Monday, February 7, 2022

In Memorium: Jay-Ottawa

 It's with great sadness that I announce the death of John Janitz, whom the regulars here at Sardonicky knew very well as the prolific commenter "Jay-Ottawa."

He passed away in hospice care at the age of 87 in his home town of Gatineau, Quebec (which is right across the river from Ottawa proper) only a few weeks after being diagnosed with stage four cancer. 

As his quite entertaining obituary recounts, John had a "checkered career" beginning with a stint in the US Army and later with teaching at the college level, university library research, and work at the New York State Labor Dept. then finally switching permanently to ICU nursing before his retirement- if you can even call it a retirement. His last job, undertaken well into his 80s, was translating a book about Swiss Catholic philosopher Maurice Zundel from French into English. When I agreed to proofread and edit the manuscript, I found that very little of it needed any finessing at all.

It was only late last month that he told me - in the last email that he ever wrote to me, following up on my question about his last blog comment referencing Thomas Merton - that he himself had entered a monastery upon leaving the army. He stayed in the cloister for two years, opting not to take his final vows due to the requirement for absolute silence in the order.

 As he has displayed so often right here in these pages, staying silent was never an option for John!

Besides penning many hundreds of acerbic, refreshingly angry and often hilarious comments on this blog (there are few of the more than thousand pieces I have published that didn't contain a comment from him) John also wrote several guest posts which I will excerpt or link to at the end of this entry.

As a matter of fact, I never even would have started this blog 11 years ago had it not been for John's prodding. He'd written to me after reading my own comments in the New York Times and encouraged me to expand my political writing into a less restrictive and censorious venue. I will always be grateful for his ongoing support and friendship and suggestions over the years.

My condolences go out to John's wife Leticia and to his extended family. He was one of a kind, and will be deeply missed by what I know are his many, many friends and admirers and discussion-mates and fellow iconoclasts right here on Sardonicky.

Now, without further ado, here are just a few excerpts from, and links to, Jay-Ottawa's Greatest Hits, the Early Years.(For the complete library of Jay-Ottawisms, just scroll back through the month/year roster on your right, and hit any given entry published in last 11 years. Chances are, he'll be there in the comments section!

The Varieties of Pride (12/11/15)

"WASHINGTON — One key indicator of the health of the US aerospace and defense sector, foreign military sales rose to a record high of $46.6 billion for fiscal 2015, but US officials are warning of a dip in sales next year."

Dollars and contracting officers may be standard measures on the progress charts, but there are other indicators that the business of war is booming.  The arms export business is a fillip to sectors found on the fringes of war, many of them nonprofits, like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) or the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).  They also complain about not keeping up the pace.

Nothing changes.  All year round planes loaded with small arms and ammo lift off from the States and head east to the most lucrative trouble spots.  Ships loaded with the heavier stuff  cast off and head east with tanks, howitzers and drones, batteries included, some assembly necessary upon arrival.  All in time for Christmas if you order now.  Some of us wonder whether these exports will ever end.  Bon voyage, exports, down to the last round for whomever you're aiming to take out tomorrow.

Musings of the Lucky Man Who Thought He Was Self-Made (1/5/14)  This is modeled after Hamlet's soliloquy. A sampling: "What blameworthy fools/Those born unlucky/Short of physical wholeness/Short on intellect/Short of connected friends/Blind to the balanced view/What fools to have picked/As their Starting Line/Of all places/The doorstep of Want."

Where Is the American Anna? (8/20/11)

Something more is needed to whip up an effective level of attention.  I’m about to tell you what that is.  Given the nature of the world and the needs of politics, what we sorely lack is a hero.  To turn the country around we need intelligence and justice and commitment incarnate in human form – we need an ‘Anna’ -- a hero of integrity who is a visionary, who is not reluctant to use power, who is determined to turn the ship of state around before the current crew runs it up on a sand bar to be cut up and carted away.  Progressives need a person of the first rank in the front ranks of reform.  Until a hero steps forward the intellectuals are as doomed as the ignorant.  Awareness never saved timid kings from the falling axe.  Why should it spare us who wail and wring our hands in the bottom half of the economic pyramid?

The Right Stuff, 1/26/2012. An appreciation of the late Czech president Vaclav Havel, contrasting his vision of hope and change and truth with the shallow rhetoric of the then-US president.

