Disturbing

I watched about 5 minutes of the misnamed show 'Brat Camp' yesterday. The premise is that a bunch of screwed up kids get sent by their parents to a non-nonsense camp to get their lives straightened out. I say misnamed since, from the 5 minutes I saw, the kids seemed more troubled than bratty.

At any rate, my five minutes encompassed two events:

1) Somebody at the camp decided not to use whatever rudimentary toilet facilities had been provided, but instead just took a dump in the open field. The cameras zoomed in on the offending feces, but the image was blurred in the same way that nudity might be.

2) Thanksgiving arrived and with one of the kids upset and homesick, the camp counsellors figured this was a good time to get them to open up to everybody else at the camp about their problems. Under questioning, the camper admitted to having been sexually abused by family members as a kid.

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So profiting from arranging circumstances for troubled kids to talk about the horrors of their past on film is all good, but showing a clear image of the shit which comes out of all of our bodies every day is off limits. I know which one I find more offensive.

Writer's Blogk

Random mental wanderings for when politics gets too boring to write about - Note: I titled this post to reflect the fact that I had nothing to say and yet this post is kind of long - take that as you will, but it could certainly be construed as a warning

When I got home from soccer tonight my girlfriend had on Rob and Amber's wedding. It's probably a sign that I have politics too much on the brain, but as I watched all the ceremony and the dress and the bachelor party and how happy everybody in both families was (or at least seemed to be), I couldn't help reflecting on how nuts it seems to me that people would go to such great lengths to prevent gay couples from being able to hold this kind of ceremony.

And yet, this time (early 21st century) and this place (Western world), is probably one of the only (or few anyway) instances of a culture where my opinion wouldn't be in a very small minority (at least that's my understanding of history - I'm open to correction if others know a different story). I don't really know what it means, but I feel like we can have tolerance without license, and be accepting without society degenerating into some kind of anarchic no-holds-barred free for all.

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I was on the bus heading home from work and we passed by a church with an (I thought) odd sign out front reading, "True courage is the ability to step into the unknown" (or to leave your comfort zone, or something like that, I don't recall exactly). My first thought was that *true* courage, for me anyway, has been going back and facing the things I know all too well - there's worse things in life then the unknown.

Of course as church signs go, that was pretty coherent. I remember when I lived in Waterloo, there was a church on King St. (near Waterloo Town Square), which used to have the oddest, most incomprehensible sayings out front. I used to wonder if maybe the priest responsible had lost his faith years ago, and the sign was his silent cry for help. Or maybe the local students were into high-brow acts of deviance and just liked to rearrange the letters on the sign as a test of their anagramming skills. It was a long time ago so I don't remember any specific instances, alas, but if I had to make up something reminiscent it would be along the lines of, "God's raincoat can be worn even on sunny days" or something like that.

I bet a nice long driving tour around North America (preferably with side trips to Fenway, Camden Yards, Yankee Stadium, Comerica, etc.) would yield enough church sign gems to make a good toilet side paperback novel. (sort of like Bushisms only Churchisms), but I'm probably being too hard on churches. After all, anything they write is more entertaining than the 99 million variations on 'buy this' which litter the urban (and suburban and rural to a large extent, but especially urban) landscape. I remember the park/zoo by where I grew up generally limited itself to notices of upcoming events, an occasionally invasive exhortation to smile or be cheerful and, in the spring, warnings to drive slow to avoid running over the baby ducks. I've learned over the years that you could do a lot worse as a sign writer.

Speaking of invasive exhortations, I pity the people who drive the 401 regularly and have to put up with the sign-nanny constantly nagging them about wearing a seat-belt, not using the cell-phone, allowing space while following, signaling, checking blind spots, not drinking and driving, thinking positive thoughts, and generally reminding them that everything they need to know they learned in kindergarten.

If I was put in charge of the signs, the messages would be more like, "Drive Clean, No Celine" (accompanied by a stick figure with a line through it), or "It's 8 A.M., how fast do you think it's moving beyond the next transfer?", and the word "Express" would generally be surrounded with ironic single quotes. I wonder what the impact on traffic fatalities would be?

