wmtc

hedges: what happened to canada? (corporations have no borders)

2012-01-31T08:30:00.000-05:00

Chris Hedges:

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan.

“I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat,” Canadian activist Leah Henderson wrote to fellow dissidents before being sent to Vanier prison in Milton, Ontario, to serve a 10-month sentence. “I want to tell you that you might be too. I want to tell you that this is something we need to prepare for. I want to tell you that the risk of incarceration alone should not determine our organizing.”

“My skills and experience—as a facilitator, as a trainer, as a legal professional and as someone linking different communities and movements—were all targeted in this case, with the state trying to depict me as a ‘brainwasher’ and as a mastermind of mayhem, violence and destruction,” she went on. “During the week of the G8 & G20 summits, the police targeted legal observers, street medics and independent media. It is clear that the skills that make us strong, the alternatives that reduce our reliance on their systems and prefigure a new world, are the very things that they are most afraid of.”

The decay of Canada illustrates two things. Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by national boundaries. Corporations have no regard for nation-states. They assert their power to exploit the land and the people everywhere. They play worker off of worker and nation off of nation. They control the political elites in Ottawa as they do in London, Paris and Washington. This, I suspect, is why the tactics to crush the Occupy movement around the globe have an eerie similarity—infiltrations, surveillance, the denial of public assembly, physical attempts to eradicate encampments, the use of propaganda and the press to demonize the movement, new draconian laws stripping citizens of basic rights, and increasingly harsh terms of incarceration.

Our solidarity should be with activists who march on Tahrir Square in Cairo or set up encampamentos in Madrid. These are our true compatriots. The more we shed ourselves of national identity in this fight, the more we grasp that our true allies may not speak our language or embrace our religious and cultural traditions, the more powerful we will become.

Read it here.

wmtc now without threaded comments!

2012-01-30T16:30:00.000-05:00

No go on the threaded comments.

First of all, it only indents once. That's a good space-saver, but kind of defeats the purpose of using the threaded format.

Second, as Allan points out, threading makes it more difficult to scan through a comment thread to read only the newest comments.

And finally, the new comment style added justified text and a narrow line height, which look bad. Hopefully reverting back to the original style of commenting will change that, too.

On we go.

wmtc now has threaded comments

2012-01-30T10:15:00.000-05:00

Blogger now supports threading commenting, which (mostly) alleviates the need to quote the person you're responding to or use @soandso. It also helps distinguish between comments responding to other comments and those responding to the post itself.

I've also upgraded to the new Blogger interface, which is similar to the new Gmail interface. It's taking some getting used to, but there are lots of nice features.

So let's try threaded comments! What should we talk about?

dear mr harper: stop the threats and intimidation. we will speak out against the enbridge pipeline.

2012-01-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

I've been holding on to this email from Leadnow.ca, hoping to write a scathing post... but this is too important to wait until I have time. In case you haven't seen it, I'll re-run the email in its entirety.

No one who has been following Canadian politics for the last few years could be surprised by the tactics of the Harper Government^TM, but we mustn't grow so jaded that we simply let this pass without comment or protest. Please read, click through to send a letter to the Prime Minister, and spread the word.

This week, we learned that the Harper Government is using closed-door intimidation tactics against Canadian charities. They’re trying to silence groups that question our government’s plans to push the Enbridge western pipeline and supertankers project through overwhelming local opposition, and recklessly expand the tar sands at all costs.

A whistleblower just revealed that the Prime Minister’s Office threatened to revoke the charitable status of Tides Canada if they continue their support for ForestEthics, an environmental group that has engaged thousands of Canadians in the public hearings about the Enbridge project.[1]

According to the whistleblower, a former senior communications manager for ForestEthics named Andrew Frank, the Prime Minister’s Office told Tides Canada they consider ForestEthics to be an “enemy of the Government of Canada” because of the group’s opposition to the Enbridge pipeline and tar sands expansion.[1]

This is about more than our jobs and environment. It’s about our rights and our democracy, and we need to speak out now. Together, we can stop these closed-door intimidation tactics by shining a bright light of public attention on our government’s actions.

Click here to tell Prime Minister Harper to stop the threats and ensure fair hearings for Canadians, then please forward this important message far and wide.

While we don’t know exactly what was said behind closed doors, the Globe and Mail reports that the Harper Government has called ForestEthics a group “acting against the government of Canada and people of Canada” in private meetings designed to intimidate charitable funders.[2] And Peter Robinson, the Chief Executive Officer of the David Suzuki Foundation, says that environmental groups are “right to worry” that the government will threaten the charitable status of groups they disagree with in order to shut down debate.[3]

The latest threats are part of a much larger pattern. Internal documents from March 2011 outline the Harper Government’s strategy to spend Canadian tax dollars on a PR and lobbying campaign to derail Europe’s climate and environmental policy. The foreign lobbying strategy lists First Nations and environmental groups as the government’s “adversaries,” while oil companies, industry associations, and the National Energy Board are listed as the government’s “allies.”[4]

Our government’s job is to provide a free and open forum for Canadians to hear the arguments and evidence for and against the Enbridge western pipeline and oil supertanker project, so that together we can decide whether or not the project is in Canada’s best interests.
Instead, Prime Minister Harper is abusing the power of government to silence Canadians who are concerned about a project that will kill jobs, destabilize the climate and threaten our salmon and coast.

Click here to tell Prime Minister Harper to stop the threats and ensure fair hearings.

The public hearings about the Enbridge western pipeline and supetanker project are now severely compromised in three ways:

1. The Harper Government has directly biased the hearings with a massive PR campaign to discredit environmental organizations as “foreign special interests” and “radical groups” while privately threatening Canadian charities.[5]

2. The National Energy Board has stacked the deck for the Enbridge western pipeline and supertanker hearings by issuing a directive that muzzles any discussion about the environmental impacts of the tar sands. In this way, they've ensured the hearings will overstate the benefits of the pipeline by ignoring the major costs of expanding the tar sands.[6]

3. The National Energy Board has committed to "consult" with First Nations, but it has not committed to respect the rights of First Nations to “free, prior and informed consent” over any project that affects their territory. Over 70 First Nations groups, covering the entire proposed path of the pipeline and much of the BC coast, have already stood together to oppose the project.[7,8]

We are seeing a radical shift in our national conversation, an aggressive attempt to poison the well of debate with public smears and private threats against organizations that Canadians have built to help us all have a voice on the issues that matter.

We need your help to speak out and tell Prime Minister Harper that Canadians will not be silenced. Click here to take action.

P.S. - Emma Pullman, Leadnow's research director, has found very close ties between industry front-group EthicalOil.org, the Sun Media network and the Prime Minister’s Office that suggest they have a coordinated strategy to create an echo chamber for pro-oil industry and anti-environmental group talking points. You can learn more here.

The letter to Harper reads as follows:

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I am deeply concerned by reports that members of your office have been threatening charities that support Canadians who have serious concerns about the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the expansion of the oilsands.

All Canadians, no matter what our political affiliation, have an interest in free and open debate. We have a right to decide what we think is in Canada’s best interests.

Between these private threats to charitable organizations, and the public campaign to discredit thousands of concerned Canadians and First Nations as “foreign special interests” and “radical groups”, I believe that the integrity of these hearings has been badly compromised.

I am writing today to call on you to stop the threats against Canadian charities and ensure that Canadians get a fair hearing so that we can decide whether or not the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline is in Canada’s best interests.

Specifically, I call on you to:

1. Immediately stop your government’s public and private campaign to silence environmental groups.

2. Instruct the National Energy Board to rescind its directive that the hearings be prohibited from considering the costs of expanding the tar sands.

3. Instruct the National Energy Board to respect the rights of First Nations to free, prior and informed consent on any project that affects their territory.

Sources from Leadnow.ca:

1. Affidavit accuses Prime Minister’s Office of threatening environmental charity

2. Environmentalist’s departure sheds light on tension felt by green groups

3. Attack on “radicals” sign of tougher federal strategy

4. Feds list First Nations, green groups as oilsands “adversaries”

5. ”Scary time” for Canada

6. Canadian pipeline needs aboriginal consent: chief

7. Save the Fraser Declaration

8. Whistleblower’s Open Letter to Canadians

9. PMO branded environmental group an ‘enemy’ of Canada, affidavit says

10. Affidavit accuses Prime Minister's Office of threatening environmental charity

11. Affidavit accuses PMO of threatening environmental group

occupy the u.s. election, part 2: it doesn't matter who wins if they don't count the votes

2012-01-29T15:45:00.001-05:00

There are two principal reasons why the U.S. presidential election doesn't matter. Corporate money's death grip on both parties is one. Election fraud is the other.

Long-time readers of wmtc may recall a time when I was fairly obsessed with U.S. elections - not with the results, but with the veracity and validity of the elections themselves. A quick scroll through the wmtc category "election fraud" will give you an idea. The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were both fraudulent. This has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. There were tremendous "irregularities" (lovely euphemism there) in the 2006 and 2010 midterm elections. In 2008, there was rampant vote suppression and obstruction, voter-list purging, and outright vote theft, but apparently Obama's election watchdogs over-rode enough of it so that the person who got the most votes actually won the election. At least we think so; there's no way to be certain. (For an interesting discussion of 2008 presidential election fraud, see this thread, especially the discussion in comments: "obama can't win if they don't count the votes".)

None of this has gone away. None of it has even gotten better. But there might be some hope on the horizon. From election fraud central, otherwise known as Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman:

Has America’s Stolen Election Process Finally Hit Prime Time?

It took two stolen US Presidential elections and the prospect of another one coming up in 2012.

For years the Democratic Party and even much of the left press has reacted with scorn for those who’ve reported on it.

But the imperial fraud that has utterly corrupted our electoral process seems finally to be dawning on a broadening core of the American electorate---if it can still be called that.

The shift is highlighted by three major developments...

Fitrakis and Wasserman outline three factors that could add up to progress: the NAACP has petitioned the United Nations, the Justice Department has moved against the state of South Carolina, and the Election Assistance Commission has ruled that voting machines are programmed to be partisan. It's worth reading. They conclude:

But a flood of articles about these realities---including coverage in the New York Times---seems to indicate the theft of our elections has finally taken a leap into the mainstream of the American mind. Whether that leads to concrete reforms before another presidential election is stolen remains to be seen. But after more than a decade of ignorance and contempt, it’s about time something gets done to restore a semblance of democracy to the nation that claims to be the world’s oldest.

occupy the u.s. election, part 1: "we can vote for romney or obama, but goldman sachs and exxonmobil and bank of america and the defense contractors always win."

2012-01-29T15:33:00.002-05:00

Occasionally a bit of slime seeps from the sewer of the Republican primaries into my oxygen, and I feel the need to share the smell.

When a public figure says that a pregnancy from rape is a silver lining sent from god, as Rick Santorum did, and that person is a bona fide presidential candidate... well, it's disgusting, and it's dangerous, and it has to be mentioned.

I enjoyed reading this exposé of Newt Gingrich's hypocrisy - or at least some of his hypocrisy, as an exhaustive exposé would fill a book.

Generally, though, I'm paying as much attention to the 2012 circus as I did to the 2008 circus. That would be none.

Chris Hedges explains why this is, and what USians should be doing instead.

Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick-Barack reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on “Jersey Shore.” The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-owned airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers. The issues that matter are being debated, however, on “Democracy Now!,” Link TV, The Real News, Occupy websites and Revolution Truth. They are being raised by journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. You can find genuine ideas in corners of the Internet or in books by political philosophers such as Sheldon Wolin. But you have to go looking for them.

Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorships. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebrations to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win. There is little difference between our electoral charade and the ones endured by the Syrians and Iranians. Do we really believe that Obama has, or ever had, any intention to change the culture in Washington?

In this year’s presidential election I will vote for a third-party candidate, either the Green Party candidate or Rocky Anderson, assuming one of them makes it onto the ballot in New Jersey, but voting is nothing more than a brief chance to register our disgust with the corporate state. It will not alter the configurations of power. The campaign is not worth our emotional, physical or intellectual energy.

Our efforts must be directed toward acts of civil disobedience, to chipping away, through nonviolent protest, at the pillars of established, corporate power. The corporate state is so unfair, so corrupt and so rotten that the institutions tasked with holding it up—the police, the press, the banking system, the civil service and the judiciary—have become vulnerable. It is becoming harder and harder for the corporations to convince its foot soldiers to hold the system in place.

There's much more: read it here.

"capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world around us"

2012-01-28T20:30:00.003-05:00

Capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world around us.

When a high priest of Davos says this, I can't help but wonder. Has the idea reached a tipping point?

Harper may have "unveiled his grand plans to reshape Canada" - come on, Globe and Mail, he's been unveiling that for five years - but he hasn't been elected Prime Minister for Life.

Klaus Schwab, the Chairman of the Davos World Economic Forum, Capitalism Central, publicly voices doubts about the future of global capitalism. Stephen Harper may have plans, but the future is always unknown.

More Schwab:

How sustainable is it and at what cost to the environment? How are the gains distributed? What has become of the family and community fabric, as well as of our culture and heritage? The time has come to embrace a much more holistic, inclusive and qualitative approach to economic development.

Are 'sustainable' and 'inclusive' merely buzzwords? But why bother? He's not running for office, doesn't need our approval. Could it be that even the enablers of the 1% are coming to understand that the centre cannot hold?

A global transformation is urgently needed and it must start with reinstating a global sense of social responsibility.

A global transformation? Transformation is another word for revolution.
Maybe Schwab is one of those "foreign radicals" Harper is on about. You know, ordinary people, who want there to be a future for all.

shit native new yorkers say

2012-01-28T10:30:00.000-05:00

Ah, here's the real New York. This one's much closer to the mark.

To be honest, these are not limited to native New Yorkers (except "I grew up in..."), but to anyone who lived in the City during the 1970s or 1980s. I would replace yoga studios with nail salons, but "that used to be..." is a staple of that town. "I remember when this place was a...." earns you a merit badge towards your Real New Yorker ID.

And muggings and dead people on the subway, but no masturbators? What's up with that?

Many thanks to johngoldfine!

ode to a hero: attorney for the damned (with thanks to jill lepore)

2012-01-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

Clarence Darrow was one of my earliest heroes. I first encountered Darrow in the guise of Spencer Tracy, who portrayed the lawyer in the 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind". Darrow famously defended John Scopes, who tried to teach evolution in a Tennessee public school. His courtroom opponent was William Jennings Bryan, portrayed in the same movie by Frederic March. (In "Inherit the Wind," as was typical in those days, names were fictionalized. Darrow was called Henry Drummond and Bryan was called Matthew Harrison Brady. "Inherit the Wind" was originally a play, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, who also wrote the screenplay. It has been adapted for film several times.)

Some years later, as a young teenager exploring ideas of atheism and agnosticism, I came upon this.

I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose. - Clarence Darrow

A simple statement, maybe even simplistic, but it spurred a lot of thought for me. I wanted to know about the man who said this.

I discovered Darrow's life work was defending the poor from the rich, defending labour from oppression, and especially saving people from being murdered by the state under the guise of justice. Naturally, I loved this, and for a long while dreamed of becoming a defense attorney to do the exact same thing.

During those same years I stumbled on another fictionalized version of Darrow, in a novel called Compulsion, by Meyer Levin, about the Leopold and Loeb murder case, one of the most sensationalist trials of its time. The fictionalized account interested me enough to look into the actual case, and I discovered Darrow had defended two boys who had abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered a child. The public was clamoring for the electric chair (it didn't help that the murderers were rich and Jewish) and Darrow saved their lives.

Of course, with my interest in labour history, I started running into Darrow on a regular basis. In Big Trouble, a towering work of history by the late J. Anthony Lukas - one of my favourite nonfiction books, ever - there's a mini-biography of Darrow. He seemed to be one of those figures that would pop up wherever I looked.

* * * *

Many years later, I had a rare experience. I learned about the tarnish on my hero's shine, and it only made me admire him more.

Clarence Darrow, "Attorney for the Damned," would do anything to win a case. He would bend any rule to within an inch of its life, subject the legal system to interpretations wider than his bull-like broad shoulders. He was not above jury-tampering, lies, bribery, suborning perjury, or any other trick. Whatever it took, he would do. For Darrow, the ends justified the means, because the goal was saving a person's life.

It's a radical approach to defense, and I admire it deeply. It recognizes that the legal and judicial systems are tremendously biased, designed to protect the interests of the state, and often, the interests of property, of capital, of industry and corporations. The poor defendant is at an incalcuable disadvantage. "Playing by the rules" doesn't mean playing fairly.

In the cases Darrow agreed to represent, the state was often trying to set an example to deter further disobedience. Prosecutors were trying to score political points with the people who would get them elected, the captains of industry whose interests they maintained. But the defendant was fighting for her or his life. If the state lost, nothing much changed. If the defendant lost, he died.

As my politics and worldview grew and formed, my imagined kinship with Darrow deepened. After reading Sister Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking, my opposition to capital punishment moved from conditional to absolute. And at some point I realized that I actually don't believe in nonviolence as an absolute dogma in liberation movements - that nonviolent resistance is important and often a good strategy, but there are times when it's not necessarily the best path. Darrow, too, believed that certain ends are to be achieved - or at least fought for - by any means necessary.

* * * *

Along with Frederic Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., Darrow was one of the US's greatest orators. His closing summations to juries read like manifestos or declarations. Closing statements would go on for hours. He spoke, always, without notes. He was also one of the country's most famous skeptics, who believed "doubt was the beginning of wisdom."

I recently read "Objection," a long magazine piece by writer and historian Jill Lepore. Lepore is (among other things) a staff writer at The New Yorker, and she writes about many subjects that interest me. Two books about Darrow were published last year, and Lepore wrote a nominal book review that is really an ode to my enduring hero.

The excellent piece is only available online by subscription. Ms. Lepore gave me permission to reprint a couple of paragraphs, so I'm trying to limit myself to that. If you're interested in Darrow, try to get your hands on this issue of The New Yorker (or ask me for the text).

"Objection" recounts the story of Darrow's defense of a labour organizer Thomas Kidd on charges of conspiracy. The charges were an attempt to criminalize union organizing.

In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, also known as "Sawdust City", workers turned out 400,000 doors a year for the Paine Lumber Company. After the men reported to work in the morning, the factory doors were locked, and remained locked, except for a lunch break, until the guards opened the door at dusk. For a 12-hour day, a grown man could expect to earn 45 cents. But lately many workers were earning much less, because they were children, often hired to replace their fathers, working with the same giant saws. Kidd and the workers sent a letter to the owner, George Paine, demanding "better wages, a weekly payday, the end of woman and child labour, and recognition of their union". Paine trashed the letter.

The workers of the Paine Lumber Company went on strike, and the governor of Wisconsin called in the National Guard. On June 24, 1898, "four companies of infantry, a battery of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry armed with rifles and Gatling guns" faced the workers outside the factory gates. The National Guard, mind you, had been formed specifically to deal with labour unrest. Their salaries were paid partly by industry. But guess what? In Oshkosh the guardsmen were sympathetic with the strikers. They were sent back to Milwaukee and the mills remained closed. The workers struck for 14 weeks.

Now the state of Wisconsin thought it had found a way to rid itself forever of worker unrest. Kidd was charged with conspiracy to destroy the Paine Lumber Company. The trial became a test case for labour versus capital.

Lepore walks the reader through Darrow's closing statement, which would have constituted a famous speech for any other man. Darrow recounts the facts of the case - did the accused make a speech, did he incite fellow workers to strike, did he write a letter calling on the company to change its ways - and dismisses each one as trivial.

No, Darrow didn't care about the facts; nor, for that matter, did he care about the case. He cared only about one question: "Whether when a body of men desiring to benefit their condition, and the condition of their fellow men, shall strike, whether those men can be sent to jail."

And then Darrow said to the jury, "I know that you will render a verdict in this case which will be a milestone in the history of the world, and an inspiration and hope to the dumb, despairing millions whose fate is in your hands." He had spoken for eight hours.

The Kidd trial may not have been a milestone in the history of the world, but it was a landmark in the Gilded Age debate about prosperity and equality. There were two ways of looking at what Darrow called "the great questions that are agitating the world today." Either wealthy businessmen like Paine and Pullman were ushering in prosperity for all or else the interests of the Paines and the Pullmans of the world were at odds with everyone else's interests. In Oshkosh, Darrow won that argument. The jury was out for fifty minutes. All three defendants were acquitted.

. . . .

After [his own trial and indictment, in 1910], Darrow left the labor movement. He went on to do his best work, speaking and writing against fundamentalism, eugenics, the death penalty, and Jim Crow. "America seems to have an epidemic of intolerance," he wrote. That's still true. And the Gilded Age debate about the right to strike did not end in Sawdust City, a century later, it's still going on. Just this past March, Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, signed a law making public-sector collective bargaining a crime.

"Gentlemen, the world is dark," Darrow told that jury in Oshkosh, "but it is not hopeless." After all, no attorney for the damned ever lacks for work.

fightback works: peel parents win, for now

2012-01-26T21:30:00.001-05:00

Community meetings, rallies, emergency mobilizations, and a five-hour Council meeting ended with the Peel Regional Council voting not to close 12 publicly-funded daycare centres - yet. The Council voted unanimously to stop the rush to closure and instead set up a task force to explore the options.

According to this story in the Star, the current daycare arrangement serves 800 children. Fewer than half of those are subsidized, and 4,000 children on the waiting list to get in.

The answer is simple. Don't cut public services: expand them.

Roll back the corporate tax cuts, require everyone to pay their fair share. It's not that difficult to figure out. Daycare > prisons. Education > military.

we don't care about facts, tarsands edition

2012-01-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Why you always have to ask, who is sponsoring this exhibit/ad/study/media. And why tax dollars should support the arts, humanities and sciences: because if we don't, they will. (Emphasis added.)

The Canada Science and Technology Museum faced pressure from a corporate sponsor to change its portrayal of the oilsands in a new energy exhibit, the museum’s former vice-president confirms.

Randall Brooks said both Imperial Oil and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers felt the exhibit was too critical of the oilsands. Brooks was still vice-president at the time but retired last year.

“They certainly were pushing for a positive portrayal of the oilsands,” he said Tuesday.

The Imperial Oil Foundation gave $600,000 over six years for the show called “Energy: Power to Choose.”

Brooks said industry representatives made up a large part of an advisory committee of about 25 people overseeing the exhibit’s preparation. It reported directly to the museum’s CEO, Denise Amyot.

“One of the things that they wanted point out, obviously, was that Canada is an energy-rich country and we need to exploit it,” he said.

“They were as far as possible trying to downplay the negative side of energy exploitation.”

Meanwhile correspondence between the museum and industry reps, obtained by Radio-Canada in an access to information request, show the industry pushing for changes in the exhibit’s content.

A letter last May from Susan Swan, the president of the Imperial Oil Foundation, says: “I find the language not balanced overall. I have tried to point out the most significant issues I have seen, but the overall tone is of concern to me.”

Imperial Oil calls a section of text about oil dependence “pejorative and unbalanced” and insists: “This has to be removed and rewritten.”

The company also says it’s uncomfortable with links in the exhibit between wars and oil.

Another objection is that the exhibit shows changes in the landscape caused by oilsands mining. Since the land must be reclaimed later under Canadian law, the exhibit is “telling only half the story,” the company says.

The museum’s current vice-president, Yves St-Onge, said energy is a “very complex” subject and his staff did a solid job of balancing many competing messages.

“From all the comments we received, we took some and left others behind,” he said.

“We tried to create a balanced content ... Our team of curators feel very strongly about the content of what we put out.

“It’s not something that has been dictated by any of the sponsors.”

A museum studies professor in Toronto says the same issue crops up again and again, as museums try to find a balance between the need for private money and the donors’ wishes to influence an exhibit.

Government funding cuts cause a “corporatization of museums,” said Lynne Teather of the University of Toronto’s faculty of information.

“Anybody running a museum today knows they have to deal with what we call stakeholders,” she said. As well, there’s the view of inside experts — the curators — and the museum’s own corporate mission. And the board of trustees may add its own influence toward a particular point of view.

Tensions can spring up over the interpretation of history, culture, or anything involving industry, she said.

“We would advise (the organizers) to be talking about that up front. Somehow those negotiations and balancing points get worked through toward an end point. We certainly teach students to be aware of these things.” She says there’s less private sponsorship money available than governments believe. And corporate donors may see their money as a marketing tool, not a simple donation.

we don't care about facts, crime edition

2012-01-26T11:20:00.004-05:00

If only the Harper Government^TM weren't determined to waste our tax dollars on prison-building and useless mandatory sentencing, while telling us we can't afford to maintain decent spending levels for universal health insurance. If only they cared about facts.

