A Bit of Melodrama...

The Hunger Games

2012-01-30T10:53:00.003-05:00

I've been noticing something in the marketing for the upcoming "Hunger Games" movie that can only be termed ironic.

For those of you who haven't read it, The Hunger Games is an extremely popular YA book series, and is well worth a read. It's a total page-turner with a kick-ass, wonderful heroine. 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in Panem, a future country formed from the ashes of North America. Panem is ruled by the Capitol, a wealthy and gluttonous region that lives off the hard work and poverty of the twelve "districts." To punish the districts for a failed revolution 75 years before, the Capitol holds the "Hunger Games," an annual televised event in which a boy and a girl from each district are chosen and thrown into a giant arena to battle to death. Katniss' younger sister Prim is chosen, and rather than let her face death in the arena, Katniss volunteers to take her place.

Much of the book focuses on how because Katniss lost her father in a mining accident, her family is poor even compared with the poverty around them, and so Katniss illegally hunts in the woods outside District 12 to feed her family. It is this skill as a hunter which she brings to the arena.

When she goes to the Capitol as a Tribute in the Hunger Games, she is appalled by what she sees. Because of the extreme affluence everywhere, the people are basically lolling about trying to entertain themselves. They gorge themselves on rich foods, use cosmetic surgery as a form of amusement, and basically spend all their time getting mani-pedis or getting their skin dyed and tattooed. Whereas in the districts the people grit their teeth and watch the Hunger Games because not to do so incites corporal punishment, the Capitol folk watch for fun, taking bets on who will live the longest or get the most kills.

Suzanne Collins, the author of the book, said she was inspired to write it by seeing footage of the Iraq War juxtaposed with reality television.

Anyway, to get back to my original point, I'm just amazed by all the advertising for the upcoming movie. I'm seeing a lot of headlines like "Why is Cinna wearing this necklace?" and "Get Katniss' look from the opening ceremonies!" Okay, so I know maybe I'm overreacting because the difference between us watching the FILM of the Hunger Games, and the Capitol citizens watching the actual Hunger Games, as that in the real world no one is actually going to be dying. But there's a grand theme happening in this book about the importance of love, family, courage, selflessness, etc. - and the extreme triviality of looking pretty and the cult of celebrity. It seems ironic to me that this film is being marketed as though to the citizens of the Capitol.

One of the things that I really hated about the Harry Potter films is that I felt that in an effort to get the special effects and the spectacle right, they lost the themes. Harry Potter is primarily about death and loss, and not allowing the fear of death to consume one's soul. There are also important themes about the horrors of ethnic cleansing, and the importance of good character. I thought these themes got lost under the spectacle of "It's a dragon! On a rollercoaster! In 3D!!!" (Not that the dragons weren't cool!)

I'm really excited for the Hunger Games film but I really, really hope they will not make the same mistake. If ever there was a story where the themes are indispensable, it is this one. Without the themes, it's just a glorification of violence. I know it is hard to make a movie that is designed to make money and sell it to an audience that is much closer in nature to the "Capitol" than it is to the "districts", while staying true to a story about the hurtful and excessive nature of materialism. However I hope they will try. I am convinced that the popularity of this book, particularly among the young audience it is aimed at, demonstrates that despite the wealth and excess of North America, people really are searching for deeper meaning and purpose in life and that is why they respond so positively to these messages. Let's hope those messages don't get lost.

On being called the wrong name

2012-01-04T10:47:00.005-05:00

You know when you order a pizza, or a coffee at Starbucks, and they ask for your name to put on the order? It's gotten to the point where sometimes I just say "Melanie" 'cause that's what's going to be written on the cup anyway. You might think it's just a matter of mishearing what I said - and sometimes it is - but that doesn't explain why I also regularly get called Melissa, and sometimes Emily and Natalie. (I guess these names are close enough?)

I was thinking about this yesterday when I got an email from a coworker addressed to "Melanie." I've been working with this lady for eight months - she knows my name. I wasn't offended, exactly, by her slip - I know it is not, in theory, a reflection of disrespect. But still - where does this come from? I've had people get my name wrong who had a really big stake in getting it right - for example, people who run shops where I'm a regular customer. There was a guy at a print shop who called me "Melissa" consistently - even when I corrected him more than once in the SAME DAY! And this guy even had a not-traditional-Western name himself, one of those names that I'm sure people spell wrong all the time.

Honestly, if it were just a question of spelling - whatever. People write my name "Melody" all the time, even when they're replying to an email with my signature in it - and I just don't bother getting bent out of shape about that. But calling me Melanie, or Melissa? Those are completely different names! It's sort of like people just have a limited catalogue of names in their heads, and if yours isn't in it, they'll just find a similar one and call you that. (My boyfriend, who has an unusual nickname based on a non-Western name, has an even worse time with this than I do.)
Is this just an issue of having a slightly odd, offbeat name, or does everyone get this?

One time, and only once, instead of correcting someone who emailed me and called me by the wrong name (despite the fact that she was replying to an email from me), I just called her by the wrong name back. She had a common name, Sarah, and I changed it to Suzie.* That was the most effective method of correcting someone I've ever used - she noticed her own mistake, apologized, and never called me Melanie again. It was probably a rude method - but it was effective. Normally I just politely say "By the way, it's Melodie, not Melanie" and then within hours they've called me Melanie again.

BTW, I have nothing against the name Melanie. It's a perfectly nice name. In fact, I know a very nice girl named Melanie. Once I asked her, "People call me me Melanie all the time - do you ever get called Melodie?" She laughed. "All the time!"

So why am I going off on this very long rant about this? There's something dismissive about calling someone by the wrong name, especially if you do it more than once. I guess for me it's a particular sore spot because of journalism school. In Carleton's journalism program, if you spell a word wrong, you go down a letter grade. If you spell someone's name wrong, you fail the assignment. That's how important they consider it to get people's names right. Why? Because getting them wrong is rude and unprofessional. It can even be a way to bias your story against someone - by dismissively calling them by the wrong name.

I'm also really curious if there are any people with common Western names who also have this problem - or if it is just people with unusual or culturally different names who have this issue. My former boss is Eastern European and has a name with a "J" pronounced as a "Y" sound - there are people who have systematically gotten her name wrong for YEARS. She has given up correcting people on her own name - but hilariously, I would constantly correct people who got her name wrong and I'd overhear her telling people "Um, excuse me, her name is Melodie, not Melanie."

On a side note, someone told me once that my parents should have just given me the "traditional" spelling of Melodie because then people would be able to get it right, and it's my parents' fault that people spell it wrong because no one should be expected to remember non-traditional spellings. I had to explain to this ignorant guy that my name is spelled traditionally, in French.

So, weigh in? Do you have a name that people are able to get right?

*Her name wasn't really Sarah - I changed it as the story doesn't paint her in the best light.

Anti-Bullying Legislation

2011-12-14T10:52:00.004-05:00

Was there ever a better time to get rid of Ontario's publicly funded Catholic school board than now, when they are opposing ANTI-BULLYING LEGISLATION? It's unbelievable, really.

Our Premier is trying to push through a bill to "promote a positive school climate that is inclusive and accepting of all pupils, including pupils of any race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status or disability." This is not just for Catholic schools but for all publicly funded schools. The non-Catholic schools don't have a problem with it, but the Catholic schools oppose it. Their grounds? "Our concern is that this anti-bullying legislation is meant to bring a change in the Catholic curriculum," according to Teresa Pierre, Director of Ontario Catholic Parent Advocates. "We are concerned about the potential erosion of Catholic principles."

Specifically, they are worried about a piece of the legislation which will prevent them from prohibiting gay-straight alliances. Now, I'm not Catholic, but am going to go out on a limb and say that Jesus, who extended the arm of friendship to prostitutes and thieves, would probably not have opposed a gay-straight alliance. He probably would have started it. The point is that a servant of God is a servant of humanity, and thus respects other human beings for their innate nobility.

So it's not just that I don't think gay-straight alliances are anti-Catholic. It's that the Catholic school system is going too far. Parents absolutely have the choice to send their kids to public school instead, but now the Catholic schools are trying to prevent anti-bullying legislation that is meant for everybody, not just their own kids. This law is for everyone - and if one day I send my potential future children to school in Ontario, I want them to go to a school where anti-bullying legislation exists. For one thing, because kids are bullied for all kinds of reasons besides being gay. But also because I want to raise kids that, like Jesus, would extend the arm of friendship to anyone.

Because guess what happens if you start to limit where you extend the hand of friendship? You miss out. There are so many intelligent, fascinating, funny, kind, generous people in my group of friends who also happen to be gay. Or otherwise, in some way, not like me. My education taught me to appreciate diversity and thank God for that, I might have missed out on knowing, loving and being loved by so many amazing people!

If Catholic parents are willing to put their judgment of others ahead of that, then fine. It's up to them how they raise their kids. But it should not be on the public dime. Taxpayer money should support the anti-bullying legislation.

The Accomplishments of Occupy

2011-11-21T16:30:00.002-05:00

I can only speak from my own perspective, but I think it's been an interesting couple of months.

I've had many conversations since the Occupy movement began, with many different people, from many walks of life, about the growing gap between rich and poor and how we all feel about it.

Most people I've talked to, from the left and from the right, sympathize with the Occupy movement and what's it's trying to say. They may not agree with the method, or they may wish the Occupiers had more clearly articulated demands, but the general consensus is that we can all see that too much wealth is in the hands of too few people and that's a bad thing.

People are recognizing their own 1% membership. Maybe not the Occupiers themselves - but people - my friends, family, the people I talk to - they can see that from a global perspective, they are quite wealthy, just because they live in Canada and they have food and running water and DVD collections. The first step to change must be for those of us who are privileged to recognize it, to be grateful for it, and then to go about trying to help others to achieve it.

The conversations have been started, and those rumblings of dissatisfaction are the first step toward a peaceful revolution.

Some inconclusive thoughts on bullying

2011-11-15T15:13:00.002-05:00

I've been wanting to write a post about bullying for sometime. It's really up there in people's consciousness lately because of all the bullying-related gay teen suicides, and so there's been lots of pontificating on it, with even Rick Mercer choosing it as the subject for a rant. (As an aside, and please take this second-hand knowledge with a grain of salt, but someone I know went to summer camp with Rick Mercer and while he didn't quite say he was a bully himself, he said "he had a knack for mockery even then.")

Sometimes I wonder how all the adults who used to be the kids who bullied me now feel about all this talk. I mean are they out there, posting "stop bullying" links on their Facebook pages, forgetting that they were once nasty bullies themselves? Or do they just not think about it? Or do they just not remember that they were bullies? I mean, for all the kids out there who were bullied, there must be a darn few out there who were bullies themselves. And yet by the time they grow up, everyone seems to accept, at least at face value, that bullying is bad, because I don't see a lot of "Keep on bullying! It's great fun!" badges on social networks.

You hear a lot of talk about how nowadays, kids are being bullied even worse because of the internet - how now they can't even escape it at home, they're being bullied over Facebook or text messages or whatever. There's a pretty golden opportunity there too, though - don't you think - how much power could you get by posting "Hey @John Smith, stop harassing me!" as your status, then just letting the court of public opinion deal with them. (I'm NOT actually suggesting or promoting this idea - just speculating.)

When I was 16, there was a mentally challenged young man who rode my school bus and was mercilessly bullied by two boys on the bus - one in particular. There must have been about 20-25 other kids on that bus and not one of them ever stepped in to stop it. I, personally, thought about stepping in every day, and never did. Why? I think the courage it takes a kid to step into a situation like that is MINDBOGGLING. First of all, I'd been bullied lots myself, and knew I risked making myself a target too. I had no idea what the best way to deal with those bullies was - I needed a strategy. Rather than finding one, I allowed it to be someone else's problem. I HATED what was happening to that young man and I never did anything about it, and neither did any of my fellow students - and you know, while that is regrettable, it's still not our fault.

But where, I wonder, are the bus drivers, in all this? Everyone I know who has taken a school bus has either seen or experienced bullying. They're prime spots - everyone is stuck there, together. I had to take a school bus in Grade 2 and there was a kid who was bullying me (we used the word "teasing" more back then - which really doesn't cover it.) I told someone - my sister, or a cousin, I can't remember. I would never have told a parent - I was embarrassed. Anyway, whoever I told, told my dad. He flipped, and the next morning, he got on the bus with me.

"Which one of you is Patrick?*" he roared in a loud, scary voice.
A suddenly very timid 8-year-old raised his hand.
"You will stop bothering my kid. Do you hear me? You even talk to my kid again, you will deal with me."
Very, very timid nod.
Little twerp never bothered me again. Actually I think it may have ended ALL bullying on the bus for the whole year. My dad is very proud of this story. But for every Patrick, there were a bunch more in school, on the playground, etc. My dad couldn't corner and scream at every knucklehead who was harassing his kids.

When I was in Grade 1, there was a kid in Grade 7 who terrified me. He used to jump out at me from behind things. It sounds so stupid now, and he probably just thought it was a huge laugh, seeing this tiny kid so scared. But the point is, I was really, really scared. I used to remember where I'd seen him last and avoid those spots. I feared and avoided the playground - I played inside whenever I was allowed to. At one point during the year, the principal arranged a private meeting with each child. He took us into his office one by one and asked if we had anything we wanted to talk about, in our home life or at school. This was such a forward thinking thing for him to do and I still remember it. Anyway, I wanted desperately to tell him about this kid who was scaring me. I couldn't though - I don't know why - shyness, fear - I had an irrational fear of this kid and I thought he'd get back at me somehow if I told on him. I also had a very ingrained understanding that I shouldn't be a tattletale, even at 6.

One of the things I am the most grateful for about being an adult is that I am not being bullied. Which is not to say that adults are not bullied - there has been one situation for me, as a grown up, in the workplace, which qualified. Fortunately I was able to leave that workplace and move on, and now I mostly have the option to only surround myself with kind, respectful people. Even then, though, sometimes that's tough - for example, if your bullies are within your own family.

And I definitely wonder sometimes, since I think it's very likely that some of the kids who bullied me don't remember themselves as bullies, if I ever bullied anyone. I can't remember a situation - but that's the whole point of selective memory, right? We remember the situations which were traumatic for ourselves, not the ones which traumatized others. Considering that for every bullied kid out there, there are so many bullies, I think we are all probably both to some degree - bullied in situation where others had more power than us, bullies in situations where we had more power. It's something we all define a bit differently, a line we all draw in a slightly different place.

I definitely don't know how to fix it, but the one effective method I remember from my own childhood is getting a loud parent on the bus and scaring the crap out of the bully. In other words, getting a bigger bully to bully your bully. There's got to be a better way.

*name changed to protect what was, after all, just an eight-year-old kid.

Why Tim Hortons - gasp! I said it - is un-Canadian

2011-11-07T11:54:00.007-05:00

I am sick and freaking tired of reading articles and columns in Canadian media about how Tim Horton's is so representative of Canadian values - like this one:

Tim Horton's lattes a sign of Canadians' blurring political identity? Read more.

Or another one: "It seems to me if you have a problem with Tim Horton's, you have a problem with Canada.
Step foot in any Tim Horton's and you’ll see what I mean. By and large these people are not the elite — they are you and I. If there is any one word to describe the Tim Horton's culture, it is comfortable. It is a come-as-you-are place where you are invited to be yourself." London Free Press

Over the years I have read hundreds of columns and articles expressing this same theme - Tim Horton's is so down-home, it's where you find all the regular Joe Canadians, Starbucks is full of elitists.

It's just bullshit, and it's harmful bullshit. It's exactly the same things right-wing governments do when they accuse left-wing governments of being "spenders" while trusting that no one will look past their rhetoric to see who is actually doing all of this awful "spending." Trust me, right-wing governments spend money too, and Tim Horton's is not that great.

I'm not talking from the perspective of an elitist, middle-class coffee snob who can afford to spend 5$ on one coffee and therefore refuses to drink the burnt-dirty-water sludge at Tim Horton's. I am a middle class coffee snob, but once I was a teenager who worked at Tim Horton's so that I could afford to go to university someday (and, frankly, so I wouldn't have to wear all second-hand clothes.)

Let me tell you, the businesses I have worked for that have been the MOST exploitative of young people and immigrants have been the supposed "Canadian values" businesses - Tim Horton's and Laura Secord. In Quebec, where I worked at Tim Horton's, there were two minimum wages - a regular minimum wage (which was 7$ per hour) and a "server wage" - a lower minimum wage to compensate for the fact that servers receive tips. The Timmie's franchise I worked at classified us as servers in order to pay us server wage, despite the fact that server wage is meant for people getting 15% of sales, not a few nickels in a tip jar. I was paid $6.25 an hour. The tips often didn't even bring me up to regular minimum wage. (And, like everyone else who worked there, I spent all my tips at Timmie's.)

Look who works at your local Tim Horton's - at most of them, it is people around the age of 16-17, and immigrants. Maybe a few middle-aged people who've been there forever and have no other skills. Know why? BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL PUT UP WITH THAT BULLSHIT. It's not just being underpaid, it's being expected to show up early and stay late without being paid and allow customers and management to treat you like you're sub-human. The only people who put up with this are people who don't know any better or don't have any other choice.