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My vast legions of hyper-observant cyber-stalkers will have noticed that I switched internet providers from Telus to Shaw recently. Looking at it rationally, there were 5 reasons for the switch. 1) Telus stinks 2) Telus' customer service is terrible 3) It took 11 days from when the phone was disconnected at our old place for them to get it (and the internet) working at our new one. 4) While on hold (which always started with the song 'Smooth' by Santana - and I'm sure it's not just people who've (somewhat) recently taken Cha-Cha lessons who think this song is already seriously overplayed) for 50 minutes on one occasion, I was repeatedly advised to get faster service by going to their website. Despite the fact I was on hold after telling the Telus robot that I was calling about Internet connection troubleshooting - possibly a good hint that their website wasn't really an option at that moment. 5) The bill I got from Telus the other day was pretty incomprehensible (and part of my work is writing computer generated reports, so generally I'm fairly good at reading them) 6) We were given wrong information on a number of occasions. Such as being told (on a Saturday) that a person could come tomorrow (and then when nobody came being told that of course nobody would come on a Sunday). 6) When I asked for the issue to be escalated to a manager I was informed that they would then (by telus guidelines) have to respond within 24 hours. And they did, calling us 23 hours and 55 minutes later. 7) As far as I can tell (remember what I said about the bill) they don't seem to be planning to charge us for the phone line for the 11 days it was out - but they *are* going to charge us for the internet during that time. Did I say 5 reasons? You're lucky I'm stopping at 7!

I should mention that so far Shaw has been excellent in all respects (not to mention cheaper). If you get your internet from Telus I highly recommend switching (unless you like aggravation).

Anyway, I'm thinking about switching my local line to Sprint but am a little worried about the idea of them being bought by Rogers, the only rival Telus has for bad service in my experience (except for Jetsgo, but they didn't have a monopoly so they went bankrupt). I guess we'll see - it probably won't be long before Telus provokes me into switching.

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OK, you've made it this far, let's talk politics. The Liberals are clinging to power with three fingernails instead of two after winning today's Labrador byelection.

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jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

Sorry fell asleep with my finger on the j key there, good thing it starts to beep once the buffer fills up. Where was I, oh yeah, I was talking about my first *real* (cubicle) job, doing some routine computer stuff. I've never been much of a morning person so the whole concept of getting up 5 days a week at 7 am was even more foreign to me then than it is now. People passing in the hall could only see me from behind so I tried to position my hands on the keyboard so as to look like I was typing (or at least in the middle of a thought) and zone out. Of course I always fell asleep and was woken by the beeping of the keyboard.¹


So, politics. OK, I went to the Globe and Mail's website for inspiration and there was nothing. Even worse, John Doyle is caught up in the media failure two-step, devoting an entire column to the idea that there is too much talk about Donald Trump in the media. First line,

"One of the most depressing developments of the last 12 months has been the ubiquitous presence of Donald Trump.

You just can't get away from this Trump guy"

I get that there is some Trump movie or other and John is reviewing it, but a lot of TV airs in a week - if there's too much talk about Trump, maybe he could have found something else to talk about. I think a column about the Alias finale might have been interesting. OK, it would have been dull if it was just the usual, "the lighting was good, the acting was uneven, the writing was good but the dialogue was stunted, the stunts were spectacular, it wasn't quite a thrill ride more of a 'ghoster coaster' blah blah blah, typical media review, but what if it delved into the question of why they decided to make the credits all Sydney (Jennifer Garner) in the same year she faded into the cast and only played a minor role in many episodes.

Or maybe compare the Alias Rambaldi² storyline to the unfolding of the Iraq war to see which one makes U.S. intelligence services seem more incompetent. But no, it's 'I want to talk about why people shouldn't talk about Trump time', sigh.

OK, maybe the Star is better. Indeed it is, with some commentary from resident genius Jane Jacobs on Toronto's horrible planning process. True, I know nothing of how Toronto's planning process works but I feel free to condemn it because I lived there and - while there are certainly many examples of things done right - there are so many examples of things done wrong that it makes you shake your head and wonder what might have been (and we're not just talking waterfront here, the downtown is littered with disasters). And it's not just a case of 'well, that's how things go', because I've lived in Montreal and I live in Vancouver and both do a vastly better job of ensuring that the built environment (a little phrase I like to use instead of 'buildings' so that I sound all architectury) actually makes sense and adds to the pedestrian experience rather than just obstructing views and throwing up barriers, blank facades and wind tunnels. Of course, neither Montreal or Vancouver are burdened with a developer friendly provincial planning board and I know that Vancouver for one, has planners prettty heavily integrated into the development process (and holding some real clout). It really does make a big difference.