New poll results show the public is abandoning a stubborn belief that crime is on the rise, bringing public opinion into alignment with a 20-year trend of declining crime rates.

The long-standing disconnect between public fears and reality has confounded criminologists and fuelled federal get-tough policies.

However, the Environics Focus Canada poll - obtained by The Globe and Mail and scheduled for release Thursday - shakes conventional wisdom even more by finding growing support for the use of crime prevention rather than punishment.

"This doesn't mean that people want to lay off criminals," said Keith Neuman, executive director of the Environics Institute. "But what people would like to see is more crime prevention. They feel that this is the right thing to do."

Has this persistent disconnect really "confounded" criminologists? Perhaps criminologists also know that if the mainstream media didn't run blaring headlines every time a crime is committed against a white, middle-class Canadian, people wouldn't be so afraid.

And what is really fuelling the federal crime policies? Citizens' fear, or prison profits?

save peel region public day care

2012-01-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow, Peel Region Councillors will vote on whether to end publicly financed, union-staffed daycare services in Mississauga and Brampton.

A report from an audit by KPMG - released only days ago - recommended closing five daycare centres in Brampton and seven in Mississauga. In less than a week, Councillors are putting this to a vote. What's the rush? Why are the Councillors avoiding input from the people whose lives would be affected by the closures?

Closing these 12 daycare centres would eliminate around 800 child care spaces and almost 300 jobs. The goal is supposedly saving the Region money, but as we've seen time and again, these supposed savings rarely, if ever, materialize.

Since hearing about this report, parents in the area have been understandably worried, even panicked. The don't know how or where they'll be able to arrange dependable care for their children during working hours.

If Region contracts are awarded to private day-care companies, daycare costs are sure to rise, at a time when so many families are already struggling.

Inevitably, closing public daycare centres will lead to an increase in unlicensed, informal daycare arrangements, which have no oversight or accountability. Those situations may put children at risk and will create anxiety for working parents.

Hundreds of trained child-care professionals also stand to lose their jobs.

So who wins? That is, besides ideologues opposed to public services on principle, and shareholders who profit from corporate childcare?

From the Brampton Guardian:

It’s unfortunate that an information meeting held Friday in Mississauga that might have helped allay some concerns and fill in some of the blanks for parents actually barred the media from attending. The reason given, apparently, was that the region didn’t want to panic parents or bring them any extra anxiety. What a telling statement. The region’s approach to calming parents who are already clearly agitated and anxious is to prevent them from finding out more information through media reports?

Certainly, some of those parents who attended the meeting said afterward that their concerns had not been addressed and one parent concluded the region has “no plan” for how it would implement such closures. We wouldn’t know because we weren’t invited.

Region of Peel, wake up and do the right thing. You are supposed to represent the people of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, not KPMG, and not corporate daycare companies.

Mississauga News: Parents outraged

is m.p. lizon a bigot or just plain ignorant? you make the call

2012-01-24T15:00:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, I learned that my new Conservative MP, Wladyslaw Lizon, brought to the attention of Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney the shock and horror of a woman wearing a veil during a citizenship ceremony.

Mr. Kenney, equally horrified (and similarly Islamophobic), issued a directive that forces women to choose between their personal comfort and becoming Canadian citizens. (My response is here; scroll down.)

Now the Member of Parliament for Mississauga-East Cooksville again displays how much he understands and respects the people in his culturally diverse riding. He sent out a survey asking, among other things, about the languages spoken in constituents' households. Choices included English, Polish, Arabic, Mandarin, Italian, Greek - and Indian. Indian? What language would that be?

This letter to the Mississauga News pinpoints the problem.

I’m keenly interested to know who in Mississauga East-Cooksville MP Wladyslaw Lizon’s office is responsible for the questionnaire regarding which primary language is used within a household.

I’m puzzled, confused, bewildered and seriously concerned about some major mistakes.

The questionnaire asks if people in some households speak Indian as their primary language? What does that mean?

India is a country, a recognized geographical state with 18 official languages. Hindu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu represent the most commonly spoken languages among city residents who came from India.

Perhaps this question was not directed to people from India at all, but rather, referred to Native Indians? Here again, the most common languages spoken among members of this community would be Cree, Ojibwe, Cherokee or Tsalagi, which is an Iroquoian language.

Maybe Lizon’s office was referring to languages spoken by people of the West Indies?

Citizens expect and deserve greater respect and more knowledgeable representatives in government.

Oleh Michael Romaniuk, Mississauga

Mr Romaniuk: good job! Mr Lizon: you don't deserve to represent this beautiful riding. And by the way, I'm still waiting for a response to my last letter.

belafonte on obama: "a dagger in our sense of justice"

2012-01-22T16:37:00.001-05:00

On a recommendation from a friend, I watched Harry Belafonte interviewed by Charlie Rose in New York City. Belafonte - musician, actor, social-justice activist, radical - is a joy to hear, and his life story is a march through history.

Here's one terrific thing I learned. Belafonte was still searching for his musical niche, finding the place where his music would match his heart. He went to the Village Vanguard to see Woody Guthrie, and that set him on his true life path. A few weeks later, he saw Leadbelly, and the whole thing was confirmed. Belafonte went to the Library of Congress and to hear and absorb everything he could about folk music and the activist music tradition. I wasn't aware of a connection between Belafonte and Woody (except in the metaphorical sense, the connection every activist musician has to Woody Guthrie). That was very cool.

If you're interested in Belafonte (or, for that matter, in US history, African-American history, theatre history, civil rights...), the whole interview is well worth your time. But at about the 45-minute mark, Rose asks Belafonte about Barack Obama. It's at the end of a long session (the full, unedited interview ran close to two hours), and I think the 84-year-old Belafonte is a bit tired and flagging, so he is not at the top of his game. But it's still worth hearing, when Obama asks, "When are you and Cornel West going to cut me some slack?", to which Belafonte responds, "What makes you think we haven't already?"

Listen here; Rose asks about Obama shortly after the 45-minute mark.

* * * *

I've also been watching portions of Cornel West and Tavis Smiley's Poverty Tour, including this segment that features Iraq War veteran and peace activist Geoff Millard, speaking about how war and poverty work together. I've always been a huge fan of Cornel West. I'm happy to know he's still a public teacher.

The Poverty Tour:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Remaking America, a panel discussion on solutions, featuring Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Suze Orman, Majora Carter, Vicki B. Escarra, moderated by Smiley.

Lots of great stuff here. Some people want to throw out the present economic system, some people have ideas on how to make the present system more liveable and equitable, but everyone wants to face the reality of a country imploding into a third-world nation.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3.

* * * *

Bonus: 37 seconds of humour. The description from YouTube: "Bill O'Reilly claims that banks haven't broken any laws; Tavis Smiley and Cornel West react appropriately."

shit white guys say to brown guys

2012-01-22T12:30:00.001-05:00

a call to obama: end detentions at guantánamo

2012-01-22T09:15:00.008-05:00

Ten years, and still the concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay remains open. Ten years, and still 150 human beings remain imprisoned without charges, without trial.

There have been deaths from torture, and cover-ups. There have been medical experiments. Child prisoners have come of age. Prisoners have been quietly released. And still... 150 human beings, still held, without charges, without trial, without access to the world.

Amnesty:

On January 11, 2002, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the first detainees were transferred to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Since then, the detention facility there has made the world’s news headlines for the shocking human rights concerns associated with it - including arbitrary detention, secret detention, torture and other ill-treatment, renditions, and unfair trials.

Ten years on more than 150 detainees remain at Guantánamo Bay. The majority are in indefinite detention without charge or trial. Those who have been charged face unfair trial by military commission and some can face the death penalty if convicted. The government claims that even those found not guilty can be returned to indefinite detention. There has been essentially no accountability or redress for the human rights violations to which they and other detainees have been subjected.

Human rights concerns in Guantánamo Bay remain an unfinished story. How long before the US government closes the book on Guantánamo and meets its human rights obligations?

Signing this petition is the very least and perhaps the very most we can do.

Dear President Obama:

We call on the United States President Barack Obama to address the detentions at Guantánamo Bay as a human rights issue that requires urgent attention.

Guantánamo detainees should either be charged and prosecuted in fair trials or released to countries that will respect their human rights, including into the USA if that is the only available option;

The US military commissions, which do not meet international fair trial standards, should be abandoned, as should any pursuit of the death penalty;

Former or current US officials responsible for human rights violations must be held to account, including in respect of crimes under international law such as torture and enforced disappearance by bringing them to justice. Victims of human rights violations must be provided genuine access to effective remedy;

The USA must recognize the applicability of, and fully respect international human rights law, when conducting counterterrorism operations, including detentions in Guantánamo, detention facilities at Bagram in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Sign here.

bradley manning support network is asking for our help

2012-01-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

If you're interested in taking part in some activism against the US military and in support of Bradley Manning - without leaving the comfort of home - go here as soon as possible.

The Bradley Manning Support Network is trying to get one of most egregious charges against Manning, "Aiding the Enemy," dropped. It may not work, but it will remind his jailers that the world is watching.

This is a few days old but it's still needed. Go here for details and see comments for more phone numbers.

matthis chiroux: urination video "synonymous with our experiences within a military at war"

2012-01-20T15:30:00.004-05:00

Matthis Chiroux, veteran and war resister, on the "urination video" and similar war porn:

To some, mostly the weavers and backers of war policy, it seems again that ‘a few bad apples’ have acted on their own within the military, and will be brought to justice in accordance with domestic military law.

To others, such as myself and the majority of veterans I associate with, the barbarity of these images is synonymous with our experiences within a military at war. No crime our brothers and sisters commit really surprises us anymore, but confirms to us our nation’s brutal history, of which for a time we became a part, and offers us a reminder that nothing’s really changed.

Read it here: Is US Military Addicted to War Porn?

shit new yorkers say

2012-01-20T11:30:00.001-05:00

I love this town!

@talabobala

2012-01-20T08:10:00.001-05:00

This seems like a good time to mention: Tala is now on Twitter. She saw Pooh Bear was doing it and she wanted in.

Because Tala's mommy needs new ways to waste time.

another victory: historic reduction in unnecessary animal testing in europe

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

From HSI Canada:

Humane Society International has just secured the biggest reduction in animal testing requirements in history!

Our science team has been hard at work for more than two years, negotiating with companies, government authorities and elected officials in Brussels for major changes to European testing requirements for pesticides and biocides -- among the most heavily animal-tested products in existence.

And what we've achieved is unprecedented.

Until now, dozens of different animal-poisoning tests have been required by law before a pesticide is approved for sale. In some cases, more than 13,000 animals are killed for a single new pesticide ingredient.

But together, we’ve made great strides toward convincing European authorities to say goodbye to outdated animal tests and to take up the very latest animal replacement and reduction alternatives. Going forward:

• Twelve-month dog-poisoning studies: gone.

• Lethal dose skin, inhalation and injection tests on rabbits and other animals: on the way out, no longer an absolute requirement.

• We've just secured the first-ever legal acceptance of alternative test methods and strategies that reduce animal use by 40 to 70 percent.

And that's just the beginning. Next up? After this enormous victory for animals and humane science in Europe, we’re moving into the world’s other major pesticide markets -- the United States, Canada, India and Brazil -- to make sure animals everywhere benefit from these advances.

Que brava!

ten reasons i like being a library page

2012-01-19T16:30:00.004-05:00

I needed to get a job as a library page in order to be "in the system" at the Mississauga Library. Job openings rarely, if ever, go external. Since after I earn my degree, I want to work as a librarian in Mississauga, and I was advised by several people that a page job is the way in. So this was a career move, a necessity. I never imagined I would love the job - but I do!

As I've mentioned, I work in the Children's Department of the Central Library, a large, vibrant room with programs, games, computers, reference material, and books galore for kids up to about age 12 and their caregivers. Last night while I was shelving books, I made a mental list of why I'm enjoying the job so much. Here are 10 reasons I love being a children's library page.

1. Kids who love to read and are excited about books.

2. Parents and grandparents who care enough to take their kids to the library, and understand the value of reading.

3. Families who spend the evening at the library instead of watching TV, or who spend part of a day-off at the library.

4. People of diverse backgrounds sharing and enjoying a space together - kids playing together, parents shooting the breeze.

5. Literacy volunteers of all ages working with students of all ages. Adults using children's books to work on ESL skills.

6. Brief, pleasant interactions with children. When a little kid has a nasty meltdown, it's someone else's problem.

7. Eavesdropping on tweens and teens while I sort books.

8. I'm a union member!

9. Friendly, helpful co-workers who have made me feel welcome.

10. Surveys of new library users show that biggest predictor of whether or not people return to the library is the quality of their interactions with staff. I would like people who use the library to encounter friendly, knowledgeable, caring staff, so they feel good about the library. In a small way, I'm now a part of that.

sweet victories! ford budget defeated, tarsands pipeline dead for now

2012-01-18T16:00:00.003-05:00

If Rob Ford and Stephen Harper are both unhappy, this must be a good day!

Yesterday the voices of reason on the Toronto City Council united to defeat Rob Ford's most dangerous budget cuts. There will still be cutbacks, and layoffs, and there is still a fight. But note this:

Public sentiment was key to moving some councillors behind Colle’s motion. Thousands of emails clogged their inboxes, almost 13,000 Torontonians filled out surveys on which services they cherish and hundreds of people made deputations to various committee meanings, including two that went all night.

And today President Obama has denied the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, effectively killing the pipeline for now. Keystone can reapply for another permit, but it will be an uphill battle. Stephen Harper has already expressed his "profound disappointment," so we know it's good news!

Obama covered his tracks by blaming Republicans for an arbitrary deadline, but the real credit goes to massive numbers of people speaking out and protesting during an election year.

Keep on making noise!

have you used wikipedia today?

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

What's going on

SOPA

Why it's wrong

rally for toronto! today in nathan phillips square

2012-01-17T07:00:00.005-05:00

Rob Ford might be losing weight, but Toronto is losing vital public services and good jobs - if the mayor and his friends on City Council have their way.

If you live, work, or go to school in Toronto, come out to defend your city.

WHEN: Tuesday, January 17, 5:30 pm

WHERE: Toronto City Hall, Nathan Phillips Square

WHY: Toronto is a vibrant, liveable city and we want it to stay that way

things i heard at the library: an occasional series: # 2

2012-01-16T08:30:00.000-05:00

Girl, whispering so quietly I could barely hear her: Excuse me. Um, do you work here? Um... um... do you know where I can find books about diaries of wimpy kids?

Ten minutes later, a boy: Do you have Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

Not five minutes after that, another boy: Do you have any Diary of a Wimpy Kid books?

Within 15 minutes, five kids asked me about Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They had all just seen the movie, although I'm not sure where. The Mississauga Central Library shows free movies every Thursday night, but that wasn't it. Maybe in school? Anyway, there was a huge run on Wimpy Kid. Several kids were re-directed to Dork Diaries.

* * * *

Here's something I saw at the library. Shelving books about Machu Picchu, I stumbled on a title about MRTA, also known as Shining Path. Surprised, I looked through it and discovered it was part of a series called "Inside The World's Most Infamous Terrorist Organizations", put out by Rosen Publishing. I wrote a few titles for Rosen many years back, so the name jumped out at me.

The list of "most infamous terrorist organizations" included Al-Queda (of course), Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA, MRTA, the ETA, and a few others. It did not, however, include the governments of the United States and Israel.

I found the concept of the series very disturbing. To the publisher's credit, the book did give a political context, explaining in simple terms some of the issues that gave rise to the group. The conclusion raised the idea that certain reforms might not have happened if the group had not focused attention on the issues. It didn't look like the organization was portrayed as a bunch of insane, bloodthirsty monsters, and it did refer to violence from other sources.

But... terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. A political group may use many means to attempt to achieve its goals. Violence may be one of them. Does that make it a terrorist organization? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

How about an organization that goes into a residential area, uses explosives to blow the door off a home, holds a family at gunpoint, ransacks the home, abducts any male in the home over a certain height, cuffs the man or boy's hands behind his back, puts a hood over his head, and takes the man or boy away, never to be heard from again? And this organization does this night after night, home after home.

This organization forces residents to pass through a series of checkpoints as they go about their daily lives. It declares curfews and lock-downs, then shoots on sight anyone who defies or misinterprets their orders, which are issued in a language the residents do not understand.

This organization uses chemical weapons against this civilian population, weapons declared illegal by all international bodies. It bombs towns and cities so that its own members may encounter less resistance when they loot, pillage, and abduct.

This organization detains hundreds, thousands of people and subjects them to the most heinous of tortures.

Is this a terrorist organization? Or just the government of the country in which these books are published?

Naturally, I am quite aware that no American or Canadian publisher would put out a book for young readers detailing the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the United States government. I am merely noting the early political indoctrination of all young people, and the points of view that many of us have unlearned.

* * * *

I saw another book with a tragic omission. In a series about cities, a book about Boston said that the Red Sox had not won a championship since 1918! Get that book off the shelf!

the perfect is the enemy and other thoughts on writing

2012-01-16T07:00:00.002-05:00

I have a little meta-reflection on writing my recent post about the walled-off internet. These thoughts are not specific to the topic; it could have been anything. As it happens, writing that post brought up some truisms about the writing process - one negative and one positive. Perhaps they are familiar to you.

The first is that old bugaboo that haunts many a creative effort: The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good. In this case a related pitfall was also at work: There's No Such Thing as Definitive.

I had wanted to write this post for months. I keep a short list of topics I'm trying to get to, and some ideas will stay on the list for weeks or months, especially if they're not timely or pegged to an event. This idea - called "walled-off internet" on my scraps of paper - stayed on the list for ages. The longer it sat there, the more difficult it became to write.

I started to feel as if I had to gather every scrap of evidence, research every corner, become a minor expert on the topic, before I could write. (Definitive.) And the post had to be an Important Post, a Best-Of Post, it had to be Great. (Perfect.)

That's a big mountain to climb. For such a project, I would need a massive block of uninterrupted time, I would need to feel on top of my game, I would need... all kinds of things that I don't have. I'm not ready to tackle such an undertaking!

So the item sat on the list, unwritten.

This was happening subtly, subconsciously. That's how our creative processes begin, I believe. Discovering them, digging them up and bringing them to the surface, we begin to understand them and work with them, instead of letting them control us.

The second, happier writing truth that I encountered was something I call The More You Write, The More You Write. (When I say truism and writing truth, I'm referring to my own experience. I know these feelings are familiar to many people trying to do anything creative, but I'm not implying they're universal.)

As "walled-off internet" mouldered on my topics list through the fall semester, eventually I decided I'd write it over my winter break. That offered an escape from the Perfect and Definitive traps. I told myself, I don't have time to write such a massive post during the school term. I'll put it on the winter-break list.

Then winter break came, and I was busier than I wanted to be - new library job, getting ready for Quebec trip, long list of errands and appointments - but also tired, a bit burnt out. I just couldn't get my mind in gear to write. I was totally unmotivated. All I could do was look at those two topics (there's another one!) on that list and wonder when the hell I'd ever write them.

Then school started. Now I'm busier, but my brain is re-engaged. I'm thinking and writing for school. And lo and behold, suddenly I am motivated to write - not just for school, but for myself, for wmtc. Because... The More You Write, The More You Write. Writing primes the pump for more writing.

In the great musical "A Chorus Line," which deals with the struggle for artistic success and recognition, there's a line, "I'm a dancer, a dancer dances". It's a simple lyric, but loaded with meaning. The singer - not a star, just one of the legions trying to get any dancing job - is asserting her identity, and equating her identity with this creative act. She sings, "All I ever needed is the music and the mirror" - because to be a dancer, to claim this identity, she doesn't need fame or even a job, she needs only to dance. The more she dances, the more she is a dancer... and a dancer dances.

a quick lesson on the affects of religion on longevity

2012-01-15T11:00:00.002-05:00

It has come to my attention that certain fundamental religious people believe that the death of Christopher Hitchens, who had advanced cancer, vindicates their beliefs and proves that Hitchens' atheism was wrong.

This is quite strange, and quite hilarious, and also quite wrong. Let's review.

What happens to atheists with advanced, terminal cancer? They die.

What happens to religious people with advanced, terminal cancer? They die.

What happens to all people, always? They die.

I hope this has cleared things up for you.

the walled-off internet, or why facebook and mobile apps are good for them and bad for us

2012-01-15T10:00:00.005-05:00

Last summer, Allan and I had plans to meet a friend for dinner, and I Googled the restaurant to get the address and details. The place came up in Google right away, but I couldn't get to the website. After trying a few times, I realized the restaurant no longer had a website: it only had a Facebook page. I was at work, and can't access Facebook from my workplace.

This was the first time I had seen a company abandon a website in favour of a Facebook page. Since then, I've run into it a handful of times, especially with individual people's public pages. Where various people - writers, designers, techies, small business owners - would have once had a website where people could browse samples of their work and get general contact information, many have now moved to Facebook-only.

This is heading in exactly the wrong direction.

I understand why companies want to be on Facebook; that's a no-brainer. So many people use Facebook that tapping into it as a marketing tool is now the expected norm. But why Facebook only? Website development has never been easier or cheaper. You can use blog software, for example, to create a website with at least as many functions as a Facebook page, if not more. So why put your company behind an access wall?

Facebook is a gated community

The internet is a huge, sprawling, interconnected, free-for-all that anyone with any kind of device can access.

Facebook is a privately-owned, proprietary service. You must submit your personal information in order to enter it. It is not accessible on every device and in every setting.

The internet is a vibrant megalopolis, a global village in which instant transit is a mere click.

Facebook is a gated community.

Using Facebook as a substitute for websites creates a walled-off internet. This is great for Facebook, but bad for the rest of us, and very bad for the internet.

The first time I heard someone say "Facebook is not the internet," Impudent Strumpet was asking, "Do people actually use Facebook as a substitute for the Internet as a whole?" I could scarcely believe it. When I first got online in the mid-late-90s, many people used AOL as a gateway - and worse - didn't seem to realize they were doing so, and didn't know they didn't need to. A quick search for "Facebook is not the internet" and "walled-off internet" reveals that many people are using those antiquated methods again, this time with Facebook - which is bigger and more powerful (if not financially, than by any other metric) than AOL ever was.

Similarly, the first time someone sent me a message through Facebook instead of emailing, I was appalled. Why elevate this one social media, this one proprietary service, to the status of email, a communication form that is ubiquitous and necessary for daily life? Why force people to hand over their personal information in order to communicate with you? And why trust your personal conversations to a company who is known to steal and keep your information? I vowed never to use Facebook as email... until the first time I had no choice, because the only way to reach that person was through Facebook.

I'm guessing that many people who use Facebook as an email substitute don't recognize the difference between the two. Email is accessible anywhere. You can save your email offline for reference and documentation. You can email anonymously. There are privacy issues, of course, it's not a wholly secure system - but those privacy issues are an eyedropper in an ocean compared to the privacy issues on Facebook.

Apps are information silos

The rapid proliferation of mobile apps is also a movement in the wrong direction. Apps are information silos. The company that owns the app controls the information you access and how you access it. In the case of iPhone-only apps, they also control whether or not you can access them at all. Don't have an iPhone? Too bad, you can't get here. If enough information and functionality gets hidden behind iPhone apps, then increasing numbers of people will buy iPhones - and increasing numbers of people will be left out. Great for Apple Inc., not great for the internet.

When I first started using a handheld device, the HP iPAQ I used to gush over in these pages, the best websites had mobile versions. These sites recognized that you were using a mini-browser, so to speak, and automatically switched to the "m" version. You don't need the CBC News App to access CBC on your smartphone. CBC has a mobile website that works perfectly well. But CBC's television ads tout their app as "the only news app you'll ever need". That's precisely the point. Want to see news? Tap on your CBC app, your New York Times app, your Corporate Media app. Leave the interconnectivity of internet, come to a silo, with our information, our ads, and our point of view.

The alternative to Facebook and mobile apps is not a pure, ideal world where everything is free and your privacy is always assured. I'm aware that the free platform I'm using to write this blog is owned by an enormous information corporation whose privacy practices are not always stellar. But it's not my only option. There are alternative applications that serve the exact same purpose, and will produce the same results. This blog is free for anyone, anywhere, on any device. You don't have to buy a special device, or join Blogger, or register your personal data to access it. If I wanted to limit the readership of this blog to people of my own choosing, I could do that, too - without forcing friends of wmtc to shed their anonymity and submit personal data to a private company.