This is all without even mentioning the absolute garbage that is Tim Horton's food. It all comes pre-made and frozen in cardboard boxes. Most of it is made of sugar and salt and fat - yeah, it's no worse than McDonald's but at least no one is harping on about how great McDonald's is for representing our wonderful American values. (Except capitalism - McDonald's and Timmie's both do a great job of representing the wonderful value that is capitalism.) And actually, between a McD's breakfast sandwich and a Timmie's - pick McDonald's. It's lower calorie, more of it is made fresh (they use an actual egg, not an egg patty) and it's lower in additives. And actually, McDonald's coffee is better too. The only way Tim Horton's is any way palatable (to me, anyway) is if you drown it in sugar and cream. ANYTHING tastes good when it's full of sugar and cream.

As for that whole come-as-you-are, blue collar, people in Timmie's are just like you and me business - yes, I agree. That's also true of buses, subways, shopping malls, most public streets, grocery stores, gas stations, community centres, public schools, community colleges, etc. It's also true of lots of places that are supposedly elitist - like, I don't know, universities and Starbucks. Trust me, there are people in both university and Starbucks who weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth, know the value of a dollar, and have worked hard doing horrible jobs for $6.25 an hour. Thank God for education, the great equalizer, and the ONLY reason I make enough money to afford $5 coffees. Maybe it's not so much Tim Horton's that's so representative of Canadian values but university.

In fact, to Joseph Couture at LFPress, I'd put the question: where do you generally hang out, that you find it so hard to find "regular people", that you're so in love with all the regular people you find at Timmie's? Golf courses? Yacht clubs? Yoga studios? I'm genuinely curious as to where these elite people you object to are found, and also why having money makes you un-Canadian anyway.

What I think is un-Canadian is underpaying people and serving up bad food out of cardboard boxes at ridiculous profits, all for the sake of enriching shareholders (talk about elitist) and not even Canadian ones at that - Tim Horton's is US-owned, by the way.

Want to put your money into Canadian values? Go buy a fair-trade coffee at a shop owned by a Canadian who pays their workers a decent wage and makes their baked goods from scratch. And stop telling me I'm elitist, and that I have a problem with Canada, because I have a problem with Tim Horton's. Yeah, I may be too elitist to shop there, but I wasn't too elitist to work there.

Some more recent "Tim Horton's = Canada" articles (not an exhaustive list, I've been reading these articles for YEARS)

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/18/scott-stinson-take-your-canadian-citizenship-test-now/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/10/do-you-buy-locally-crafted-beer.html

http://www.mysask.com/portal/site/main/template.MAXIMIZE/?javax.portlet.tpst=1025150832015efc0f79690b88215ae8_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_1025150832015efc0f79690b88215ae8_viewID=content_item

http://www.thestar.com/article/1081912--excerpt-dusan-s-toronto

Why I love the Grinch...

2011-11-02T12:02:00.002-04:00

Not the story, the character.

Ugh, Halloween is over and it's time to start avoiding going out in public. Yes, I'm Grinchy, and yes, I can't stand the freaking Christmas season, but it's not for the reason you think.

(Which, of course, is that I was born with my heart three sizes too small.)

Think, for a second though, about the real message of The Grinch That Stole Christmas. Much as I love Dr. Seuss, he kind of missed the boat on this one. How did he steal Christmas? By stealing THE PRESENTS. (And the decorations, I think.) How did Cindy Lou Who save the day? By convincing him to return the presents. It's like a freaking paid advertisement for capitalism.

Capitalism should make Cindy Lou Who its official mascot. Oh wait, it already has an official mascot - Santa Claus. Don't even get me started on how much I LOATHE what our culture has done with a really nice myth about a magical guy who flies around the world handing out presents. It could be so nice, and instead it's ugly plastic figurines, Santa-shaped waxy chocolate, hours waiting to have pictures taken in the mall, and songs that are just incredibly tiresome to anyone with a proper ear for music.

I really very much relate to the Grinch - who after all was just a fellow left out of the revelry. I was born and raised in a family which did not celebrate Christmas. I never felt like I missed out (actually, there were bonuses - like not having to go to school in the week before Christmas because my dad figured there wasn't much learning going on anyway.) I sometimes feel like I missed out now though, because when your family opts out, that doesn't mean the culture you live in opts out. So I got to experience all the worst of Christmas (commercials, blow-up Santas, terrible canned synthesizer music, ugly Christmas cards from companies trying to sell you something, really unappetizing junk food, crowded malls, people wishing you "Season's Greetings," etc.) without getting much experience of the best parts (thoughtful gift-giving, twinkly lights, people singing carols around a piano, funky handmade ornaments, beautifully prepared family recipes.) See - deep down, like the Grinch - I get the appeal.

What I don't like is the use of the love and family values and whatnot to try to sell peppermint mochas and the toy your kid just HAS to have and CDs that there is no excuse for listening to, ever.

My dad's side of the family does celebrate Christmas, sort of. In the best possible way, really. We have an annual venison dinner, which is awesome. We get together and eat a bunch of delicious homemade food and talk and laugh and no one gives anyone any presents, except my aunt who gives each of her nieces and nephews some chocolate and a toothbrush. (She still does this even though we're now in our twenties - I actually sometimes put off buying a new toothbrush if mine is getting old in December, because I know there's one coming.) There's no pressure and no obligation to buy the perfect gift, and generally no Christmas music because with the exception of some hymns and Tchaikovsky, it's all annoying.

I suspect most people's families have just as nice a time, with or without the presents, and that's why everyone loves it so much. I just wish we could have all that without all the tiresome stuff.

Losing It In Ottawa

2011-10-14T14:11:00.004-04:00

Since I'm sure you were all waiting with baited breath since my last post for my new project announcement, just a quick post to say it's started. I'm one of the new bloggers for one of my favorite blogs, Losing It In Ottawa.
Losing It In Ottawa is a group of positive, encouraging Ottawans writing about their struggles and victories on the road to getting healthier. It's about losing weight, but more than that, it's about losing your fears, losing the things that are holding you back, losing your bad habits, etc.
Each person blog bi-weekly - you'll see my posts every second Friday.

Changes

2011-10-11T13:34:00.003-04:00

After more than two years of not posting, I've removed my movie reviews blog from the web. (I did save all the writing.) The blog was really more where my head was at a few years ago than where it is now. I am, however, starting soon on a project that I'm quite excited about, so I will post a link to that soon.

Apologies if anyone liked the movie blog - but I can't imagine anyone read it, since I never updated it.

In the meantime, my joint blog project with Nigel Walker, Let's Be Candid, is wrapping up soon. Based on the conversations I've been having with him, I think we'll see a couple of really interesting posts from him before the end, and there'll be a bit more from me before it's over too.

I'm starting to feel like a legit blogger after several years at it - so thanks to the audience that I know is out there.

Fat Tax

2011-10-03T10:51:00.005-04:00

The government of Denmark just rolled out a tax on saturated fat. Any foods with more than 2.3% saturated fat are taxed at a rate of 3$ per kg of saturated fat in the product.

I like the idea that a government is paying attention to the need to do something about high levels of obesity (I refuse to call it an "epidemic". Fat is not catching.) However, I think this tax is a bad idea and here's why.

I am not exaggerating when I say that there is a TON of nutritional misinformation out there. And I think it is nutritional misinformation that people get fat because they eat too much fat.

This tax vilifies saturated fat, making it out as if it is the only culprit causing people to gain unhealthy amounts of weight. That is ridiculous. #1. You need saturated fat to live. Seriously. There's this weird fallacy that the ideal is to eat no fat at all, or to only eat unsaturated fat - this is wrong. You need a healthy BALANCE of fats.

People talk about things like olive oil being healthy because it is unsaturated. However, fats are classified by their dominant component. Olive oil has mostly unsaturated fat, so it's called an unsaturated fat. It still has some saturated fat in it. Some saturated fat is okay - you need it to live.

#2. You know what you don't need to live? Sugar. You do need some fruit, for the vitamins it provides, and fruit contains sugar - so by that logic you do need some sugar. But you don't need any refined sugar. Eating too much sugar makes you gain weight. Absolutely guaranteed. So why aren't they taxing sugar instead?

Then there are things like margarine. Margarine, in my personal opinion, is not simply bad for you, it's not actually food. Food, to my mind, is something that can be picked, or gathered, or killed, and then cooked in one's own kitchen. You can make butter by hand. You can't make margarine. Margarine requires scientists and a lab. Margarine is not food, it's a science experiment.

Here are the ingredients of margarine: Canola and sunflower oils 74%, water, modified palm and palm kernel oils 6%, salt 1.8%, whey protein concentrate 1.4%, soy lecithin 0.2%, vegetable monoglycerides, potassium sorbate, vegetable colour, artificial flavour, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3, alpha-tocopherol acetate (vitamin E).

Here are the ingredients of salted butter: cultured butter, salt.

Margarine is one molecule away from being plastic. And yet butter is going to be taxed because it contains saturated fat.

I'm not suggesting we should all go out and start gorging ourselves on butter and saturated fat. That's a terrible idea - we need to eat saturated fat to live, but we don't need to eat much. Mostly what we need to eat is vegetables, fruits, and protein. Vitamins and minerals. Fat should be eaten as about 30% of a healthy, balanced diet - give or take a bit depending on your gender and body type.

My guess is a fat tax won't achieve that.

Why I Oppose Media Endorsements of Political Candidates

2011-10-03T09:29:00.005-04:00

I recently watched "The Bang Bang Club," a movie I really enjoyed (despite Malin Akerman's terrible excuse for a South African accent.) This film is based on the true story of a group of white photojournalists working in South Africa towards the end of apartheid, presented one ethical dilemma in particular that really stuck out in my mind. One of the journalists, Greg Marinovich, takes a photo of a man being brutally murdered. The photo is run in papers all over the world, and South African police subpoena Marinovich to testify against the murderers. Marinovich refuses, saying that to testify, to involve himself, would be to take sides, and he cannot risk his journalistic impartiality by doing so. He feared that if he appeared to take sides, he would get killed. He would have been arrested for not testifying, except that very shortly thereafter his photo won the Pulitzer and thus it would have brought too much bad international attention to throw him in jail.

This is the kind of extreme ethical dilemma that many, if not most, journalists are unlikely to ever have to face. The courage to refuse to compromise impartiality even at this great test is incredibly impressive to me. It boggles the mind when I think of how often journalists compromise their impartiality with no ethical dilemma at all.

Impartiality, of course, is not about not having an opinion. Journalists have opinions because they are people, and those opinions can influence everything from who they choose to interview to what side of the street they take the picture from. What it is about, I think, is trying to minimize one's opinions, one's biases, in the best way one can. When one cannot minimize them, then one must declare them - upfront, so that the reader/listener/viewer can make an informed decision about whether or not it is likely that we have been able to put them aside. This constant struggle is part of the reason that it surprises me so much that newspapers across Canada readily offer endorsements in electoral races.

Of course, there is a difference between a reporter and a columnist. Reporters tell the facts, minimizing their bias, for the purpose of providing information. Columnists report their (hopefully informed) opinions for the purpose of opening debate. However electoral endorsements don't really come from columnists. The paper doesn't generally say "Columnist John Doe endorses candidate Jane Smith." No - it is big headline articles which say "The Globe and Mail endorses candidate A." So whose opinion is it meant to be? The reporters? The publishers? The owners? The editorial board? By not having one person, or one clear group of people, claim ownership of this opinion, the bias goes wholeheartedly undeclared.

Once the election is over, how can I then trust that newspaper to cover the winner fairly, whether their endorsed candidate won or lost? When the newspaper openly takes a side, without even trying to remain neutral, I lose my faith in that newspaper to report on politics neutrally.

I think this practice of media endorsements should stop. Tell me what the candidate stands for, what the candidate says, and what the candidate does. Try to give the same amount of time to each candidate. Then, let me make up my own mind. We need a media trying as hard as it can to be as close to impartial as possible in order to have a democracy that is in any way functional.

Transit Woes

2011-09-20T09:52:00.002-04:00

The other day, I was waiting for the bus at a stop with a group of about 20 or so young university students - probably ranging from 17 to 20 years old. They were dressed identically in purple to raise money for something. The bus approached and I got on first, and as I entered the bus, I heard a girl behind me inform the bus driver, "we've got a wheelchair coming on board." "I'm not blind!" snapped the bus driver as I walked past him. I was completely taken aback, and obviously the girl who had spoken was too. I've often noticed on Ottawa buses that young people are treated a lot worse than older people - mind you, they're louder, but I really don't think that's any excuse. In any case, this driver didn't even give these kids a chance to behave themselves before being in a surly mood. The kids did behave themselves - they weren't any louder than any other passengers on the bus. A bit later, the bell rang, and when the bus stopped, no one got off. I've been on the bus before when this happens - usually the bus driver just says "Is anyone getting off?" and then shuts the doors and continues. It's understood that sometimes people unfamiliar with the route make a mistake. Not this grump. "Is someone getting off?" he yelled. No answer. "What, so FAIRIES rang the bell?"
At this point, a timid young woman speaks up. "I'm sorry, I made a mistake."
"So you're just going to ring the bell at every stop 'til you get the right one?"
For a guy worried about wasting time, he was sure wasting a lot of it with his temper tantrum. One of the university students turned to the other girl. "Where are you going?" she said. They had a quick conversation, the girl realized she'd rung just one stop too soon, all was solved. This is something the BUS DRIVER could have done - given directions - if he wasn't too busy being rude.

I get frustrated when buses are unreasonably late, or don't come at all, or don't stop. (All of which happen ROUTINELY in Ottawa's abysmal transit system.) I'm frustrated that I pay more for my transit pass than Montrealers, who have a subway system. But none of that frustration is anything compared to my feeling that it is totally unacceptable for bus drivers to treat people this way.

Take for example, this incident in which a bus driver drove up beside a student in a wheelchair, opened the door long enough to say "I'm not picking you up 'cause you didn't get to the stop in time," then drove off. Recently, I was sitting at the stop, reading a book, when I looked up just in time to see the bus drive just past the stop, then stop at a red light. I got on, and the bus driver said, "You're lucky the light was red." "What?" I said. "You were sitting down," said the bus driver. I was just furious! Is he implying that they don't have to pick people up, even if they're at the stop, because they're sitting on a bench, reading a book? Do they have any idea how LONG we wait for the bus sometimes? I'm afraid my own worse nature took over. "Yes," I replied. "I imagine that's why they put a bench there, so people can sit down." Come on - I was sitting at a bus stop on Montreal Rd., at 8:30 am, on a route that is only served by ONE bus. Come on - use your common sense - obviously I want to get on the bus. I was obviously not there to enjoy the scenery. (MMMM - gas station fumes.)

I have heard this time and time again from every transit rider I know - how do we let the city know that we will not put up with this rudeness?

The Many Moves of Melodie

2011-09-02T14:09:00.005-04:00

I was born in St. John's, NL - where I lived for a couple of months, before flying off with my parents to St. Pierre et Miquelon. Somewhere, in my dad's old stuff, I have a baby passport. I don't have a huge number of memories before the age of six, but I can piece together from memory, stories, photos, and of course, where my siblings were born, that I moved to Belize twice, Saskatoon, and Sioux Lookout, ON, before winding up in Fort St. John, BC in the summer before I turned 6. This is the minimum - there may have been another couple of moves in there that I don't remember. We lived in a townhouse in FSJ for one year, before moving to Charlie Lake, BC (which is close enough to FSJ not to really count because I didn't have to change schools). We were in Charlie Lake for two very memorable years (these were the years in which my cousins moved from Australia and we had 12 people in a three bedroom farmhouse for seven months.) Then we went to Shawnigan Lake, BC (Vancouver Island)for a year. I remember missing my friends intensely during that year - although I did make new ones. At the end of that year, we went back to FSJ, where I discovered, for the first time, that you CANNOT GO BACK. Moves change you - you will not go back the same person, even as a child. We were there for two more years before moving back to Vancouver Island (are you getting dizzy yet?) We were on Vancouver Island from the time I was 12 to 15, and lived in three different houses during that time. At 15, I'd lived in at least 13 different houses.

Then, we made the move that shifted out the earth from under my feet. That was September 2000. After one miserable year in a school where I made acquaintances but not friends, I moved schools. In a couple of weeks we will commemorate the ten-year anniversary of terrorist attacks that changed all of our lives. But for right now, I am remarking with amazement the 10 year anniversary of the day that a very special girl saw me in drama class and somehow knew that I needed her in my life. Sept 2001 was a life-changing time for me - I met a lot of people that are still my closest friends, including my boyfriend of 7 years.

The thing about moving, and repeatedly losing all your friends, is that it leaves a bit of a scar. Even though you do make new ones, it's a little horrible to know that all these people thought you were completely dispensable - out of sight, out of mind. At 15, I saw it that way and judged people harshly. Now I know that people don't stop caring, they just get on with their lives. There are people from my "pre Sept 2001" life that I still care about, have seen many times since, and love. People that I know would be thrilled if life threw our paths together again. But the scar of losing them made it very hard for me to trust the new friends. But of course, these amazing people crept under my skin, and over the last 10 years, made me care. And having opened up my heart after it was hurt, these friendships are now so much deeper, so much richer, and so much more important than anything from my life before I moved here.

Sept 2001 was the month that my life, the way I lead it, began. Ten years later, I'm taking stock, incredibly grateful for where I am, what I have, and most importantly, the people I have met.

It's not just about salmon

2011-07-28T20:55:00.003-04:00

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert Heinlein

If you haven't yet, and you are Canadian, you need to read this story.

Do not doubt it - when your government is silencing scientists it is time to get scared. Censorship is the necessary forerunner of tyranny. We need to tell our government that Kristi Miller has the right to tell us her discoveries - that we have a right to this knowledge.