What, you're still reading this? You need a hobby. This is your hobby? You're doomed.




That's it, no more (OK there's footnotes, but you'll have them read in no time).




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¹ I should mention that those days are long ago and I am now a highly motivated, consistently productive worker.

² Kudos to the google's oh so polite, did you mean? function which correctly figured out that I meant Rambaldi despite my egregious misspelling of it. I wonder how many years until you can customize that aspect and get it to say stuff like, "Learn to type you idiot - I'm assuming you really meant 'whatever and have modified your search accordingly. Of course if you really meant that first thing, then I'm sorry, but you know I've seen people make that mistake a hundred times. There was this guy, in Ohio the other day, he was searching for.... etc. etc.

'Sports' on Cable

I was thinking, it would be nice to have a sports channel that doesn't show any actual events but just has highlights all the time. I mean, if we can have a channel that seems to show nothing but horse racing, poker and wrestling 24/7 surely there's room for a highlight channel as well?

(stupid CRTC)

B.C. election televised debate

If, like me, you didn't watch the debate last night (I don't even have cable at the moment, plus I figure that TV and politics shouldn't mix - what's your excuse?), or you just want to see some commentary on what you saw, try here, here or here.

To me, televised debates always seem like a triumph of medium over message and the media coverage of them generally makes me feel sad for the state of our country so I tend to avoid them even when I do have cable. But at the same time I typically find all-candidates meetings to be fascinating and very worthwhile. I don't know if being there in person makes a difference or if it's just that the cautious, stick to the party line, try to get your opponent off their game approach which being on TV enforces makes leadership debates dull and irritating.

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Blog - Undisciplined Thoughts on Just About Everything

Sometimes I feel as though my head is a giant tub filled with various thoughts about politics, the economy, society etc. and by starting this blog I have created an opening in the tub which allows some of those thoughts out. The problem is that the opening is tiny since, due to the effort required by choosing topics, finding links, organizing thoughts, constructing paragraphs, editing and so on, the amount of stuff which can actually be posted on is pretty small. And of course it doesn't help when your internet provider (Telus) leaves you disconnected for a week.

Besides this, spending a few days away from the internet made me want to have more variety in my posts. So I decided to do a little experiment and just type for a while on whatever topics have been on my mind lately with no discipline or real organization whatsoever.

Important! This last sentence was a warning that, even if you've made it this far into this self-indulgent post, you probably shouldn't really continue on. Proceed at your own risk of wasted time, keeping in mind that you're only young once.

So anyway, I've been thinking about the upcoming battle to (maybe) bring down the federal government. Is it just me or is it ridiculous that the health of some MP's could be a factor, since they may be too ill to get to the House of Commons? What century is this? I'm not keen on seeing the government fall since I'd like to at least see the legislation on Same Sex Marriage pass first, but I don't want to see it continue on because someone was too sick to vote.

Meanwhile, if this is true it's really sad - not to mention likely counter-productive. Bad enough when parties bribe their own members to keep them in line (did I mention we should shut down the Senate) - now they're bribing the opposition as well? Of course if it's not true, it's even more sad. I guess we'll see.

It seems like a bunch of people are re-considering voting Liberal under the sponsorship scandal circumstances but can't bring themselves to vote for the gays-are-separate-but-equal, made-in-Canada-solutions-to-Global-environmental-problems, cut-taxes-increase-spending-but-don't-worry-about-the-budget, ask-how-high-when-Americans-say-jump-and-tie-ourselves-ever-more-closely-to-their-dangerously-unstable-economy Conservatives or the surplusses-are-bad, fifty-point-government-plans-will-solve-every-problem, electoral-reform-is-was-will-be-our-#1-priority NDP party.

I'll probably explore my thoughts on the NDP in greater depth and more fairness in a later post (it's half written in draft already). For the Conservatives it seems like there is a disconnect between what voters want (a clone of the Liberals) and what the Conservatives want (a clone of the U.S.?). The time honoured approach would seem to be for the Conservatives to just pretend to be a clone of the Liberals for the purposes of getting elected and then do whatever they feel like once they are in charge. For now, while I welcome their move to the centre, I'll probably treat any Conservative promises on Child Care or Kyoto with a grain of salt or two.