The Allegory of the Wise Counselor, 7/3/11: John often used the moniker TLote (the Lesser of Two Evils) rationale for voting Democrat in his commentary. Here he does a full-on riff on the concept, pairing "Lote" with his abused spouse Columbia (Colie) The piece is as fresh now as it was 10 years ago. Until you get a chance read the whole thing, here's a teaser:

To hope forever is hell. So Colie, now in rags, ran off to the last shelter in town. Its motto was: “Do Not Complain” -- or DNC for short. Winnie Poop, the head counselor, heard Colie’s story and told her to run back to Lote’s arms.

“Really?” Colie was incredulous.

“Be realistic,” said the counselor. “Can’t you see your future will be even more bleak apart from Lote? You will end up on welfare, lose the kids, and spend your last days under a bridge. Do you realize you need major party affiliation to secure the best spots under bridges? Lote was committed to you. Count the emails begging you to come back. That’s more than you can expect from most guys these days. Believe me, in these times, you should not depend on the kindness of strangers.

And last but not least, here is John's valedictory, written from his deathbed at 4:30 in the morning on January 16th. He was eloquent to  the very end::

Sardonicky does well in its aim to shine light on the false values and illusions that immiserate and destroy life. Thomas Merton did the same in his late writing. His output was tremendous and he covered the horizon. His writing had room not only to say NO, but to say YES.

He was also an authority on James Joyce and published articles and reviews about Joyce in leading scholarly publications, even as a monk. I find it amusing that he copied the template of a naughty passage near the end of Ulysses to temper his NOs with many passionate YESes.

If I say NO to all these secular forces, I also say YES to all that is good in the world and in human beings. I say YES to all that is beautiful in nature, and in order that this may be the "yes" of a freedom and not of subjection. I must refuse to possess anything in the world purely as my own. I say YES to all the men and women who are my brothers and sisters in the world, but for this "yes" to be an assent of freedom and not subjection. I must live so that no one of them may seem to belong to me, and that I may not belong to any of them. It is because I want to be more to them than a friend that I become to all of them, a stranger.
Quoted in William Shannon, Silent Lamp, 262.

17 comments:

  1. That is sad to hear. John will be missed. I did notice the absence of his comments over the past month or so.

    Thank you for sharing this information.

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  2. I can't even begin to put in words how devastated I am to learn of the great Jay's passing. Believe me, I tried. All I can really say is he was our friend and I will miss him forever. The coolest, smartest, kindest guy in the room is gone and things will never be the same, but we will carry on because that's what he would've wanted.

    Rest in peace, Jay. It was an honor and a privilege to have known you.

    “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb

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    1. What a beautiful proverb, Will. It is a perfect tribute.

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  3. Sad news, indeed, just as I, a relative newcomer in these parts, came to appreciate his regular everyman chorus to Karen's soliloquies. He will be missed, but he will be remembered.

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  4. sad news
    a lifetime commitment to humanity and an appreciation for nature

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  5. Oh, no!!! I too am devastated by the loss of kindred spirit John/Jay-Ottawa who graced us with his wisdom for so many years here at Sardonicky.

    At first I felt like crying but now I'm giving him a standing ovation for a life well lived and sharing a bit of it with us. Please feel free to join me virtually in honoring him not with a moment of silence but with applause: *Clap*Clap*Clap*!

    [Thank Goddess JJ didn't take that vow of silence. Pedo priests must have come up with that insidious idea, but I digress.]

    Rest in peace, friend. We'll see you on the other side.

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  6. Aloha oe John dwell on in the endless universe.

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  7. Hearing this is so sad.
    Being myself on borrowed time, well beyond the Biblically allotted three score and ten years, it comes with a sobering, somber ring of the bell.

    “The older you get, the more you live with ghosts.”
    ~ Nick Tosches, Everything is an Afterthought

    “New grief, when it came, you could feel filling the air. It took up all the room there was. The place itself, the whole place, became a reminder of the absence of the hurt or the dead or the missing one. I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.
    After a while, though the grief did not go away from us, it grew quiet. What had seemed a storm wailing through the entire darkness seemed to come in at last and lie down.”
    ~ Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

    “The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
    ~ Thornton Wilder

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  8. Valerie Long TweedieFebruary 9, 2022 at 4:00 PM


    I will miss John/JayOttawa terribly but to have lived life to the fullest and to have shared so much wisdom, humour and compassion with the world - certainly showed what it is to live a purposeful life. Like one of his heroes, Ralph Nader, John worked steadily for justice and the underdog.