The Laurier Bike Lane - Will it help take the blinders off?

2011-07-13T16:21:00.003-04:00

The more often I cycle, the more often I almost get hit by cars. It's a fact. Which means I'm absolutely thrilled about a new segregated bike lane that just opened on Laurier Ave, going right across Ottawa's downtown. It's not even on my regular route. But in addition to putting in lanes, they are also putting in signage telling drivers that they must check their right for cyclists going straight before turning.

This is in fact what drivers are supposed to do at every intersection, whether there is a bike lane or not. It's routinely tested in driver's tests in many European countries, where failure to check for cyclists means an automatic fail. It was, until last summer, the situation in which I found myself most often getting almost hit. What changed? I decided that right of way or not, if I'm going straight on my bike, and I'm in the right lane, I stop. I make sure all the cars turning right are finished first. The fact that it was my right of way would be cold comfort if I had a broken head.

So I'm excited about this signage because I think it's very likely that it will increase awareness among drivers in Ottawa about how important it is to watch for, and not hit, or nearly hit, cyclists.

I have been hit by cars twice in Ottawa. Once, I was cycling down Gladstone Ave. (one of the main drags through downtown, but a quieter one) and needed to turn left. I got into the left turn lane behind a van, which was stopped at a red light. I was centered behind the van, so the driver should have been able to see me easily in his rearview mirror. A bus came from the right, needing to turn left onto Gladstone, and didn't have quite enough room to make the turn, so the van, to make room for the bus, backed up quite suddenly into me. Anyone who cycles frequently knows that it's not really easy to back up quickly on a bike. I did the only thing I could do - I yanked my bike to the right to try to get out of the way of the van, crashing it in the process. Fortunately, I was fine, and my bike was unharmed, but I was seething. The bus went by and this jerk in the van STILL hadn't noticed me. I picked myself off the pavement, went around the driver's side (the light was still red) and knocked. The driver rolled down the window.

"Hey, you just hit me because you weren't paying attention! What are you doing backing up without checking your rearview mirror?!" I yelled.
"I'm sorry, I didn't see you."
"Sorry doesn't help," I yelled. "You're just lucky I'm fine."
I wanted that man to drive away knowing he could have hurt or killed me, so that he wouldn't do anything like that again. The worst of it is that this was only a few days after a well-publicized accident in which a driver hit and injured FIVE cyclists outside Ottawa, in broad daylight, cycling together in a bicycle lane.

The other time I was hit was even more ridiculous. I was WALKING. Across a street. I had the walk signal. It was dark out, but that's why cars have lights on them, so that drivers can see when they are going around corners, and make sure no one is crossing the street. Thank goodness, the driver of this car was probably only going about 30km/hr, so when she hit me, although I fell down, I was fine. I got mad with that one too - seems my natural response to getting nearly killed by cars is to yell at people.

The thing is, although I was mad and just called the driver a jerk in my post, I don't think these people are jerks. At least, they're no likelier to be jerks than the next person. They're good people who don't realize the importance of attentiveness while driving. That's why you get people doing stupid things like texting while driving - they're putting the immediate need to get something done ahead of the risk of killing someone - something they would probably never do if they considered the likelihood of killing someone. We're all desensitized to the dangers of cars - that is, except for cyclists, who are in traffic with nothing between them and a broken head except a bit of foam helmet.

Ottawa drivers seem to have particularly thick blinders on. (Of course this is a generalization - I'm sure there are lots of drivers who are safe, and lots who are unsafe for other reasons.) When my sister and I were teenagers, we used to make faces from the back of the minivan at the people my parents were passing on the highway. In Ottawa, no one noticed. Cross the river into Gatineau, and suddenly everyone was making faces back.

This is what cyclists need from drivers - to look around. Be aware not just of straight ahead but of the side to side and behind you. Be aware of the bicycles.

Of course, there are drivers who hate cyclists, and some who will go so far as to try to deliberately mow them down. Some of the common complaints I hear about cyclists:
1) They slow down traffic. No they don't. Imagine if all the cyclists took their cars to work tomorrow - that would slow down traffic. Proof: traffic is slower in the winter.
2) They don't follow the rules of the road, so they shouldn't be allowed on it. That's just silly. If some drivers don't follow the rules of the road, no one suggests banning all cars.
3) Cyclists should be forced to take a test and be licensed. Okay, if that will diffuse your road rage, I'll take a test. I'll get a license plate.

May the bike lane be the first step towards us all peacefully sharing the roads!

Canada Day Crowds

2011-07-01T19:49:00.005-04:00

I was only twelve when Princess Diana passed away, so although I remember it, I never really understood why she was so beloved. I'm still not totally sure I get it, although I'm sure she was a very special person, but I think today I witnessed something of it. I can't say how many people crowded onto Parliament Hill to try to get a glimpse of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but it was the most people I have ever seen in a crowd in Ottawa. And I've seen some big crowds - for Bluesfest concerts, the huge welcome Ottawa gave to Obama and the huge protest when Bush came. This made Times Square at Christmastime look small. I talked to a lot of people in this crowd - just chatting - I was there for almost four hours. This was not a regular Canada Day crowd - they were there, old and young, men and women, to see Prince William and Kate Middleton. I mean, they were all decked out in red and white and very patriotic too, but if it hadn't been for the Duke and Duchess lots would have celebrated at the cottage instead.

There was a woman wearing a tiny hat with the Union Jack on it, lots of girls with feathers or flowers pinned in their hair as an emulation of Kate Middleton's style - sometimes a nice emulation, sometimes completely tacky.
What I don't really understand is why people care so much and so I talked to them a lot today, and asked them. (Not in a reporter-y way. Just conversationally). Some of the answers I heard:

"They're so classy." "They're down-to-earth." "She's like us." "I want something to tell the grandkids."
Some people were trying to be cool, like, "I'm not here to see Will and Kate - I just thought a big crowd would be a fun way to pass the time" - until they'd catch a glimpse and excitedly exclaim "I can see her - there's her hat!"

There were several speeches given at the Hill today - (even from my vantage point in the nosebleed section I could hear and see quite well with the sound system and jumbotron.) I liked most of what Prime Minister Harper said. He spoke about the greatness of our country, and its peacefulness, and I had to agree. To me, an occasion like this, when the Prime Minister is speaking to Canadians and hosting members of the Canadian royal family, is a time to put aside his role as the leader of the Conservative party and just be the leader of Canada. He mostly did that.

When Prince William spoke, you could have heard a pin drop in that crowd. People hung on his every word, and cheered loudly. He talked about the personal connection his wife has to Canada, through her grandfather who did military training here. The biggest cheer he got was when he passed on well wishes from "my grandmother, the Queen of Canada." I have to echo what so many others said - it was classy.

And I'm afraid, by the time the Governor General spoke, no one was listening, myself included. Everyone was melting in the 30 degree heat, just waiting for the motorcade to go by to get one last glimpse of the Duchess's waving hand. A few people managed still to enjoy the performances by Great Big Sea and Sam Roberts Band. Great Big Sea is huge in Canada - but almost no one was there to hear them play - at least near where I was standing.

It was an amazing day for people watching. Someone fainted in the crowd and immediately, four or five people were calling for police, clearing the crowd to give the person some air, finding water. I went alone today and had tons of people to chat with - people are so eager to tell their stories, which is one of the things I found fun about being a journalist. One woman I talked to was so happy to tell me the story of when she saw Princess Di. People were asking each other questions, sharing their photos, helping people get to the crowd to go the bathroom or buy a popsicle. The diversity in the crowd was incredible and beautiful.

One woman said to me, resignedly, "I guess I won't see Will and Kate." I said, "But you'll see plenty of other interesting people." Her face completely changed and she said, "So I will!"
And so - I suppose the question I'd be asking myself now is - if you don't get the hype, why did you go?

Same reasons everyone else did, I guess. For the story.

Building green habits

2011-06-27T09:35:00.008-04:00

One of the weird conundrums about living in Ottawa at the height of summer heat or winter cold is what to wear. In the cold day days of winter, I pile on the scarf and hat and winter coat, get into the overheated bus, and head to the office, where I usually wind up taking off my sweater or suit jacket and sitting there in short shirtsleeves because it's always boiling. Right now, the dog days of a very hot Ottawa summer are here, and meanwhile I'm bringing warm scarves to the office to wrap up because otherwise I sit there shivering in the air conditioning.

Now I'm not in any way suggesting that there is no need for heating and air conditioning in a climate such as this - but this is extreme! I hate feeling like an icicle in the middle of summer. I don't mind being a bit warm - gets me to drink more water. In the winter, it's not a problem to have to wear a sweater.

Meanwhile, we know that the carbon emissions caused by heating and air conditioning are serious contributors to the greenhouse effect. Polar bears are dying so that my office can be so cold in the summer that I need to bring a sweater. Makes no sense!

This, among many other environmental conundrums, has gotten me thinking about the relationship between personal action and collective action. I can't easily control what temperature my office building is air conditioned to, nor can I personally stop people from driving cars when it's not necessary, or companies from spewing toxins into the air. There are many collective tactics I can take action on - voting, writing letters to my MP, etc., but all of those are going to make me feel powerless and hypocritical if I'm not taking every I action I can within my own life.

I just finished a book on this idea which I recommend: "No Impact Man" by Colin Beavan. Beavan tried to live a year of his life with the smallest possible environmental impact. The book is a nice mix of practical measures we can take to reduce our impact and the philosophy behind why we should do so. He makes one point with regards to collective vs. private action that I really agree with:
"Living our values across all areas of our individual lives - from the private to the public - demonstrates an integrity and conviction that can help persuade the skeptics." - Colin Beavan, No Impact Man

In other words, what kind of credibility do I have to insist that my government adopt sound environmental policy if I can't even bring a reusable bag to the grocery store?
I'm not exactly trying to aim to make no impact, but to make the minimum impact, and there are lots of ways I'm already doing this - like biking, walking, or taking mass transit instead of driving, and composting.

But I can do so much better - so can we all. I'm lazy about many things. For example, I'm great at composting when it's just chucking my veggie trimmings and coffee grounds into the compost bucket. I'll even gladly wash up the bucket afterwards. But I'm lazy when it means taking a container half-full of moldy yogurt out of the fridge, dumping the yogurt into the compost, and washing out the container to be recycled. I'm lazy about remembering to put my handy fold-up reusable grocery bags in my purse in the morning. I'm lazy about remembering to bring a reusable coffee mug rather than buying coffee in a paper cup.

Today I'm going to tape a sign on my trashcan that says "Landfill - 1000 years!" as a disincentive to putting things in it, and a sign on my front door that says "Reusable bags and coffee mug!" Anyone else up for environmental reminder signs?

Choice and Safety - Prostitution Law in Ontario

2011-06-15T10:26:00.004-04:00

There is a landmark case at the Ontario Court of Appeal at the moment, deciding the fate of Ontario's prostitution laws. Prostitution is not illegal in Ontario, or indeed in Canada, but everything surrounding it is - running a "bawdy house", living off the avails of prostitution, communication for the intent of prostitution, etc. There are reams of research showing that these rules make prostitutes less safe, because they are forced to go about their business secretively for fear of being arrested. This means they are walking in dark back alleys, hopping in cars quickly for fear of being seen by police, etc. Prostitutes are one of the most vulnerable populations - with huge numbers of them being raped, assaulted and murdered.

The Crown is arguing that the prostitution laws should be upheld because prostitution is a choice people make, so it's not the crown's responsibility to keep them safe - after all, they are willingly engaging in a dangerous profession. To a certain extent, they're right - it's a choice. But choosing between something awful and something even worse is no choice at all, and that is the choice many of these people are making.

Most people who have a good education, the ability to support themselves, who don't suffer from mental illness or drug addiction, and who have enough food in their bellies, don't become prostitutes. Most. There are always exceptions to the rule. But it is not on the exceptions that we should base our laws.

Our laws should be based on the majority situation, and the majority situation is these people were vulnerable before they became prostitutes. Look at the patterns of these lives and you will see a lot of poverty, homelessness, abuse, sexual assault, and hunger. Saying that choosing between selling yourself and going hungry, and having your children go hungry, is a choice, is like saying not eating peanuts when you have a peanut allergy is a choice.

The prosecution says there is no certain proof that changing these laws will keep prostitutes safe. They're right. But there is proof that not changing them will keep them unsafe. Isn't that argument enough?

Of course the ideal situation, in the long term, is to improve the conditions for the poor and vulnerable so they won't be forced to choose prostitution in the first place. But in the short term, let's help them not get raped and murdered, shall we?

A Taste for Elections

2011-04-26T11:50:00.004-04:00

My boyfriend relishes elections - he loves them. He's a political junkie, taking in polls and election news with every breath and bite. He's always pleased when an election is called, enjoying the idea of open, frank discussions of the issues and the opportunity for change.

I, generally, feel the opposite, because past experience has taught me that elections are six-week periods in which everyone gets attacked, then everybody votes, and most people are disappointed with the result. Every time, there's a tiny piece of optimism in me that says, maybe, this time will be different, and then that hope is quietly dashed by things staying just the same. Same situation, country 30 millions dollars poorer. We know it's a democracy but it sure doesn't feel like it.

However, were I to run for office - which I wouldn't - but just hypothetically speaking - I really don't think I'd be inclined to express my distaste for elections. Yes, they are costly. Yes, they often don't change things much. But openly expressing a distaste for elections reeks of arrogance, of feeling entitled to one's public office. It seems like a distaste for democracy itself; frankly, it seems tyrannical.

Yet I've heard many politicians do just this - accuse other parties of "forcing an election," as if it's the kiss of political death. Right now, obviously, it's our prime minister saying this, but it's been said in years past by the opposition too, so this is not a commentary on anyone in particular but just an idea.

With many leaders expressing such open and honest contempt for democracy, maybe we should take this into account. When considering the qualities of positive leadership, I'm taking into account a healthy respect for elections.

Why you should vote even if you don't feel like it makes any difference at all

2011-04-13T12:27:00.004-04:00

I watched the Canadian party leaders in the debates last night, and I must say, I'm pretty concerned for the future of this country. I'm not even going to touch on what any particular party has to say because I think partisan politics are divisive, but I think there are some important points to be made about democracy in this country in a general sense.

First of all, Stephen Harper directly asked the people to give him a "clear majority." For years, he keeps narrowly winning elections and then saying things like "the Canadian people have given me a clear mandate." This is, to parrot his own words, "simply not true." Why? Because most Canadians don't vote. How can any party have a clear majority, or minority, or any kind of mandate to lead, when such a small percentage of Canadians bother to show up to the polls?

This is widely called voter apathy, but I really don't think it is. To claim we are apathetic would be to claim that Canadians don't care about issues like health care, safety, immigration, taxation, electoral reform, federalism, old age pensions, education, defense, the economy, the list goes on. We may not all have an extensive understanding or a strongly formed opinion on each of these issues, but everyone I know has some fairly vehement thoughts on at least a few of these issues. I realize that I haven't conducted a scientific poll, and that "people I know" is not a representative sample size, but I'm quite sure that my friends aren't smarter than everyone else's friends.

People do care about these issues. Canadians care A LOT about these issues. So why don't they vote? #1) Because with the first past the post electoral system, their vote doesn't amount to much anyway. Even if the NDP or the Greens gets a huge percentage of the popular vote, they are never going to win enough seats to lead, and so the choices are really Liberal or Conservative. #2)Because every party is too busy attacking all the other parties to come up with a clear stance on anything.
I know, from that debate, that Stephen Harper thinks he's done a fine job of running the country so far, that Michael Ignatieff thinks he's a liar, that Jack Layton thinks Harper and Ignatieff are both liars, and that Duceppe isn't too concerned who wins as long as Quebec gets taken care of. I'm not hearing about the issues in any substantive way. I'm seeing evasiveness and sidestepping and attacks - from EVERYONE.

If we voted in greater numbers, we could get the electoral system changed, to anything we want it to be. If we voted, we could inspire people for change. We could demand anything we want of our governments, because with the force of numbers behind our votes, we could kick them out when they are dishonest.

Since long before I reached the age of majority, I've been an informed citizen and I always vote - I see it as a civic duty and a right that women who came before me fought very hard for me to have.

I vote because of women who still make less money than men. And seniors who need to be taken care of. And aboriginal communities who don't have clean drinking water. And smart, hard-working teenagers who deserve to be able to go to university. And immigrants arriving here who need help and services to adjust. And small businesses trying to compete against multi-national corporations. And everyone who recycles, composts, turns off lights and tries not to use too much plastic, but needs the corporations to be regulated to make an impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

I vote because it's unacceptable for the government to use our money to line their own pockets. I vote because governments should be accountable to the people. I vote because we ought not to abandon the rest of the world to poverty and war.

I don't just vote. I write letters, sign petitions, join protests, donate money, travel and read and recycle and use public transit, and try to be of service to my community.

But I do vote. Let me clear - whether or not you agree with me on any particular issue doesn't matter to me. Our voices need to be heard regardless. That is why I vote, and that is why you should. Because even if we disagree, my voice won't ever matter unless you, all of you, make yours heard too.

Naw-Ruz

2011-03-21T11:35:00.002-04:00

Today I am celebrating the Baha'i festival of Naw-Ruz, which begins at sunset on 20 March and ends at sunset on 21 March. It is the festival of the coming of spring, of the Baha'i New Year. We prepare for it by fasting from food and drink for one Baha'i month (19 days) from sunrise to sunset every day. This marks my eleventh fast, and the first year that I have been able to complete the entire 19 days with no breaks for sickness, travel, etc., and I am feeling very grateful and a little bit proud.