I'd like to think the Facebook phenomenon has crested and is beginning its downward slope, joining MySpace, LiveJournal, and all the other ghosts of internet past. But zillions of people (especially an older demographic) are only now joining Facebook, and zillions more (especially a younger demographic) are increasingly choosing to be dependent on Facebook for communication and information. They are not actually dependent on Facebook. I say "choosing to be dependent," to emphasize that it is a choice. A bad one.

Further reading

Facebook is not the Internet, an old-school site listing many reasons to give up your Facebook addiction or be glad you never developed one.

Facebook Is Not The Internet, an excellent post on why using a Facebook page instead of a website is bad business. "We need to stop this trend of Facebook getting more attention that personal domains...and it all starts with you."

Facebook is the Internet, right? "But when the main reason people are going to google.com is to search for facebook.com it has me a little worried."

One of the architects of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, in arguing for net neutrality and open standards, argues against information silos and information giants.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster and others typically provide value by capturing information as you enter it: your birthday, your e-mail address, your likes, and links indicating who is friends with whom and who is in which photograph. The sites assemble these bits of data into brilliant databases and reuse the information to provide value-added service—but only within their sites. Once you enter your data into one of these services, you cannot easily use them on another site. Each site is a silo, walled off from the others. Yes, your site’s pages are on the Web, but your data are not. You can access a Web page about a list of people you have created in one site, but you cannot send that list, or items from it, to another site.

The isolation occurs because each piece of information does not have a URI. Connections among data exist only within a site. So the more you enter, the more you become locked in. Your social-networking site becomes a central platform —a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it. The more this kind of architecture gains widespread use, the more the Web becomes fragmented, and the less we enjoy a single, universal information space.

A related danger is that one social-networking site — or one search engine or one browser — gets so big that it becomes a monopoly, which tends to limit innovation. As has been the case since the Web began, continued grassroots innovation may be the best check and balance against any one company or government that tries to undermine universality. GnuSocial and Diaspora are projects on the Web that allow anyone to create their own social network from their own server, connecting to anyone on any other site. The Status.net project, which runs sites such as identi.ca, allows you to operate your own Twitter-like network without the Twitter-like centralization.

Time to Reject Content App Silos: an iPhone-user explains "What's Wrong with Apps" and why "The Web's Where It's At".

Imp Strump again: Is Web 2.0 making information less accessible?

caterpillar is bulldozing canadian workers. workers are fighting back.

2012-01-13T08:30:00.000-05:00

"So long, good Canadian jobs!"

Electro-Motive, a subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc., a huge US company, has locked out 465 workers from its London, Ontario plant. The company has offered a take-it-or-leave-it contract that includes a pay cut of more than 50 percent: from a good middle-class wage of $35 per hour to a substandard $16.50 per hour. The new contract would also devastate benefits and pensions - while the company has reaped billions in profit and a 20 percent increase in production over the past year.

And what a surprise, the company has connections to the Harper Government^TM.

“This is a dispute between a private company and the union and we don't comment on the actions of private companies,” Harper spokesman Carl Vallée responded Wednesday in an email.

The Prime Minister showed no such reticence on Mar. 19, 2008 when he visited the Electro-Motive plant to showcase a $5-million federal tax break for buyers of the diesel locomotive-maker's wares and a wider $1-billion tax break on industrial capital investment.

“The Prime Minister's [2008] announcement related to the government's tax policies for all companies,” Mr. Vallée said in the email. “A low tax environment is the best way to ensure job creators come to Canada and stay in Canada, as proven by the nearly 600,000 jobs created in Canada since July 2009.”

A spokeswoman for Labour Minister Lisa Raitt repeated the same talking points in an emailed response.

When it was pointed out that Ms. Raitt aggressively intervened when privately-owned Air Canada was at war with its unionized workers last year, Ashley Kelahear responded that the Electro-Motive dispute “is in fact a matter of provincial jurisdiction.”

Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers, which represents the unionized Electro-Motive employees, said the Prime Minister has a duty to make his views known.

Mr. Lewenza, fresh from a visit to the picket line at the London plant, said retirees and other workers there recounted Harper's 2008 visit.

“Mr. Harper went around, shook workers' hands and indicated to workers that they had a great future as a result of his announcement,” the union chief said in an interview.

“For him to pass this on as a bargaining dispute between the employer and the union is ridiculous. How do you hand a [corporate] partner a nice big cheque and then say, by the way, there's no ground rules relative to the cheque.”

Questioning unions has become a staple of the Conservative party's fundraising pitches over the past year and Mr. Lewenza wondered aloud whether Ms. Raitt and Mr. Harper would remain quiet had the CAW demanded a 50 per cent share of all Electro-Motive profits at the bargaining table.

“The prime minister of Canada and the minister of labour would very easily denounce that kind of aggressiveness of the union,” the CAW president said.

“For him not to stand up when the role is reversed, quite frankly, is abandoning Canadian workers – and I don't care if it's unionized or unorganized.”

Mr. Lewenza says Caterpillar's lead negotiator, with 37 years at bargaining talks, conceded he had never before proposed such dramatic cuts – nor ever heard of similar demands being made elsewhere.

“This is unprecedented in every way,” Mr. Lewenza said, “and admitted so by Caterpillar themselves.”

Lewenza is right. It doesn't matter if you're union or non-union, private sector or public. Workers are under attack everywhere, in all industries, all over the country and all over the globe. Employers are collaborating to strip workers of salary, benefits, pensions and rights. The only way to fight it - the only chance, the only hope - is to unite, to use our collective power to push back.

I'm sure that right now, in the comments sections of news stories on all the Canadian media websites, people are trashing Caterpillar workers, calling them greedy and claiming that in today's economy, no one can expect to earn the princely sum of $35 an hour. But unless those people are paid government operatives, they are arguing against their own interests. It doesn't matter if you have a job that pays a good middle-class wage of $35 an hour; it's still in your interests that those jobs exist. Good union jobs set the standard for all workplaces. Without those jobs, it's a race to the bottom. Why do you think corporations (and the governments who support them) are so interested in breaking unions?

This isn't about union vs non-union. This is about job standards plummeting - about our ability to lead decent lives. Could you afford a 55 percent pay cut? Could you continue to pay your mortgage or your rent and still feed yourself and your family? Do you want to work simply to scrape by, always anxious about paying bills, trying to figure out how to stretch your budget to your next paycheque? Or do you want a life that includes a bit of leisure time, a decent holiday, the ability to, say, give your kids piano lessons or skate time or an Xbox?

Our standard of living is falling. But this isn't gravity at work. This is not something natural and inevitable. This is an organized assault on workers, as corporations try to maximize profits by cutting labour costs. It's not the workers who are greedy!

The labour movement is coming together to fight back. The Ontario Federation of Labour is calling on members from all unions and all sectors to rally in London on Saturday, January 21. You can join them. It doesn't matter if you have the good fortune to work in a unionized environment: this still affects you and you can join the fight to stop it.

From Sid Ryan, President of the OFL:

This is pivotal moment in the history of labour! Employers of all types in the public and private sectors are collaborating in an aggressive assault on decent paying jobs, good benefits and retirement security. The consequences could mean the destruction of the middle class and a ballooning of the working poor. Everywhere we turn, employers are seeking major concessions from dedicated workers that are designed to convert good jobs into precarious and temporary ones. The same issues have recurred again and again over the past two years at U.S. Steel, ECP, Vale Inco, Canada Post, Air Canada, and even the City of Toronto. There is no doubt that greedy foreign-owned companies like Electro-Motive/Caterpillar and others are attempting to set a precedent by exploiting Canada’s lax labour laws and shameful domestic investment protections to break unions and usher in a new era of precarious work and record corporate profits.

If you want to join the rally on January 21 but are not a union member, email me for ideas. Buses will be leaving from all over Ontario and you can be on one.

the joy of books, long may they dance

2012-01-11T16:30:00.000-05:00

Found on G+, thanks to S.

songs from beyond the grave (a list in progress)

2012-01-11T13:00:00.001-05:00

I was driving around Mississauga listening to Bob Dylan's Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue, a great live album, when I realized that the narrator of "Romance In Durango" dies at the end of the song. Or does he?

The song seems to fall into a small subcategory of ballads - story-songs, not slow songs by rock bands - sung in the first person, and when the story ends, the narrator dies. It turns out he's been singing the song from beyond the grave.

The most famous song like this must be "El Paso," written and originally recorded by country-western singer Marty Robbins. I heard this song a lot as a child, and like most songs I learned at a young age, some of the lyrics are locked in my head, especially the famous opening lines.

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
I fell in love with a Mexican girl
Night-time would find me in Rosa's cantina
Music would play and Felina would whirl

So listening to one of Dylan's stories of the old West and lovers riding on horseback, I suddenly realized: wait, does the narrator of "Durango" die?? I think he does.

Was that the thunder that I heard
My head is vibrating, I feel a sharp pain
Come sit by me don't say a word
Oh can it be that I am slain?

Quick, Magdalena, take my gun
Look up in the hills that flash of light
Aim well my little one
We may not make it through the night

I've been trying to find more of these songs. They must be out there. I found lists of "dead teen" songs and there are plenty of murder ballads, but no "dead narrator" songs.

Then driving home from Vermont the other day, we were listening to a Neil Young live CD, and Allan and I both realized at the same time that we were hearing another one - one of my favourite Neil Young tunes, "Powderfinger". The crazy thing is, I've been misinterpreting this song all these years. I always heard the story as the narrator shooting up the ship, crossing the line where he has now killed a man. I now realize that the narrator is killed, possibly before he can even squeeze a shot out of his daddy's rifle. (I thought his "face flashed in the sky," but no... it's "then I saw black, and my face splashed in the sky".)

It's that one guitar line that makes this song so memorable. I love the line, "I don't think they're here to deliver... the mail."

Then I thought I came up with one other song where the narrator is dead and singing from beyond the grave: "Tell Laura I Love Her". But according to these lyrics, the dude killed in the car crash is not telling the story; a narrator is relating Johnny's last words after the fatal wreck.

No one knows what happened that day
Or how his car overturned in flames
But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck
With his dying breath, they heard him say

Tell Laura I love her
Tell Laura I need her
Tell Laura not to cry
My love for her will never die

If anyone knows any other songs where the narrator turns out to be dead, please list them here!

odds, ends, and i-school

2012-01-11T11:00:00.003-05:00

Shorter wmtc: Quebec in winter: the weather is cold, the people are warm, the food is good. I loved all of it, and I especially loved traveling with my sweetie.

Driving home, we were on smaller country routes in Vermont and New York State for a good two hours before crossing into Ontario and hitting the 401. That was a nice change. We passed through some Mohawk territory, in the region of New York known as the North Country, near Massena and the Thousand Islands.

A cool sign on the side of a building: "DICK'S COUNTRY STORE AND MUSIC OASIS - Groceries - Gas - Guns - Guitars." Next time we pass that place, we'll stop in. One bad sign in front of a roadhouse: "BURGER'S AND FRIES". Not frie's, however. Just winging it, I guess.

* * * *

Emailing with friend and commenter Amy, I realized that I may sometimes give mistaken impressions about my travels.

I've kept a travel journal for every trip I've taken since 1982, when NN and I traveled through Europe together, my first trip abroad. When Allan and I went to Peru in 2006, I started to put my travel journals online, and I decided to stick (as closely as possible) to the same style I had always used. I like to capture as much detail as I can. That's why my blog entries from travel include details of annoyances or less-than-perfect experiences. It's part of the adventure.

Long ago, I learned that the key to successful travel, for me, is recognizing that there will always be things I can't do. Sites that are closed, or out of season, or under renovation, or too far away, or requiring more time than is available. I figure, you can never do everything, so just do what you do, enjoy what you can, and take the rest in stride. When I'm traveling, I am rarely disappointed. I just go with the flow.

* * * *

Classes have begun, and my expectations are low.

The Master of Information program at the iSchool includes four "core" courses, separate from required courses for your major or path. (Paths are, for example, library science, archives, records managements, knowledge media design.) The core courses fall under the general category of Information and Society. There is widespread agreement that four is way too many; the course material is highly redundant, and the workload is far too strenuous. In addition, because these courses are required for all students, they are taught in one large lecture, plus smaller section classes - an annoying and time-consuming format. From what I hear, it seems likely that the core curriculum will be redesigned, and perhaps condensed into two courses. But meanwhile, I've got to go through all four.

The first two core courses are prerequisites for nearly everything, and everyone takes them in their first term of school. And now, this term, I will finally complete the other two.

One is a philosophy course: Representation, Organization, Classification and Meaning-Making, always referred to as ROCM, pronounced Rock-Em. I have never heard one positive word about this course. It appears to be universally hated. Yesterday I attended the initial lecture, which was somewhat interesting, but I still dread it. One good thing: the lectures are videotaped and put online, so I will never attend another lecture in person. One bad thing: I still have to attend the smaller section class. If it proves useless, I won't make too many appearances.

The final core course used to be yet another lecture combining material from the other three core courses, but during my first term, there was a student revolt. School leadership, to their credit, scrambled to adjust the curriculum. Now instead of a fourth core lecture, there are two "information workshops," short courses in which students participate in ongoing iSchool research.

My information workshop this term is "The Architectures of the Book," which places digital books in the context of the history of the book.

ArchBook is an online, open-access reference resource composed of richly illustrated articles about specific design features in the history of the book. Unlike traditional historical studies of books and reading, a typical ArchBook entry will follow a specific textual feature through its development across historical periods, with an eye to the continuities and discontinuities the feature might have with digital reading environments. At present there is no online scholarly resource that tells the story of books and reading in the form of a reference resource, with a comprehensive scope and trans-historical perspective, and with a focus on informing digital design. ArchBook seeks to fill that gap. Our goal is to make the diverse history of the book (especially the under-appreciated parts of that history) available to students, researchers, and the public.

The second information workshop I'm taking is on children's digital games. Both these half-courses are organized around one group project that fits into the ongoing research.

I'm already counting weeks.

the iron lady was an enemy of the people and should not be celebrated as a hero

2012-01-10T14:00:00.007-05:00

This week, the movie "The Iron Lady" opens, a big-budget biopic starring Meryl Streep as former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. No technical or directorial skills, nor the inevitable genius of Streep's performance, could justify my seeing this movie. Its very existence as a myth-making celebration of a dangerous, war-mongering, ideologue is anathema to me.

Margaret Thatcher destroyed the public sector in the United Kingdom, privatising and deregulating transportation, energy, housing, banking, and other major sectors. She gutted the national healthcare system and public education. She broke unions, because working people were not important to her scheme, but the creation of a millionaire class was.

Thatcher engineered a huge transfer of wealth from the public to the private sector, creating income inequality unprecedented in UK history to that point. She created unemployment, poverty, and despair.

Thatcher destroyed industry and heavy manufacturing while privileging the banking and financial sector. Her policies did not create prosperity: they inflated property values and a small wedge of private wealth.

Then she started a war to distract an uninformed public from the economic chaos she had created and to secure her continued reign. That bears repeating. She started a war for cynical, political purposes. People died, and killed, and were maimed, and left homeless, because it was convenient and useful for her and her financial backers. Think about that before you celebrate this Iron Lady.

I suppose one could say, "It's only a movie. It's not important." Can we live in our media-saturated, truth-challenged world and casually dismiss a major movie as unimportant? This is how myths are created and propagated.

When the war-loving, torture-defending writer Christopher Hitchens died recently, Glenn Greenwald wrote about "the protocol for public figure deaths", and how our cultural taboo against "speaking ill of the dead" has altered the public conception of several people. The example Greenwald looks at most closely is that of Ronald Reagan. After describing the unrelenting, gushing media worship of Reagan during the week following his death, Greenwald notes the effect of that lovefest.

The key claim there was that “politics is put aside.” That’s precisely what did not happen. The entire spectacle was political to its core. Following Woodruff’s proclamation were funeral speeches, all broadcast by CNN, by then-House Speaker Denny Hastert and Vice President Dick Cheney hailing the former President for gifting the nation with peace and prosperity, rejuvenating national greatness, and winning the Cold War. This scene repeated itself over and over during that week: extremely politicized tributes to the greatness of Ronald Reagan continuously broadcast to the nation without challenge and endorsed by its “neutral” media — all shielded from refutation or balance by the grief of a widow and social mores that bar one from speaking ill of the dead.

That week forever changed how Ronald Reagan — and his conservative ideology — were perceived. As Gallup put it in 2004: Reagan had, at best, “routinely average ratings . . . while he served in office between 1981 and 1989.” Indeed, “the two presidents who followed Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, each had higher average ratings than Reagan, as did three earlier presidents — Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower.”

Though he became more popular after leaving office (like most Presidents), it was that week-long bombardment of hagiography that sealed Reagan’s status as Great and Cherished Leader. As media and political figures lavished him with politicized praise, there was virtually no mention of the brutal, civilian-extinguishing covert wars he waged in Central America, his funding of terrorists in Nicaragua, the pervasive illegality of the Iran-contra scandal perpetrated by his top aides and possibly himself, the explosion of wealth and income inequality ushered in by “Reagonmics” which persists today, his escalation of the racially disparate Drug War, his slashing of domestic programs for the poor accompanied by a deficit-causing build-up in the military budget, the racially-tinged (at least) attacks on welfare-queens-in-Cadillacs, the Savings & Loan crisis resulting from deregulation, his refusal even to acknowledge AIDS as tens of thousands of the Wrong People died, the training of Muslim radicals in Afghanistan and arming of the Iranian regime, the attempt to appoint the radical Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, or virtually anything else that would undermine the canonization. The country was drowned by a full, uninterrupted week of pure, leader-reverent propaganda.

Then there's the gender card. Some people will claim that Thatcher is worthy of celebration because she was the UK's first female Prime Minister, and succeeded as a woman in a relentlessly male world. As a feminist and a socialist, and a person of peace and conscience, I conclude that that alone does not a hero make. Hundreds, thousands, millions of women, both famous and unknown, have had to push themselves into previously all-male domains. They have had to be smarter, stronger, and tougher than their male counterparts in order to succeed. Margaret Thatcher tread a path beaten by Nancy Astor, Constance Markievicz, and countless anonymous women, whether they succeeded or tried and failed. The mere fact of a woman's trailblazing should not be enough to win our praise and admiration. In fact, that's a sexist conceit, setting the bar far too low. Our admiration should be reserved for people who contribute positively to society, not the reverse.

Perhaps you have heard that Thatcher only did what was necessary, that she fed the UK the "bad medicine" it needed. It's not so. Start with this: Neil Clark: Don't believe the myth. Margaret Thatcher ruined egalitarian 1970s Britain.

Here's an excellent piece from a Brit, Harry Paterson, anticipating the reaction when Thatcher dies: The Best Way To Deal With Margaret Thatcher’s Legacy Is To Destroy It.

more montreal, vermont, and homeward bound

2012-01-08T22:00:00.002-05:00

Our second full day in Montreal was simply lovely. In the morning we headed up to the Marché Jean-Talon, the largest of Montreal's four public markets. I felt as if we had wandered into Europe. The gorgeous produce carefully displayed, the charcuteries, the boulangeries, patisseries. Snack bars selling cassoulet, pasties and tartes aux pommes. Almost all the stands offered samples - of tomatoes, mangoes, oranges, cucumbers - all kinds of produce. (Where were those tomatoes from? They were explosively delicious.) I love markets. All the colours, textures, sounds - I really find them so sensual and enticing. In summer, Jean-Talon has outdoor stalls as well, and although the indoor market wasn't huge, it was great.

After the market, we went back on the subway and found Schwartz's the famous "charcuterie Hebraique", or Hebrew deli, as it is called. After a short wait (apparently there is always a line at Schwartz's), we were seated at a table with a group of foodies from Toronto. So it's true what we've heard: smoked meat is delicious. Smoky, salty, flavourful, it falls apart in your mouth. I've heard people say it's pastrami, but it's not. It's related to both pastrami and corned beef, but it's neither of those. You can order it lean, medium or fatty, either on sandwiches on rye with yellow mustard, or on a plate in giant slabs served with a pile of sliced bread.

I was expecting a cavernous restaurant similar to Carnegie Deli or Stage Deli, but Schwartz's is a tiny slice of a restaurant, customers shoehorned into shared tables. It's a relic, and although it's packed with out-of-towners, it's not kitschy - it's the real thing.

After scarfing down our smoked meat sandwiches, we took advantage of our metro day passes and instead of trudging back to the subway in the wet snow, took buses back to the metro stop. The bus drivers were friendly, polite, and bilingual. Are you tired of hearing this? Because this is the standard: friendly, polite, and bilingual.

We took the subway back to Vieux Montreal, and did a bit of a walking tour of the old city. There's some terrific architecture - old bank buildings, early skyscrapers, Notre Dame de Montreal - along with tiny alleys (or laneways), cobblestone streets, and "ghost ads". The storefronts are mostly expensive, chic boutiques, stylish restaurants, and art galleries.

After this, we hung out in our room for a while before heading out for our evening plans. The room is so comfortable and stylish - very conducive to relaxing at home. Eventually we got ourselves together, for a very short drive from Old Montreal to Pointe-St-Charles to visit friends. We don't know these folks very well, but really like them a lot, have very similar worldviews and politics, and have had great times whenever we see them. They now have a three-week-old baby! We ordered Indian food. Fun.

A bit later I will write more about one of these folks, an interesting story. For now, one tidbit: one half of this couple is originally from New York, and is anglophone. He works in IT, and apparently that industry in Montreal is anglophone. But they are both very encouraging of the possibilities to live and work in Montreal with limited French. Not sure if or how that could work for a librarian, but they encourage me to not rule out the possibility.

* * * *

This morning we packed up early and bid a fond farewell to Le Petit Hotel. We drove back to the Plateau, to the Mile End neighbourhood, first to Fairmount Bagels, and then, because there was no traffic, to St. Viateur. This way we were able to get both the onion and garlic varieties, and the bagels Allan preferred, and the lighter, airier St. Viateur bagels that I preferred. We bought several dozen, for Vermont folks, dogsitting friends, and of course for us. We bought a couple of tubs of cream cheese, dunking and dipping our breakfast as we left the city.

Every time I'm in Montreal, I like it more. It's cosmopolitan and sophisticated, but friendly and earthy. People call Toronto the New York of Canada, but Toronto never feels anything like New York to me. Montreal feels like New York - a cross between New York and somewhere in France. C'est bon. C'est très bon.

* * * *

It's about two hours from Montreal to Jeffersonville, Vermont. We had no problem at the border, and by now we've had enough hassle-free crossings that I think our border troubles may be over. We spent a few hours with relatives there - spanning three generations - which was really nice. Great Aunt Betty is recovering from cataract surgery, so we're not staying at her place like we usually would. After a few hours, we headed to a hotel in South Burlington, not far from where Allan lived when we first met. We met our friend Ray (JoSers may know him as accudart) for dinner and drinks, and are now spending one last night in a hotel.

Tomorrow we drive back, and the following day, Tuesday, classes resume. I have a monster week ahead - classes, meetings, and shifts at the library. It's a good thing we miss our dogs so much, or I really wouldn't want to go home.

la belle province... la belle ville

2012-01-06T22:00:00.003-05:00

Montreal bagels! Why oh why did I not know about Montreal bagels all the other times I was in this great city??

* * * *

We had another easy drive from Duchesnay to Montreal. The first part of the trip was beautiful, through snowy woods and farm country, the same scenery we had seen by dogsled the day before.

When we got to our hotel, we were so pleased. The Petit Hotel is terrific! I absolutely recommend this place for urban explorers who appreciate a good hotel. Our room is large and extremely comfortable, with a stylish design and lots of little extras. The staff is very friendly and helpful, and you can't beat the location in Vieux-Montreal.

Instead of offering rooms with different amenities or types of beds, this hotel rates their rooms by size: small, medium, large, and extra large. We took the medium, only $20 more than the small, and it is really lovely. This page has some views of the rooms, with exposed brick walls, splashes of orange and mod design elements.

We walked around the neighbourhood a little bit - way more upscale than the last time we saw it - and chose a place for dinner that sounded like our kind of joint. Once again, it was like going to Paris for dinner - a homey little bistro with simple, classic French food, good, reasonably priced wine, and friendly staff. The kind of restaurant you find all over Paris, and something tells me they're not that rare in Montreal, either. When we finished our excellent meal, two servers brought us shots of grappa, each containing a grappa-soaked grape.

