it off to Mr. Lava. May the lava of hot criticism do Mr. Lava some good! May it burn off some of the dross that he is encrusted with!

The Making of a Malapropism

 

In a video that I saw the other day, a pundit was ridiculing a man for asserting that one cannot pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps, and for asserting, therefore, that any man saying that one could do it nullified the point that he was using the expression to enforce. No one seemed to care about the man’s concern for the proper use of an aphorism, not to mention the corollary that an improper use of one undermined the point that the aphorism was used to prop up. Who cares more about sense than emotion in arguments these days? Who bothers to look up the expressions that pundits use? Because the masses don’t care for sense, the misuse of an expression does not preclude the abuser of one from winning an argument. He wins only in the minds of ignorant listeners. But since the ignorant make up the majority of those who are listening, he wins in practice if not in theory, which is what counts in life, outside of academia, and even inside academia these days.

Few boots have straps on them. Cowboy boots do. But few people wear boots like that, even out west. For this reason, maybe, the original intention of the bootstrap expression has been lost. Now it is used to mean the opposite of what it was intended to mean, which meaning makes no sense. That bootstraps would snap before helping a person raise himself up or off the ground by them should be obvious to anyone who can imagine trying it. But who will bother to imagine? Moreover, since pulling on bootstraps pushes the body down instead of up, this makes bootstraps of no use in pulling a man up no matter how strong the bootstraps are. But who cares about that?  

The conventional opinion is that the bootstrap expression was dreamed up to mean that one can succeed, with enough effort, on one’s own. This opinion is obviously false. Why would someone teach a lesson on succeeding by coining a maxim that illustrates an impossible thing to do? The origin of the phrase, then, if we could find it, would probably read something like this: A person would be as likely to raise himself in the air by his bootstraps as find gold in that there mine! I have read the bootstrap expression properly used: in the way that I have just demonstrated. I came across it in an old book that I cannot recollect the title of.  

The misapplication of a word or expression is called a malapropism. I have lately witnessed, I believe, the making of one, which is strangely exciting, for this must be, like the time I found two one hundred dollar bills in the alley, one of those once-in-a-lifetime events. I did not record the date of its coinage. But it is now nearing the end of March, 2020, and I heard it about one month ago, two at the most. Now this malapropism is on its way to becoming as widespread as the one about bootstraps, and, to men who hate language rot, just as infamous. I don’t believe that this malapropism will ever be traced farther back than when Mark Levin uttered it. The way that he said it leads me to believe that he is its originator. While referring to some controversial subject or character, he said this as his reaction: “I’ll keep my powder dry—for now.” He does not know that a promise to have wet powder is ridiculous and self-defeating because he does not know that keeping your powder dry is a necessity if you want your musket to fire. ‘Keep your powder dry’ has been an idiom for being cautious and ready since the time muskets were used and maybe even since gunpowder was used. But now the idiom is uttered as if keeping powder dry is something that is done until the time of firing, as if wet powder is what you need when you finally do fire. Even if what were meant is that the powder may soon be wet with blood, that would not be true since it is not the powder that hits the body, but the ball. The first time I heard the malapropism repeated was about a week or two after Mark Levin coined it. Because it was done by Ezra Levant, another radio host, I have little doubt that Levant got it from Levin. The next time I heard it was on WBAP in Texas on the Chris Plank Show, the same radio station that airs the Mark Levin Show. I predict that the malapropism is on its way to pulling itself up by its bootstraps and that it will soon be rocketing into promiscuous use. In spite of its wet powder, it is perhaps already traveling like a bullet fired from a dry barrel, and it is too late to stop it. 