This last month of the Baha'i year has been a turbulent one, both personally and globally. In my own, small, individual life, I have been going through the process of closing a chapter - saying goodbye and wrapping up a job I have loved. Working in the ByWard Market, I have really grown and developed my skills and I will be very sad to say goodbye to this work. On the other hand, as an Ottawa resident, I will be able to go back to enjoying the Market as a guest, and that is something to look forward to.
In the greater scheme, this time period has been marked by such turbulence in far away places that the world seems to be balancing on a knife edge.
My greatest hope for this new year is that it will bring some peace and strength for rebuilding to people all over the world.

A temporal shift?

2010-10-26T10:01:00.006-04:00

For anyone who doesn't live in Ontario, we just finished our municipal elections. Here in Ottawa it was a bit of drab business, with most people I talked to agreeing that all the candidates seemed pretty unexciting and that everyone was picking between bad and worse. I think that remains to be seen, and I'm definitely willing to give our brand new mayor and my new city councillor a chance before I make up my mind about them. However it's not the candidates themselves I want to talk about, so much as the fact that apparently I just witnessed a temporal shift.

That's right - I think I just saw municipal politics go back to the 1950s. It's like feminism never even happened. First of all, there were twenty candidates for mayor - 19 men, one woman. That's a bit of an uneven playing field if I ever saw one. Of the four "serious" candidates - ones who received more than zero point something percent, no women. There are a few female city councillors, to be sure - there are now six female councillors, and seventeen male. It's almost like the old boys club had a meeting and said "hmmm, let's take down the 'no girls allowed' sign and then maybe no one will notice that nothing's really changed."

A few days before the election, our now former mayor made headlines by attacking the leading candidate. The front page of the papers bore his insult: "Suck it up, princess." The journalists did all these streeters asking people what they thought, and most people wisely said they weren't impressed by a candidate resorting to name-calling.

No one even mentioned what I think is the key point here - O'Brien insulted Watson by calling him a woman.

Really? We're still there? It's just depressing.

Pop Life @ the National Gallery: Is Ottawa Ready For This?

2010-06-10T09:51:00.003-04:00

As a tourism leader in the capital, I got to see a preview of the National Gallery's "Pop Life" exhibit which is opening next week. It's going to be very interesting to see how this exhibit is received by Ottawa - which has a reputation for being, well, a little stodgy.

The exhibit begins with late Andy Warhol and works its way to the present, exploring the theme of commercialism in art. It includes a reproduction of Keith Haring's actual Manhattan store, with psychedelic hand-painted walls and blaring rap music, a room full of pornographic art by Jeff Koons, a dead horse, a room devoted to Japanese anime and manga art complete with ridiculous pornographic sculptures by Takashi Murakami and a music video featuring a blue-wigged Kirsten Dunst.

Modern art often has a great deal of shock value, and there is certainly plenty of that in Pop Life. But once you get past the initial shock of the images, it forces a re-evaluation of what you consider to be art. Everyone will be attracted to aspects of the exhibit but not understand why other parts are art at all.

Logos, advertising, headshots, quilting, phrases scrawled on bits of paper, cartoons, light shows, dots on a wall. These are some of the things Pop Life is asking us to accept as art. For me the question becomes, when we accept so many unconventional forms of art into our definition, where do we draw the line between what is art and what is not? What happens, I think, is that we have to let go of our entire notion of labeling, of classifying.

Another issue this exhibit brought up for me is the notion of the interaction between subject and viewer. Many pieces in the exhibit force interaction - Jeff Koons "Rabbit" for example, is a blow-up metal rabbit without a face. As you walk around the rabbit, you see your own reflection where the rabbit's face ought to be. You can't view this piece of art without also seeing yourself.

It reminds us that the value of art is not only in the subject and the artist but also in the consumer, and in an exhibit centered around commercialism, that the exchange of money is not the only form of consumerism.

Kudos to the National Gallery for an exhibit that is uncompromising and forces its viewers to be a little brave - the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a much smaller gallery. Be a little brave and see it for yourself.

The Stranger

2010-03-03T10:05:00.003-05:00

The face of the person at the front of the bus this afternoon - I wish I had a camera.
Almost comical, with surprisingly young, popping eyes.
The young eyes make the skin seem pasted on.
The skin is a city map.
Not an old city.
Not spidery arterial roads stretching from freshly designed traffic circles - a touch of design amid ancient, sprawling arrondissements.
A new city - a grid.
So many lines both horizontal and vertical, it seems the result of modern planning.
Modernity in a face made for a student's black and white photography exhibit.
You can just see this face under a big straw hat, next to a llama.

He is speaking to a man standing near him and it takes me a minute to realize they are strangers.
He speaks with the familiarity of one ignorant of etiquette, and right I way I think I know this type.
He is ancient and yet ageless. What type? He makes me think of Forrest Gump at eighty.
The standing man moves back and the old one turns to speak to a woman next to him. His young eyes, so odd in his face, are restless, energetic, wide awake next to tired commuters with their sore backs and impatience to get home.
The woman is polite, answers as though to a child. He grins and one dirty stub appears in an otherwise toothless mouth.
I feel a little humbled.

Making Change

2010-01-07T21:59:00.004-05:00

I watched a local television news story a couple of nights ago that really touched my heart. It was a story about a new social housing project opening in Ottawa. They interviewed a man who had just moved in, who had previously been homeless, and he told them that he had just taken his first bath in twelve years. He described the feeling of getting into the hot water, as hot as he could stand it, and getting his book and just relaxing. The look on his face was one I have felt many a time myself after a long stressful day, when you get that cup of tea or crawl under the covers, finally. For this man, it was a result of his journey back to housing.

He spoke about knowing that he would have to keep his addictions at bay in order to maintain his housing, but that he felt it was worth it. All of this brought back so much, for me, the work I did when I worked for the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association and how much I learned there.

Who knows whether or not this particular man will be able to stay housed? What we do know is that housing works. It is the first step and the necessary step to fight addictions, allow recovery, and ultimately, it saves lives. It costs less than shelter beds and it is more effective in keeping people off the street. This not only reduces the issues for the people in need, but for everyone as it reduces vagrancy, drug and alcohol-related crime, vandalism, etc.

Not only does this make an important economic argument in favour of housing, but in Canada there is a more important, moral argument. It’s cold outside. Too cold for it to be okay for us to let people live on the streets. People get sick and they die when they can’t get warm, and it is not morally permissible for us to turn a blind eye to that.

All of this means that possibly one of the most important bills that I have ever seen head through Parliament is Libby Davies’ Private Member’s Bill for a National Housing Strategy. And thank heavens, because it is a Private Member’s Bill, it is one of the few that hasn’t been pushed back by Stephen Harper’s prorogue of Parliament.

It still may not pass and even if it does, it may mean little in terms of actual economic impact. There may be little action even though study after study, paper after paper, has shown that housing is less expensive than homelessness. It’s less expensive than the health care, the shelter beds, the police forces, and the death toll when we choose not to build housing. That means the dollars and cents are there.

What has to be found is the will to make change.

Just some thoughts on loss

2009-09-05T22:41:00.002-04:00

Last October, my dad moved away. I've been out to visit my parents a couple of times since then, which has been really nice, but it's hard. The year before that, my dad, brother and I lived together while my mom was out in BC working and my sister had moved out. That last year really brought an added closeness for all of us, and then after I moved out, we had really kept up a friendship. It was incredibly tough on me when he left, but I am getting better at being a grown up about it.

Pretty much at least once a day, though, I see something that makes me think of him. Today I was just walking through Kowloon Market, picking up some sushi wrappers, and thinking how if my dad was here I'd grab some for him too. The day before that I got a song we both really like stuck in my head. Thursday I walked by a guy in painter pants and thought of my dad.

We used spend a day together just hanging out, doing errands. We would go to the paint store or the hardware store, two places I never go without him. I love the sense in those places that everything is practical and reasonably priced, exactly like how my dad shops. We would go to the grocery store and our shopping styles meshed perfectly - grab what's on the list, fruit in season, more of things on sale, and get out fast. He loves showing off his ability to find good sales on meat. He used to invite me, whenever I came over, to go shopping in his freezer for meat. I would pick the chicken out and leave him the pork, perfect for both of us. One of my favorite silly Sunday things that we would do is go to Future Shop and just watch whatever was playing on the giant flat screens. I don't even care that much about stuff like that but watching him check out the technology was like seeing a kid in a candy store.

My dad is the instigator of most family inside jokes. He has an unbelievably great sense of the silly, and I just miss that all the time. He's also the only middle aged man I know who really likes hardcore, loud electronica and heavy metal.

It's just little things, really, but sometimes they knock the wind out of me. Every so often, in the little things I do in my life, I can almost hear my dad's laugh or see his smile, or feel a big bear hug, and I just feel such an overpowering sense of loss, not having him in my life right now. With my mom it's different, I tend to feel the need for her when something exciting or painful happens. She is a great person to share news with, or to look to for some sympathy. I mostly think of myself as an adult, but when I hurt myself badly or get a shock, I immediately want my mom. I wonder if that ever goes away.

I know I'm incredibly lucky that my parents are alive and well. I have lots of friends who have lost their parents young, and I can't even imagine their strength. I know I'm lucky that my parents live an easy flight away, and I can go visit a few times a year.

But there are days when I ache to see my dad - just to sit down and have sushi or listen to a record, or sit on my balcony, like he did when I moved to Ottawa, and watch the world go by. I guess I thought, since a lot of people deal with being in a different city than their parents, that this was something I would get used to. And I do, in a way. But sometimes, it is like having a toothache that never goes away.

Brand Revamping

2009-07-22T09:59:00.001-04:00

It’s really been a while since I’ve felt like posting but today I read something that spoke to me. There was an article in the Globe about Laura Secord, the Canadian (although American owned) chocolate company is revamping its brand to try to appeal to a younger consumer.

“The research indicates that it's maybe a brand for my mother and not for me if I'm 25 or 30,” Bryan Crittenden, chief executive officer of Laura Secord Inc., said Wednesday. (Globe and Mail)

I, for one, will never shop at Laura Secord, no matter how the brand changes. It has good chocolate, and good ice cream, and it is a nice store, but the trouble is… I worked there. And no, nobody’s spitting in the food. The reason I would never shop there is that the mistreatment I dealt with and the mistreatment of all the employees was so pervasive. I worked in three different outlets within Ottawa and it was the same everywhere.

Old ladies used to come in to buy chocolates (and by the way, Crittenden is right, it is a seniors’ brand) and say stuff like how they were so loyal to this great Canadian company. They just assumed it was great because it had been around for so long. I’d want to tell them about the underpayment, the bullying tactics, etc., but of course you can’t when you’re on the job. I quit after six weeks.

It’s definitely not the only company I’ve worked for that was terrible either. The worst of the lot for mistreatment was another Canadian favorite. Tim Hortons. It was my first job, and if it hadn’t been, I never would have lasted as long as I did. After I had a few other jobs and realized how an employee should be treated, I looked back at my Tim Hortons experience in horror. My first shift at Timmy’s started at 7 am, but my new (and first) boss asked me to be there 15 minutes early. I dutifully woke up at 5:30 a.m. to take a shower and walk over to Tim’s, about a 25 minute walk from my house. I arrived at 6:47 a.m. “You’re late,” growled my boss. Now, mind you, I was being paid as of 7 a.m. My meek, shy, first job, eager to please 16-year-old self was crestfallen. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know how long it would take to walk.”

Tim Hortons used the excuse that we made “tips” to pay us server wage. In Quebec, the minimum wage for servers is a bit lower than regular because it is assumed that they make about 15% of every table in tips. Our “tips” were the nickels people leave in the coffee cup by the till. I got between $1.50 and $5.00 over an eight hour shift. For that I was paid 75 cents less an hour than the minimum wage. You do the math – the tips didn’t even bring us up to minimum wage. It’s just pathetically cheap behaviour.

I avoid Tim Hortons whenever possible, and not just because of the lousy food. I don’t feel like supporting a company that treats their employees like garbage, just because they’re kids with no experience who don’t know any better. I boycott Laura Secord as well.
I think I’m being reasonable. I didn’t like my job at I.G.A., but I recognize that it wasn’t mistreatment, just a really monotonous job, so I don’t hold it against the company. Same with Loblaws. I was underpaid, but other than that, the job was good and the company was good to me.

I guarantee that anyone who has worked in low-paying, low-skill, cashier and serving type jobs has stories like this, of companies who mistreated them because they could. When there are a bunch of other sixteen year olds ready and willing to take your place, you have no leverage, so you take whatever crap comes your way.

What I wonder is if this is not really short-sighted on the part of the companies doing it. Today’s broke 16-year-olds are tomorrow’s coveted 25-30 demographic, the one Bryan Crittenden was talking about. I have a long memory for being bullied by company managers, and I have no fear of being honest with my friends and others about my negative experience. Maybe it is time to start treating young employees right, if for no other reason than that if you don’t, you are cheesing off a customer who has a lot of years of purchasing ahead of them.

Worst song ever

2009-05-12T15:52:00.002-04:00

The other day I was in a candy store with friends who were stocking up for a birthday party, when one of those tunes came on the radio. A lame, forgettable pop song from the late 90s. I knew every word. Not because I ever liked the song - in fact, I had no idea who it was by or what it was called. For ten years it had fallen out of my life without me ever noticing its absence - but I knew every word.

I was probably about 13 or 14 when this song came out, and I'm sure that's why I knew it. It played repeatedly on the radio at a time in my life when my memory was like a sponge.

Now I'm fairly irritated, because the song has taken up hold in my brain and I can't stop singing it. I really don't like the song, so it's making me a little bit crazy. This happens with all sorts of things I learned when I was a kid.

I can sing all the songs of popular children's albums like Sharon, Lois and Bram. I can sing every word to the theme song of Sesame Street, not to mention all the words to all the songs to pretty much any Disney movie that came out before 2000, the year I turned 15. When I was 10 years old, I was in a musical of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I still know most of it. I got an interest in Shakespeare that year and for fun, learned big stretches of Romeo and Juliet. I can still remember them, word for word.

I still have a good memory, but not when I like when I was little. Children's memories are unbelievable. Because of this, every so often, irritating snippets of children's music float through my head and refuse to let go. I find myself, at 23 years of age, singing Fred Penner songs in the shower. Because I learned them. when. I was little.

My point is this: can we please stop inflicting this crappy music on children? I don't think we understand the full measure of responsibility that children's memories place on the adults around them. Kids can remember anything. What they learn now, they will know forever, and it will foist itself upon them on repeat. If what they know is good stuff, like the Beatles white album, they can be saved the agony of wanting to scratch their own ears off when the stuff they learned as kids pops into their heads in the shower. I can honestly say that my life would be better now if at age four I had learned all the words to say, Pink Floyd's "The Wall" instead of learning asinine music about sharing.

Oh and by the way, the terrible song is "Can't we try" by Dan Hill and Vonda Shepherd. Worst ever.

Greenwashing

2009-05-05T15:41:00.004-04:00

The auto industry is catching on the "green" movement in a big way. Every car commercial I see now highlights fuel efficiency. "All trucks have this much POWER but ours does all this and uses LESS GAS." While I have to applaud them for trying to appeal to such a yuppie market as the green consumer, I would like to point out something to the auto industry.

Cars are bad for the environment. Plain and simple. Yes, it's better to use one that uses less gas, but still, better yet, take the bus. Walk. Bicycle. Train. All better choices.

This is something I see across the board that really irritates me about the green trend - it's all about marketing, not about actually reducing our environmental impact. People are trying to incorporate environmental concerns without reducing their consumption and that makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, marketers are trying to use the green movement to increase people's consumption, which is totally paradoxical and counter productive.

Consider, for example, that while out shopping with my sister, we found a desk calendar, one of those ones with a page for every day, called "365 ways to be green." #1: don't buy pointless desk calendars.

It seems like the green movement is about being seen as being green, not about actually reducing your environmental impact.

Okay - I will admit, I buy green toilet paper. Why? Because that soft toilet paper is sometimes made out of old-growth rainforests in BC. I don't want the kind of karma that comes from wiping your butt on old-growth rainforests. So recycled toilet paper, that is a bit on the scratchy side, this I can buy into. Especially since you need toilet paper anyway. But I am aware that this is not enough - you also have to use less toilet paper. This is the part I feel gets forgotten about.

It's not enough to use gentler products to wash your clothes - we need to do less laundry. It's not just about buying local meat - it's about eating less meat. And it's not just buying cars with better fuel efficiency - it's buying fewer cars.

I guess this is my issue with "green" marketing - the goal of marketing is to sell more things, but the environment needs us to use less. Green marketing always makes much of recycling as the greatest of the three Rs - selling us recyclable packaging, products made of recycled materials, etc. It is true that this important and positive. But so much of recycling doesn't even work. Much of what we recycle winds up in landfills anyway, because of bits of food still in it or not being sorted properly. We don't have a lot of control over our recycling once it leaves our doorsteps. What we really need to do is reduce, reduce and reduce. This is an area where we have total control, and where we genuinely have the ability to make an impact.

Time to take what you can get.

2008-12-11T16:33:00.004-05:00

Today was colder but less snowy walking into work. It'd be nice if it warmed up, but hey, I'll take the less snow. I managed to do my 35-40 minute walk in 25 minutes today! I was passing everyone on the sidewalk on the way. I'm usually a pretty slow walker - so that never happens.