* * * *

This morning we went to Pointe-à-Callière, a museum of the archeology and history of the city of Montreal, built over the original site of the city, steps away from our hotel. We first saw a half-hour multimedia exhibit on the history of Montreal, which I thought was quite well done, then descended into the main exhibit.

Most of the displays are underground, built around the remains of a 400-year-old cemetery, the foundations of the city's first buildings, old sewers and tunnels and such, along with the artifacts that were found there. (Even though it's underground, 90% of is wheelchair-accessible - very nice design.) The museum also has changing temporary exhibits. The current one, about India, looked interesting, but we skipped it.

I really enjoyed this place. I felt like I gained a good, capsule understanding of the origins and historical underpinnings of Montreal - and it made me want to know more, also to its credit.

Next we found the nearest subway stop, Place d'Armes, and spent some time figuring out the transit situation. (I enjoy doing this in whatever city we're in.) After a major subway delay, we went to the Plateau neighbourhood, both to see the area and in search of bagels. We first found Fairmount Bagel. I was pleased to see onion and garlic varieties, a thing of the past. They were excellent - small, crusty, light. Nearly perfect.

Then we walked some more, and found St. Viateur Bagel, not to confused with a store of the same name on the same street. And what can I say, these were the best bagels I've ever had. The best bagels I've ever had! Do you hear me? I'm a native New Yorker, I was raised on bagels and smoked fish, and these were the best bagels I've ever had! We scarfed down one each, then went back for another each. Three bagels in an afternoon, sounds crazy, right? These are about half the size of a New York bagel, with a crunchier, crustier exterior, and perfectly light and airy inside. When we went back for the second bagel, we asked for whatever was warm. This turned out to be sesame, which I generally dislike, but I gobbled it up. It was heavenly.

I told the owner I couldn't believe how good they were. He said, "Where are you from?" I said, "Originally New York..." "Well, it figures." "...Now Toronto." "Even worse! What took you so long?" I don't know what we're doing tomorrow, but I must eat these bagels again before I leave.

Amazingly enough, we left St. Viateur feeling like we should still grab a little something to eat before heading back to spend the evening in the room, as we had planned. The Plateau seemed full of little casual eating places that in New York would be called diners or coffee shops. We chose one - B&M - and ordered tea, cafe au lait and poutine. That seemed reasonable enough, until the friendly server showed up with two tubs of poutine. And it was so good, it was hard to stop eating! Man, are we ever on vacation.

We found our way back to the subway and to our neighbourhood easily enough. On the way back to the hotel, we passed Notre Dame, the rose windows lit in deep blue overlaid with white angels. The Old City was lit everywhere, so beautiful.

* * * *

I love winter. I love being bundled up and walking in the cold, crisp air. But the second I walk inside - a shop, the subway, the hotel room - I am instantly perspiring and so overheated that I feel sick. This can be a problem.

* * * *

Allan noticed an ad on our city map that advertises the observatory of Montreal's Olympic Stadium as "the world's highest inclined tower". This cracked us up. For non-Canadian readers, Canada is a bit mad about The Tallest, The Biggest, The First, The Most. Sometimes the categories are sliced a bit thin in order for Canada to lay claim. The Tallest (freestanding) Tower (that is just a tower, not an inhabited building).

Even a quick glance at the guidebook we're using - Lonely Planet Montreal and Quebec City - reveals: Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, "North America's oldest newspaper"; La Chateau Frontenac, "the most photographed hotel in the world"; Quebec City's Winter Carnival, "the biggest winter carnival in the world"; and L'Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Victories, "the oldest stone church in the USA or Canada".

The world's highest inclined tower?? Come on.

* * * *

Tomorrow we have another full day in Montreal, then dinner with friends, and the following day we head to Vermont. As much as visiting folks in Vermont will be fun, I'd just as soon stay here. And keep staying here.

the canada party: "our oil sands are so dirty, it makes texas look like a greenpeace retreat"

2012-01-05T22:30:00.002-05:00

And while I'm at it, I might as well post this.

And now back to Quebec.

memo to progressives and liberals: ron paul is not your friend

2012-01-05T22:00:00.002-05:00

Can it be? Are progressive people supporting right-wing libertarian Ron Paul for the US Presidency?

In 2008 I wrote on supposedly liberal people supporting hillary clinton. I didn't agree with that choice, but I understood it. This... this is just insane.

So Ron Paul opposes foreign wars and the federal power build-up. Ron Paul also:
- opposes legalized abortion for any and all reasons
- would allow states to regulate abortion, including prosecuting pregnancy terminations as murder
- has signed "the personhood pledge," which would ban many methods of contraception
- opposes all government involvement in healthcare, including any bare-bones safety net (but apparently making abortion illegal is not government interference in health care)
- opposes all government-mandated civil rights legislation, such as laws forbidding businesses to refuse to serve people based on skin colour
- opposes all health and safety regulations of business
- opposes all environmental regulations
- opposes the Americans with Disabilities Act
- opposes public education
- opposes social security of any type

Had enough yet? Katha Pollitt can explain it much better than I can: the "handful of cherries on a blighted tree".

What is it with progressive mancrushes on right-wing Republicans? For years, until he actually got nominated, John McCain was the recipient of lefty smooches equaled only by those bestowed upon Barack Obama before he had to start governing. You might disagree with what McCain stood for, went the argument, but he had integrity, and charisma, and some shiny mavericky positions—on campaign finance reform and gun control and... well, those two anyway.

Now Ron Paul is getting the love. At Truthdig, Robert Scheer calls him “a profound and principled contributor to a much-needed national debate on the limits of federal power.” In The Nation, John Nichols praises his “pure conservatism,” “values” and “principle.” Salon’s Glenn Greenwald is so outraged that progressives haven’t abandoned the warmongering, drone-sending, indefinite-detention-supporting Obama for Paul that he accuses them of supporting the murder of Muslim children. There’s a Paul fan base in the Occupy movement and at Counterpunch, where Alexander Cockburn is a longtime admirer. Paul is a regular guest of Jon Stewart, who has yet to ask him a tough question. And yes, these are all white men; if there are leftish white women and people of color who admire Paul, they’re keeping pretty quiet.

Ron Paul has an advantage over most of his fellow Republicans in having an actual worldview, instead of merely a set of interests—he opposes almost every power the federal government has and almost everything it does. Given Washington’s enormous reach, it stands to reason that progressives would find targets to like in Paul’s wholesale assault. I, too, would love to see the end of the “war on drugs” and our other wars. I, too, am shocked by the curtailment of civil liberties in pursuit of the “war on terror,” most recently the provision in the NDAA permitting the indefinite detention, without charge, of US citizens suspected of involvement in terrorism.

But these are a handful of cherries on a blighted tree. In a Ron Paul America, there would be no environmental protection, no Social Security, no Medicaid or Medicare, no help for the poor, no public education, no civil rights laws, no anti-discrimination law, no Americans With Disabilities Act, no laws ensuring the safety of food or drugs or consumer products, no workers’ rights. How far does Paul take his war against Washington? He wants to abolish the Federal Aviation Authority and its pesky air traffic controllers. He has one magic answer to every problem—including how to land an airplane safely: let the market handle it.

It’s a little strange to see people who inveigh against Obama’s healthcare compromises wave away, as a detail, Paul’s opposition to any government involvement in healthcare. In Ron Paul’s America, if you weren’t prudent enough or wealthy enough to buy private insurance — and the exact policy that covers what’s ailing you now — you find a charity or die. . . .

. . . No wonder they love him over at Stormfront, a white-supremacist website with neo-Nazi tendencies. In a multiple-choice poll of possible effects of a Paul presidency, the most popular answer by far was “Paul will implement reforms that increase liberty which will indirectly benefit White Nationalists.” And let’s not forget his other unsavory fan base, Christian extremists who want to execute gays, adulterers and “insubordinate children.” Paul’s many connections with the Reconstructionist movement, going back decades, are laid out on AlterNet by Adele Stan, who sees him as a faux libertarian whose real agenda is not individualism but to prevent the federal government from restraining the darker impulses at work at the state and local levels. . . .

Supporting Ralph Nader in 2000 was at least a vote for one’s actual politics. Supporting Ron Paul is just a gesture of frivolity — or despair.

I understand that people are desperate and want to believe in some kind of "none of the above" candidate. Supporting Ron Paul may seem like the easy way out of a system that is beyond repair. But if you insist on working within the system, then get down to the hard work of building a true progressive party. There's no shortcut, and if there were, it wouldn't look like Ron Paul.

dogsledding and duchesnay

2012-01-05T10:00:00.049-05:00

We had our third and final awesome breakfast at Chez Hubert, then said goodbye to the Crying (or possibly Laughing) Dresser and hit the road. Station touristique Duchesnay is about a half-hour from Quebec City, outside of Ste-Catherine-des-Jacques-Cartier, on the Lac St.-Joseph. (Place names here are very big on the saints, also on hyphens.) I've finally learned how to pronounce Duchesnay - doo-sh-nay - and I believe "station touristique" means "resort". It's part of Sepaq, the Quebec provincial park system.

We knew Duchesnay from our trip to the Ice Hotel five years ago, and I was really excited to return on this trip. It's such a beautiful place - a great hotel, great food, lots to do (far more than we avail ourselves of) and so scenic. We got settled in our room, had a quick lunch, put on every layer of clothing we brought and headed down to Aventure Inukshuk, the dogsledding (and snowmobiling) outfit.

Last time we were here, in 2007, we did a one-hour dogsled; this year we booked a two-hour trip. As last time, another couple was also on our trip, so there were three sleds - the guide, us in the middle, and the other couple in the rear. (They were from Belgium, and have had several vacations in Canada.)

We started out with Allan driving and me in the sled, and were supposed to switch halfway through. I don't know what happened, but the guide didn't have us stop and switch for a long time. By the time we did, I ended up driving for about one-third of the time Allan did. It was disappointing, but on the other hand, it was also hard work, and my hands and feet were getting cold, and I'm not sure how much more I could have done.

This course was not only longer than the last one we did, it was also more advanced - more hills and turns. Last time, there was very little work to do for the driver, a very introductory course. This time you really had to drive the sled. Allan had a few incidents with the line going slack and a dog getting tangled, and I took a downhill turn too fast and wiped out. After that, I was probably a bit too cautious in applying the brake, but had no further problems with slack lines or scary curves.

In addition to the more difficult and longer course, the weather was considerably colder now than the last time we were here (-3 C last time, -20 C plus windchill this time). Despite two pairs of socks and boots, and glove liners and gloves, my hands and feet were feeling it. The other couple had rented snowmobiling boots from the dogsledding company, which would have been a good idea. So I was sorry not to have my full hour on the sled, but it might be just as well.

After we returned to the kennel, there was the requisite chocolat in the yurt, heated with a wood stove, and a meet-and-greet with some tiny, one-month-old husky puppies. The puppies are so irresistible, and as part of their early education, they are handled by visitors regularly. I felt a bit bad for their mother, who watches helplessly as her pups are lifted off and away, but I know that's part of her life, too.

Aventure Inukshuk has about 100 dogs, each staked out in front of its little wooden house. We'd like to spend more time with them - we'd like to pet and say hi to each and every one - but that's not part of the program. (We did that in Alaska, and had to drag ourselves away.) We also wondered about the dogs living outside in this extreme cold. They have their little houses for wind-break, and I know how dogs curl up to keep warm. And I know that northern breeds (Huskies, Malamutes, Akitas and similar crosses) love the cold and even sleep in the snow. But still... it is so cold here at night, and the wind can be so fierce. It made us a little sad. The dogs are in great shape, though, and seem very happy. When the sleds appear and the guides go into the kennels to choose dogs for the run, the dogs go wild with joy. It's quite a scene - and very loud!

We've now been dogsledding three times, and every time, I love it more. I think the big five-day dogsledding trip into the wilderness that we've dreamed of is probably no longer in our future. (Years ago, we were set to do that in the Minnesota Boundary Waters Area... when we decided to move to Canada, and cancelled the trip.) But hopefully more short trips like this will be.

Back at the room we were wiped out. Every room in the auberge faces the lake, so we have a beautiful view of snow-covered trees and the frozen lake. The auberge itself and all the rooms are beautiful, designed in earth-tones - rustic elegance. After hot showers and possibly a quick nap, we eventually made our way to dinner. The dining room has a huge stone hearth, a two-story ceiling with a big ~~antler~~ wrought-iron chandelier, and sweeping views of the lake. (The chandeliers are reminiscent of antlers, made of wrought-iron.)

The food is excellent (hello, you have left Ontario, we care about food here...). Something must have gone wrong with the kitchen or the wait staff last night, as the service was, shall we say, interesting. Not quite Fawlty Towers, but not what you'd expect, either. No biggie, stuff happens. (I note things like this (cat allergies, etc.) because this blog is also my travel journal, serving to record my experience. When I began putting my travel journals online, I decided not to change what I would normally write.) After dinner, we pretty much collapsed again. But as Allan noted, at least we made it to 10:00.

On the language discussion (continuing in comments on the preceding posts), the staff here - out in the country, no longer in an urban centre - have more limited English, but are equally nice and gracious. The concierge and front-desk staff are fully bilingual and incredibly helpful. Honestly, I'm thinking that the Canadians who warned us about nasty Quebecers have not been here, and are merely repeating what they've heard other people say, confusing rumour for knowledge.

Now for a breakfast buffet overlooking the lake, and on to Montreal.

quebec city, day two, allan and laura, 25 years

2012-01-03T22:00:00.001-05:00

Last night we went out in the neighbourhood of the B&B, in search of a local fast-food chain that mainly serves poutine. We found a Chez Ashton a few blocks away, a brightly lit, bare-bones place with a steady stream of locals scarfing down the smothered fries. Supposedly they also sell hot dogs and roast beef sandwiches, and even a sad-looking salad, but nobody seems to eat anything but poutine. We ordered something called a Dulton avec saucisses, which had meat and sliced hot dogs along with the requisite gravy and curds. It's a complete artery-clogging, blood-pressure-raising special, disgustingly delicious. Immediately afterwards I felt like drinking a litre of cold water to wash down the salt. But it was highly yummy.

We walked around the neighbourhood a bit more, but every establishment was packed, either with large families of tourists or large groups of locals. We weren't in the mood for crowds and noise (we never are) so eventually we stopped at a tiny convenience store - a bodega in New York, a dépanneur or dep here - for something to bring back to the room. Even this little store seemed European, with juice in tetra packs and those round rolls of cookies that I associate with European markets.

While looking for a less crowded place to hang out, we ran into a loud, rude, assholic tourist, apparently American. He made a big deal over speaking loudly in English. I may be reading too much into it, but he seemed the type to be offended that people speak anything but English, as if people speak French just to be cute, or just to annoy him. On the way home, we rehearsed all the things we felt like saying to him but didn't. Being polite Canadians and all.

Last night I discovered what happens if you take too much non-drowsy allergy medication. You get insomnia. These are over-the-counter meds that are supposed to last 24 hours (as if). During the height of my allergy season, I usually take one every 12 hours, and I'm fine. But there are cats in this house - not in our room, but I feel it anyway - so I thought I'd try taking one every eight hours. Works like a charm... if you don't need sleep.

* * * *

This morning, as expected, the weather had dropped sharply. Yesterday the sky was wet and gray, and the streets and sidewalks were wet and slushy. Today the sky was bright blue and everything was frozen. I love cold, dry weather with bright skies. But even I have to admit today was cold. My issue isn't staying warm outside; it's how to not be completely overheated once we go inside.

I also wasn't too keen on spending the whole day out, having dinner for our anniversary, then trudging uphill in the bitter cold at the end of the day. So last night while I wasn't sleeping, I had the brilliant idea of driving to the other end of the old city and putting the car in a lot.

With narrow, one-way streets and no place to park, the old city is not a town you want to drive around. But there's a ring road that gets you around pretty fast, and we parked in near walking distance from la Musee de la Civilisation. It's a beautiful museum, full of wide spaces and natural light. From the outside, the design is reminiscent of a ziggurat; you feel like you're walking into a pyramid.

We saw a small exhibit of Innuit prints, and a really good exhibit on immigration to Canada, from the earliest French settlers up to the waves of Europeans who farmed the prairies. (The Chinese immigrants who built the railroads that took those Europeans to the prairies were strangely absent.) Allan had enough at that point, so I took in an extensive exhibit about Canada's aboriginal peoples. The museum was very busy - it's free on Tuesdays, plus I'm sure the frigid weather helped drive people indoors.

We had lunch at the museum - more friendly, polite Quebecers immediately switching to English for us - then bundled up again and headed to our next indoor stops. Or so we thought.

We saw the stone church built on the site of Champlain's "habitation" - the first European building in what would become New France and later, Canada. We also had a chance to see the same lower-town streets from the day before without swarms of tourists and ugly gray slush. Frozen in snow, and with only a smattering of people, it was so beautiful - picture-perfect, like a movie set or a postcard. We found our next stop, Centre d'Interpretation de Place-Royale... and it was closed for the winter. As of this morning.

It was way too cold to wander around outside, and we really weren't interested in any of the other indoor options, like a Musee de Beaux Arts. (I would have gone to the fine arts museum or the civilization museum, but two museums in one day is too much for me, which means it's ten times too much for Allan.) After one of those ridiculous circular discussions assessing our options, we drove out of the city to find the Ice Hotel. It officially opens on Friday, but we thought we might be able to get a peek today.

Nope. When we stayed at the Ice Hotel in 2007, you could walk through and around it while the finishing touches were being worked on, and portions were still being built. Now it seems to have a permanent home, and you have to walk through a glass pavilion, like a visitors' centre, before you can really see the Ice Hotel itself. We thought we might see someone who would let us in... but no.

We drove back into the city, hoping to find a neighbourhood outside the walls of Vieux-Quebec, called St-Jean-Baptiste. It turned out it is not far from where we're staying; if you followed our neighbourhood out past the wall, you run into it. It looked nice and lively, full of bookstores, pretty shops and restaurants - but again, it was way too cold to explore on foot. So we just drove around a little, and before long we were back where we started, near the river, and near the restaurant we wanted to try for dinner.

It was way too early, but we were tired of killing time, so we were the only ones in the place for a while. We had poutine from the upscale side of the tracks, with duck, fromage and a deep mushroom gravy, and a salmon tartare plate, and plenty of wine. This is the crazy part. We felt like we were there for a long time, and when we got back to the car, it was only 6:30. 6:30! Before most people have even gone out for dinner! Has it come to this, the early-bird special?? We had a good laugh over it. I think we may be laughing at this one for a while to come.

There are no supermarkets in the old city, and we haven't even seen a mid-sized grocery store, so we picked up a bottle of wine and some munchies in a gas station and headed back to the B&B. We're missing all the nightlife, but at least you can buy wine anywhere here.

* * * *

So today, January 3, Allan and I celebrated 25 years of Allan-and-Laura-ness, 25 years of commitment and of living together. More than turning 50 last June, this milestone makes me feel my age. I don't mean that as a negative, just as a fact: the anniversary brings it home.

My parents' 25th anniversary was the day after my brother's wedding, 1975. I was 14, still a child. By my next birthday, my teenage life had begun. A few years later, during my first year of university, my father had his first heart attack, and soon after that, my parents' extremely bad marriage finally went into freefall. I guess what this means is my parents 25th anniversary turned out to be some kind of passage or milestone in my life, something I remember as an end and a beginning.

Now I am having a 25th anniversary. I am 50 years old. Our marriage, our partnership, has existed for half my life. That is just an amazing thing.

Like all strong and lasting relationships, Allan and I are not together by accident or by luck, although we both consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have each other. We have certainly been at the crossroads, a place where we could have moved on into separate lives. But we didn't. We consciously decided to renew our commitment and to continue to grow individually, together.

Other than that, days go by, day by day by day by day, and then you look back, and it has been 25 years. Friggin amazing.

quebec city, day one

2012-01-02T18:00:00.007-05:00

The drive from Mississauga to Quebec was long but easy. My only concern was winter storms, and we saw nothing more than the occasional flurry. In fact, for the portion of the trip in daylight, it was bright and sunny. I love long road trips; Allan gets cranky near the end, but 10 hours in a car, who can blame him.

As you drive through the gate into Vieux-Quebec, you're immediately struck by the difference, and the beauty. As everyone says, it's like suddenly being in Europe. Especially coming from the land of strip malls and townhouses, it's almost hard to believe we're in the same country.

The B&B Chez Hubert is in Latin Quartier, on a beautiful historic street. As we drove up, a horse and carriage were clip-clopping by, and whole scene fringed in snow. It was picture-perfect.

Our room is small and perfectly comfortable. It's supposed to have a view of the Chateau Frontenac, and if you look from just the right angle, over the rooftops, you can see the top of that famous hotel. Not exactly as advertised, but that's OK. In European style, the bathroom is next door. The B&B has only three guest rooms, with a big, beautiful dining room and a common living room area (which we can't use, because the house has two cats, and I'm allergic.)

We got settled quickly, changed our clothes and went out for a celebratory drink. It was snowing lightly, but not very cold, and the night air was so refreshing. We had a glass of red wine at a bar, and the bartender treated us to something he called "hot shots" - shots of Galleano with a tiny bit of coffee and a wisp of cream.

He was overly talkative, telling us his life story - born in El Salvador, family emigrated to Winnipeg, settled in Quebec - but luckily for us we were hungry and had to go off in search of food. A chain restaurant was one of the few things open. We shared a good pizza and drank more red wine. (Why is it chain restaurants that you don't know are more appealing?)

As usual, many people told us that the people in Quebec would be rude and unfriendly and snap at us for not speaking French. And as usual, those people were dead wrong. People are as friendly and welcoming as people everywhere, perhaps more so, because they know you are on vacation and want you to enjoy yourself. We always say "Bonjour," and without fail whoever we're speaking to - whether in a restaurant, store, museum, hotel or anywhere else - switches to English. And not unkindly, not smugly, not with attitude, but with graciousness. Naturally, anyone in any service industry is bilingual. And contrary to what you will hear, they don't pretend to not speak English, and are not reluctant to do so.

Where does the stereotype come from? Why do so many Americans and anglophone Canadians say that francophones are unfriendly and rude? I used to think it was The Ugly American talking, the person who shouts at Europeans in English and is rude and exasperated because they aren't obeying quickly enough. But now Canadians are telling us the same thing. And they are Canadians who would be having the same sort of interactions as we're having - the kind one has on holidays. So why do we continually find Quebecers as friendly and welcoming as, say, Newfoundlanders were when we were there, yet other people tell us that Quebecers are rude and hate tourists? A mystery.

* * * *

This morning we had a huge, sumptuous breakfast, way more than we needed, including homemade almond French toast beautifully presented with powdered sugar and fruit. The host pointed out the Maple syrup, and honestly, despite living in Canada for six years, I forget that maple syrup will be real here, not that fake sugar-water stuff. Allan, being from Vermont, always expects maple syrup to be maple syrup.

The forecast called for a warm day, between -1 and +2 C. Starting tonight, temperatures are expected to plunge, so it seemed like a good day to walk around. We hardly bundled up at all (and I was generally too warm the whole day), but I was very glad to have good hiking boots - slush and puddles abound. We loosely followed the walking tour from our Lonely Planet guidebook, seeing the city gates, City Hall, churches, convents, very old buildings now housing restaurants and hotels, and so on.

There are the usual assortment of "firsts" that you find all over Canada, but here in a 400-year-old city, many of them are more plausible. The Hotel-Dieu is supposed to be the oldest hospital in North America, there's a church that's supposed to be the oldest stone church in the US or Canada, and several others.

Vieux-Quebec is divided into old upper town and old lower town, a division that used to run along class lines. A strip of trendy and touristy shops on Rue de Petit-Champlain was once a notorious slum, while Notre Dame de Quebec and the Chateau Frontenac command the heights. The Chateau Frontenac is impressive from the outside, but if you've seen shopping on the ground floor of a large hotel... well, there it is.