A couple of weeks after writing this Making of a Malapropism, I was reading what is called a Supplement in John Howie’s Lives of the Scots Worthies, published in the year 1775. Because of what I saw in there, I decided to come back to add something. The most basic meaning of ‘keep your powder dry’ may be found in the Supplement: “In crossing the Logan a little above the Waterside, he unfortunately fell into the water and destroyed his powder.” Further down the page we read that he ‘laid down his useless weapon.’ Water had made his powder wet, thus rendering his musket inoperable. You do not plan to keep your powder dry ‘for now.’ You try to keep it dry, period. It is ignorant to say that you will keep your powder dry ‘for now.’     

A malapropism can tell us some important things about its user. Mark Levin’s use of it tells us that he is not as informed as he leads us to believe about the time period that he writes about. A man who doesn’t know about the necessity of keeping powder dry cannot have read that much about the historical period of America’s Founding Fathers. Or, if he has, it has been narrowly. He might have read some Federalist Papers and about Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. But it is doubtful that he has read full-length histories of the American Revolution and Civil War. The necessity of keeping gunpowder dry, along with the admonition to do so, predates those events. But it is also prominent during those events. Can a person be an expert about any facet of 18th century America without knowing what ‘keep your powder dry’ means? This is doubtful. We learn from Levin’s malapropism that he is not as learned as he should be, especially after publishing books called The Liberty Amendments and Rediscovering Americanism. I cannot believe that a person can be very well-informed about politics in 18th century America and at the same time say, without joking, “I’ll keep my powder dry—for now.” For certain he was not joking when he said it. I distinctly remember the grave tone that he used. As for those who repeat popular maxims that they hear, like Misters Levant and Plank, we learn that they are not as wary as the admonition to ‘keep your powder dry’ warns them to be. 

I have no knowledge of Chris Plank, having heard his radio show only once. But I have listened to Mark Levin and Ezra Levant for years. I have learned a lot from each one; I am thankful for their work; and I am more conservative than both of them together. So this essay has no other purpose than to signal the birth of a malapropism and to point out that there is something to be learned from a person’s use of one. “My son, hear the instruction of thy father” (Proverbs 1.8.) Yes, at least hear your ancestor enough to know that you don’t merely keep your powder dry for now.

The Last CBC Program

 

Canada’s CBC is funded by Canadian taxpayers. The bill is a huge one: $1.4 billion dollars per year. If there are 40 million Canadian citizens, this means that each citizen pays $35.00 a year for CBC content. It is impossible, though, for any fair, righteous, or decent person to get his thirty-five dollars’ worth because the CBC is not only unfair, unrighteous, and indecent, it has gotten increasingly hateful towards Canada’s white citizens, its white families, and especially its white men: the patriarchs. This hatred, moreover, is malicious towards all citizens because the agenda pushing the hatred is for causing divisions among ethnic groups, religions, sects, and genders. This makes the CBC worse than worthless. It makes it destructive content that we are made to pay for. 

As recently as twenty some years ago, say the year 2000, hosts at the CBC spoke favorably of the Candu Reactor, Canada’s nuclear power plant technology, and they did this regularly, which baffled me. Then, all of a sudden, there was no more mention of it. What does this mean? For a long time, obviously, there had been a top-down order to sing the praises of nuclear power; then the order was reversed, and the choir went silent. Nuclear power is not something that a CBC host would take it upon himself or herself to talk about. It is the kind of thing that a host is ordered to talk about. CBC hosts don’t decide what news they will report. The ‘news’ they report is whatever they are told to read. They are not journalists or even reporters. They are mindless repeaters of narratives. If you listen to CBC Radio, for example, from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Halifax, and you do this consecutively, you will notice, if you pay attention, that the narrative is the same all down the line, all the way from coast to coast. This would not be the case if CBC hosts were allowed to actually report the news. Some hosts, for example, would question the Liberal narrative concerning feminism, global warming, gun rights, Islam, residential schools, gay marriage, transgenderism, or Covid-19. This would happen even though practically every CBC host is a socialist because even socialists voice disagreement if they are allowed to do so.    