I'm not usually one to walk when it's minus 15. For those not around Ottawa, the bus drivers have gone on strike and that means getting up earlier and walking in for me. I have it easy though - I live walking distance from work. I've heard stories of people walking in up to three hours, or taking Gatineau buses to meet up with their friends and carpool in. Not only that, but there was a storm just in time for the first day of the strike, and we were walking to work through three feet of sludge without clear sidewalks.

I had drivers honking at me and one guy rolled down his window and yelled, "Get off the road." I yelled back "The sidewalks aren't clear!" and they guy was like, "Oh, yeah, ok then." Don't yell at pedestrians, man - we're the ones out in the cold.

Apparently the transit workers are also out in the cold, demonstrating at city hall and slowing down traffic. I read today that they are even considering picketing the shuttles that the universities have set up to get the students to their exams. Generally I am fairly pro-union - after all unions were instrumental in getting people fair wages, weekends, reasonable work hours, safety conditions, getting rid of child labour - all of that. But this is just ridiculous. I am reading reports in the news that bus drivers in Ottawa make around $60,000 annually with some of them making as much as $95,000 when you take overtime into account. For a job that requires virtually no education, in an economy where 70,600 lost their jobs last month, that is an unbelievably good deal.

And yes, I have heard the argument that they work split shifts and have few sick days and such. But come on - that is why you are paid so much. You are paid for the inconvenience in scheduling, lack of benefits, etc. If you want more sick days and great shifts, then take less money.

I'm not trying to be insensitive - I guess the transit union just gave me a lot to mull over on my walk to work this morning.

Savour Ontario... canning? pickles? not much being grown this time of year. . .

2008-12-04T15:01:00.004-05:00

I've been having some wicked good fun with these ads. It's so great to bite into an apple, roll my eyes skyward and say, "My, that is some swell Ontario freshness." Freshness is just a funny word.

Or at least I would be having fun with it if I could find any Ontario freshness. I'm a big proponent of buying local when possible, and would gladly choose a Niagara apple over one from Washington state. Especially right now, right after the apple harvest, when they're supposed to be at their best. But every time I go to the grocery store, I see a whole lot of "Product of U.S.A," a few "Product of New Zealand," and my personal favorite, "Product of: The Tropics." (Really? Bananas are from the tropics? I never would have guessed.)

The only Canadian fruit or veggies around will be a couple of piles of mealy-looking, soft, bruised and small Macs or Spartans with a great big sign proudly declaring them to be "grown close to home!"

Okay, I give you, it's hardly the season for savouring Ontario freshness. (Haha - see what I mean? Hilarious.) But even things I would associate with fall like cauliflower and cabbage are dull-looking, expensive, and imported from the States.

So, in the end, might it not be time for the Ministry of Agriculture to admit that freshness doesn't seem to be it's strong point? While they're at it, perhaps they should get someone completely new to do their PR. I mean, that weird farmer dude singing "Good things grow in Ontario" all off-key? Not the best selling point. Not to mention that the other night I went to the movies and there were FOUR "Get a Load of Milk" ads with cows mooing at me before the movie started. It was enough to put me permanently off milk.

Anyway, I would suggest that seeing a bit of decent quality Ontario produce in stores might be more condusive to fulfilling their goals than their current strategy.

The Canadian Charter: Rated "E" for Everyone

2008-11-18T15:15:00.004-05:00

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is tabling a motion this afternoon to make higher restrictions on drivers under the age of 22. Under the new rules, they would have to have zero blood alcohol levels, would face harsher punishments for speeding, and drivers age 16-19 would not be allowed more than one passenger aged 16-19.

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind Mr. McGuinty of this quotation:

"Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability."

That is from a fairly important little document called the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Mr. McGuinty might want to consult some time, particularly in the light of having said this,

"We owe it to our kids to take the kinds of measures that ensure that they will grow up safe and sound and secure, and if that means a modest restriction on their freedoms until they reach the age of 22, then as a dad, I'm more than prepared to do that."

My understanding of the Charter is that the word individual refers to all Canadian citizens who can vote. So, ok, I'll admit it, most 19 year olds don't vote, but they still have the right to, and therefore they should still have the right to be considered equal before the law.

Put aside the inherent stupidity of this proposal, which will discourage teenagers from carpooling and having designated drivers - it's a simple matter of equality.

Mr. McGuinty is quite right that people don't know their limits around alcohol and drink more than they should before driving - but that applies to everyone. It's not fair to look at an entire group and say, "Well, people in this group are more likely to. . .", because that is exactly the kind of discrimination the Charter is trying to prevent. Maybe teenagers are more likely to break the law, but not all teenagers will, just as many who aren't teenagers will, and therefore to impose harsher penalties on them simply because of their age is against the Charter.

The Charter, Mr. McGuinty. I suggest you review it.

Could it really have happened?!

2008-11-04T23:33:00.004-05:00

Sometimes there is a collective moment of extreme emotion, grief or celebration, that a nation, or even the world, remembers for years to come. The assassination of President Kennedy, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11, and the election of the first black President of the United States.
I feel a bit honoured to be alive at this moment, to see such a wonderful thing happen. This is something that only a few years ago, many said was impossible.

A shout out to John McCain for what Peter Mansbridge called a "classy" speech. It was classy - although marred by the rude boos from the listening Republicans at every mention of the new President elect. It was also impossible not to see the differences in the crowds - the crowd watching John McCain almost exclusively white, the crowds waiting for Obama to appear full of diversity.

The only line that kind of bothered me was McCain's declaration of America being the greatest country in the world - a line which reeks of arrogance, not patriotism.

I hope Barack Obama will be able to lead America into greater prosperity, a great sense of the responsibility to the world that their wealth and their values require of them, and the humility to work with the rest of the world towards unity.

For the first time in my life, I await a Presidential speech with great anticipation.

New day, same old

2008-10-15T08:26:00.002-04:00

"Canadians have voted to move our country forward and they have done so with confidence," said Stephen Harper.

76 + 50 + 37 = 163

163 ridings that do not believe Stephen Harper should be Prime Minister.
143 ridings do.

There is something wrong with this system.

And of that, only 59 % of Canadians, the lowest turn out since 1898, voted.

That is not confidence.

Election Talk Round Two (Canada)

2008-10-01T18:30:00.007-04:00

Profile of a Candidate - Jen Hunter, Green Party

Jen Hunter laughed when I asked her if she would support a bill making it illegal, and punishable by time in prison, to break an election promise. "I think it's a great idea," she said. And then she brought up Larry O'Brien. She said she felt bad for him.
"It's so funny," I said. "People bought his whole line about running the city like a business but how do you run a business without capital?"
She agreed that she would be skeptical of any politician who promised NEVER to raise taxes. (Which, incidentally, is what Stephen Harper is doing right now.)

I had sent out a little questionnaire at the beginning of the election to Paul Dewar, NDP, Brian McGarry, Conservative, Penny Collenette, Liberal, and Jen Hunter, Green, asking them to answer some questions for me to help me decide between them.

Jen called me up at home and had a 48 minute conversation with me about my questions.
I asked her to prioritize five issues, and she put them in this order: the environment, post-secondary education, public housing, parliamentary reform, and defense against terrorism.

Then I asked her what the best approach would be to ending violence against women. "One approach won't work," she said, "It has to be many things." She talked about teaching girls to expect respect, and about showing them how to identify abuse and get out.

This answer really impressed me, because in my women's studies courses we often talked about this persistent myth that exists in our society that rape is something that happens by strangers jumping out of the bushes and attacking. This does happen of course, but it is extremely rare and these are the situations that are high profile. The vast majority happen behind closed doors, in families, between friends, and we don't hear about these because of shame. Jen's answer told me that she understands this.

Then she mentioned seeing a poster in Barrymore's (a local club) washroom telling women to watch their drinks, and how it's sad that we have to worry about being drugged and raped. I talked about how yes, I do think it's really important to teach women how to protect themselves, but I also think it's really important not to put the onus on women not to get raped, but to put the onus on men not to rape women. This means that while we are teaching women how to protect themselves, we are teaching men about boundaries. We have to stop pretending that rape is something that just happens with psychopaths - the statistics show that so many women are sexually assaulted, and that means a lot of men in our communities are committing sexual assault, and we have to treat like what it is, which is an endemic problem.

Jen listened and told me she hadn't considered some of those points and then talked about her work with the group Equal Voice, which she informed me that Penny Collenette of the Liberal Party is also a member of.

I then asked her about foreign aid - how much should the federal government be spending annually - she mentioned the target of 0.7%, which is part of the Millenium Development goals (it means that the rich countries like Canada should give 0.7% of their gross national product in foreign aid.) "I don't see how it's possible that we can't reach that goal," she said.

I asked her about whether she'd vote for John McCain or Barack Obama. She said she's thrilled to see Obama mobilizing people who otherwise wouldn't vote, and she would vote for him, but admitted to being sad about his negative ads.

I asked her to pick between high taxes and low taxes, and she said, "We need to put high taxes on behaviours." She said she would tax pollution high, and income low, which is in line with the green policy and something that Elizabeth May reiterated during the English debates.

Finally, I asked some personal questions - where do you buy your groceries, what kind of car do you own, and where in Ottawa Centre do you think they should build a bus shelter?

She said she shops in the grocery store nearest to where she lives and in the Parkdale market or the Lansdowne Park farmer's market when she can, that she and her husband own one car which he drives and she likes to walk a lot, and that she doesn't know where we should put a bus shelter because she lives near the Transitway. But she did recognize that she's been hearing from the community that transit is really important to us, and that she would have to trust our elected municipal officials to work that one out in a way that is best for the environment and the community, since it is in their jurisdiction.

During the course of our conversation, she several times mentioned the work the other candidates are doing, and expressed her sympathy for Brian McGarry, who has been unable to attend some of the all-candidates events because his wife is ill.

I'm still waiting for any answers from the NDP, Liberal, and Conservative candidates.

Ok, so. . .

2008-10-01T12:51:00.000-04:00

. . .when I've spoken too soon I say so. . . check out the Presidential debates between John McCain and Barack Obama. There was a clear and brilliant winner.

My heart goes out to Zimbabwe. . .

2008-09-25T09:44:00.003-04:00

This appeared, buried in the middle of a story on CTV.ca this morning:

Mugabe also said he is determined to remain president despite what he said were efforts by Britain and the United States to oust him.

"They are waiting for a day when this man, this evil man, called Robert Mugabe is no longer in control," he said. "And I don't know when that day is coming."

So he has no thoughts of resigning?

"No -- or a thought of dying," Mugabe chuckled.

So, what are we to make of the fact that Mugabe called himself evil? With a chuckle?

What are we to make of the fact that when asked if he would allow Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International into Zimbabwe, his response was, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Let them keep out."

I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this. This is a scary man and Zimbabwe has become a scary place.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the recent election, although apparently not with enough votes to avoid a run-off against Mugabe. Forget the widespread allegations of ballot-box stuffing and voter intimidation. In the time of the run-off, Tsvangirai withdrew from the election because of the onslaught of violence that was unleashed on his supporters. Then Mugabe was declared the winner in an election widely denounced as a sham. Now the sham-President is looking to work out a power sharing agreement with Tsvangirai, and meanwhile blaming the West for Zimbabwe's economic problems because of the economic sanctions that were imposed due to the sham election.

Why is it that we never treat these presidential criminals for what they are until after the fact?
Why do we give free reign to the Idi Amins and Joseph Stalins of the world until years after, when we lament "never again" and "something should have been done."
Consider this: if I lived in Zimbabwe, my life could be in danger for having written this.
Millions of people are dying and living without any freedom at all, and meanwhile we care more about celebrity gossip. What is wrong with the world?

Watch out for food poisoning when travelling to exotic locales like... Canada.

2008-09-17T09:20:00.005-04:00

A big old headline caught my eye this morning on the BBC website:

"China's growing scandal involving milk powder suggests the country is still not able to protect its citizens from tainted food products. "

Strikes me as shoddy journalism to shake a finger at China for not being able to protect its citizens from tainted food without pointing out that CANADA can't either.

The reality is that industrialized nations are less likely to be able to protect their citizens in many ways. The longer it takes for a food item to get from farm to plate, the more hands it passes through and the less it looks like where it came from, the more likely harmful and possibly deadly bacteria will come into contact with it.

Traditionally, we associate tainted food with developing countries, and it is true that a lack of clean water and proper sanitation are largely to blame for this. But while this is disturbing, I find it more disturbing that with clean water, proper sanitation and government-run food inspection agencies, we still can't seem to get it right in the developed world.

It's not just the listeriosis scare - that is the extreme end of it, when people die. But as any former fast-food worker or waiter could tell you, we ingest a lot of things we'd rather not know about. It's routine for those who work at McDonalds to never want to even look at another Big Mac, let alone eat one.

Eating the way we do takes a certain amount of turning a blind eye - which we happily do, knowing that ignorance is Big-Mac eating bliss. Then we learn that our tomatoes are poisoned, or our, er, ahem, processed meat supply, and suddenly it's outrage! How dare the government let us down!

I'm no way trying to belittle the people who lost their lives to listeriosis or the pain their families are suffering, just trying to point out we need to stop turning a blind eye and pay attention - or we'll all have it coming.

Also check out this brilliant opinion on the subject: www.cbc.ca/clips/mercerreport/foodguide.rm

Election Talk Round One (USA)

2008-09-04T14:50:00.003-04:00

Canadians sometimes have a very hard time with the fact that we don't get to vote in the States. The proximity of the US and the amount of coverage our media does of their elections contribute to this, and also the fact that the Republicans are so right-wing that it horrifies many Canadians. Many of us wish we'd had a vote to keep Bush out.

Now, for the first time in a long time, I am so glad that I can't vote in the States. I would have no idea who to vote for.

The thing is I'm an issues voter, not a political voter. And when you're a voter in the States, some crazy issues come up that not too many Canadians would even hear about during our elections. Like teaching creationism in schools.

(We Canadians think we're so progressive because this isn't an issue here and yet Ontario resoundingly defeated the Conservatives in the last election for daring to suggest that funding only Catholic schools might be discriminatory.)

Anyway, what it comes back to is that I'm glad I can't vote in the States, because no way could I vote for Sarah Palin. When it comes to the issues, well, we could call her, to borrow a phrase from Michael Moore, an "honorary stupid white man."

She thinks global warming is not man-made, she's a long-standing member of the NRA, she opposes same-sex marriage. . . enough said.

It's really too bad because I am one of those feminists who thinks it's about damn time that we saw some women in power. And who is therefore feeling a little disillusioned by the guy flanking Obama's right shoulder. Why? He's familiar looking... white hair, stupid grin, oh yeah, and a big old Y chromosome.

Obama, did you not get the message with the extreme support for Hillary Clinton? Ok, so I know people weren't backing her just because she's a woman, but also because she's damn smart. But the woman thing is big.

It's not that we think a woman will necessarily care about "women's issues," like daycare and birth control. Look at Sarah Palin. And it's not that we don't think men can stick up for us, although few examples spring to mind in recent history. (John Stuart Mill, I'm looking at you.)

But having a woman as a representative is a women's issue in itself. Why? Because we'd like to tell our daughters that they can be anything they want to be and have it be the truth.
Obama says this about women:

"From the first moment a woman dared to speak that hope - dared to believe that the American Dream was meant for her too - ordinary women have taken on extraordinary odds to give their daughters the chance for something else; for a life more equal, more free, and filled with more opportunity than they ever had. In so many ways we have succeeded, but in so many areas we have much work left to do.”

A life more equal? There have been 43 Presidents - 43 men, 0 women. More opportunity - you had the chance to give an opportunity to a woman, a Democrat woman, a woman who cares about "women's issues" to be the first female Vice-President of the United States. This says to me that you're more interested in pretty words than concrete actions - which is exactly what you keep saying you're not doing.

Shame on you, Mr. Obama. As I said, glad I can't vote in the States, because there's no one to vote for.

A legal question

2008-07-18T11:37:00.003-04:00

A woman my age has just been charged with manslaughter after her baby was found dead in a dumpster.

This has raised much discussion, especially in light of the recent, highly controversial conferring of the Order of Canada on Dr. Morgentaler.

Everyone, of course, uses this incident to support their own abortion argument. Those who are, in their own words, "pro-choice," argue that the right to have an abortion prevents situations like this from occurring more often. They are probably right. Certainly we know that there is a direct correlation between legal abortion and the reduction of crime rates right around the time when a generation of unwanted children would have been growing up.

Those who are, in their own words, "pro-life," argue that there is no difference between aborting a baby before it is born and leaving an infant in the dumpster to die. They may also be quite right - this argument hinges largely on whether or not a baby is a baby before it is born, or a collection of cells, and because science does not yet offer us that answer, it is hard to know whether or not they are right.

This isn't an argument that I intend to get into - I'm not exactly a fence-sitter when it comes to this debate so much as a strong believer in gray areas.

What I would like to ask, though, is why this woman is an alleged murderer.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to condone or excuse her action - and I do, absolutely, think it is murder to leave a baby alone to die.
But the question of why it is murder, legally, is, it seems to me, an important one.
She did not physically kill the baby. She did not end its life. Her crime was one of neglect. She left the baby without care, and because of the lack of care, it died - of exposure or starvation or something.

This is murder (if she did it) because she was legally responsible for the welfare of the child. What makes her legally responsible? Being that baby's biological parent. If her neighbour's child was left out to die, she would not be legally responsible unless she was baby-sitting that child and therefore put in trust of it. The trust is created by being the biological parent, and the crime is the betrayal of that trust.