The views from the Escalier Frontenac, which climb up to the Terrasse Dufferin, in front of the Chateau, are impressive, though. There's a beautiful view from the top of the Escalier Casse-Cous (Breakneck Stairs), looking down into Rue de Petit-Champlain, said to be the narrowest street in North America. (This claim is difficult to believe, as the oldest sections of old cities are full of tiny narrow streets. But hey.) In fact, there are beautiful views everywhere - old stone houses with painted trim, tucked into corners, lining narrow streets. There are art galleries and antique stores galore, and tons of tourist schlock, and some beautiful crafts. (Yes, I already bought earrings.) There are some cool trompe l'oiel murals, including a large, famous Fresque des Quebecois celebrating 400 years of Quebecois culture.

On the Rue de Petit-Champlain, we saw a sign on a building, announcing a historic home of Jean Demers, who we believe is an ancestor of Allan's! Here's something about the house. The Demers were one of the original French families to settle in this town; Allan is descended from them on his mother's side. (On his father's side, Woods came to the US before the Revolutionary War.)

Allan picked out a spot for lunch that we managed to find with the help of an bemused museum guide: Le Cafe du Monde. It's a local favourite, well off the tourist track, overlooking the St. Lawrence and straight out of Paris, down to the rattan chairs. The food was très authentique, and we had one of our favourite meals: a perfect Caesar salad (the real thing, with lardon, shaved Romano and the hint of anchovies), steak frites, red wine, creme brulee. And they let you have rare meat here. I remember thinking the same thing when we stayed at the Auberge Duchesnay five years ago: ahhh, people here know about food.

The staff could not have been nicer. We were seated at a table overlooking the frozen river, a beautiful spot, even in winter. Once again, after our first "bonjour" everyone spoke English, despite our attempts at French.

We ate a lot, drank a lot and were suddenly exhausted. And then had to walk uphill through the slush back to our hotel. Back at the room, we completely collapsed. Allan brought a tray of tea upstairs, and we're resting now.

It's supposed to be very cold tomorrow, so we're thinking museums and historic interpretative exhibits will do the trick. Tomorrow is our anniversary, although we may have had our anniversary dinner for lunch today.

PS: Blogger dates this post as 1/2/12. A good date!

PPS: These are not our photos. We'll post some photos well after this trip is done.

nous allons à québec

2012-01-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

We are driving to Quebec City this morning. What better way to kick off an anniversary vacation than a road trip together. If the winter weather will cooperate - only for our driving days - that would be grand. Trip details are here. I will blog, of course.

This is also our first opportunity to use our new DSLR camera beyond our backyard. It's not our first good camera, but it is our first good digital camera. We've wanted one for years, finally treated ourselves to it, and are really happy about it.

À demain!

happy new year: peace, love, revolution

2011-12-31T14:00:00.006-05:00

Happy New Year to everyone in the wmtc community - friends and commenters, lurkers and loyal readers. Thank you all for being here.

I wish you health, peace, and joy in the coming year. I wish the world continued revolutions.

we like lists: list # 13: it was the best of lists, it was the worst of lists

2011-12-30T13:30:00.002-05:00

Few things in life are all good or all bad. Even though I dislike Christmas, I'm happy to enjoy some paid time off, and this year I reaped the benefits of holiday overtime.

Sometimes, the negative so grossly outweighs the positive that there's no point in searching for a shred of silver lining. Example: Jason Kenney. And some things are so joyous, that only a fool searches for a blemish. Example: the 2004 World Series.

But many things in life are downright contrary in evoking mixed emotions. That's what we're listing today.

In the spirit of our last list, this is another create-your-own. Name your five worst and your five best. The only rule is they have to be about the same thing.

I think it's better to start with the negative and end on the positive, but that's up to you.

In honour of turning 50 six months ago, here are the five worst and five best things about getting older, in the world according to me.

Five worst things about aging:

5. I used to have perfect skin. My skin was my best physical feature. Now my skin is... ordinary.

4. General physical breakdown. Creaky knees, easily-pulled muscles, weakening hands.

3. Less stamina. Longer recovery time. This may be more health than age, but the age isn't helping.

2. The ever-lengthening list of care required for maintenance. Orthotics in the shoes, complicated lenses in the glasses, medications, ergonomic equipment, screenings for various diseases. And that's not counting anything cosmetic, which I'm avoiding.

1. I haven't travelled enough. I feel time ticking away, and there are so many places I want to go.

Five best things about getting older:

5. No one asking me when I'm going to have children.

4. Freeing myself of self-created obligations. No longer spending free time on people I don't really want to see, things I don't really want to do, and other people's useless drama. Suffering less bullshit.

3. A longer fuse. More patience, less anger, more generosity, more compassion. More control of my temper.

2. Coming into my own as a writer. Becoming a better writer, but more than that, understanding and accepting my writing process, understanding my need to write as integral to my self, whether or not I write professionally.

1. Knowing what's most important to me. A deep understanding of my core values, my life goals, my purpose, which leads to a richer, more rewarding life.

Your turn!

five items in search of a post (a list of sorts)

2011-12-29T09:00:00.007-05:00

This has been a strange winter break. I've been working at the library, collaborating with Allan on some paid writing work, taking care of the massive number of appointments and personal chores that pile up while I'm in school, seeing a few friends... but also making sure I spend a fair amount of time on the couch either reading or watching DVDs.

The one thing I haven't been able to do is any serious writing for wmtc. My brain and my time management somehow doesn't get past scraps of notes and drafts. We leave for Quebec on Sunday, so chances are dwindling. On the other hand, my courses this term may not be too taxing. (I'm being polite. I think they're pure manure.) So I might actually write these posts in January.

Here are a few items that don't warrant posts of their own, but might be useful for someone Googling or stimulate conversation or provide a moment of entertainment.

1. How to make hard boiled eggs that peel perfectly.

Here's a great way to make hard boiled eggs that don't crack and always peel quickly and easily.

I really dislike struggling with a hard boiled egg, removing the shell in tiny little shards, or removing half the white along with the shell. This way, the shells zip right off in a few large pieces and leave the whites smooth and intact.

I've tried all different methods and this works every time. What you'll need:
- Eggs - I make a full dozen at one time, but you can make any amount this way.
- Pot large enough to hold the eggs and a lot of water
- Another bowl, like a mixing bowl or sturdy serving bowl
- Ice cubes
- Slotted spoon

- It doesn't matter if you use fresh eggs or eggs that are a few days old. The internet says fresher eggs don't hard-boil as well. I have not found this to be the case.

- Place the eggs gently in a pot, and fill the pot with warm or hot water from the tap.

- Place the pot on the stove, and put on the lowest possible heart for 5-7 minutes. Leave the pot uncovered throughout.

- Increase the heat a tiny bit (on an electric stove, to 2 or 3). 5-7 minutes.

- Increase the heat a bit more (to 5). Another 5-7 minutes.

- Increase the temperature to 7 or 8. Now the water should come to a rolling boil, but the eggs won't crack. I like my hard boiled eggs thoroughly hard inside, so I let them boil away for a good 10 minutes. If you prefer them slightly softer, adjust accordingly.

Now comes the cool part that makes the eggs peel easily every single time.

- When the eggs are almost done, place a large empty mixing bowl in the sink. Have ice cubes ready.

- When the eggs are done (after the water has been at a full boil for at least 10 minutes), turn the heat off and place the pot on a cool burner. Use a slotted spoon to remove the eggs from the pot and place them in the mixing bowl.

- Turn on the cold water, and when the bowl is partly filled, add the ice cubes.

The cold water will shrink the membrane that binds the shell to the egg. But other methods, such as running cold water from the tap over the eggs, don't work as well, because all sides of all the eggs don't get cold enough.

Hard boiled eggs will stay fresh in the fridge for more than a week. When you're ready to use them, firmly tap the large end once on a plate (or a paper towel on the kitchen counter), then lift off the peel, working your way around the egg.

2. Dietary cholesterol has no effect on blood cholesterol.

Speaking of eggs, did you know that dietary cholesterol has absolutely no effect on blood cholesterol? The long-accepted wisdom that egg whites are good but egg yolks are bad has been disproven. Egg yolks do not raise your total blood cholesterol, and in fact they raise your high-density lipoproteins (HDL), also known as "good cholesterol".

In fact, knowing the cholesterol content of any food is useless. If you're concerned about blood cholesterol levels for cardiovascular health, reduce your intake of saturated fat. As my doctor put it, eggs are fine - unless you fry them in butter, then eat them accompanied by bacon and buttered toast. But the egg itself, either hard boiled or poached, or scrambled in a nonstick pan with vegetables, is super good for you.

3. If we have an appointment, please don't call me to confirm. And if you do, please don't ask me to call you back.

When did the confirmation phone call begin? It seems to me that we used to make appointments and be expected to show up. Now every office - the doctor, the vet, the podiatrist, the hair salon, and so on - has people leaving messages confirming your appointment. I dislike this. I don't need calls telling me where to be and when. That's why I keep a calendar (or diary or appointment book, if you prefer).

I don't like receiving confirmation calls, but I can ignore them. What I really dislike is confirmation calls that ask me to call back. The hair salon I use leaves a message asking me to call and confirm my appointment. They're very difficult to reach on the phone; the front desk staff is harried and you're always put on hold. So for every appointment, they're essentially asking you to call twice - once to book the appointment, and a second time to confirm it, unless you happen to be answer their confirmation call, which I never do.

To avoid having to make this second phone call, I've taken to asking them to confirm my appointment when I book it. After I've made the appointment, I ask, "Could you do me a favour and mark this confirmed? I'll definitely be there, and if I can't make it, I always call to reschedule." It works. But I'd really rather not bother.

4. AlternativeTo

Do you know AlternativeTo.net? If you're looking for a type of software and want to see what's out there, or if you're using something you're not overly thrilled with and looking for an alternative, you can search here.

For example, Allan and I are wondering about an alternative to RefWorks, the research-management software I use through the University of Toronto. Once I get my degree, I won't have free access to it anymore, and it's probably not worth $100 per year for the license. Here's what AlternativeTo tells me. (Googling "alternative to refworks" also brings up this page.)

5. And you thought it was three kings and a donkey.

The last item in this list is another list. Thanks to my friend S, partner of M@, I bring you 25 awesomely inexplicable nativity scenes. Now this is the spirit of Christmas!

does rick perry know something we don't know?

2011-12-28T22:00:00.001-05:00

You know I never comment on US election campaigns, but this was irresistible.

Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source.

Rick Perry, in Iowa

At the rate Stephen Harper is shipping Canadian resources to the US, Perry may be on to something.

Thanks to AW1L.

happy new year from hsi canada

2011-12-28T13:30:00.000-05:00

bradley manning hearing ends, public and media denied access throughout

2011-12-28T08:30:00.001-05:00

Bradley Manning's pre-court martial hearing ended a few days ago, but for most media and the public, it might as well have never happened.

This story in The Nation outlines how the US military denied access to one of the most important cases of our time. All recording devices were banned from the courtroom, no transcript of the proceedings is being made available, media passes were revoked at will and without explanation, the overflow spectator area (where people could take notes on laptops) was closed down, and so on.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. Bradley Manning isn't being given a trial, which would imply fairness and a public record. He's being court-martialed. The military makes its own rules, and lives by them when it chooses.

Daily notes from the courtroom were posted by diligent supporters who attended the hearing, but as determined and dogged those notetakers were, that is no substitute for media access. You can read the daily proceedings at the Bradley Manning Support Network.

now blogging, david heap

2011-12-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

My friend and comrade David Heap is now blogging.

Among other things, David will be writing about his experiences on the Tahrir, the Canadian Boat to Gaza, including his arrest and imprisonment. I am very much looking forward to reading that story and whatever else David writes.

You can find him here.

barney frank's radical homosexual agenda and other greatest hits

2011-12-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

We can say two things about Congress in the wake of the news that Rep. Barney Frank is retiring after this term: It’s about to get a little dumber, and a lot duller. So here, in appreciation for his years of service and entertainment, are some of Frank’s best YouTube-accessible moments

Thanks to Ezra Klein, via James. They're short and sweet. Enjoy.

(But excuse me, Mr. Frank, you made a boo-boo in that last vid. The US invaded Iraq with your party's enthusiastic blessing, and then continued to occupy that country after your party promised otherwise in 2006. Other than that, thanks for the memories.)

malalai joya, noam chomsky, afghanistan, and peace

2011-12-25T10:00:00.004-05:00

This video of Malalai Joya and Noam Chomsky speaking in Boston is from March of this year, but sadly, is every bit as relevant today. Chomsky's analysis of the situation in south and central Asia is especially enlightening.

It's a long video, but maybe some evening you'll want to watch it instead of a movie, or keep it on in the background while you file papers (as I am) or cook or some other task.

Canadians, just substitute Canada for United States. It applies to us, too.

Chomsky also gives a brilliant historical perspective on the US's GWOT. You know, the one that's being fought since WWII.

things i heard at the library: an occasional series

2011-12-24T16:00:00.003-05:00

The most challenging part of being a library page has been not answering people's questions. Pages are in the stacks, shelving books, so naturally people are going to ask us questions. Plus people always ask me for directions and information, it's a lifelong MO. (That's a story for another post.) But we're not supposed to answer questions.

My natural inclination is to be helpful, but I'm not qualified to give good answers. Other library staff are way more qualified, plus if pages answered questions all the time, they'd never get their work done. So the only questions I'm supposed to answer are simple directionals, such as, "Where do I go to check out books?"

On the other hand, we're not supposed to just say, "I'm sorry, I don't know" or point people towards the desk. I'm familiar with this concept from my Reference course, and I like it. Many people find it difficult to ask for help. They're embarrassed, they're shy, they feel stupid. If they've worked up whatever it takes to ask you, and if you seem to be passing them off, they may not ask again. So instead of pointing, we're supposed to bring them over to the desk and introduce the question for them. (Librarians, in turn, are not supposed to point; they're supposed to get up and walk the patron to the proper section and help them find the book. This can't always happen, for many reasons, but it's the ideal.)

So this not-answering and desk-walking thing took some getting used to. But once I got my wording down - and when I saw how effective it is - it was fine. More than fine, it felt really good. It goes like this.

(A parent) "Excuse me, could you tell me where books for very young children are?"

"The folks at the desk will be happy to show you. Let's go over to the desk and ask."

I guide them over to the desk and say, "Excuse me, Jason, this woman would like to know where books for young children are."

Woman thanks me, Jason thanks me, Jason gets up to give the woman a tour of the different areas for different age groups.

Or it might go like this.

(A child.) "Where are the books on rocks and minerals?"

I took this to be directional, so I walked the child down the stacks, and pointed to the Dewey sign. "These are the 540s, chemistry, atoms and molecules, rocks and minerals."

He said, "Yeah, I know that, but I'm looking for this one book, I can't find it."

"OK, let's ask at the desk. They can see if it's in the library, or if it's out, or what." We walk over to the desk together, and I say, "Excuse me, Ann, this young man is looking for a specific book. Could you help him find it?"

Excuse me, do you have the fifth Harry Potter book?

Now, this wasn't strictly directional, but there was only one person on the desk, and she was very busy. I said, "Let's go over to the Harry Potter books and see if it's there. What's the name of the author?"

I asked this because I knew he would know. He answered instantly, "JKRowling."

"Great, so we go to the fiction section"... we walk over... "then over to the R's for Rowling, and let's look. Do you see it here?"

"No, I read all these."

"OK, so let's go to the desk and see if they can find it. It might be upstairs with the grownup books, or maybe we can get it from a different branch..."

* * * *

I'm thinking of a new occasional series: "things i heard at the library". Right now everything I hear is new and fun. Maybe after a few months it will all be routine and this series will fall apart. But for now...

(Mom, whispering) Go ahead, ask her. Go on, go on, it's ok, ask her.

(Girl, barely audible) Excuse me, Miss, do you know where mumblemumblemumble is?

I waited at the desk with her for a full five minutes until a librarian was free. Her mother thanked me profusely.

* * * *

(Boy, looking intently at the Series section, talking to himself.) Maybe I'll start a new series...

The intensity of his gaze, his seriousness of purpose, the importance of the decision - I had to smile to myself, as I could so relate.

* * * *

These are girls books! Let's get out of here!

* * * *

Gay guys are all so cute.

Shut up, you'll get us kicked out of the library!

(Tweens and teens sometimes hang out in the children's department. The library staff is not always very tolerant of them.)

* * * *

Persistent whining. . . whining . . . giving way to hysterical wailing and screaming

Child with finger caught in paper bin of printer/photocopier. Page to the rescue.

annual i hate christmas post: top ten things i hate about christmas

2011-12-23T22:00:00.004-05:00

It's a wmtc tradition: my annual I Hate Christmas post. This year, it's a continuation of what we started here. Feel free to post your list, too, of any length. Hate only, please. If you love Christmas, go off and enjoy it.

10. "Merry Christmas"

9. "It's A Wonderful Life"

8. Ads where people are dressed up as Santa Claus

7. Inane advertising for inane "gift ideas", i.e. products that no one needs and will likely never use

6. Ignorant people bemoaning the loss of traditional Christmas, not realizing that most of these traditions are pagan

5. All talk about whether there will or won't be "a white Christmas"

4. Being forced to listen to my co-workers recite what they are buying for each person on their list

3. People asking me, "Are you ready Christmas?"

2. Christmas muzak - everyfuckingwhere.

1. The fact that a religious holiday has become a universal holiday that we're all supposed to care about.

mayan ruins in georgia are "wild and unsubstantiated guess" that "no archaeologists will defend"

2011-12-23T11:30:00.022-05:00

Have you heard that 1,100-year-old Maya ruins have been uncovered in the US state of Georgia? Did it seem a bit hard to believe? There's a reason for that.

If you haven't heard this, try Googling "Mayan ruins found in Georgia". You will find copious blogs, forums and tweets, all agog at this unlikely revelation.

Reading and re-reading the original article posted on Examiner.com, I thought the evidence seemed a bit thin, to put it mildly. Things like this:

the earliest maps show the name Itsate... Itsate is what the Itza Mayas called themselves

make little sense. Itza is a Maya language, now almost entirely extinct. A soundalike word on a map written in English is not evidence of anything. Another tidbit:

Also, among all indigenous peoples of the Americas, only the Itza Mayas and the ancestors of the Creek Indians in Georgia built five-side earthen pyramids as their principal mounds. It was commonplace for the Itza Maya to sculpt a hill into a pentagonal mound. There are dozens of such structures in Central America.

I don't know if the Creek and the Maya were the only people to construct pentagonal structures. But if both of those peoples did build five-sided structures, and the Creek lived in Georgia, and pentagonal earthen structures are found in Georgia, does that then point to the Maya? (I have brown eyes. African people have brown eyes. I must be African!)

Not a single archaeological journal or website, or a single science reporter for any news organization, has reported on this, to my knowledge. But I did find this:

According to the report, picked up from a fly-by-night Web pub called the Examiner, a small group of archeologists led by University of Georgia scholar Mark Williams discovered the 1,100-year-old city “on the southeast side of Brasstown Bald in the Nacoochee Valley.” Only, the report “is not true,” according to Williams, reached by email. “I have been driven crazy by this.”

The original story was written by one Richard Thornton — who claims that “like most Georgia and South Carolina Creeks, I carry a trace of Maya DNA,” and that his ancestors came to North America fleeing “volcanic eruptions, wars, and drought” — and it has certainly caught fire across the Twitter/blogosphere thanks to the general obsession with the 2012 Mayan prophecies. (Even the venerable Washington Post interrupted its regularly-scheduled news rapportage to alert readers that “a second brick found at a Mayan ruin also contained the Dec. 21, 2012, date.”)

But, as Williams says, “The Maya connection to legitimate Georgia archaeology is a wild and unsubstantiated guess on the part of the Thornton fellow. No archaeologists will defend this flight of fancy.”

To put it mildly, we need more evidence.

old warriors seeing with clear eyes: bill moyers interview with andrew bacevich

2011-12-22T15:00:00.008-05:00

I found this in a massive pile of un-read links. It's a conversation between progressive journalist Bill Moyers and Andrew Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Bacevich, a former military officer who served in Vietnam, is that rare breed of social critic who is widely published in both left-wing and right-wing venues. He's a truth-teller, and although I don't always agree with his analysis, I absolutely agree with many of his conclusions.

In the interview, Bacevich talks about Ronald Reagan as "modern prophet of profligacy, the politician who gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption".

To understand the truth about President Reagan is to appreciate the extent to which our politics are misleading and false. Remember, he was the guy who came in and said we need to shrink the size of government. But government didn’t shrink during the Reagan era, it grew. He came in and he said we need to reduce the level of federal spending. He didn’t reduce it. It went through the roof. The budget deficits for his time were the greatest we’d experienced since World War II.

Here's an excerpt from the end, with Moyers' words in italics.

Here is what I take to be the core of your analysis of our political crisis. You write, “The United States has become a de facto one-party state, with the legislative branch permanently controlled by an Incumbents’ Party.” And you write that every president “has exploited his role as commander in chief to expand on the imperial prerogatives of his office.”

One of the great lies about American politics is that Democrats genuinely subscribe to a set of core convictions that make Democrats different from Republicans. And the same thing, of course, applies to the other party. It’s not true.

I happen to define myself as a conservative. But when you look back over the past thirty or so years, said to have been a conservative era in American politics, did we get small government? Do we get balanced budgets? Do we give serious, as opposed to simply rhetorical, attention to traditional social values? The answer’s no. The truth is that conservative principles have been eyewash, part of a package of tactics that Republicans employ to get elected and to then stay in office.

And yet you say that the prime example of political dysfunction today is the Democratic Party in relation to Iraq.

Well, I may be a conservative, but I can assure you that in November of 2006 I voted for every Democrat I could find on the ballot. And I did so because the Democratic Party, speaking with one voice at that time, said, “Elect us. Give us power in the Congress, and we will end the Iraq War.”

The American people, at that point adamantly tired of this war, did empower the Democrats. And Democrats absolutely, totally, completely failed to follow through on their promise.

You argue that the promises of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi proved to be empty. Reid and Pelosi’s commitment to forcing a change in policy took a backseat to their concern to protect the Democratic majority.

Could anybody disagree with that?

This is another one of my highlighted sentences: “To anyone with a conscience, sending soldiers back to Iraq or Afghanistan for multiple combat tours while the rest of the country chills out can hardly seem an acceptable arrangement. It is unfair, unjust, and morally corrosive.” And yet that’s what we’re doing.

Absolutely. And I think— I don’t want to talk about my son here.

You dedicate the book to your son.

My son was killed in Iraq. That’s a personal matter. But it has long stuck in my craw, this posturing of supporting the troops. There are many people who say they support the troops, and they really mean it. But what exactly does it mean to support the troops? It ought to mean more than putting a bumper sticker on the back of your car. I don’t think we actually do support the troops. What we the people do is we contract out the business of national security to approximately 0.5 percent of the population, about a million and a half people who are on active duty. And then we really turn away. We don’t want to look when our soldiers go back for two or three or four or five combat tours. That’s not supporting the troops. That’s an abdication of civic responsibility. And I do think there’s something fundamentally immoral about that.

Again, I think the global war on terror, as a framework of thinking about policy, is deeply defective. But if the global war on terror is a national priority, then why isn’t the country actually supporting it in a meaningful, substantive sense?

Are you calling for a reinstatement of the draft?

I’m not, because I understand that, politically, the draft is an impossibility. And to tell you the truth, we don’t need to have an army of six or eight or ten million people. What we need is to have the country engaged in what its soldiers are doing. That simply doesn’t exist today.

Excellent reading, if a few months late. Thanks to Eric in Stratford.

memo to jason kenney: that's not how multiculturalism works

2011-12-22T14:00:00.001-05:00

Another take on Jason Kenney's bigotry, by Andrew Potter of the Ottawa Citizen.

It would be a lot easier to debate the tough cases of Canadian multiculturalism if people understood how the system actually works. That includes everyone from taxi drivers and barbers to those who spend their time trolling the comment boards of political blogs or loitering around the virtual water-coolers of social media. It includes radio and television hosts, editorialists and pundits. And it also includes the Citizenship and Immigration minister himself, Jason Kenney, who last week announced that henceforward, anyone who takes the oath of citizenship must do so unveiled and uncovered.

Announcing the new policy in Montreal, Kenney said that it is "a matter of pure principle, which lies at the heart of our identity and values with respect to openness and equality." The citizenship ceremony, he went on, "defines who we are as Canadians including our mutual responsibilities to one another and a shared commitment to values that are rooted in our history."

For conservatives, a Canadian immigration minister using words like "we" and "our" and making forceful references to "shared values" is like the scene in A Fish Called Wanda where Kevin Kline seduces Jamie Lee Curtis with his cannonball Italian: you could hear the moans of ecstasy of the right-wing pundits from Tofino to Torbay.