CBC programs, too, are written in stone for their hosts. Just like what happens at the news desks, programs must conform to the commandments even to the point of breaking none. ‘Thou shalt kill the Candu Reactor’ means to never mention that thing again; and if you are ever told to voice the narrative on it, you’d better stick to it being good or bad just like it has been decided from on high at CBC headquarters. That’s the interpretation of that commandment. I know it just as if I had been on the CBC Mount on the day that the commandment was given. I know it just as if I had been convinced of the holiness of the command by the sight of a burning bush. CBC hosts have certain liberties of speech and conduct accorded to them during their prosecution of programs. These liberties are not very wide, only about as wide as the gutter behind a cow. They are much deeper than they are wide, though, about as deep as if the gutter went down to hell by way of a bottomless pit. The perimeter of narrative-talk is a small space; the griminess of said talk, that has no bottom. For example, no matter how frequently the narratives of sexism, racism, and the manifold phobias are discussed, these discussions amount only to a wee bit of width compared to what could be discussed; but the defamations that attend sexism, racism, and the sundry phobias—these may be as endless for depth as the most biblical abysses. The characters that are sketched are circumscribed; the corrupting of characters is unconstrained. In other words, you may talk about white men and boys, or even of colonists, conservatives, and Christians; but when you do you’d better dig down deep to find some dung to fling.        

The CBC radio programs that were at least sort of good were discontinued about a couple of decades ago. (It is now 2025 as I write this.) The rest were contaminated by radical narratives. So over the years, due to their propaganda, hatred, and poisoned content, the CBC programs that I listened to fell one by one into disuse. The only one that I listen to now, and probably the last one that I will listen to with regularity, is a French one called, ‘Aujourd’hui L’histoire.’ It is biased, of course; but I listen to it in order to retain my French and because its content is historical. I don’t give it undivided attention; it’s not worth that kind of honor; so I listen while shaving, doing the laundry, or when engaged in some other boring task. And while I listen, I criticize and mock. This makes the show almost tolerable. So when I listen, I watch for two things: how many grunts the host will do, and how many times the word ‘effectivement’ will be uttered. The grunting may be noticed in the current host, the former host, and even the man who fills in. These two characteristics of the show are pathetic but entertaining. I used to count the grunts and the number of times ‘effectivement’ occurred, episode by episode. But after awhile that got pedantic and made me feel eccentric.    

CBC radio reporting is fake content; often it is fake even in the way it is delivered. A host will pretend to interview a guest about something; but you can tell that they both are trying hard to make it seem like they’re not reading what they say. Sometimes I turn on the CBC at random just to see how fake it still is. I did this, for example, on June 12, 2021, and found the CBC show called, ‘The Debaters.’ What do you talk about when you are not allowed to debate important matters like the open border in Quebec or the Covid hype? On this day they debated whether ice cream should be consumed in a cone or in a cup. Then they debated trampolines versus swimming pools. Later that same day I landed in the middle of a program about taking a ‘body positive journey,’ by which was meant having the courage to liberate your body by exposing your arms and thighs, no matter how fat they are. Is it not worth thirty-five bucks to hear essential debating like that? 

I make fun of nonsense like CBC content because the people responsible for it need to be shamed. Fools, however, which is what CBC hosts and their allies are, who and what do they mock? They mock the righteous and righteousness. “Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour” (Proverbs 14.9) CBC personnel need to be ashamed; they need to feel their sins; they need to be fired; they need to repent; they need forgiveness; they need to do something good for society for a change.

Remembrance Day Hatred at the CBC

 

I turned on the radio on November 11th, 2020 in order to hear something about Remembrance Day. Within a minute or two I heard the host, a male, say this: “On this day we pause to remember the women and men….” I don’t know exactly how that sentence ended because those few words were so belittling to the men who fought and died in the wars that the rest of the sentence was obscured by the fog of anger running through my mind.