    I know that he held Karen and her journalism and writing in high regard. High praise indeed coming from such a remarkable man.

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  9. I can’t say just how hard it is to write this.

    I searched and searched for a comment Jay made a few years ago, in Russian conversational words, that caused me to laugh. He was being funny.

    Something sweet and clever from a man so very educated and good and talented.

    Carol

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  10. Being not my mother language, I often hesitate when it comes to write in English. I forced myself to get over it this time.
    Jay was definitely my preferred commenter of this blog, probably of any blog. I will absolutely miss his witty, funny, finely sarcastic writing. A great loss for the Sardonicky community.

    Kris

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  11. Learning of Jay-Ottawa's death hit me hard. As Kris wrote, this is "a great loss for the Sardonicky community." Over the years, Jay became one of our companions, the loss of which Antoine de Saint-Exupéry expresses in "Wind, Sand, and Stars": "[We are deprived] of their shade, and within our mourning we always feel now the secret grief of growing old." Jay's death affected me this way.

    I will try, however, to virtually join Annie in her applause and forgo a moment of silence, remembering all of his thoughtful comments.

    Thank you, Karen, for letting us know and for his role in establishing Sardonicky and for the reprints. Has the manuscript that he translated and that you edited been published? And, if so, by whom?

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  12. Patricia,

    You can request a .pdf via this link-

    https://www.mauricezundel.ca/this-salutary-revolution/

    Unfortunately I don't still have a copy of the manuscript I edited for John because it was on my old computer which is no longer operative and I didn't back up the file. Otherwise I would send it to you myself. Apparently the publisher of the original French edition never gave final approval of the English translation but they did give approval to
    aa group John was a part of for it to be privately distributed. Zundel, among other topics, wrote in the 30s about the the rise of fascism in Europe. His thought is basically related what you might call liberation theology, socialism/humanism with a religious or mystical twist. He kind of reminds me of the mystic
    philosopher Simone Weil, whom I have written about on the blog.(On the Abolition of All Political Parties, which I believe is also available to read online.

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  13. P.S.

    Here's one piece I wrote that was partly inspired by Simone Weil.

    https://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/2015/02/democratic-strategy-winning-through.html

    John left the following comment-

    Jay–Ottawa said...
    Weil had a keen mind, sharpened through her study of philosophy. She also had a good heart, with none of the detachment one finds in so many ivory towers. As a result, she had no end of difficulty maneuvering through this world with that kind of mindful baggage.

    The world of the mind allows much more room for vastness and nuance. The material world is much more confining. How do you shoehorn big virtue into the tight shoes of everyday?

    That may be the inescapable challenge for every human. How do I negotiate this day in the physical world, full of inviting pits, while holding to the path of what I know is right? How do I survive in my situation without compromising on the essentials?

    As Weil wrote, holding on to virtue is impossible as a party loyalist. About as impossible as going it alone.

    February 26, 2015 at 11:31 AM


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  14. Well, hell. Gone to join Joe Bageant and David Graeber.

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  15. I was so very sorry to belatedly read about the death of John Janitz (aka Jay-Ottawa).

    I myself have become increasingly pessimistic in recent years, as I watched: unabashed proto- (and sometimes full-fledged-) fascism come to almost completely dominate "conservative" politics --- so that not even rational political discussion was possible with most of them; neoliberalism maintain its hold on Democratic party structures --- so that little of the necessary beneficial action (and proper ideological fight-back) occurred, even when the so-called "Democrats" now nominally held national power; and, during the past two years of pandemic, the notably stupid, blatantly selfish, and, dare I say it, even immoral and "un-Christian" behavior of many tens of millions of dick-heads within the U.S. wantonly spreading a potentially fatal disease, and literally arguing for their right to do so --- so that openly evil behavior, both personal and collective, became normalized for a substantial segment of the populace.

    It's all been terribly dispiriting, and I haven't been commenting much here or anywhere in recent years.

    Nevertheless, I did still swing by Sardonicky periodically to read Karen's commentary and see what "Jay-Ottawa" might have added. I might have sometimes disagreed with him --- but he could always be counted-on to provide an highly erudite, thoroughly humanistic perspective, and I'll miss that.

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  16. Fred,

    Great to hear from you again! I hope you continue to visit and comment when you feel like it. I agree, it is dispiriting out there. I still can't believe Jay/John is gone either. I miss him a lot.

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