For the rest of us, it is another lost opportunity for our leaders to educate Canadians about how their country functions, what holds it together, and how we can think about how to reasonably accommodate newcomers. Because here's the plain truth: Canadians don't have shared values. We never have, and we never will. But that's not a problem, because the ongoing cohesion of Canadian society is not seriously threatened by deep pluralism. If it was, we would never have got past the sectarian, linguistic, and cultural divides of the 19th century.

Read it here. Thanks to pogge.

"are there terrorists? i just see kids!": police vs ows continues

2011-12-22T12:00:00.010-05:00

This is happening in my hometown.

The cops chased us into City Hall Park. They followed us on their motorcycles as we ran into City Hall Park. Please keep in mind, we are a group of twenty people that were walking up the street. The only thing that separates us from anyone else is that we’ve been targeted because we are loud about our politics. Besides being a bit noisy, we were doing nothing illegal.

The park was full of unaware bystanders. NYPD is extremely lucky they didn’t sideswipe a kid… I watched in shock as they sped through the park.

And was even more dumbfounded when they sped out of the park and up the sidewalk. An old man shouted, “Are there terrorists? I just see kids! What in the hell are they doing?!”

Eventually the cops jumped off bikes and tackled two demonstrators. Both were beat up pretty badly. They threw them to the ground and punched them, slammed them into the concrete.

Other officers created a “human wall” in an attempt to block press and all photographs of their brutality.

It might be happening in your hometown, too, hidden by a human wall or a wall of corporate media.

See OWS In Solidarity with the Shutting Down of West Coast Ports + Police Brutality for video and more details.

the dirty truth we've been expecting: harper government takes the first step in destroying universal health care

2011-12-22T09:00:00.023-05:00

So the Harper Government^TM finally uttered the words we've been expecting and dreading: health care.

We all know what they're up to. It's the standard reactionary playbook on public health care.

One, claim we can't afford to maintain publicly funded health care at the present levels.

Two, slash funding until the system becomes impossible to maintain.

Three, point to the system that they broke, and say, look, it's broken. Then dismantle it, probably by instituting a two-tier system, a privatized system for those who can afford it and a bare-minimum safety net for everyone else.

In other words, the Harper Government, in its usual stealthful fashion, wants to destroy what is left of the best of Canada.

But, according to this government, we can afford a massively expensive and useless crime bill, and fighter jets with a nearly unlimited price tag.

This is truly frightening.

Of course, it's not enough to be frightened. We have to be fighting, too. One big piece of the puzzle is already in place: 102 seats in Parliament occupied by the New Democrats, the government-in-waiting. The other piece is even more important: us.

Do we need a reminder of where this can lead?

A report has found that half of all people in the United States are living in poverty. This is calculated on the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which exists because the Official Poverty Measure hides tremendous numbers of people. This story in Salon does the math. Short version: it checks out.

The Detroit Free Press looked at the results of the housing foreclosure crisis - the direct result of deregulated banking, which still exists, and which left banks, lawyers and financiers counting their billions. The Michigan school systems now include 31,000 students who are homeless, a 37 percent increase over the previous year. And you know what? The US government, with Mr. Obama at the helm, is further cutting housing aid.

There are a handful of tangible differences between the United States and Canada, and those differences resonate deeply in the quality of life we enjoy here. Universal health insurance is tops on that list. We must be prepared to fight to protect it. We must constantly remind the party of Tommy Douglas what we expect from them - and that is not to become a slightly more progressive version of the Liberal Party.

My comrade Dr. J has fleshed this out further: "Bad medicine: Harper's prescription for privatizing Medicare". On the US situation, my partner Allan's recent post at maps and legends is sobering.

baseball history meets the information

2011-12-21T16:30:00.000-05:00

The best part of James Gleick's The Information was, for me, his history of communication and information technologies. Here's a terrific article that applies that lens to baseball: "The History of How We Follow Baseball", by Philip Bump, writing in The Atlantic.

In 1912, the Red Sox played the New York Giants in the World Series. Here's how people in Washington watched that game:

And here's a close-up of what they were all gathered around to look at:

There's lots of cool stuff; definitely not for baseball fans only. Thanks to A, of course.

final thoughts on james gleick's "the information"

2011-12-21T15:00:00.003-05:00

Two weeks ago, I wrote some impressions of The Information, by James Gleick. (If you read that earlier post, do also read the comments.)

I was hoping that the book would not devolve (or advance, depending on your perspective) into scientific concepts that are beyond my understanding. I was confident that Gleick wouldn't "pull a Hawking," and force me to give up on the book the way I did with A Brief History of Time. Now I must qualify this a bit.

The Information, true to its subittle "...A History, A Theory, A Flood," divides into three inter-related sections. I highly recommend the first and the third segments, but the middle of the book offered some rough going. I found myself reading about complex math theory well beyond my comprehension. That was I was able to follow this at all is a great credit to Gleick's writing. He is quite brilliant at explaining complex concepts in simple terms, often by employing elegant analogies.

I followed along much farther than I would have thought, but when Stephen Hawking himself entered the picture, and concepts from quantum physics - whatever that means - intersected with information theory to become quantum information theory, I was completely lost. For me, the final part of the book's second segment was incomprehensible. After that, it became understandable, enlightening and fascinating again.

If you're comfortable with higher theoretical science concepts, you might love the entire book. If you're more interested in the historical, social and personal aspects of our information universe, at some point you'll probably want to skim or skip pages, then resume careful reading with the final chapters.

* * * *

Based on published book reviews, it's clear to me that most reviewers didn't read this book. They wrote reviews based on the media releases and the first few chapters, at most. I'm familiar with the world of book and music criticism enough to know how those things work. Reviewers, even more than the rest of us, are deluged, and also under deadline pressure. Along with the book or CD, they receive summaries and hype, and many reviews are written using - to put it nicely - more of the summary and less of the actual work.

One of the most egregious examples of this that I recall were reviews of Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. That book contains a story within a story, a book called Blind Assassin, which itself contains a story within a story. After I read the book and unraveled mystery, I realized that many reviewers never got that far. They must have relied on the press releases, and so mistook the frame for the picture, so to speak.

what i'm watching: old timey tv and old timey ads

2011-12-21T09:30:00.005-05:00

One of my favourite comedies has always been "The Burns and Allen Show," the old TV vehicle for the comedy team of Gracie Allen and George Burns. The show's entire run (1950-1958) was finished before I was born, but in my days as an insomniac teenager and young adult, I would watch late-night re-runs, and I fell in love with this show.

Burns and Allen, who were married, began their act onstage in vaudeville, then moved to radio in the heyday of that medium, then had a popular TV show from the earliest days of television. Gracie was the comedian, playing on her supposedly addle-headed, ditzy, unique way of seeing the world, and George was her straight man. (Interestingly, their stage act originally featured George as the air-head and Gracie as the straight, but Gracie was getting all the laughs, so they switched roles.)

One of Burns and Allen's long-running gags was that George would be poor and unknown if it weren't for Gracie. This reflected real-life common wisdom that Gracie was the star, and George would have no career without her. Gracie retired in 1958 and died in 1964. As you may know, George Burns went on to have an entire second career making movies and doing standup, especially known for his role as God in the "Oh, God" movies. He died in 1996 at 100 years old.

"The Burns and Allen Show", although predictable, corny and dated (and hilarious), had some post-modern touches that put it way ahead of its time. George served as narrator, setting up Gracie's situations, and stepping in and out of the frame. The borders of the set were left visible on a proscenium stage, so George could walk in and out of the action. If you've seen "It's Garry Shandling's Show," where Shandling rode a golf cart to the fake sitcom set, that was an homage to Burns and Allen. The action also stopped for George to do standup on related themes, similar to the opening and closing frames of "Seinfeld". Later in the series' run, George would turn on a TV and watch Gracie and their neighbours, Harry and Blanche Morton - "Let's see what the Mortons are up to..." - while he smoked his cigar and addressed the audience.

I love The Burns and Allen Show, and I absolutely love Gracie Allen, a comic genius. I hadn't seen the show in years - decades - and I always wanted to re-watch it on DVD. A few months ago, Allan surprised me with more than 100 episodes on DVD, somebody's homemade package being sold online.

We started watching it, thinking we could go through the entire series in order, but we've been disabused of this completest plan. As is often the case with the early days of a great comedy, the beginning was rough. The show needed more time to develop, and was probably still making the switch from radio to television. So instead, we're going to sample various seasons until we find where The Funny begins, and watch from there.

In the early days of television, shows had a single sponsor that was strongly associated with the show, another holdover from radio. The sponsor often enjoyed top billing, such as "Maxwell House Coffee Time" or "Texaco Star Theater". This had mostly stopped before my time. The one show I remember that retained that type of title was "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom", which people of my generation grew up watching on Sunday nights - "before Disney," as we all said.

Not only did shows have single sponsors, but ads were part of the show, and much more conspicuous than current product placement or other forms of embedded marketing these days. The only analog that I can think of today is (sadly) the in-game advertising we are subjected to during baseball games, where someone sits in the announcer's booth for an inning, and the announcers and the guest "chat" about the product during the game. In these old shows, the ads were performed by the show's "announcer" - another radio holdover, and a precursor of the late-night co-host. This freed the show's star from unseemly shilling, and in George Burns' and other's cases, allowed them to distance themselves with irreverent snarky comments about having to do the ads.

The Burns and Allen Show was sponsored by "Carnation Evaporated Milk, the milk from contented cows". Each show contained two or more scenes in which coffee, or baking, or some form of cooking - or even Gracie receiving a bouquet of carnations! - figured in. Then the comedy stops and the announcer launches into a long spiel about the benefits of Carnation evaporated milk. (For Burns and Allen fans, this is Harry Von Zell*, except for the first season, I was surprised to learn a different announcer, Bill Goodwin, was part of the show.)

In some scenes, the characters themselves extol the virtues of having been raised as a "Carnation baby" or how wonderful the cake was because the icing was made with Carnation evaporated milk, or how silly Gracie wondered how you get milk from a bunch of carnations. It's a full-fledged commercial, but the show doesn't stop, break for ads, then resume, the way we're accustomed to. It's similar to today's embedded marketing, but much cruder. Although who knows, as we continue to mute and skip commercials, this technique might be revived.

* This made the Burns and Allen Show very unusual in having two characters with the same first name, Harry Morton and Harry Von Zell. The latter Harry was already referred to as "HarryVonZell".

from newspeak central: frederick douglass, susan b. anthony, and the anti-abortion-rights movement

2011-12-18T08:15:00.006-05:00

Paging George Orwell: a new US anti-abortion bill is named Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.

Good story plus mostly good comments at the link, too. Thanks to James.

"you must fearlessly accept the challenge and aggressively spread the idea of war resistance."

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Those who think that the danger of war is past are living in a fool’s paradise. We are faced today with militarism more powerful and more dangerous than that which brought on the World War. That is what the governments have accomplished! But among the peoples of the world the idea of war resistance is growing. You must fearlessly accept the challenge and aggressively spread the idea of war resistance. You must convince the people to take disarmament into their own hands and to declare that they will have no part in war or in the preparation for war. You must call on the workers of all countries to unite in refusing to become the tools of interests that war upon life. Today, in twelve countries, young men are resisting conscription and refusing military service. They are the pioneers of a warless world.

Albert Einstein,
at the meeting of the War Resisters’ International, Lyons, France, August 1-4, 1931
from Einstein On Peace

report from bradley manning hearing, day one

2011-12-18T07:00:00.002-05:00

From NCF, at Bradley Manning's hearing:

And what the day it was! Manning's lawyer David Coombs (whose very nice wife is from TO) is a force to be reckoned with! After a half hour of grilling the Investigating Officer (not a judge) about his civilian job as a prosecutor with the Dept. of Justice, plus the fact that the IO only accepted 2 of the 38 witnesses for the defence (and a few other factors) Coombs called for the IO to recuse himself because of bias. And thus there was a recess - for two hours.

The IO refused to recuse himself and Coombs asked for a stay of the proceedings, thus another two-hour recess and on it went.

So the morning session was full of drama... The afternoon was another series of recesses and then it wrapped up for the day at 3:30 after Manning was read his rights. That was it for day 1. ...

Meanwhile, with all the downtime, plus the wait-time to get in in the first place, a community was forming amongst the public - which ranged from a classical music composer from NYC to Julian Assange's lawyer, a woman from the Australian embassy, oh, and also Omar Khadr's lawyer - great guy! Ann Wright came in for the afternoon session, along with folks from OWS (including the driver of the Wikileaks truck that went missing), various people from the Bradley Manning support network, quite a few Vietnam vets. ...

Security on the base of course is pretty intense: riot cops ready to go, lots of dogs etc. But I have to say all the MPs and Federal Police are very polite and it's very smoothly run. They have a (heated) trailer set up for visitors so that we didn't have to stand in line in the cold waiting to get in.

As for Bradley Manning himself, he's very very tiny but seemed very composed and spoke confidently (mind you, this was just 'yes sir, no sir'.) And has cool geek glasses.

the daily show, all-american muslim and lowe's: watch, laugh, and write

2011-12-17T23:30:00.000-05:00

The episode of The Daily Show that I mentioned here can be seen here. The part I found hilarious begins at about 6:00. Many thanks to David H for the link!

After you enjoy that laugh, please write to Lowe's.

Lowe's contact form here

Email: WeCare@lowes.com

Robert A. Niblock, Chairman and CEO
Lowe's Companies, Inc.
1000 Lowes Boulevard
Mooresville, NC 28117-8520

from out of nowhere, beautiful music transforms my night

2011-12-17T23:00:00.002-05:00

Tonight on my way home from work, I had no music with me, and was forced to listen to the radio. To think I was once a radio addict; now I find it an annoying wasteland. In my button-pushing frustration, I stumbled on this. I was utterly mesmerized. It wasn't entirely safe - I was driving! I found this music transporting. Transcendent.

Fortunately, the host of the CBC Radio 1 show came back to tell me what it was, and I repeated "Glass House, Glass House, Glass House" all the way home in the hopes I might remember what to Google.

I give you: Christina Petrowska Quilico performing Ann Southam's Glass Houses Revisited #5. Thank you, internet!

stand against islamophobia: boycott lowe's... and more

2011-12-16T08:30:00.004-05:00

By now you've probably heard about the "All-American Muslim" TV show vs. Lowe's Home Improvement vs. Florida Family Association craziness. I know "The Daily Show" has been tracking the story (of course the video is not available in Canada). But in case you haven't heard about this particular bit of insanity from TGNOTFOTE^TM, this excellent column in The New Yorker's online edition will fill you in.

The Jaafars and their children form one of five Dearborn families featured on “All-American Muslim,” a reality show, on TLC, created by some of the same team behind “Real Housewives of New York.” The show has become the target of an ugly campaign by a group called the Florida Family Association, which calls it “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.” That someone, somewhere, would yell at the television when presented with images of Arab-Americans getting married or ready for school or running a football practice is sad, but might not be surprising. What is more remarkable, and even alarming, is that the group’s campaign persuaded Lowe’s, the home-improvement chain, to pull its advertising from “All-American Muslim.”

The Florida Family Association says that Lowe’s is not the only sponsor it has driven away. That is hard to know, since ads are bought and sold all the time. Lowe’s, however, made no secret of its decision to walk away: “Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views,” it said in a Facebook post. “As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

That is, at a minimum, weak on Lowe’s part. Why would it be so responsive to a letter that contained lines like, “One of the most troubling scenes occurred at the introduction of the program when a Muslim police officer stated, I really am American. No ifs ands and buts about it.” Are those the sort of words that cause panics? The actual complaint that the Florida Family Association has is particular and peculiar: that “All-American Muslim” is dangerous because its subjects aren’t. The Florida Family Association isn’t pretending that these people—the Amens, the Aoudes, the Bazzy-Aliahmads, the Jaafars, and the Zabans—aren’t exactly who the program says they are. (It’s a fairly diverse group that includes, even within those families, women who wear the hijab and ones who don’t) When it says that the show is an effort to “inaccurately portray Muslims in America,” it is rejecting that reality in favor of stereotypes. In other words, the truth is false if it does not look the way one thought it would. It is seized by the fear of a bland Muslim. [I highly recommend reading the whole column.]

I've been pleased to see that a boycott of Lowe's is in full swing, with entertainment entrepreneur Russell Simmons buying the advertising that Lowe's gave up. That's excellent, but we need to do more. At a minimum, we can write to Lowe's and tell them we support the boycott, and why. What we need, though, is a large, public repudiation of this disgusting Islamophobia.

What is it like to live in a country your entire life, your family to live in that country for generations, and be singled out as The Other, have your basic values and loyalties questioned? Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians learned what it was like. European Jews learned. African-Americans were The Other for hundreds of years.

I keep asking myself, how can we show our Muslim neighbours that we abhor this kind of scapegoating and bigotry? What can we do that is more than lip service? I'm not asking this rhetorically: I'm really asking. If you have thoughts about this, share them in comments.

Meanwhile:

Lowe's contact form

Lowe's email

Robert A. Niblock, Chairman and CEO
Lowe's Companies, Inc.
1000 Lowes Boulevard
Mooresville, NC 28117-8520

there can be no justice for bradley manning

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

Today begins the "Article 32" hearing for accused whistleblower Bradley Manning, the first time in 18 months of incarceration that Manning will face a judge. Tonight there's a vigil outside Ft. Meade, Maryland, and tomorrow - Manning's 24th birthday - there will be a big rally in support.

The Article 32 hearing will determine whether Manning's case will go to court martial, or be decided by a military judge, or enter some other venue, at the military's discretion. Many people are referring to this as a "pre-trial hearing", and similarly referring to Bradley Manning's "trial". This gives the impression Manning will receive a fair, impartial hearing by an actual system of justice. But this is not the case. Manning is being court-martialed. That is, his accusers, his judge and his jury are one and the same. How can there be justice?

A friend of mine from the War Resisters Support Campaign will be at the vigil, rally and hearing, so I'll have a first-hand report to share. Meanwhile, the Bradley Manning Support Network now has a great site with lots of information and updates.

Tomorrow, Saturday, December 17, is an international Day of Solidarity in support of Bradley Manning. People will gather in towns and cities all over the world to show Manning he is not alone, that we stand with him, that we honour his courage and truth-telling.

In Toronto, supporters will gather at 1:00 across from the US Consulate, 360 University Avenue. For information on any city, go here.

citizenship ceremonies now include islamophobia

2011-12-14T08:30:00.003-05:00

Last week I learned citizenship ceremonies now include militarism. This week I learn they also include Islamophobia. I'm grateful I became a citizen before this hateful bullshit started.

Face veils banned for citizenship oaths

The government is placing a ban on face coverings such as niqabs for people swearing their oath of citizenship, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Monday.

The ban takes effect immediately.

As a result, Muslim women will have to remove their niqabs or any other face-covering garments, such as burkas, before they can recite the oath of citizenship to become Canadians. Citizenship judges will be directed to enforce the rules at ceremonies over which they preside.

It's a "public declaration that you are joining the Canadian family and it must be taken freely and openly," he said, calling it "frankly, bizarre" that women were allowed to wear face veils while they swear their citizenship oaths.

Kenney said he doesn't accept that it's a religious obligation to wear the veil, explaining that when Muslim women perform the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca required by their faith, they are required not to cover their faces.

"It's a cultural tradition, which I think reflects a certain view about women that we don't accept in Canada. We want women to be full and equal members of Canadian society and certainly when they're taking the citizenship oath, that's the right place to start," Kenney said in an interview on CBC News Network.

Complaints from citizenship court judges

A directive posted on the department's website says if candidates aren't seen taking the oath, officials are to explain that they must be seen reciting it, and that they can't become Canadian citizens without it. They can return for the next citizenship ceremony, but "the opportunity to return to take the oath at another citizenship ceremony applies only once," the directive says.

Women who choose not to remove their face coverings can remain permanent residents, Kenney told CBC's Evan Solomon, host of Power & Politics. The citizenship oath is the last step before going from permanent residency to citizenship. Permanent residents can live in Canada but can't vote or run for office.

Kenney said he's had complaints from MPs and citizenship court judges that it's hard to tell whether people with their faces covered are actually reciting the oath of citizenship, which he says is a requirement to become Canadian. Wladyslaw Lizon, a Conservative MP from Mississauga, Ont., brought it to his attention, Kenney says. [emphasis added]

. . .

"I thought it was absurd from beginning to end," said Julia Williams, the human rights and civil liberties officer for CAIR-Can.

She said Kenney's argument that Islam does not require women to wear the niqab defies their charter rights.

"In Canada we also have religious freedom which is enshrined in the charter, and so long as she is not harming someone by her actions, she should be allowed to dress as she sees fit," Williams said.

"I can't think of anything more damaging to women's equality and women's rights than removing their freedom of choice. So I think it was an easy political point to score and at the expense of a vulnerable group of women."

My response so far, sent to my MP with a copy to Jason Kenney. More will follow.

Mr. Lizon:

I am a constituent in your riding, and I was deeply disappointed to see your name linked with bigotry and intolerance. A news story about the new ban on the wearing of niqabs in citizenship ceremonies said that you suggested this change to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney.

There is no rational reason to force a woman to reveal more of herself than she is comfortable doing, or to force someone to violate religious precepts, in order to become a Canadian citizen. You may not like the niqab, Mr. Kenney may not like the niqab – I may not like the niqab. But our preferences are irrelevant. Canadians are supposed to enjoy freedom of religion and freedom of expression. A Muslim woman who wears a niqab has the same rights as a Jewish man who wears a yarmulke or a Catholic woman who wears a crucifix.

The only reason to ban the wearing of niqabs at a citizenship ceremony is bigotry. It is exactly that kind of bigotry that leads to incidents like the one that took place in the Sheridan Centre mall last summer. Mr. Kenney’s new regulation is a signal to intolerant people that such bigotry is accepted in Canada, and that Muslims in particular may be targetted for hatred.

As you well know, Canada is a multicultural country founded by immigrants. Immigrants and their descendants form the core of the Canadian population. Exclusion based on religious or cultural practices has no place in Canada – and certainly not at a citizenship ceremony.

I became a Canadian citizen in June of 2010. I’m glad this ban was not in place at the time. I would have been ashamed to participate in my own ceremony.

Sincerely,

Laura Kaminker, etc.

we like lists: list # 12: ten best of anything

2011-12-12T08:00:00.018-05:00

Lists are back! I was a little disappointed in the turnout for our last list, awesome art. Statcounter and Google Reader tell me that a few hundred people read this blog; I wish more of them would jump in the comment pool. But even if only from the core group of wmtc commenters... we like lists!

This list is down to you. It's a list of the ten best. Ten best... you tell me. Ten best baseball players. Ten best reasons to quit your job. Ten best varieties of apples. Ten best places to drink coffee. Whatever you like. The list can be fact-based, objective and debatable, or purely opinion.

My list is the ten best feel-good songs, laura k edition. You know what a feel-good song is - the music guaranteed to make you smile. Songs that make me want to grab an air-microphone and dance around the room.

1. Night, Bruce Springsteen

2. Sing, Sing, Sing

3. American Girl, Tom Petty

4. Steppin' Out, Joe Jackson

5. Domino, Van Morrison

6. Awaiting on You All, George Harrison

7. Rock and Roll, Led Zeppelin

8. Caldonia

9. Take On Me, Ah-ha (Yes, I love this song!) (Also: Funny!)

10. Down on the Corner, Creedence

Updated rule! No repeating other commenters' lists. You've got to make your own.

worlds collide: the high line meets the information

2011-12-10T23:11:00.002-05:00

This photo is used in James Gleick's The Information, in which I am currently engrossed. The building is Bell Labs, the hottest of hot spots for engineering and technology for decades, in one of its most famous locations, on the west side of lower Manhattan. (The building is now Westbeth.) The train passing through the Bell Labs building is running on The High Line. You may recall my enthusiastic post about The High Line. Worlds collide.

Looking for this photo online, I found a terrific post about The High Line by Phillip Lopate. Lopate is a writer, critic and thinker who writes about (among other things) architecture, city planning and design. I know him best from an anthology he edited, The Art of the Personal Essay. Phillip Lopate's brother is Leonard Lopate, the host of a long-running radio show on WNYC.