You could argue that it not the betrayal of trust, but the physical action of leaving a child in a dumpster that is what makes it murder. But I disagree. Because, if she had left that child not in a dumpster, but on her kitchen table, it would be no different. The crime is neglect - if you leave a baby without food and water all alone, it will die. Neglect becomes murder. Neglect of a responsibility that is given you because you are a child's biological parent.

So why the hell hasn't the father been charged with manslaughter?

Let's keep the baby, but please chuck out the bathwater!

2008-06-26T15:26:00.006-04:00

I read on CBC online today about an elderly Jewish man who died after being kept alive on life-support for months. His relatives refused to allow the doctors to pull the plug because they said it is against their religion to "hasten" someone's death. Apparently, three doctors resigned over this, one of them calling the decision to keep the man alive "tantamount to torture."

There were a lot of comments on the CBC about the conflict between science and religion. We keep seeing this issue popping up in the news, with Jehovah's Witnesses refusing blood transfusions for their kids due to religious beliefs, and people from both sides of the religious divide arguing for and against euthanasia.

It is going to be so difficult for us, collectively, in weighing freedom of religion against individual rights, to figure out what to do in these situations. This is such an important discussion for our country to have. We Canadians, in our supposedly "secular" country which isn't the least bit secular, try so hard to be not only tolerant of others who don't think the way we do, but understanding and celebrating of diversity.

That, of course, is a commendable, desirable, wonderful part of our country. But sometimes we wonder why we're having trouble accepting someone's belief in the name of "tolerance."And I think it because there is a huge difference between celebrating diversity and blindly tolerating barbaric, hurtful or inappropriate cultural practices in the name of multiculturalism. In the name of difference, we allow others to do things we would never dream of doing ourselves.

One of the things I have learned while travelling is that acceptance and celebration of another's culture does not mean going against your own moral code. I think we have to look at our own cultures and think about what we would want someone to celebrate about them.

For example, I would hope that outsiders looking at Canadian culture would see our rich diversity, our love of nature and open spaces, our increasing commitments as individuals to the protection of the environment, our architecture and our art and our music, and celebrate those things. If I had a visitor from another country who wanted to learn about Canada, I would show them the Group of Seven and take them to the National Arts Centre and take them to see the beautiful art of the indigenous people. I would introduce them to The Tragical ly Hip and maybe play some Feist. I would want them to know that Canada is about orcas and ancient forests, grain elevators and outdoor skating, hockey and Anne of Green Gables. Also the giant spider. I love the giant spider.

But I would also recognize that Canada has a history of both proud moments and shameful ones. I would not want someone to look at the residential schools or the Oka Crisis or the October Crisis and decide to be tolerant or accepting of the fear and violence of these moments in Canada's history. I would want an outsider to have a critical eye that celebrate the good of my culture without accepting the bad. To come back to the original issue, I think that keeping someone alive artificially when they are in pain goes against many people's moral code, and I hope that most people can separate their political correctness from their common sense and see that.

Whatever the religious or cultural practice, I hope people will not blindly "tolerate" it because they want to be mindful of another's culture. I love what Jewish culture brings to North America - to be a bit glib, you gotta love bagels and lox and Woody Allen and Fiddler on the Roof. I love the sense of tradition in Judaism, and when I hear prayers in Hebrew I am filled with amazement at their loveliness. It is a beautiful religion and a beautiful culture. And all of that does not mean for one second that I have to support what that poor man's family did.

We have a remarkable opportunity, as Canadians, surrounded by such richness of diversity, to stop tolerating the bad with the good but just throw out the bad and fall in love with the good. It is easier for us to do this when the bad things are something the culture itself eschews, but it is no less important when bad cultural practices are present now. For example, it is easy for us to say that Nazism was terrible because the Germans themselves would say the same thing, but we have a hard time coming down on female genital mutilation because there are cultures where it is still practiced. But it is our responsiblity to look dispassionately at evil and see it's full significance and fight against it whether or not some people still think it's okay.

*The painting is "Fall Leaves" by Lauren Harris

Three Cheers for Stacey!

2008-06-17T14:04:00.006-04:00

Stacey Fearnall of Owen Sound, ON, just lost her serving job because she shaved her head for cancer. Read the comments on the CBC story. People get it - they decry the injustice and point out the obvious sexism of a woman being expected to look pretty at work even when it has nothing to do with her job. Of a woman not being able to get away with what a man can get away with.

I fear that stories like this are trees for which we fail to see the forest.

Stacey Fearnell will get offered a job and people will boycott the restaurant (as they rightly should.) People will say they are in shock, and wonder how someone could do something so shortsighted. The truth is that things like this happen every day, they just usually don’t get picked up by the media.

Wake up. It’s not just the waitresses in Hooters who get sexually harassed. You can have any sexual harassment policy you like but I guarantee you every waitress in this country faces unwelcome comments some of the time. Many put up with it to not lose the tips they depend on for a living, or to not lose the job they depend on for a living.

It’s not just waitresses either. I dealt with this garbage in some of the most family-friendly establishments you can imagine. I worked in the bakery at I.G.A. and our supervisor called all the girls “baby” and “mama.” He used to look me up and down (I was seventeen) and say things like “Beauty AND Brains.” Creepy.

Could I have complained to someone higher up? You bet. There was a sexual harassment policy in place. Now I’d do it in a heartbeat. But the difference between the courage of seventeen and the courage of twenty-two is big, and much of that difference was probably built by four years spent in university and a minor in women’s studies. The only difference between then and now is that now I have an education so I don’t have to expose myself to that crap. I’m sure he’s still making sixteen year olds feel uncomfortable. And many women, women without the opportunities I’ve had, will still be putting up with at twenty-two and thirty-two and fifty-two. As they get older, they’ll have to put up with ageist comments too, guys putting them down for getting old while simultaneously grabbing their asses.

I’m not saying that guys are jerks. But there are two root problems to this issue – two reasons Stacey Fearnall got fired. One is that a huge number of men do not respect women and therefore treat them any old way the feel like treating them. I’m not referring to her getting fired. I’m referring to her employer fearing that she wouldn’t elicit the same response from her customer base, fearing a loss in customer satisfaction, and firing her. This implies that he knew that there was a way she was being treated because of being pretty and was okay with exploiting that. He knows Stacey being pretty and girly was part of the reason his restaurant did well, and he feared no longer having that to exploit.

The other reason is that our culture is deeply, deeply uncomfortable with people who do not meet the expectations we set out for what gender is supposed to look. By the terms of women’s studies, sex is defined as the biological differences between men and women. Gender is the socially constructed differences between men and women. We generally agree that a woman has a vagina, internal reproductive organs, and breasts, while a man has a penis and male secondary sex characteristics such as facial hair and a deep voice. We can generally agree that long hair on a woman is a socially constructed difference, and pants on a man are a socially constructed difference.

It offends our society deeply when people dare to subvert these socially constructed differences. Look at the freak-outs people have when women started wearing pants to work.

Okay, so the sixties are behind us, women can wear pants, no more need for feminism. Right. When the majority of guys willingly give their sons Malibu Barbie to play with, I’ll agree. You can argue that it’s homophobia keeping people from doing that and I think there is a certain amount of that for sure, but it’s both. When a boy likes ballet, it’s partly the fear that he’ll turn out gay that creeps out his parents, but it’s partly just the ballet.

I think a large part of what still scares our society about homosexuality is that many gay people subvert traditional gender roles. After all, what business is it of ours what other people do in bed? Gay people, for the most part, are not having sex publicly. People may think that what’s creeping them out is the sex, but it’s not. It’s men who are girly and girls who are not girly. And the fact that you know what I mean by that proves that the expectations exist.

And the point is, people need to be free to be how they are – whether that’s gay, girly, or bald cancer research supporters.

Spring Cleaning

2008-05-12T17:42:00.001-04:00

I'm moving in a couple of weeks and therefore both buying things for my new apartment and trying to purge my current possessions of extraneous matter.

It's not just the unworn clothes and unread books - that would be easy.

The trouble is that I am a paper packrat - unable to throw out warranties and receipts and anything I think I might want to find later. This is actually a good thing when something breaks, but not so good when you are keeping a warranty for a 4 year old cell phone that you no longer use. I still haven't thrown out the old cell phone, either. Despite the fact that it was worn out and lousy.

I have electronic devices I haven't used in ages, three large tupperware boxes full of art supplies that have more than a few empty paint tubes in them, and an underwear drawer so full of junk I don't need (odd socks, much) that I can barely fit my underwear in it. Also a lot of nearly empty but very old makeup containers that need throwing away.

I am also incapable of throwing out old university essays which took me three weeks of research and writing to create, despite the fact that no one will ever read them, and while I am sure many of them are admirable for what they are, they are still, academically speaking, not good. Or textbooks that I barely cracked during university and almost certainly will never want to read but still. . . I paid good money for those. Of course I can always resell them but that means sorting out the pile, getting them to the store, ooooohhhh I feel a bout of procrastination coming on.

Of course despite my paper packrattiness (packrattism? packrattisizing?) I still seem to miplace vital things all the time and never be able to find the bit of paper I need. I search the house frantically thinking, "I couldn't have thrown it away. . . I wouldn't have thrown it away."
And I am a terrible searcher. They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over, expecting different results. Well - when I look for a lost thing - I tend to look in the same three places I think I might have left it, each time thinking I might have somehow missed it the last time.

Of course the solution to all this is to become organized with a filing system or a closet space maker or something like that, but. . . oooohhhhh there's that procrastination coming up again.
There's a reason those infomercials for closet space makers just show the messy room before picture and then: voila! magically folded stacks of shirts and shoes and tennis rackets. If they showed you the giant chore of sorting out the crap 'til all is left is shirts and shoes, nobody would buy the damn things. We love to procrastinate too much.

In fact here I am, writing about packing instead of packing, when I have less than a fifth of my stuff packed, none of my cleaning done, and one weekend left before I move. I was totally planning to do a box a day or clean one area a day but in the end I will probably pack everything in a frenzy at the last minute because it is just so daunting to even think about getting rid of things.

The ideal of course, is to sort out garbage from clothes and books to be taken to the secondhand shop but it is just so tempting to put it all in a black bag and stick it on the curb.

Tempting, but at the same time, a little scary. We are illogical beings. Despite things sitting in back corners and gathering dust for years, when it finally comes time to pull them out and dust them off it can take so much courage to let go.

Clintobamccain - some thoughts

2008-04-26T16:45:00.003-04:00

I must say that the American election process, despite having studied it in university, remains a mystery to me.

It seems super complicated and I, frankly, doubt most Americans really understand it either. For that reason, and also because I am not a political analyst and am afraid of oversimplifying complex issues, I have been reticent to enter the debate about Clinton, Obama, and McCain.

Obviously, being Canadian, I can't vote in this election, but even if I could I'd be hesitant to throw my hat in for any of the above because although all are stellar politicians the likes of which haven't been seen in years, I don't think anyone emerges as a frontrunner.

Which makes me wonder, is it wrong to pick a candidate because they represent a group that has gone unrepresented for far too long?

This would basically amount to a democratic form of affirmative action, which is still a really controversial issue.

I've been on both sides of the affirmative action debate. I spent all of high school and much of university firmly against it because I just couldn't see how picking someone for unfair reasons (ie skin colour, gender, etc.) would make up for centuries of those groups lacking access to many areas of society. For a long time, for me, it was a question of two wrongs not making a right and that's as far as I took it. But I had a prof in university who convinced me otherwise. He was actually a total nutbar who believed lots of things that I took with a grain of salt the size of China, but the way he explained affirmative action to me, it finally made sense.

He said, if you have two people, and one piece of cake, and you want to be fair, what do you do? You cut the piece of cake in half. But if one person hasn't eaten in three days, and the other just finished a five course meal, cutting it in half is no longer equality. It is cruelty. The analogy touched a chord with me.

Of course, it is more complicated to apply that to groups, when the persons involved may not have literally been deprived or over-privileged, but are merely representative of a group that has been deprived or over-privileged.

The thing is, in a society where being a woman or being black or whatever was not a part of hiring or pay or any of these areas, it would be wrong to make it so. But it is a part of it, and the only way to fix it that I can think of is to acknowledge that and give them a leg up. This is to counteract the fact that women and people of colour are statistically more likely to be poor, more likely to be undereducated, and far less likely to be among the most influential jobs – politicians, CEOs, etc.

I would assert that it is not an ideal solution, especially when a voter is using it as a selection criteria for election, but I don't think anyone could be blamed for taking it into account. It is absolutely beyond ridiculous that there has never been a female president in the US or an elected female prime minister in Canada, and I don't think anyone could be blamed for wanting to give Hillary Clinton the job because of that. It would of course be not only because she is a woman but also because she is an intelligent, experienced, quick-witted politician with women's issues at heart.

I think, however, and I know some people will disagree with me strongly on this, that America is not ready for a woman president. They don't want to seem backwards and prejudiced in this regard, though, and I think it is highly possible that Obama will give them a way out of that. By voting for a black man, they will be able to seem progressive without having to give up their ideas that women can't be leaders. I know this is a controversial statement and I know I could never prove it, but I think for many people, sexism runs deeper and is more entrenched than racism. They will be ready to accept a black man before a white woman.

The other thing that I think is worth commenting on with respect to this election is that the coverage seems to be very focused on "woman vs. black" instead of on the campaign ideas and platforms of the respective democratic candidates. It's fine for someone like me, a person who is simply discussing the issues and stating my biases upfront, to discuss this, but I think it is the job of responsible journalists to make campaigning and platforms the most important thing, and not to focus so much on issues of race and gender.

The last thing I would like to say, while I'm on the subject, is that the coverage has also seemed to me to be biased highly in favour of the democrats, with the republicans not getting nearly as much coverage. I don't know if this is just the Canadian media, but the few times I've watched a few minutes of that lousy excuse for a newscast, CNN, it also seems to be focusing on the democrats. And while I'm as game as anyone else to say it seems like time for change, I do not think that is fair and balanced journalism.

Check out a new addition:

2008-04-23T21:34:00.003-04:00

I have added a new addition to right hand blog column - it's called The Artist Formerly Known as Video Store Clerk. I get a lot of requests from family and friends to recommend movies, so I'm going to feature films I think everyone should see. I'll change it up lots, although I can't guarantee every day. I am also going to try to be more on the ball and review movies I see in the theatre.

Nice try, France

2008-04-20T11:35:00.005-04:00

The French are debating a bill that would disallow the media from publishing pictures of super-skinny models in an attempt to curb anorexia rates. My initial reaction is to applaud them for trying to deal with an issue that often gets swept under the table, not to mention for making a move that won't be popular in the fashion capital of the world.

But on second (and probably more rational) thought, there are a few things about this move I don't like - and I came to that conclusion before reading an excellent editorial in The Ottawa Citizen about how this basically amounts to censorship, an angle I hadn't even considered.

Part of the problem with legislation like this it's very difficult to legislate social issues, about the way people think and feel. First of all, I think it is simplistic to say that people are anorexic because they are exposed to images of skinny models. I'm sure it doesn't help, but the reality is that every woman is exposed to those images and not every woman is anorexic. Not only that, but not every skinny woman is anorexic, and not every anorexic woman is skinny. Anorexia and bulimia are complex disorders that have more to them than women simply not feeling good about themselves - and although I'm no expert, I think that it probably has a lot do with women trying to get power and control over their own lives.

But barring the anorexia debate, it is true that images of very thin women have an effect on all women, giving them an impossible standard of beauty to achieve in order to feel successful, and reinforcing negative body image that can be self-destructive to varying degrees. Partly, I think, giving us standards that we feel terrible for falling short of keeps us obsessed with meeting them instead of focusing on more important things, which is important in a consumerist society that multi-billion dollar industries that keep us feeling awful about ourselves so we'll keep on buying anti-aging cream that does nothing. (Actually, I can't take credit for all these ideas - as a women's studies minor I think I've soaked a lot of them up in various writings but for the comprehensive book on it check out Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth.)

The problem, though, which leads to all these feeling of not being able to measure up, (or actually, down) is not the presence of very thin women in the media, but the lack of presence of anybody else. What France is suggesting doing is removing images of extremely thin women from a spectrum of images that includes very thin women, thin women, and that's it. Does that mean the fashion designers will suddenly use larger models? No - it'll just mean that instead of models trying to be as thin as possible, they'll have to keep their weight perfectly in a range between A weight and B weight. And girls will still see thinness and want to be thin. (Not only thin but tall with perfect skin, mind you.)

I think there is a point where we have to demand (with our dollar) that people who make clothes cater to our diversity, that magazines interview women of all shapes and sizes, hair colours, skin colours and types, and geographical locations, and perhaps some who have chosen a career other than acting, modelling, or politics. It would be harder for the fashion designers, yes - but honestly I wasn't aware it was that hard to design something to look good on a coat hanger. Designing something to look good on a person takes effort.

In the end, it is not just a question of reflecting a diversity of beauty, but also of allowing women to not be beautiful. We need to be allowed to be intelligent or athletic or artistic or socially aware and valued for those things, and when women can have power in other areas in an equal way, I think you will see a lot less women starving themselves. This, however, is a complicated thing and unfortunately, I don't think it can be legislated.

It's too easy.