Putting women before men as soldiers to be remembered is not a matter of a CBC host being polite and chivalrous. It is the CBC putting women before men because at the CBC men are systemically hated. That the CBC host was free to mention the men first in that sentence—this is doubtful. The CBC is so authoritarian that that was probably not an option. If he spoke like this without being told to do so, it is almost enough to make us believe that he is of a third gender— call it ‘sissy-man,’ ‘girlie-man,’ or ‘fifi-man’ or some other moniker that would make you imagine some unmanly form of manhood. 

Did women die in battle in WW1? They did not. Did women die in battle in WW2? They did not. Did women die in battle in Korea? They did not. Did women die in battle in Afghanistan? At least one Canadian woman did. But even if many women had died in battle in that war, there would be no justification for saying that we pause on Remembrance Day to remember ‘the women and men.’ The right thing to do would be to say, not that ‘we pause to remember the women and men,’ not even that ‘we pause to remember the men and women,’ but simply that ‘we pause to remember the men.’ The word ‘men’ implies ‘women’ if there were any. That is the generic rule. If there is one woman alderman among many men aldermen, that is a council of aldermen. If there is one woman postman among many men postmen, that is a company of postmen. If there is one woman soldier among many men soldiers, that is a section, or platoon, or company of men. That is what soldiers are called. When a section commander calls his soldiers together, he says, “Okay, gather around men.” At least that’s what he used to say: before effeminate orders came down from feminist Ottawa. 

You might think that this is a small thing to be angry over. If this is what you think, you do not realize that the military is being taken down incrementally by a thousand belittling steps just like this one. Soon it will be too ‘toxically’ masculine to have any Remembrance Day celebrations at all. We’re almost there already. 

Before I turned the radio off—which did not take more than a few minutes—I took note of these other belittling steps. The CBC had to interview someone about war. So what was done? They found a ‘woman expert’ from a university who said this: “We’re not a militaristic people, but we have been engaged in wars around the world.” So a people engaged in ‘wars around the world’ are not militaristic? This is like saying that the people of Sodom were not sodomites (see Genesis), that the Cretans were never liars (see Titus), and that the Galatians were never foolish (see Galatians.) This female ‘expert’ doesn’t want Canadians to have been militaristic; that is why she spoke contradictorily. Meanwhile beyond the studio over at the war memorial, the CBC’s masters in Ottawa had chosen two men to read some words on war. At least the readers were men; but what they read was trashed nonetheless. How was the reading messed up? They had an English-speaking man read French; and they had a French-speaking man read English. That way English-speaking Canadians could be humiliated by hardly understanding war memories in broken English; and French-speaking Canadians could be humiliated by hardly understanding war memories in broken French. For example, the Frenchman spoke, not of ‘hope,’ but of ‘ope’; and of the ‘vilnerable’ instead of the ‘vulnerable.’ It wasn’t his fault; English is just not his native tongue. 

I have no doubt that Remembrance Day and its traditional poppy will soon be as controversial as a Trump presidency and a MAGA hat. There are at least three other poppies vying to replace the traditional one. There is the anti-remembrance white poppy; there is the black poppy for persons of darker skin than white; and there is the LGBT rainbow poppy, as if so many queers and fake gender persons have died in trenches. ‘We pause to remember the women and men’ may lead to ‘we pause to remember the black lives’ and ‘we pause to remember the non-binary persons.’ To pause to remember the actual soldiers who died in war will be regarded as a racist-sexist remembrance because almost all of them were white men; therefore this remembrance—the only factually based remembrance there is—will be disallowed. 

How did it come to pass that the word ‘woman’ was derived from the word ‘man’ and that the word ‘man’ was used to denote both genders when appropriate for use generically ? It came to pass through acts of creation by God. Man’s body was created from dust; woman was created from the man’s rib. “She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2.23.) Not only this, but she was created for man, not the other way around. “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man” (1 Corinthians 11.9.) It is improper, being unbiblical, to exalt woman at the expense of man, as the CBC did when one of its pawns uttered, “On this day we pause to remember the women and men….” On Remembrance Day, therefore, we pause to remember the men.