Every time I think of someone, they... get shot in a Mumbai hotel

I was thinking of Montreal actor Michael Rudder just last week. I hadn't seen him in several years, but on Monday he just popped into my mind and I asked one or two people where he was. Has he been in any new plays lately, I wondered? No one knew. In fact, I barely know him, but in the old days we used to bump into each other on a street corner and chat.

The answer came a few days later from an unexpected source: the television news. Michael made headlines last week, having survived the November 26 attack at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, by playing dead.

I hope Michael comes home soon. He's one of my favourite Montreal actors.

I am one of those who think the events in Mumbai were carried out by "non-state actors" -- aka mercenaries -- working for corporations, intelligence agencies, and governments who have a lucrative stake in promoting conflict in South Asia and the Middle East. Sorry -- nothing short of definite proof will make me think any different.

These mercenaries in designer jeans, barely out of adolescence, are a new kind of soldier being deployed around the world at this time. I suspect many of them have been subjected to various kinds of mind control training, designed to turn them into deadly killing machines, who commit mass murder with a smile. The role they are playing on the world stage is to spread fear, confusion, chaos -- and give our rulers another excuse to expand their wars and tighten their deadlock on our minds.

It takes courage to stay sane, grounded and humble in times when psychopathic kids with guns are running amok, their hatred fuelled and funded by well-organized global gangsters who own both the weapons of mass destruction, and the media of mass deception.

Actors like Michael Rudder, on the other hand, practice theatre for reasons that have nothing to do with greed for power. Michael's humanity and self-deprecating sense of humour were on display while he was being interviewed from his hospital bed, with tubes up his nose. He's never been one to scream or over-act.

If only our leaders would enrol in that kind of acting class...