Alleged Fraudsters and Musings on the Democratic Process

2008-03-22T14:26:00.009-04:00

Copright Melodie Cardin - This is the view from my living room window of my front lawn- the little spike poking through is the top of a lamp post that has three lanterns on it which are completely buried under the snow. The house is across the street and a little uphill from us. The snow bank is about 6 to 7 feet high at its tallest point.

You gotta love when intense political debate is inspired by the deep, meaningful problem of... snow removal.

In Ottawa, the issue is that we have had a mountain of snow this year. Last year, we didn't get snow 'til January, and this year, it started in November and hasn't stopped since. We've broken all kinds of records. It's actually the most snow I can really remember seeing in my life. People say it reminds them of winters when they were kids.

Me too - if only because the snow banks are now considerably taller than me, just like they were when I was a kid and I was short(er).

So the issue in Ottawa is that the budget for snow removal was exceeded long ago, and since the reserve funds are not in a healthy state, City Council is wondering what to do. It's a bit of a problem for Mayor Larry O'Brien. (I'm not going to say his name without mentioning that he is currently under investigation for alleged electoral fraud, involving allegedly buying off another candidate to drop out of the race. Allegedly.*) The problem is that he ran on the campaign "zero means zero", as in, if I say I won't raise taxes, then, unlike Dalton McGuinty, I won't. Now he's finding that raising taxes is something mayors sometimes have to do, and it was pretty stupid to promise not to just to get elected.

If he does raise taxes, (and it looks like he will) I think that will be immensely unjust. It's not that I have any problem with politicians raising taxes, particularly in years of record breaking snow. I have a problem with broken election promises.

Here is the thing - I think it is fundamental to the democratic process that politicians not be allowed to break campaign promises. When the electorate is deciding who to vote for, the only thing they have as a basis on which to make their decision is a politician's platform. Yes, they can exercise reason and caution, and perhaps should know from past experience that no taxes increases is not a reasonable, feasible promise. But sometimes they don't know, and the point is, it's not a voter's job to know how to run things. They should be able to trust their elected officials to do the job they say they can do. Therefore, breaking campaign promises is like lying on your resume. We are hiring them to run the city for us, and if they don't know how to do it in the way they tell us they can do it, then it is misleading and unfair to the electorate.

I also think it is supremely unfair to Alex Munter and Bob Chiarelli, Mr. O'Brien's two main competitors in the race for mayor. Neither of them promised not to raise taxes. Both have more political experience than Mr. O'Brien, and knew that would be an unrealistic promise. Neither was willing to make promises they couldn't keep, and because of that, neither got the job. If Mr. O'Brien breaks his promise, then in my eye, he won the job unfairly when his credentials were not as good as his opponents, and that is not fair to either of them.

These two injustices, towards voters and towards other people running for office, are why I think that campaign honesty is so fundamental to the democratic process that I think it should be illegal to break election promises. I think it should be considered electoral fraud.

Sure, there are exceptions. There are times when unforeseen circumstances will arise and a politician will need to act differently than he or she promised in order to cope properly with the situation. In these rare cases, we can find a way to let politicians out of their promises - perhaps by referendum. But by and large, I believe the possibility of fines or jailtime would make politicians think long and hard about what they promise, and be a strong deterrent from outright lying to the populace.
___________________
*I use the word allegedly because when someone hasn't been convicted of a crime, you can't mention it without calling it alleged, or it is libel. He is, at this point, merely an alleged fraudster.

Here's to the mocking and may it end

2008-03-14T11:37:00.008-04:00

The Starbucks on Rideau Street has a very narrow staircase behind the counter that leads to the second level. It's the kind of staircase that you'd have to know it's there. Yesterday evening, as I was sitting at a table, I had a perfect view of the staircase, which is perfect for people watching.

A young lady came down the stairs wearing tight jeans tucked into very short boots. Now, I am not totally against the skinny jean trend, but like most trends, it doesn't work when taken to extremes or done wrong. This fit into the latter category. Instead of being fitted, the jeans were tight. They were of the hip-hugger variety of jeans, which is a mislabeled category of jeans as they look terrible on anyone with hips - which this girl had. The jeans were tucked into boots which were really too short for tucking in to look good.

Which brings me to a whole other line of thought. As this girl left, I mused about how it was not so long ago that no one between the ages of 13 and 20 would have been caught dead wearing tight jeans tucked into their boots. There was a kid who did it at my school. He wasn't cool. I liked him, but that's beside the point.

Four more youths, all boys, traipsed down the stairs, dressed exactly the same. Very tight jeans, starting halfway down their butts. Wide sneakers with the laces undone. Band t-shirts. Fitted hoodies. Hair grown out in front, parted on an extreme side and swept across the forehead. If a boy dressed like that when I was in high school, people would have thought he was gay. (I will not get into stereotypes about gay men and fashion.)

When I was in high school, boys wore very baggy pants. Usually cargo pants. Pants were never, ever tucked into boots, but worn a little too long and left to bedraggle in the salt and slush. All girls in my high school had jeans that were torn, salt encrusted, and generally awful looking at heel. Girls wore tighter pants than boys, and tighter shirts, but pants had to flare out at the ends. For a while it was bell bottoms. Don't get me wrong - I think pants tucked into boots is an improvement.

Girls wore big chunky shoes - not the sleek, lovely pointy toe boots that I think are gorgeous albeit impractical in winter. Never flat boots. Boots that look like giant moccassins were definitely not cool. I really like them, it's just weird to me to see that they are in fashion.

It's just weird as I get older to see teenagers wearing stuff that my friends wouldn't have been caught dead in. I'm only 22. The cycles of fashion come around remarkably quickly.

You know what would make me feel old, though? If I saw trends from when I was a kid come back. When I was a kid, here's what was cool - or at least what I saw people wearing. My perception of cool may have beens skewed given the fact that I was eight and didn't care about fashion. (My family would tell you that I still don't - which is not true - I just don't wear the fashion if I think it doesn't suit me or if I don't like it.)

Giant oversized t-shirts with light coloured jeans that tapered. Not skinny jeans but tapered jeans. Popular with old ladies. Basically, all the stuff you saw in Value Village up until a couple years ago, when a few jeans with flares started to make it there. Know what I predict? Three years from now, Value Village will be full of discarded skinny jeans. Maybe pleated pants will come back.

Now here's a scenario. What about the kid in my high school, the nerdy kid who wore his pant legs tucked into his boots and was ridiculed for it, probably behind his back. Now everyone is doing just that - (although more girls, now that I come to think of it, but it's an example so bear with me) was he secretly the height of cool? Did he really have great taste? You would think that if a thing is aesthetically attractive then it would be attractive regardless of who's wearing it and when - but that doesn't seem to be true. Wearing the right look in the wrong decade is not fashionable.

It seems to me then, that fashion has very little to do with the clothes themselves, and much more to do with the inherent coolness of the person doing the wearing. Say you wear the same thing for four decades - and during five years of it, that outfit is cool. Will you be cool for five years? Nope - you're already a non-conformist, and that's what matters, not the outfit. Basically, it means that despite consumerist popular belief that having the right look will make you cool, if you're not cool, nothing will make you cool. And if you are, you can wear whatever you want.

But I'm still horrified at the thought of tapered pants coming back.

Do we need another rant about language in Canada? I think we do...

2008-03-06T18:52:00.008-05:00

Wicked news! The Supreme Court has decided to take a look at Bill 104, the unbelievable language legislation that succeeded Bill 101 when some radical separatist decided that horrific piece of legislation didn't violate our rights enough.

For those who are unfamiliar, here in Quebec French is the official language. Bill 104 deals with the education system, requiring students to attend school in French unless they have a parent who attended school in English in Canada. This effectively means that immigrants are forced into French schools, and prevents people from switching to English if the previous generation was French. My brother, sister and I had to get a license to go to school in English. There are also laws dealing with signage, which has to have specific requirements met about French and English - which comes first and their dimensions. We have a "language police" that goes after this stuff.

This law, which is meant, in theory, as a protection of French in Quebec, has made me livid for years. It is not only the blatant unfairness that a parent should not be the one to choose their child's language of instruction. It is that the result of having all the immigrants in French schools is that English schools have little to no diversity, and so the students there have very little access to other cultures and traditions, which I consider to be a crucial part of a well-rounded education.

The law has been criticized by the United Nations and is now being examined as a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - which it is. This is the fantastic news.

Check out the full story at the CBC website, paying particular attention to a comment directly below from someone in New Brunswick complaining that they have the same problem because of enforced bilingualism.

I would like to point out here and now that I do not think enforced French is the same thing as enforced bilingualism. The problem with the enforced French in Quebec is that it denies English. You can have a restaurant with a name in Spanish, Thai, whatever, as long as it's not English. How is that not discrimination?

What this woman is complaining about is enforced bilingualism, and she says its a problem to force kids to learn French alongside English in public school, basically because it's too hard and no one there uses French anyway. This is blatantly untrue - New Brunswick has a vibrant French community which this woman is apparently just not part of. But if we organize our curriculum solely based on what kids will use in the future - well then we should take a huge per cent of kids out of math class past grade 9, and forget a lot of science. Lots of kids have no need to take spelling and grammar - they won't use the knowledge, as its definitely true that many adults will have no idea what's wrong with this sentence.

We don't give children the education they will definitely use. Ideally, we gave them the best possible education we can to meet the range of possible future needs. That, without a doubt, includes French.

Anyway, Canadians need to stop freaking out about two languages. Europeans routinely learn three or four, Africans learn so many dialects it would make your head spin, and the problem isn't two languages anyway.

The problem is French. There is a mentality among Canadians that French is a second class language, not worth the waste of packaging to translate the virgin olive oil into huile d'olive vierge. Lots of Canadians would jump at the chance to learn Spanish or another exoticized foreign language, but we have this impression that learning French is a chore we do to appease Quebec. Well, let's get something straight there - plenty more French speakers are performing this learning a second language chore than English speakers, because they know they have to learn English to get ahead with their careers, and they are not the ones, for the most part, that you hear freaking out.

Apart from the jerks who put together Bill 104 - but there's jerks everywhere, speaking every language, and French is no different.

But that's the point, isn't it? French is no different.

Something new...

2008-03-03T22:19:00.008-05:00

In addition to having an opinion about everything, I have a couple of hobbies - none of which I give anything like the amount of time or dedication they deserve. One of these hobbies is doing a bit of amateur art and anyway, I thought this would be as good a forum as any to showcase a bit from time to time.

So, I'm starting off with an old piece. I did this in 2003. It is mixed media on canvas, and I painted it while reading "To The Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf and listening to a wicked album by I Mother Earth. (The reading was done separately from the painting. The listening was done simultaneously.)

"Glow and Stain" -copyright Melodie Cardin 2003

The money was many pretty colours by the time Juno used it - let's give them some Genies, shall we?

2008-03-01T21:01:00.008-05:00

There seems to be a growing pattern with having one slightly zany and offbeat comedy up for Best Picture. Like Little Miss Sunshine, (which was excellent) Juno is a love it or hate it kind of picture. I loved it. I know many Juno-lovin' Canadians felt like it was representin' below the 49th this year, what with a Canadian director, a Canadian lead actress, and being filmed in Vancouver with a mainly Canadian crew. Despite this, it is not eligible to be nominated for a Genie because, like A History of Violence, it was filmed with US dollars. (Changed to Canadian ones of course, since it was made in Canada.) So a brilliant film made mainly by Canadians can't be eligible for a Genie. It seems like Canada wants the Genies to be boring. God forbid somebody actually tunes in.

Meanwhile, artists across the country are vehemently speaking out against a new bill that would allow the heritage ministry to censor which Canadian films can receive tax credits - money which allows Canadian films to be made - according to what they deem to be offensive.

So we won't allow Canadians to take money from the States if they want artistic recognition in Canada, but we're censoring who gets our money. Sounds like neither having the cake nor eating it.

The problem, as far as Canadian artists are concerned, with this censorship, is that the term "offensive" is subjective, open to interpretation, and simply far too broad. Did someone not get the memo that Canada is a slightly socialist, free-health care providing hippie country? Words like "censorship" don't fly here.

The problem with preventing art that someone deems offensive is that everything that is unique, new, groundbreaking, and has important messages is going to offend someone.

We need to let Juno into the Genies AND give artists the money they need to get their films off the ground. It's the Canadian way.

I'm Oscar grouchy

2008-02-26T11:20:00.004-05:00

The Oscars weren't great this year. They got a record low number of viewers, and critics generally are saying that that's because nobody saw any of the nominated movies. I wasn't thrilled with them, but I love Jon Stewart and I love that he brought the woman who won best song back to the stage because she didn't get a chance to make a speech.

They did a lot of Oscar flashbacks in this last one, I assume since the writers' strike prevented Jon Stewart from being able to do anything prerecorded and they needed to fill time. I remembered watching the Oscars the year Halle Berry became the first African-American to win Best Actress and went all emotional about it, naming every African American actress in existence, and I thought - we really have a long way to go in terms of breaking down barriers, both with respect to race and sex.

It's not just that certain categories are completely male-dominated. (Think Best Director.) It's also that the ceremony has this crescendo, save-the-best for last structure. Everything leads to Best Screenplay, Best Score, Best Director, and Best Picture, with the acting awards sprinkled among the boring awards so that people don't try to just come in half way through. What bothers me about this is the order. The supporting actor awards come first, of course, because it's about building momentum, saving the best for last. So why do the female awards always come before the male awards? It's tantamount to saying that women's acting is less important, and less exciting, which is not only sexist, it's simply not true. If anything, this year, the female awards were more interesting to watch because it was up in the air who would win.

Maybe I'm being overly picky about something that doesn't really matter. But it bugs me.

Eat Apples, not Apple Jacks

2008-02-19T16:33:00.007-05:00

I worked as a cashier in a Loblaws grocery store for about 9 months during my first year of university. Being a cashier is a repetitive, mindless, boring job which caused me to invent little mind-games to play to pass the time, like estimating, to the dollar, how much a person's cart would come to and then seeing how close I could get. For hours. On end.

But being a cashier also offers a person the chance to observe people. If the phrase "you are what you eat" is true, than perhaps no one is better placed to know what people are than the person who sells them all their food.

As an opinionated person who likes sticking her nose in other people's business, I sometimes found it very hard not to tell people what I thought of their purchases.

I don't like it when people buy cases of bottled water every week, despite the fact that perfectly good water comes out of the tap and plastic bottles are not environmentally conscious.

I don't like it when people want their milk, which comes in a bag, put in another bag, again, because it's not environmentally responsible. You need handles to carry it across the parking lot? In a cart?

I really don't like it when a mom or dad comes through with two children under the age of eight, and the 200$ worth of groceries in their cart all comes in cardboard boxes. (With the exception, usually, of a single bag of frozen peas, which apparently fill their children's entire vegetable quota for the week.)

I held my tongue, obviously. You don't want to tell a parent that the way they're feeding their children could result in obesity, malnutrition, and quite possibly, scurvy - and that for a child in our food-affluent land to have malnutrition should be criminal.

Especially because the criminal is not only that parent, it's the food industry. I've been reading, as Emma Thompson's character in the delightful comedy Stranger than Fiction puts it, a "fantastically depressing" book called The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

Pollan seems to be nutrition's new it-guy, with a new book out called In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, which I will likely try to get my hands on when I finish the current one.

I'm leaving out the complexities, but here are a couple of his points. Food companies, like any other companies, need to have a certain margin of growth to be profitable on Wall Street. Naturally, there is a finite demand for food, since we stop eating when we're full. But at this natural rate, a food company could only grow as much as the population grows. So food companies do things to try to fool us into eating more food. One is making portion sizes bigger - think Supersizing. Another is processing food. When food is chemically processed (for example, turning corn into maltodextrin or whatnot) it breaks it down in much the same way our bodies do, which means our bodies have less work to do when we eat it, which means we get hungry again sooner and buy more food.

Another reason processing makes good economic sense is that while we are unlikely to prefer one company's apples or chicken to another company's, customers will develop brand loyalty to things like apple jacks or chicken fingers.

Therefore part of the reason people with kids are buying things that come in boxes is that companies are putting a lot of investment into advertising those things, and that these types of food are cheaper.

It follows then that obesity, malnutrition, and the diseases that come along with them are, as a study on CBC today proves, increasingly becoming illnesses borne by poor people. The study didn't really get into causes of childhood obesity among poor people, but I'm guessing the prevalence of cheap food full of xantham gum and the like is part of the problem. The high cost of enrolling your kid in hockey doesn't help, either.

Another part of this is, of course, convenience. It can take two or three hours to make a lasagna or pot roast, whereas a pre-made lasagna full of processed corn and soybeans, trans fats, and such goes straight from oven to table in 30 minutes. As we eat more and more of this convenience food, we become more and more used to it, until what we are seeing is a shift from a culture of cooking to a culture of buying and eating out.

It has become normal to bring pre-made food to potlucks or serve it at dinner parties, and call me old-fashioned, but I think that's sad. I think that if we lose, as a society, the willingness and ability to cook fresh food with fresh ingredients because we are so bogged down with work and school, etc., we will lose something vital.

You're on camera - get over it!

2008-02-13T19:34:00.005-05:00

I read in The Ottawa Citizen today that taxi drivers are angry because of a comment made by Larry O'Brien, the city mayor, who is currently under investigation for alleged electoral fraud. (That is beside the point but...) The comment was made about a decision to uphold a new regulation requiring all taxi drivers in Ottawa to equip their cabs with cameras before July 1. The cab drivers are upset, according to the newspaper, because this will treat them like "second class citizens" - more specifically, their complaints are that they have to shell out for the cameras and that there is no rule that the camera footage can't be used outside criminal investigations.