Lopate's story about The High Line begins:

When, in June 2009, the High Line Park opened to the public, it was declared an almost unqualified success. Some architecture critics nit-picked the design, but basically they endorsed it, and ordinary folk (I include myself in that category), less fastidious, greeted it with enthusiasm. Crowds lined up for hours to have the elevated promenade experience, it became a (free) hot-ticket item in New York City, which typically over-embraces a novelty for six months, then ignores it. Especially in hot weather, the challenge soon became to grab one of the reclining benches on the sundeck and tan yourself for hours, while envious masses stumbled by. The crowded, restless carnival-grounds movement of the park-goers above-ground rhymed the pedestrian conveyer-belt effect of the gridded streets below: Manhattan is a place where loitering in one place is done at your peril. Paris has boulevard cafes for cooling one’s heels, Rome comes to a rest at fountains and piazzas, but in Manhattan you keep moving forward. Well and good: I approve.

Fans of New York, The High Line, public art, great design, history and excellent writing should check out "Above Grade: On The High Line". At least go look at the photos.

write for rights: spotlight on reggie clemons

2011-12-10T16:10:00.001-05:00

Black man. White murder victims. No physical evidence. Sentenced to death despite very compelling doubts about guilt. If this sounds like Troy Davis 2.0, that's because Troy Davis was not an anomaly. His death was business-as-usual in the US's sorry excuse for a justice system.

Meet Reggie Clemons. Like Troy Davis was, Clemons has been in prison for 20 years, waiting for the state to end his life.

Unfairness has dogged Clemons' case from the beginning. There was no physical evidence. There are allegations of police coercion, prosecutorial misconduct, and a stacked jury. Despite these questions, the state of Missouri plans to murder Reggie Clemons. Two young women were killed, but killing a man who may not be guilty will not bring their families justice. (Killing a man who is guilty won't bring them justice either.)

During this year's Write for Rights campaign, Amnesty International is spotlighting 15 priority cases. Each one of these 15 cases - including Reggie Clemons' - is an individual or group suffering human rights abuses. Several are at imminent risk of death or terrible mistreatment.

The Write for Rights campaign has actually saved lives in the past. Early next year, Clemons faces a hearing that could mean the difference between life and death. Our letters to Missouri governor Jay Nixon could push Missouri authorities to make the right decision and spare Clemons' life. At the very least, our letters attest that millions of people know that the state should not have the power to murder citizens.

Go here to read more about Clemons' case, and here to write a letter on his behalf.

write for rights: celebrate human rights day with amnesty

2011-12-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

Are you participating in Write for Rights? This annual event is a simple, hands-on way you can stand up for global human rights at least once a year.

Be a part of the world's largest human rights event: Write for Rights.

international human rights day: mohamed harkat and indefinite detention

2011-12-10T07:00:00.003-05:00

Today is International Human Rights Day, a day to work for and affirm human rights at home and abroad.

Today also marks 9 years since Mohamed Harkat, a Canadian citizen, was arrested under a so-called security certificate. Harkat spend 43 months in jail and was eventually released under the harshest bail conditions in Canadian history. Today, he still wears a GPS device on his ankle, one of many restrictions on his movements.

Harkat now faces deportation to his native Algeria, where he will be at great risk for imprisonment, torture and death.

Harkat has never been charged with a specific crime and has never seen the evidence against him. Harkat came to Canada in 1995, and was granted refugee status in 1997. CSIS claims Harkat is part of a terrorist sleeper cell, an allegation supposedly based on secret evidence that Harkat and his legal defense team have never been allowed to see. Is that the kind of justice system we want in Canada?

Harkat's wife, Sophie Harkat, fights tirelessly to keep her husband's case alive, both in the public eye and for funds for expensive court appeals. If you can help the Harkats, your support will go directly to their defense fund, but beyond that, it will help Canada become the advanced, enlightened, liberal nation Canadians believe it to be, not a nation that can detain and deport a law-abiding citizen without charge.

Please visit Justice for Harkat. Read, learn, share, and if you can, donate. At a minimum, please sign the statement against security certificates.

* * * *

Speaking of indefinite detention, I assume you have all heard of the most recent US human rights travesty: The National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that calls for permanent concentration camps, a la Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The bill gives the president - any US president - the power to order the military to pick up and imprison anyone, without charge or trial, anywhere in the world, including within the US. There is no exclusion for US citizens. The bill was drafted in secret and passed in a closed-door committee, without even a single hearing. It was, of course, a bipartisan effort.

Obama has said he will veto it. We shall see.

If this doesn't qualify for "fascist shift," I don't know what does. One perspective and many good links here.

tell the senate: don't rubber-stamp the harper crime bill

2011-12-09T13:30:00.002-05:00

From Leadnow.ca:

On Monday, Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative MPs voted for the cruel Crime Bill. That night, the NDP, Liberal, Bloc and Green MPs stood together against the bill, and many of them were wearing “Safer, not meaner” buttons in solidarity with our campaign.

Now, the struggle for Canadian justice moves to the Senate. The Senate’s job is to provide a “sober second thought.” Senators are appointed for life, and free to make their own choices. They can review the evidence, change the bill, and force another vote.

Every day, opposition grows as Canadians learn more about the Crime Bill, but Prime Minister Harper is putting enormous pressure on Senators to rubber-stamp the bill quickly so it can pass before Christmas. There is only one thing that can balance the scales: a massive public outcry from Canadians like you, right now.

Click here to send an urgent message to the Senators that represent your province, asking them to rise above partisan politics, look at the evidence, and make Canada safer, not meaner:

Tell the Senate: Don't Rubber-Stamp the Crime Bill

Together, you are taking on the strongest force in Canadian politics: a newly elected government with a majority of seats working to pass a core plank of its election platform on a hot-button issue.

And, thanks to your messages to your representatives, your letters to the editor, your local actions, and your phone calls, we have helped shift the national conversation decisively against this bill in a way that no one thought possible just a few months ago.

Don't waste time fretting over "this can't work" and "it's too late". Just click and do what you can.

how can we live without polar bears? bbc's planet earth gets political

2011-12-09T13:00:00.002-05:00

In October, I blogged about my impressions of the BBC nature series "Planet Earth". I loved the show, but criticized the producers for making it completely apolitical. There was not a single mention of habitat conservation, climate change or any human-caused environmental disruption, which struck me as a terrible missed opportunity.

We put down the series for a while (because we got addicted to "The Wire") and just returned to the final three episodes. Now I must retract my criticism and give the series the highest possible marks for its politics, both in form and content.

The last three episodes of the Planet Earth series are devoted to humans' impact on the environment, and the debate about what can and should be done about that. The strategy of putting all the environmental content at the end was very interesting and potentially very effective. Had each episode contained environmental messages, many viewers would have turned away. The narration might have become repetitive, plus the environmental content might have had less impact it it were dispersed throughout the series, focusing on one environmental risk at a time.

Instead, we are first mesmerized and awed by the beauty and majesty of nature, and the incredible diversity of our beautiful planet home. And then, after being introduced to nature in forms usually unseen by human eyes, we learn of the dire threats, and the precarious state of the earth. And we learn it all at once, with facts and statistics piled one on the next - boggling the mind, and depressing the heart.

We are also introduced to the debate about what should be done. We hear the viewpoints of the leaders of large mainstream environmental groups, radical indigenous environmentalists, energy industry spokespeople (now forced to admit that climate change is occurring... we just don't know if it's caused by humans), indigenous people who have been hurt by some conservation methods, and independent thinkers such as James Lovelock and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The program has a distinct point of view, but is never preachy.

Here are some excerpts from the final three episodes. I'll tell you this: it broke my heart. The first of the three episodes, especially, outlines the threats to species around the planet. I am loathe to say this, but for me it brought on a crushing sense of despair.

* * * *

Right now, the world is facing mass extinctions not experienced since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. All species of big cats, elephants, several species of antelope - all threatened. Amphibians worldwide are in freefall: thousands of species of frogs have disappeared in the last 20 years.

And of course, there is the polar bear, our symbol of climate change, of the loss of the polar ice cap. Our symbol of what the endless quest for consumption and materialism has wrought. The struggles of the polar bear are heartbreaking. In the only overtly political piece in the series (before these final episodes), Planet Earth included a segment showing a polar bear attacking giant walruses - huge, dangerous animals living in large defensive herds - on dry land. This is not normal polar bear behaviour. The bear does not survive: wounded, exhausted, it gives up, lying down near the walruses to die.

You are then shown the same area - the same latitude at the same time of year - 10 years earlier. It was a frozen sea. Polar bears were hunting normally - small seals living alone under the ice. If nothing changes, 35% of polar bears will be gone in the next 50 years.

I kept thinking, How can we live without the polar bear? How can we live in a world where we have killed off these creatures?

The BBC Planet Earth film crew was continually shocked at the rarity of so many species. Not only the number of species going extinct is rising, but the rate of extinction is accelerating. A very large proportion of wildlife species will be completely lost in next 50 years. One of four mammals and one of three amphibians is on the threatened list. Half of all rainforests, wetlands, and grasslands are gone. Entire habitats are being systematically eradicated.

The forest elephants of Asia were presumed to be safer than their African cousins, as they inhabit a remote area and live under dense cover. The Planet Earth team learned that this was simply untrue. These magnificent creatures were just as threatened by poaching; their remoteness and vast forest cover made almost no difference to their vulnerability.

Poaching - especially hunting for an external luxury market, rather than a local consumptive market - can wipe out a species population in as little as 20 years.

In the Amazon River, freshwater dolphins were thought to be nearly eternal. A new market for catfish opened up in Colombia; the dolphins are killed for bait. Now these dolphins are threatened.

Fifteen years ago, filming another series, BBC film crews saw mass migrations of Saiga antelopes on the steppes of Central Asia - herds in the millions. When they returned there to film Planet Earth, there were only a few hundred animals left. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the opening of the border with China opened up new markets. Some antelope were hunted for meat, but most were slaughtered for their horns, which are used in Chinese medicine. Poachers reduced millions to nearly nothing within the span of 15 years.

* * * *

The question is posed: Why do we need frogs? Why should we care if a species of insects or coral is killed off?

The late Professor Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist, the founder of The Greenbelt Movement, who died a few months ago, answered the question this way.

The whole planet Earth is a system. And we, human species, are only part, a very small part, of the system. There are literally millions of species out there. We may not know them. We may not know their value, but we want to conserve them.

We should have a lot respect for the system, for the natural system, for the biodiversity. Don't worry if you don't know what good they are for. You didn't create it, so you don't know what it is for. Just let it be. Because, who knows, someday, down the road, our future generations might find that they can survive because of that aspect of biodiversity.

Several people weigh in on why we should conserve biodiversity, from the blatantly economic to the purely ethical.

There is much discussion of how conservation efforts must be locally directed, supported and sustained in order to succeed, and whether large Western conservation groups care more for animals than for the people in any region. Someone asks, is it good to invest in animals when people are starving? E. O. Wilson says, "You bet your life." He details why saving wildlife is an important investment, one that yields benefits on so many levels. Then finally, he concludes:

The expenditure of a few thousand, even a few million, if it can bring a species through, it has so much to give us, if we can keep it alive, in every sphere of human consciousness - the aesthetic, scientific, in relation to the environment. Yeah, that's a very good investment. It's sure a better investment than conducting wars.

I thought, There. At last someone says it.

Jeffrey A. McNeeley, Chief Scientist with the World Conservation Union, says:

If you look at the amount of money that we were able to generate for all kinds of other things, like invading Iraq, for example. Now what does that cost? What tiny proportion of that would it take to ensure that those species do in fact survive? Minuscule.

There is much discussion about humans being moved to save big, beautiful mammals, yet the bulk of life on earth exists as "bugs and weeds", the tiny organisms that keep the planet going - which are also facing mass extinctions. James Leape of the World Wildlife Federation says:

Think in terms of a brick wall. We are systematically knocking out bricks. Sooner or later, the wall collapses.

I have serious problems with WWF, ever since they partnered with McDonald's. Later in the program, Leape defends trophy hunting, because it promotes ecotourism. I could barely watch. But Leape does offer some important insights in this program, and WWF has done some excellent work.

We need the frogs and weeds, no doubt. But the large, beautiful mammals are what capture our imaginations. Without that appeal to the public, the movement is lost. Robert May talks about how this can be used to save an area, a conservation "hot spot", where saving one area saves several species.

* * * *

We hear that the only solutions that will work in the long term are the ones that come from within. In Ethiopia, after the iconic Walia Ibex was down to only 150 survivors, a national campaign was launched to save them. They have quadrupled in numbers. 600 animals is not many, but they are coming back.

The wild dogs of Africa were severely threatened by diseases, which they contracted from contact with domestic dogs. The people of the nearby communities keep domestic dogs and value them, but cannot afford to vaccinate them. When a conservation program offered to vaccinate the village dogs at no cost, the local people were very happy, as their community would be safe from rabies and other dangerous diseases, plus a safer environment increases tourism. The wild dog population began to rebound.

In one strange segment, someone from the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans talks about the zoo's program to save animal DNA in order to later clone them... so we can populate another planet. It's possible the BBC producers kept this bit - without comment - as a form of ridicule. The zoo spokesperson says cloning "is using human ingenuity to save a species. Something's going to have to be done." I have an idea. How about we save the earth we have right now, before we begin trashing another planet?

* * * *

In these three episodes, no one ever utters the word "capitalism," but a few people do describe the profit motive as the biggest threat to the planet.

In the segment on population, one expert says, "The bigger threat is growth in our economy and the way we use our wealth." Someone else says that citing over-population - usually conceived as being too many people in Africa and India - is a way of saying, "It's not about us."

Considering 5% of the world's population consumes 35% of its resources, and half the world's population lives on two dollars a day, blaming population growth for environmental problems does not stand up to scrutiny. Anyway, if we want to reduce population growth, we already know how: educate girls and women, and give people access to free, safe contraceptive and free, safe, legal abortion. Meanwhile, the first world with its zero or negative population growth continues to consume and trash the Earth.

Robert Watson, Chief Scientist of the World Bank, says (emphasis mine):

It's not simply an issue of the number of people - it's the number of people and to what degree those people can buy biological resources, energy resources, use water, and so forth. The bigger threat is growth in economy and the way we use our wealth. It's how we live on the planet, not just our numbers. If we all lived on this planet the way Americans live, we would need three planets to support the current population.

* * * *

There was a lengthy segment on the economic value of conservation, and programs that attempt to make it more valuable to preserve land than to destroy it. Several successful programs are highlighted, including ecotourism in Kenya and the government of Costa Rica paying farmers to let land return to forest. It's a viable strategy in some areas, but capitalism is all about short-term gain, and in many situations, it's way more profitable to destroy or deplete an area with extraction than to preserve it. Yes, there is great economic value in bees pollinating plants, trees keeping a water system functioning, plants keeping our air clean. But the people who profit from environmental destruction are not driven by a concern for clean drinking water.

* * * *

In the excellent segment on climate change, in which we meet indigenous people and others who live close to nature, like farmers and ranchers, who see the effects of climate change on a daily basis. The Planet Earth team was in Antarctica ten years earlier. Now it is warmer, greener. David Attenborough:

It was perfectly responsible 20 years ago to be a climate change skeptic, but not anymore. Powerful economic forces are at work, industries that are concerned that action on climate change may be to their disadvantage. So in the end, it's not that surprising that some still voice doubts.

* * * *

Roger Payne, the first person to record the songs of humpback whales, is interviewed. Humans hearing whale songs for the first time was a watershed in the environmental movement. Like Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring, Payne's whale recordings led to a shift in consciousness. Payne says that people think whales are safe, because of the international moratorium on whaling. But they are not. They are being slaughtered at sea. They are also being poisoned, as the female whale's breast milk is the equivalent of toxic sludge, because the plankton and krill she feeds on is poisoned. Payne says, "I'm seeing my life's work being undone in front of my eyes, and it's a horrible thing to see."

* * * *

What about "sustainable development"?

A mainstream environmentalist says it's the most exciting thing to happen to the movement in decades. It's what we're all working for. It's the way forward.

An government shill for the oil industry says it's a sham. He says environmentalists talk about sustainable development, but they want no development. "So-called environmentalists want to leave the people of developing nations in the energy dark ages, so they can't advance as a people." He's a half-step away from calling "those people" backwards darkies. So the oil industry is actually doing missionary work!

Wangari Maatha says:

Sustainable development must mean that we develop in a way that we can thrive on this continent [i.e., Africa]. Africans have thrived on this continent for very many years - without airplanes, without trains, without skyscrapers. Without all the modern development that we think, when we look at the West, that's what development means. To me, development means staying alive. Having a quality of life. Not so much a life that is surrounded by goods, things. But a life where you can live in a clean and healthy environment.

James Lovelock, originator of Gaia theory, says:

There is no such thing as sustainable development. It's a contradiction in terms. What we need now is a sustainable retreat from the mess that we're now in. Solutions like renewable energy are not really solutions. Perhaps 100 years ago, that would have been fine. But it's much, much too late now.

David Attenborough, the series narrator, counsels that what's needed is

for humans to change their view, to know that gross materialism and the pursuit of material wealth is not the only thing in life.

Former UK MP Clare Short, who resigned from Parliament in protest of the invasion of Iraq, says:

It is impossible and unacceptable, and won't work, to say to the poor of China and India, you can't have what we've got. So the only way that we can get a deal with the people of the world to preserve human civilization is to say, It's not any longer going to be economic growth for economic growth's sake, but a more equitable world, where everyone has the basic things that human beings need, and then we cease to find the meaning of life out of more economic growth and more and more consumption. Because in our kind of society, where that's what's happening, it's not only plundering the world and unsustainable, it's making people miserable.

* * * *

Of course the producers of Planet Earth try to end the series on a hopeful note. After watching these three episodes, I felt anything but hopeful.

To me it's clear that there is no such thing as sustainable development, not as development is presently conceived. Capitalism is wholly incompatible with a healthy Earth and, at this point, with the continuation of life on Earth.

There is only one way forward. We have to share the resources of the planet so we can all live. Not to help the world's poor become the world's consumers. Rather, a different system where we all have enough. Many of us would have much less. Many more would simply have enough.

what i'm reading: the information, by james gleick

2011-12-07T13:30:00.002-05:00

I've started reading a book that I cannot put down: James Gleick's The Information.

The book's full title is The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, and it is indeed a book of many intentions: a history of communication and information technology, a history of information theory, a historical perspective on our own information age, and predictions on where that age is going. It's a complex and multifarious book, and to spare myself the challenge of writing it about for you, I'm going to cop out and link to people who have already done so. Here are reviews in The Guardian and The Globe and Mail.

The New York Times reviewer has the same problem I do: this book is really difficult to write about.

“The Information” offers this point-blank characterization of its author: “James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and modern technology.” This new book goes far beyond the earlier Gleick milestones, “Chaos” and “Genius,” to validate that claim.

“The Information” is so ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly. Imagine luxuriating on a Wi-Fi-equipped desert island with Mr. Gleick’s book, a search engine and no distractions. “The Information” is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand.

In this relaxed setting, take the time to differentiate among the Brownian (motion), Bodleian (library) and Boolean (logic) while following Mr. Gleick’s version of what Einstein called “spukhafte Fernwirkung,” or “spooky action at a distance.” Einstein wasn’t precise about what this meant, and Mr. Gleick isn’t always precise either. His ambitions for this book are diffuse and far flung, to the point where providing a thumbnail description of “The Information” is impossible.

I've just been reading about a few people and things I encountered in my first semester of iSchool, in those dreadful "information and society" lectures: course: Ada Lovelace, a mathematical genius, the biological child of the poet Lord Byron, and the first programmer, from the time when a "computer" was a person who added up numbers; the Jacquard Loom, a mechanical loom that was a proto-computer, the pattern of an weave determined by punchcards; and the visionary Charles Babbage, a man so far ahead of his time that he said he would exchange all his remaining years to live only three more days, five centuries in the future. Babbage was trying to construct a true computer in the Victorian age - steam-powered, running on wheels and cogs.

So far, though, I must disagree with the Times writer's assessment that readers need "the mettle to tackle" this book. That is, unless The Information is subject to what I think of as The Hawking Effect. Years and years ago, I tried reading A Brief History of Time, deciding I could handle the science if I read slowly and carefully enough. Concept A. OK, got it. Concept B, I'm still with you, Stephen. Concept B is followed by... Concept F. Hmm, that was a bit of a leap, but I think I'm OK. Concept F is followed by Concept QZW4t589TZZXpft. I'm gone. Can't understand another thing. Although that book, supposedly, was meant to be understood by people without a hard science background, it was beyond me.

But if Gleick continues walking the reader through math and engineering concepts with elegant analogies and well-chosen quotes, I'll read every word of this 425-page book. Because where else will I read about cuneform tablets, the first dictionary, the effect of the internet on lexicographers, the talking drums of Africa (the world's first technology for complex long-distance communication), and how language contributes to the formation of consciousness, all in the first 50 pages?

I used to be an avid reader of Gleick's "Fast Forward" column in the New York Times, where he helped me understand the case against Microsoft. I remember him as the first writer (that I knew of, anyway) to understand the value of the simple URL: he still lives at around.com.

While writing this post, I checked out Gleick's website for the first time in years, and who do I see staring me in the face but my friend Samuel Pepys! Gleick reads Pepys Diary online, as I do. He is also a union man (my words, not his), on the board of the Author's Guild, and has been known to stand up publicly for the rights of writers.

I have not read Gleick's best-known book Chaos, although I might one day, and I tried but couldn't get into Faster. So far The Information feels like a must-read. OK Gleick, don't pull a Hawking on me.

income inequality in canada sinks to 30-year high

2011-12-06T10:00:00.005-05:00

The rich grow richer, the poor grow more numerous. The income gap widens - and our entire society is poorer because of it.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development released a study yesterday demonstrating that income inequality is increasing around the globe, and Canada is among the worst offenders.

The richest 1% of Canadians saw their share of total income increase from slightly more than 8% in 1980 to more than 13% in 2007. The share owned by the richest 0.1% of Canadians more than doubled, from 2% to 5.3%.

The culprit: changes in the tax code that benefit the rich and hurt people with lower incomes.

The OECD fingered tax policies for much of the changes. Canada's top marginal tax rate dropped from 43 per cent in 1981 to 29 per cent in 2010, the OECD noted in the report.

Meanwhile, tax benefits now only offset less than 40 per cent of wage inequality in Canada, compared with more than 70 per cent before.

"The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries," OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría said. "This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that greater inequality fosters greater social mobility."

"Without a comprehensive strategy for inclusive growth, inequality will continue to rise." . . .

That 9-1 global ratio is the largest gap in a generation, the agency says. Even in traditionally egalitarian nations such as Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the ratio has risen from 5-1 in the 1980s to 6-1 today.

The gap is 10-1 in Italy, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom, and higher still, at 14-1 in Israel, Turkey and the United States.

While the income gap widens, public services that an increasingly large segment of society depends on are dismantled.

Our quality of life deteriorates.

Discontent, anger and fear grow.

People take to the streets to express their unhappiness and demand change.

Police and military forces are used against them.

Discontent, anger and fear rise, unabated.

There is only one way to fight this. Organize.

Council of Canadians

International Socialists Canada

New Democrat Party

Occupy Together

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

the militarization of canadian life continues: citizenship ceremonies now include soldiers

2011-12-06T09:00:00.046-05:00

I mentioned this yesterday in my post about the Canadian Peace Alliance's Peace & Prosperity not War & Austerity campaign, but it deserves special emphasis.

In April 2010, I wrote about the Conservative government's new citizenship guide. This is a booklet sent to all residents of Canada who have applied for Canadian citizenship, to help them prepare for the citizenship exam. You can read the full version here, or a more condensed version at The Mark. My conclusion:

This, in brief, is Stephen Harper's, Jason Kenney's and the Conservative Government's Canada. A country that: does not value peace and tolerance; measures its history by armed conflict; does not encourage its citizens to work for social justice; is not concerned with protecting the environment; reveres the monarchy; is mostly Christian; warns immigrants to tame their savage ways; and emphasizes obedience to authority.

Since then, the Harper Conservatives have taken another step in their attempt to reshape the image of Canada in their vision. Citizenship ceremonies are now required to include a speaker from the military, whose "sacrifices" will be acknowledged at the ceremony.

The Conservative government is strengthening the symbolic power of the military in public life by having a member of the Canadian Forces play a prominent role in citizenship ceremonies.

In an operational bulletin issued earlier this year, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration said highlighting the service of members of the armed forces is a way to underline to every new Canadian the rights and responsibilities that come with citizenship.