Anyway, I invite people looking for alternatives to join me in voting Green in the next election. In moving to the Centre the Green party has positioned itself as being similar to the Liberal party but more innovative on the revenue/environmental side and more libertarian/easy-going/less-uptight/not-so-puritanical/call-it-what- you-will on social issues (such as marijuana legalization).

Moving on to provincial politics, B.C. votes in two weeks. The most important thing is for people to get out and vote 'Yes' to the referendum on switching the electoral system to the Single Transferable Vote. As a voter, I can't see why someone would favour a system which gives them very little choice over one which gives them a lot of choice. As a democrat I can't see why people would favour a system where there is a huge disconnect between the votes cast and the representatives elected over one where the distribution of seats in the legislature bears some resemblance to the votes cast.

Aside from the referendum, the 3 main parties contesting the election are the Liberals, NDP and the Greens. I've read all the platforms but need a couple of days to digest it all before posting in detail. A quick thought for now is that I wish (like always) that I could go for the 'make your own pasta' option where I get the Greenolini noodles with a creamy NDPfredo sauce and chunks of roasted Liberal on top.

On issues like RAV and the Olympics I favour the Liberal approach of supporting big projects that will make B.C. a better province long into the future. But then stuff like the ill-fated Coquihalla privatization plan shows how the Liberals get carried away with their ideology in the face of common sense.

Plus their attitude to the environment, the provincial park system, First Nations and Unions is way too extreme for me.

On Health Care everybody wants to spend more so there's not much to choose there. I do like the Green plan of shaping the tax system to lower taxes on stuff good for your health (i.e. sports equipment) and raise taxes on stuff bad for your health (like junk food). This will be a far more efficient approach to preventitive medicine than ad campaigns urging B.C. residents to eat their vegetables or whatever it is the NDP and Liberals seem to be planning on this front. The Green platform has a number of ideas I think are terrible (such as reducing university tuition to 0 eventually) but is also filled with a number of really good ideas (campaign finance reform being a standout).

Overall it's going to be a tough decision for me and may require some thought on various vote deciding methodologies (strategic voting, vote my conscience, marginal voting, flip a coin etc.). That's probably a topic for a post in itself as well.

Let's see, what else. This is kind of sad. The corporate battle to fence off information and charge people access to the info-petting zoo is continuing on all fronts. I'm guessing that public libraries will be the final victims of this trend. Rented a movie the other day (A Series of Unfortunate Events - great artwork on the credits but otherwise disappointing - Jim Carrey was especially irritating) and there was a big message at the beginning about how you wouldn't steal a TV so why would you download a pirated copy of a movie. Of course if my neighbour had a 60 inch TV and I could make a free copy for myself leaving his TV perfectly intact, I *would* do that. Any my neighbour wouldn't stop me. Talk about a lame analogy. Still, the whole copying=theft meme is the big media corporations' biggest weapon in trying to make people feel guilty about something they really shouldn't.

The NY Times had a long article last week about how TV makes you smarter (it's in the pay archive now). Basically the article took about 3,000 words to say that because years of intensive practice has made people better at watching TV (so now we like shows which are more complicated, have more storylines and explain things less than in the past) it must be making us smarter. No mention was made of how smart we could be if all those hours spent watching TV were spent reading. Or how much less fat people would be if they spent some of that time exercising. Or the implications of TV watching for consumerism, erasing the line between childhood and adulthood, levels of social capital, etc. etc. etc. If only Neil Postman was still alive he could have given that waste of space the smackdown it deserved.

Here's a question, does it seem logical that the person appointed by the U.S. to be ambassador to Canada should be someone who actually has some interest in the country? Is it better to have someone who knows nothing and thus comes in with no preconceptions? I think if I was appointing ambassadors I'd try to pick people with some knowledge of where they're going, especially for my country's closest neighbours. Maybe ambassadors are just irrelevant patronage appointments like Senators and I should just ignore them. Of course if I'm going to take this approach, I'd like our mainstream media to go along as well and not treat every pronouncement by the U.S. ambassador as front page news.

And finally, on a lighter note, some advice for all you blogging kids out there: don't walk between parked blogs, don't blog with your mouth full, wait at least an hour after eating before blogging, and never, never cover more than one topic in a single post.