My take is that while I'm not sure Mr. O'Brien's word choice was overly appropriate and it is a bummer for the cab drivers to have to buy the cameras, I absolutely 100% support the decision to install them. Last year there were a slew of stories in The Citizen about women being assaulted in cabs, and of course the women have no way to prove what happened. I think cameras will go along way towards prevention, and this is really important because often cabs are the only safe way for women to get home after a night out on the town. Even then, cabs are really only an option for people who live within a reasonable, affordable distance from the clubs - everyone else is still busing home.

This is particularly a problem for women who live on the Quebec side of the river, because for one thing, due to the drinking age in Quebec being 18 while it is 19 in Ontario, the Quebec clubs are full of 18 years olds from both sides of the river. This means that people who are in their twenties tend to avoid the Quebec clubs like the plague, and go to the Byward Market or downtown Ottawa for a slightly more grown-up scene, which makes busing home to Gatineau really difficult. Add to that the terrible Societé du Transport de l'Outaouais, which somehow thinks it's acceptable for the buses to stop running before the clubs close down. That is a recipe for drunk drivers and women in unsafe situations. I mention all this because I doubt the phenomenon of inadequate bus service is unique to Gatineau, but imagine it applies to many sleeper towns across Canada.

So yeah, this is one time when I get behind Larry O'Brien, and only wish our Gatineau mayor was doing more.

Okay, so maybe we do borrow trouble.

2008-02-04T15:22:00.001-05:00

I feel obliged to contradict myself. When I talked about the flu pandemic survey, I said that people were not inclined to borrow trouble. There seem to be a few striking exceptions to that rule. Terrorism is an exception. People can lose all sense of perspective when it comes to terrorism.

This is particularly brought to light in the face of an upcoming vote in Parliament: the Bill that would replace the existing security certificate legislation that was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Two years ago, along with fellow journalist Kate Harper, I interviewed Sophie Harkat, wife of Mohammad Harkat, who has been held under a security certificate. It seemed obvious to me as I learned about security certificates what a breach of human rights this was. For those who are unfamiliar, this law basically allowed the government to hold foreign nationals in jail without telling them what the evidence was against them, if they were suspected of terrorist activity.

And this is why I say that people lose perspective when it comes to terrorism. Since 9/11, terrorism is an area where people can't be sensible. It's far worse in the States, but here too, people seem to be willing to give away a certain amount of freedom in the name of safety - and that is what is happening when we allow people to be arrested without the police having to show any evidence as to their crime.

Why do we allow this? Because we are afraid we will be bombed in our beds? Well, that is a legitimate fear. A possibility.

But we don't stop smoking because we have a 50% chance of getting cancer.
We don't stop eating fat because we could get heart disease.
We don't stop riding in cars or taking airplanes, despite the fact that they crash.

In a review I wrote of a speech made by Gwynne Dyer, I quoted him as saying, "More people fall down the stairs than are killed by terrorists. More people drown in their bathtubs."
While being killed by an act of terrorism is possible, I simply don't buy the argument that it is our fear of it that explains the lack of outcry when our freedoms are taken away. I think the answer is that most of us don't fear being held on security certificates.

Only a small number of people have enough empathy to fight back when the freedoms of others are being taken away.

What we don't seem to realize is that we are directly affected, but in slower, less dramatic ways.
The most frightening area where this is happening for me is freedom of the press. It is crucial to my definition of democracy that journalists be free to report to the people on the actions made by their government, and crucial that the people be able to answer back - not only through voting, but through the media.

I would argue that neither Canada nor the United States has this, and I would argue that neither has ever had it. This is partly because of media conglomeration - where a select, few, very rich people with corporate interests at heart control the keys to the media. It is partly because of a lack of education. It is partly because we are apathetic or believe we can't make a difference so we censor ourselves or don't bother to speak out.

I don't mean to belittle the situation of people who live in countries where freedom of the press is nonexistent. I know that what we have here is so much better than what so many people face. I worked in Rwanda, where it is illegal to impugn the president. I am grateful to be in a place where I can write criticisms of my own country and not be killed or otherwise silenced. What I'm saying is that we must cling to this right, as it is the only definition of freedom that matters for us as a collective. And that we should speak up about injustice, whether we are facing it or someone else is, at every opportunity.

Want to know what One Hundred Seventy Seven Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Four Dollars and Four Cents will buy?

2008-02-01T12:09:00.001-05:00

I opened the newspaper this morning to discover that the government of Canada has spent $177,254.04 to find out that Canadians are NOT worried about a flu pandemic.

Not $177,254.04 on influenza vaccination or treatment research.
Not $177,254.04 on research to cure diseases we're actually suffering from here in Canada.
Not $177,254.04 on emergency preparedness in the case of a pandemic.

But, let's say it together, kids - $177,254.04.
On. A. Survey.
That found out that Canadians don't care a caribou-engraved quarter's worth about this.
We are foolhardy, the survey concludes. Given the strong likelihood of a flu pandemic in the next five years, why are Canadians not preparing themselves? Why are they not vaccinating themselves or preparing (and I quote the researchers on this) "family emergency plans?"

What are we supposed to do, build flu shelters? All this concludes is that people aren't inclined to borrow trouble. The survey even concluded, shock of all shocks, that Canadians rated the importance of flu vaccines below diet and exercise.

Well, good. The chances of dying of an obesity-related heart attack seem closer to home.

Why are they surprised, anyway? This is not Africa. We're not in a place where people get sick and assume it's malaria. We are not, in short, in a place where highly contagious diseases are our primary concern. Our worries are things like avoiding skin cancer, fitting enough exercise into our busy lives, mortgages and getting our kids through colleges. Our worries, in short, are not the possibility of contracting highly contagious diseases or starving to death.

Most of us Canadians, I think, would have found some place better to spend $177,254.04.

In my day, we walked 4 miles just to get to our shoes... (why the cinema is going downhill)

2008-01-28T11:02:00.001-05:00

Last week I went to see the film I'm Not There with my father, and as we got to the Bytowne a little early, we had a bit of time to chat. He was not sure if he had been to the Bytowne before in his youth (which we later discovered he couldn't have been, since the Bytowne didn't open until he left Ottawa.) This brought on a whole conversation about how the movies used to be.

Back in the day, he said, his parents used to give them a quarter for their allowance. They'd go to the theatre and the movie cost 15 cents, and they would spend the last 10 cents for a full paper bag of candy to eat during the movie. The movies were black and white, preceded by serials like "Zorro," and he says, were ALL amazing. They were not so critical as kids. My dad was born in 1959, so I imagine the time period we're talking about is the late 60s.

It's hard to believe things have changed so much with the cinema over about 40 years, but when I think about it, I feel like the movies have changed a lot over just the years of my life. It's hard to have an informed opinion, because when I was little I lived in Fort St. John, BC, a small Northern town. We had one single-screened theatre, the Lido, where our mother took us anytime something Disney came out, and I think the movie cost about 4 dollars, although maybe that was the kid price. So my concept of the multiplex is that this is a phenomenon that started around 1999 or so. I lived in Duncan, BC, in '97, and our town had an independent, two-screen theatre where I saw Titanic twice. Every so often, we went to Victoria, which had two multiplexes - but they were not the monstrosities that multiplexes are now. They had a concession stand but they didn't sell Burger King and such yet, and they weren't all flashing lights and giant sculptures hanging from the ceiling. They were just movie theatres.

When did it happen that multiplexes became pseudo- food courts/ shopping malls? Also, when did seeing a movie start to cost 10 to 13 bucks? What really gets me is when they charge 7 to 10 bucks for popcorn, which is the most dirt cheap thing to make, and then charge you extra to put butter on it. Number one, aren't they making enough profit already? Number two, butter should be automatic when you buy popcorn. It's like selling you a steak and trying to charge you extra for barbecue sauce. Furthermore, I know matinees used to be cheaper than the evening show. Most theatres are still doing cheap Tuesday nights, but how long will that last?

I don't even know what the solution is for someone like me, who takes great pleasure out of going to see a movie on the big screen. I like the darkened theatre, the audience reactions, the popcorn smell everywhere. What I don't like is that I know I'm supporting an industry that is artificially overpaid, where movies cost so much to make that they are forced to charge the theatre ridiculous amounts to buy the reels and thus the theatre passes on the cost to the consumer in the popcorn.

One final gripe: I love previews at theatres but I think ads are the height of crass. I should pay to see advertising?! I especially hate that Coca-Cola ad were the polar bears slide down the hill to share a Coke with the penguins. It's single-handedly going to spawn an entire generation of kids who think polar bears and penguins live in the same place. If you think about it, it's a bit like having a polar bear share a coke with a giraffe. They're on totally separate continents.

And aside - I'm Not There was really good. There's nothing I can really write about it that you couldn't get better and faster by just seeing it.

Long live Sayad Parwez Kambaksh!

2008-01-24T16:23:00.001-05:00

I must admit that when I read "Canadian soldier confirmed dead in Afghanistan," it doesn't provoke much emotional response. I am sorry to hear it, but, although every human life is precious, part of me thinks they knew what they signed up for. When you become a soldier and go to Afghanistan, you are taking a risk. (It's different when they're being drafted.)

Today I read something, though, that makes me wonder why on earth we are even there. I don't like to get involved in debate about the merit of being in Afghanistan or not because I'm aware that I'm not an expert on this situation.

But today I read on the CBC website of a death sentence passed down to an Afghan journalism student for the dissemination of a paper that "humiliates Islam." What is the point of having Canadians or anyone there killing themselves to fight a war or keep the peace when fundamentally, nothing has changed?

This is still, apparently, a country where freedom of speech is nonexistent. This is a country where the dissemination of a paper (which, incidentally, in this case, meant showing the paper to his professor and classmates) can be a crime meriting death. I can't even go on.

The decision-making philosophy of La Belle Province

2008-01-24T14:31:00.001-05:00

Things can happen quickly in Quebec. It can take Quebec decades longer than everyone else to catch on to something, but once they do, watch out! There's no beating around the bush, no dilly-dallying, no Royal Commissions appointed to study matters to death. The provincial motto should be "just do it." Gatineau decides it hates its mayor and voila! out he goes. We voted out our incumbent in every single sector in the last election. Ontario goes on about how the Liberals have broken all their promises practically since they were elected but has no issue voting them right back in.

Now, Quebec is considering a ban on cigarillos, and this is yet another example of Quebec's decisive philosophy. Quebec took ages longer than most provinces to ban smoking in restaurants and then boom! one day it's happened and let's not have any fuss. Where other provinces debate pros and cons, worry that all the bars will go out of business, and generally raise so much brouhaha that politicians are afraid if they ban smoking it will come back to slap them in the face, Quebec just goes for it.

Now they are considering this ban on individually-wrapped, flavoured cigarillos, which frankly is a great idea. Studies have shown that cigarillos are contibuting to greater levels of teen smoking. This makes sense. Lots of teenagers want to try to cigarettes because they want to fit in, but they have to overcome the gagging, awful taste, and horrible smell. Cigarillos taste and smell pretty good. And it's no accident that they come in cherry, chocolate, strawberry, etc. This is a deliberate ploy on the part of the tobacco industry to suck more young people into smoking - and it's working, the statistics say.

So kudos to Quebec for thinking of banning them. My guess is they won't think for too long. They'll either ban them or they won't, but either way we'll hear no more about it.
Now if only they got into their heads to do something about the STO...

See the original story.

Celebrity Unnatural

2008-01-22T21:40:00.001-05:00

It's hard to know what we're supposed to feel when a famous person dies. I've always wondered at outpourings of grief - like when millions gathered to mourn Princess Diana and left flowers at the gates of Buckingham Palace. I understand the sentiment, but it always seemed strange to me to be so upset because someone you don't know has died. Kind, compassionate, good - but strange.

I think it's particularly hard for people of my generation to know how to respond to this situation, simply because we have not had a lot of premature deaths among the celebrities of our day - although we're still young. The list is really long for previous generations - Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, James Dean - the list continues.

A few days ago, hearing about the death of little-known actor Brad Renfro, I was surprised at how sorry I was. I only saw a few of his films, mostly when I was quite young, but still, I felt something. Today, finding about the death of Heath Ledger was a real blow. I'm not really sure why. I don't mean to sound insensitive because obviously it's a tragedy for anyone to die young. My point is that I do feel something - its an emotion without a name - but it's there.

My conclusion is that celebrity is a really odd thing. When we call people "stars," when we elevate them, allow them to become pseudo-royalty but at the same time debase them in tabloids every chance we get, that is a strange situation. It is strange for both the people being quasi-worshiped and the people doing the worshiping. It's bizarre that we converse about these people as if we knew them, say that we "like" or "dislike" them based on their work and their behaviour (as we read about it, at least.) We invade their privacy enormously, but in a way we also allow them to penetrate our lives.

And thus we feel real loss when they pass away. It is not just the loss of future films left unmade and future songs left unwritten. It is the loss of them in our daily conversations. In a small way, little by little, death makes them disappear from our lives the same way they will disappear from the lives of their loved ones.

It is also a reminder of how primal we are. Celebrity, in a way, is at the apex of civilization. It requires organized society formed of large groups connected by mass media, all of which is the culmination of centuries of art, science, and philosophy. By contrast, death is the most intense reminder of how despite our progress and our advances, we are still creatures dependent on certain basic needs for survival.

We are reminded of this when natural disasters occur, or when we see pictures of famine in foreign lands. In any case, death naturally tends to make us ponder the nature of existence, and in addition to that, I'm really sorry that these two fine young actors are gone.

Segregation? Seriously?

2008-01-18T15:32:00.001-05:00

According to a story by Global National, the Toronto School Board is considering the creation of an all-black high school. The supporters of this plan say that it will solve several problems. Black students are under-performing compared to white students. Teachers who have internalized stereotypes about black teens being thugs may judge them and give them bad grades regardless of performance. Finally, black students are not getting enough opportunities to learn about their own culture and an all-black school could focus on their history, culture, etc.

Of course, the story dealt with the obvious opposition to the plan - it smacks of segregation, whether their intention is positive or not. Also, apparently there is already an aboriginal school in Toronto, and according the story on Global, the students there tend not to meet Ontario guidelines in reading, writing and math, and up to 30% of the school at a time is suspended. So while this school may have been created with much the same idea in mind, it is not a success story, whether due to underfunding or other reasons.

None of the people interviewed in the story touched on one point however, which is the last issue -a lack of opportunities for black students to learn about their own history and culture when they go to school with their non-black peers. When we need to create an all-black school in order to have this happen, there is racism running deeply through our society, whether we are willing to admit it or not.

There are a couple of very problematic assumptions here: one is that being "black" makes you part of a homogenous group, with a single common history and culture, which is just idiotic. Not only does a black person in Nigeria probably have very little common history and culture to share with a black person from Somalia, but within "black" countries, the differing tribes have often been at war with one another for centuries due to their differing cultures, histories, etc. Often various tribes have just as much animosity or prejudice about each other as whites and blacks can have about one another. Rwanda is proof of that.

The other thing is, saying how important it is for black students to have greater opportunities to learn about their history and culture ignores the fact that non-black students should be learning it too. A large part of the problem lies in the way we teach history. In Canada, we assume that black students should learn about Churchill and Hitler but we don't assume that whites students should learn about Lumumba and Mobutu. We have a white-centric (and depending on which province you live in, English or French) historic outlook.

Nothing brought this idea home for me more than traveling to Africa. I had heard black people say that going to Africa was like going home, to their motherland. What I did not expect was that I had the same feeling. I had it also, to a lesser extent, when I went to England on the way to Africa - England is rich with the history I studied both in school and on my own. Many of my ancestors were from England, and I wrote a letter to my family about what it felt like to go to the old buildings in London and see the graves of some of the great thinkers that are part of the canon of the history I studied. But the moment my plane touched down in Addis Ababa, I shed a little tear with the force of the feeling I had of coming home.

If you go back far enough, Africa is the motherland for everyone, black or white, and it is time that we recognized that history is history, culture is culture, and we do every student a disservice by only teaching them a small portion of it.

Revamped Globes a Winner

2008-01-16T16:16:00.001-05:00

I watched the Golden Globes the other night for the first time ever. I have never bothered before, but with all the chitchat about them in the media due to their cancellation, they were on my mind.

The funny thing is that I actually preferred the lame press conference to a long, drawn-out awards show. Apart from the fact that the well-lacquered, nasal hosts were irritating, I enjoyed the simplicity of it... no epic thank you speeches to distant relatives or "all the people involved in this wonderful project." It was a welcome change.

I was also thrilled to see Johnny Depp win a Globe for Sweeney Todd. I think Johnny Depp's performances are so consistently fantastic, he's starting to be taken for granted. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that some other, more boring actor - like Ben Affleck, for example, had pulled a Sweeney Todd. People would be crying "Oscar!" Roger Ebert's thumbs might swell up under the pressure.

But Johnny Depp pulls it off yet again - this time with a character so haunted by his past that we can't help siding with him but tormented into an evil that we can't endorse. He makes you look past the grotesque nature of the plot and the heaps of stylized blood reminiscent of Tarantino's Kill Bill to the bald emotion of a man who has lost everything. And he sings.

I expected him to be overlooked - nominated, maybe, as he was for Captain Jack Sparrow, a character that got millions of people to return for second and third installments of Pirates, but not actually heaped with laurels. It remains to be seen what will happen at Oscar time, but I was really pleased about the Globe.