The bulletin, which describes military service as one of the highest expressions of citizenship, states that members of the military should be seated on the main platform with the citizenship judge, that they can stand in the receiving line congratulating new citizens and that they may give a two- to three-minute speech. Where possible, the bulletin says the preference is for veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

The increased prominence of the military at these ceremonies is in keeping with other gestures made by Stephen Harper’s government. The new citizenship handbook, Discover Canada, for example, which was introduced by Minister Jason Kenney in 2009, placed much more emphasis on Canadian military history than the preceding guide.

Michael Fellman, a professor emeritus of history at Simon Fraser University, said it’s part of a gradual militarization of Canadian culture under the Conservatives.

“The Tories are in a long-range campaign to change Canadian values and make them more conservative,” Prof. Fellman said. “This is a way to show that the military is at the core of the meaning of citizenship.

“It’s an attempt to imbue new citizens with awareness of the military, and the military means a whole host of other things, sacrifice for freedom and all that stuff and it rallies people around these very chauvinistic values. It’s not the Canada I prefer to think about.”

Mr. Kenney’s office did not respond to an interview request.

I understand that many people believe that military service is an expression of patriotism. But there are many ways to express one's love or gratitude for one's new country. Why is a soldier addressing new citizens, rather than, say, a social worker? Or a peace activist - a volunteer from a local food bank - an ESL teacher?

The citizenship ceremony should be as free from politics as possible. One could argue that the concept of citizenship is itself political. Certainly the questions chosen for the citizenship exam are biased towards a particular reading of history. But those biases speak to larger questions of identity, the nation-state, and how official histories are constructed. Within that larger framework, however, becoming a Canadian citizen should be politically neutral. For the Harper government, the citizenship ceremony becomes another opportunity for indoctrination.

The inclusion of a military presence at the citizenship ceremony is also another example of the Harper government's politicization of the military, aligning the war in Afghanistan and the military in general with the Conservative party. I've heard from plenty of former Canadian reservists who do not vote Conservative and who despise this. In the US, the military is so overtly political that it took me a while to understand that this was not always the case in Canada. If Stephen Harper is on a quest to Americanize Canada, using the military as a political prop is an effective tool.

For an in-depth look the politicizing of the Canadian military, see the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Harper, the Military, and Wedge Politics (pdf), by Steven Staples.

rivers of suggestion

2011-12-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

Allan has revived his non-baseball blog. He is writing about writing, music and the world out there.

Formerly known as In Cold Blog and In Other News and maybe some other names, the blog is now called Rivers of Suggestion, and it is found here.

peace & prosperity, not war & austerity: help the canadian peace alliance fight the harper military agenda

2011-12-05T08:00:00.003-05:00

Amid the deluge of fundraising appeals that arrive via email and paper mail this time of year, the letter from the Canadian Peace Alliance stood out for me.

Under the "Canada First Defence Strategy," Harper plans to spend $480 billion on the military, open up eight new Canadian military bases, and showcase Canada's military in all aspects of Canadian life. Remember the citizenship guide that is now rife with references to the military but omits all referenc to Canada as a peaceful nation? (Short version here.) It's only gotten worse: citizenship ceremonies are now required to include a speaker from the military, telling new Canadians that military service is the highest form of citizenship. Thank [something] that wasn't in place when Allan and I became citizens. I don't know how I would have sat quietly through that.

Harper's military agenda can't be seen in a vacuum. While spending lavishly on fighter jets and new bases, this government is telling every other ministry to tighten their belts: the next federal budget will call for $11 billion in cuts to public services. The only increase in public spending? Prisons - although most of that will be dumped on the provinces - which will necessitate even more drastic cuts in social spending.

The Canadian Peace Alliance will work to oppose this in a far-reaching campaign: Peace & Prosperity NOT War & Austerity. They'll be reaching out to community groups across a broad spectrum of concerns - labour, social justice, environment, health, faith - to organize lobbying and street actions throughout the country, opposing the war and austerity Conservative agenda.

Here's what you can do:

1. Read and sign the Declaration: Peace & Prosperity NOT War & Austerity.

2. Share the online Declaration with your network.

3. Download the Declaration, print it, and bring it to your meeting or holiday party.

4. Order postcards for your contacts to read, sign and return to the Canadian Peace Alliance.

5. Donate to the Canadian Peace Alliance.

6. Write a letter to a newspaper opposing the Harper military agenda.

7. Download and print a window sign, and hang it in your window. Increase the visibility of peace.

8. Speak out at every opportunity.

five of eight: another semester bites the dust

2011-12-02T14:00:00.001-05:00

And I do mean bites. This was a grueling term, boring beyond belief, but I've just completed my last assignment, and am now gloriously free of school for a full month. I have a long list of things to do, and of course I still have work, but I am due for some serious couch time.

I continue to love working at the library. Yes, a minimum-wage job shelving books, and I love it. I feel like I'm where I should be.

I've completed five of eight terms, 10 of 16 courses, and suddenly it feels like I'm almost there.

soliciting quebec travel information

2011-11-29T21:00:00.002-05:00

Last time I asked for Canadian travel advice was 2008 - too long ago! That ended up as 16 days exploring Newfoundland. This trip is more modest, but I am very excited. We haven't had a good holiday in so long.

In 2007, we spent our 20th anniversary at the Hotel de Glace, the Ice Hotel, which was then at the Auberge Duchesnay, about 30 minutes outside of Quebec City. (It's now built in Quebec City itself.) We didn't get to QC on that trip, and I've been talking about going ever since.

2012 marks 25 years of our domestic partnership, a stunning number that deserves a full-on celebration. So "a few days in Quebec City" grew into this: three nights at this B&B in QC, then dogsledding here, dinner and one night at Auberge Duchesnay, then three days in Montreal, staying at Le Petit Hotel. Then, if it's not snowing, we'll drive down to Vermont to visit some friends and family, spend the night there, then drive home.

We've never been in Quebec City, and although we've been to Montreal several times and we love it, we haven't done any real sightseeing there. And for some reason, we've never had a Montreal bagel! Shocking, I know, but we never heard of them until we moved to Canada. We've also only had poutine and smoked meat in Toronto, and of course Montrealers would say that means we've never had poutine or smoked meat. (I'm a New Yorker. I understand completely.)

So this thread is for your recommendations, ideas, must-sees, and musts-to-avoid. We like history, architecture, neighbourhood restaurants, markets (although it's January, so it would have to be an indoor market), bookstores, and general urban exploring. We're driving between cities, but expect to walk and take transit whenever possible. We don't ski, skate or snowboard, but we do like cold weather.

Your turn.

naomi wolf: violent crackdowns on occupy are orchestrated at federal level

2011-11-27T16:42:00.002-05:00

Naomi Wolf in The Guardian:

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."

In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.

Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? . . . .

. . . . .

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.

Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.

Read it here.

polygamy ruling: why are the courts still trying to protect marriage?

2011-11-26T14:22:00.003-05:00

The recent BC Supreme Court decision upholding Canadian laws criminalizing polygamy is disappointing and dangerous. The much-quoted summary paragraph of Chief Justice Robert Bauman's decision contained a surprising clause: the protection of marriage as an institution.

I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm; more specifically, Parliament's reasoned apprehension of harm arising out of the practice of polygamy. This includes harm to women, to children, to society and to the institution of monogamous marriage.

As we all know, harm to women and children has been the stated basis behind anti-polygamy laws, but in contemporary society, this makes no sense. Forced marriage, spousal abuse, child abuse, and child sexual abuse are already crimes, whether they occur in the context of legal marriage or any other context.

Laws curtailing women's freedom have always been rationalized as necessary for women's protection. Women weren't allowed to work, vote, smoke cigarettes, dress as they pleased, own property, and whatever else because, supposedly, they were weak and in need of protection. The anti-abortion-rights people still claim that anti-abortion laws protect women, when of course those laws do exactly the opposite.

Although it may be difficult for many people to believe, some women do freely choose to be in group marriages with several women and one man. Maybe most people don't understand this, but then, Charter rights exist to protect the minority against the dominant culture.

Children are in need of legal protection, and seldom receive enough of it. Having more than two parents doesn't inherently harm children any more than having two parents of the same gender does (i.e., not at all). If society is truly concerned about protecting children, it should strengthen and enforce existing child-protection laws. Dictating what types of relationships are sanctioned for child-raising is simply bigotry.

Beyond the usual excuses about women and children, protecting "the institution of monogamous marriage" is the same irrational, nonsensical excuse used for prohibiting same-sex marriage. Why does an institution need court protection? How do multiple-partner marriages threaten and harm monogamous marriages? What business do the courts have in siding with an institution over individual Charter rights?

Tabatha Southey, writing in the Globe and Mail, says it very clearly and succinctly:

A list of things that have been decried as threats to monogamous marriage: contraceptives, gay marriage, sex education, out-of-wedlock cohabitation, lewd dancing to rock 'n' roll, women in the work force, legal alcohol, naughty films, no-fault divorce and educating women.

Yet even though all these things came to pass – and several of them would be a fair trade for monogamous marriage – the institution is still here. Possibly monogamous marriage isn't the fragile flower it's made out to be.

But Parliament's chivalrousness toward it, as reaffirmed by Chief Justice Bauman's ruling, makes me nervous anyway.

It assigns an inherent moral value to a particular kind of union over other kinds of relationships entered into by consenting adults, and I hate that. What's more, upholding a law that violates our Charter right to religious freedom in the name of protecting women and children from trafficking, rape, abuse and forced marriage is just faulty logic: These are already crimes.

[Read her excellent column here.]

A surprising number of people in our society reject monogamy. This may be expressed in dozens of different models of relationships, from married couples who have casual sexual relationships outside the marriage with their partners' knowledge and consent, to polyfidelitous group common-law marriages. And, supposedly, as long as none of them tries to formalize these nontraditional relationships with legal marriage, it's nobody's business but their own. But if they want to be legally married, they're committing a crime. That is ridiculous.

I will never truly understand why people who choose to live outside societal norms still crave societal approval. Of course I support equal marriage; I just don't understand why so many people want to be married. But you know what? I don't have to understand. Just like the courts and Charles McVety and "Stop Polygamy in Canada" don't have to understand the people of Bountiful. They just have to let them be, because it's their right to live as they choose.

new from wmtc: fibromyalgia info page

2011-11-25T15:30:00.002-05:00

I decided to write about my experience with fibromyalgia, just to put it out there on the internet. I've met many people with fibromyalgia who don't actively try to reduce their symptoms, believing that there are no good treatments. While I have no idea if my experience is typical or common, I do know there are several things at least worth trying.

The new blog is only about my own experience. I won't be updating it unless I discover something new that either works or doesn't work for me.

It's here: my fibromyalgia info page.

my first days in the library

2011-11-25T14:30:00.002-05:00

I love it. I love being in the library. I love being part of the public library, helping to make it work.

I've been placed in the children's department of Mississauga's Central Library. It's a huge department, and there's a surprising amount to learn. Unlike the general library, where materials would either be fiction or nonfiction, there are about 30 different areas where children's materials might be shelved - picture books, books adults read to children, then all the different reading levels, each with fiction and nonfiction, plus French materials (since all children learn some French here), serieses, graphic novels, "favourite characters" (Arthur, Berenstain Bears, and such) - on and on.

In addition, a cart that might hold 50 adult books holds several hundred children's books, and the call numbers wrap around the book, since the spines are so thin. And there are little people running around, and noisy programs like storytimes and puppet shows and whatnot. It's a challenging place to be a page, and that's good, as it will make a repetitive job more interesting.

My supervisor is friendly and patient, as is everyone I've met so far. Four other pages have started in the children's department at the same time, and we're all "mature" (euphemism for old).

It's a wonderful atmosphere, full of the joy of discovery, and the love of reading and books. And a humane work environment, something I haven't experienced in a very long time. More than ever, I am dying to get out of my private-sector job - which used to be well-paid in a decent environment and has deteriorated into an office sweatshop - and work in my community.

in which i begin my first library job

2011-11-22T17:15:00.000-05:00

It's finally happened: I've been placed as a page! I begin my training this Thursday at the Central Library in Mississauga. This is a huge, beautiful library, a five-minute drive from our house, and right next door to YMCA that Allan and I belong to.

I've been waiting for this job to open up for two years, as several branch libraries in the Mississauga system were closed for renovation. You may recall, over the summer I was practicing for a shelving test, which I then passed. That was in July, and since then I've continued to wait.

This is a minimum-wage job - which in Ontario is $10.25 per hour - and I will probably work 8 to 12 hours per week. But since my goal upon graduating is to work in the Mississauga Library System, the job is crucial. Every hour I log will be one hour closer to joining the union and having access to internal job postings. Of course, the additional income will be welcome, too.

I am somewhat anxious about adding another item to my crowded schedule. And I wish the call had come after my winter break. But I also know that somehow it will all work out.

beyond occupy: out of the parks, into our lives

2011-11-21T19:30:00.012-05:00

Shortly after the Occupy Movement began to make headlines, my friend and comrade Dr. J wrote this on his blog your heart's on the left:

Is occupation a tactic or a principle? Should the focus be on the internal procedures of those actively occupying, or outreach to broader communities and struggles? How do we build a movement of the 99%?

. . . As the temperature drops, it will become more unsustainable to maintain outdoor occupations, and prioritizing this over outreach beyond the occupation will cut the movement off from broader struggles. . . . As we’ve seen from Tahrir to Wisconsin, occupations are simply one tactic in a broader movement for change. The main strategy needs to be the active participation of masses of people—in the streets, campuses, and workplaces.

Dr. J. was ahead of the curve. Right now, as the Occupy Movement becomes immersed in struggles with city governments and abusive police, there is the risk of the act of occupation being fetishized, an end in itself, rather than a symbolic, strategic and tactical expression of a larger movement.

I'm not suggesting - not for a moment - that Occupy Wall Street walk away from The People's Library like nothing happened. Or that the students at UCal Davis - when their eyes and lungs heal - shrug their shoulders and quietly return to class. Or that Rob Ford win without a fight. I am concerned, however, that the central message of economic injustice - and everything that stems from it - is at risk of being lost amid battles for the right to protest in public spaces.

The impetus for this movement was not the right to sleep in parks. The rights of assembly, expression and protest are of paramount importance, and must be constantly defended. But we must not lose perspective. The message is "We are the 99%". And most of the 99% can't sleep in the park.

For the movement to continue, it needs to both broaden and deepen. Broaden to the thousands upon thousands of people who cannot join an occupation, but who support the same ideals and values, who believe people and our needs are more important than profit. And deepen, with a historical perspective on other anti-capitalist struggles, and building a more just society. To do this, the movement must build and strengthen connections with existing movements that are fighting for the same thing.

In my many years as an activist, I can't count how many times I've been buttonholed by a stranger here to tell me The Answer. "Do you know what you guys have to do?" is the usual opening line. This person doesn't come to meetings, doesn't understand the complexities of the situation, makes no effort to get involved. He sits on the sidelines and criticizes.

I never want to be one of those people. Only the Occupy Movement - the people creating it, day-to-day - can chart the movement's course. I fully respect that.

I write this only as a hope. I have thrilled to see this movement - to see, at long last, people in North America organize around economic justice. And I fear that the broader struggle may be lost in the specific battles over sleeping in parks.

Well, not quite. Even if the Occupy Movement as presently conceived were to fizzle out tomorrow, it would still have accomplished so much.

It focused the national and international conversation on the injustices of capitalism. Wow! That's something I thought I'd never see.

People organized themselves and created a grassroots, democratic, decentralized and leaderless culture.

People acted collectively, many for the first time.

Others saw their own values reflected in the protests and realized that they, too, could participate. They got a glimpse of their own potential to create change.

These gains are huge. They are nothing short of the discovery of an alternative model for society. So whatever happens next, I applaud the Occupiers with all my heart.

In addition, movements ebb and flow. Occupy Wall Street (and everywhere else) was related to the Arab Spring, and to the labour uprising in Wisconsin, and to countless smaller and less visible actions and protests taking place all the time. So if Occupy disappears tomorrow, that doesn't mean it has disappeared forever.

But it's time to talk about the future. How do we include everyone who supports this movement but could not physically occupy? How can Occupy link up with established and existing revolutionary movements?

How can we truly Occupy Everywhere?

men of the stacks: busting stereotypes one hunk at a time

2011-11-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

If you like men, and you like libraries, you're sure to love Men of the Stacks. Proceeds from calendar sales support It Gets Better.

Here's a good story on Men of the Stacks in The Guardian. Plus I'm pretty sure Mr. June was my TA in Intro to Reference last year!

emergency rally to defend occupy toronto: 5:00 today

2011-11-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Message from Occupy Toronto:

OCCUPY TORONTO IS BEING EVICTED. Mayor Rob Ford has angrily taken to television, even gritting his teeth, to say he wants protesters "gone NOW". City Manager says by midnight force will be used, but mayor is pressing for even faster.

Ford and the judge point to upset neighbors as the ultimate cause of the eviction, but only eleven people in the neighborhood came out to a meeting to discuss plans to get rid of us, numerous neighbors and local businesses are in support (some because we brought them business, and some because they support our message).

In the meantime, Rob Ford has been our primary target because for Occupy Toronto, he is the local face of austerity, his cutback and privatization agenda are systematically destroying our city and we have been incredibly vocal in challenging him on it.

So, why are we being evicted? Because 11 neighbors are unhappy with us? Or because we've been a thorn in the side of Ford and he's attacking us for speaking out against him?

Defend our right to protest! Defend Occupy Toronto! Contact:
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford 416.397.FORD (3673)
mayor_ford@toronto.ca
Police Inspector Howie Page 416.808.5200

Lawyers are trying to get a timeline for when the actual eviction will happen. In the meantime, come to the park immediately if you have the time, or if you cannot, then come down for 11:00pm and help us during the 12:00 [midnight] eviction time.

Remember that our goal is to be non-violent! But we're not going without a fight. What that means is that we need to pack the park with people so that it becomes really hard to evict us! Those who absolutely don't want to risk arrest can still stand to the side and bear witness, since this is the best way to ensure the police are not violent.

You cannot evict an idea whose time has come!

library in a phone booth

2011-11-21T09:30:00.002-05:00

I meant to include this in my recent library-related post, but I misplaced the link. So now this lovely little library has a post of its own. Please go here to see a beautiful old UK "phone box" recycled into a tiny lending library.

More and better photos of it here.

who would name a baseball team after a serial killer?

2011-11-21T08:00:00.006-05:00

London, Ontario, that's who!

Team president and general manager David Martin says the name "The London Rippers", this logo, and cute marketing phrases like "Lurking in Labatt Park..." have nothing to do with Jack the Ripper. "Everybody has to be a little less sensitive," says Martin.

Yes, everyone has to be less sensitive. How about a team in Picton, Ontario called the Hog Butchers? And hey, doesn't Montreal need a baseball team? Maybe we can announce the formation of Les Lepines on December 6.

But those mass femicides are different, of course. They're more recent. Plus they happened to Canadians. If it happened more than 100 years ago, somewhere else, mass murder and mutilation are just "edgy".

constitution? never heard of it.

2011-11-21T08:00:00.003-05:00

This and many others courtesy of BoingBoing, via the OWS Library blog.

freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, as long as you don't mind being beaten and abused

2011-11-19T09:00:00.006-05:00

Further to an older post "the definition of a police state depends on where you live - what country, and what postal code ", I present these without comment, because what is there to say?

Police drag OWS protester by her hair

Police officer calmly and methodically uses chemical agent on nonviolent protesters

Video and commentary on above here.

Democracy Now!: Paramilitary Policing of Occupy Wall Street: Excessive Use of Force amidst the New Military Urbanism

That'll learn 'em to exercise their First Amendment rights. And "pepper spray" is a bit of a misnomer. It's not the pepper you sprinkle on your scrambled eggs.

Thanks to James.

how not to ask a question: how q&a websites contribute to denialism

2011-11-18T16:30:00.018-05:00

A little slice of the internet that irks me are Q&A websites like Wiki Answers and Yahoo! Answers, where people ask questions and any registered user can post an answer. A list of such sites is here. (That list includes Ask MetaFilter, which seems different, in that it encourages lengthy answers and discussion.)

You know I love the spirit of information-sharing that the internet has fostered. "Love" doesn't really describe it. Since I was in my 30s when the internet became widely used, I am both fully internet fluent and fully amazed by it. I adore that you can learn how to create, repair, cook, build, play - and a million other verbs - almost anything online. And I look up facts and jog my shoddy memory with Google and Wikipedia several times a day.

But these Q&A websites strike me as some of the worst the internet has to offer. Not only are the answers found there ridiculously unreliable, but it appears that people follow the sites without understanding how dubious they are. The crazy thing, to me, is that people ask questions of fact, the answers to which they could readily look up themselves. Someone comes along and answers the question, and that answer - regardless of accuracy or source - becomes The Answer. At Wiki Answers, an answer can be commented on or discussed, but not changed, and there can only be one answer per question. Yahoo! Answers asks users to rate answers with thumbs-up and thumbs-down, adding another layer of worthless opinions.

I recently saw a Wiki Answer (it turned up in a Google search) asking how many World Series rings a certain former baseball player has - meaning, how many championship teams he has played on or worked for. There was an answer posted. And it was wrong.

Now, why would someone go to Wiki Answers with that question, rather than check any number of baseball sites, or even the player's Wikipedia page?

I think I know the answer to that one: because they don't know how to get reliable information on the internet, and they don't recognize the difference between those two forms of information-seeking. (A bit of iSchool-speak there.) To that person, asking a question at a Q&A website is looking it up. I'm guessing the asker doesn't realize that a Q&A site isn't even as reliable as Wikipedia. Indeed, the asker may not even understand the concept of reliable sources.

Most net-savvy, educated people - and by that I emphatically include self-educated people - know that Wikipedia is to be used with a cautious and skeptical eye. It's great for a quick check of basic facts, such as a person's birth or death date, or the capital of a country, or the director of a film. For anything more in-depth, Wikipedia should be regarded as a jumping-off point at best. I often find it useful for finding sources, through an entry's footnotes.

But at least Wikipedia entries are written by someone who cared about a topic enough to do some research, however perfunctory, and write an entry. Wiki Answers and Yahoo Questions don't even require that minimal level of engagement.

There's a saying going around, attributed to Neil Gaiman: "Google can bring you 10,000 answers, but a librarian can bring you the right answer." Well, fine. But you can bring yourself the right answer, too - and good librarians want to teach you how. A lot of people clearly don't know how to find the right answer, and don't even realize their methods are not producing good results.

If any question can be answered by any person, and any answer can become The Answer, what are the implications for building a society based on ethics, justice and rational thought?

It seems to me that Q&A sites like Yahoo! Answers and Wiki Answers foster the mistaken, dangerous worldview that all points of view are equally valid, that expertise is "elitism", and that everything is "a matter of opinion". Even how many World Series rings a baseball player owns, or if climate change is caused by humans, or if the Earth is 5,000 years old.

libraries abound

2011-11-18T15:00:00.019-05:00

Please enjoy these library-related thoughts and links.

I love these Little Free Libraries, which I discovered thanks to M@. These birdhouse-like structures sheltering books are like the domesticated version of Book Crossing, which wants books released "into the wild".

Here are some libraries changing lives on a scale Andrew Carnegie never dreamed of. Nicholas Kristof:

One of the legendary triumphs of philanthropy was Andrew Carnegie’s construction of more than 2,500 libraries around the world. It’s renowned as a stimulus to learning that can never be matched — except that, numerically, it has already been surpassed several times over by an American man you’ve probably never heard of.

I came here to Vietnam to see John Wood hand out his 10 millionth book at a library that his team founded in this village in the Mekong Delta — as hundreds of local children cheered and embraced the books he brought as if they were the rarest of treasures. Wood’s charity, Room to Read, has opened 12,000 of these libraries around the world, along with 1,500 schools.

Yes, you read that right. He has opened nearly five times as many libraries as Carnegie, even if his are mostly single-room affairs that look nothing like the grand Carnegie libraries. Room to Read is one of America’s fastest-growing charities and is now opening new libraries at an astonishing clip of six a day. In contrast, McDonald’s opens one new outlet every 1.08 days.

In a fascinating post I'm still combing through, David Byrne writes about the rebirth of some barrios in Bogota, prominently including a spectacular new biblioteca.

And finally, I'm all but obsessed with the Occupy Wall Street Library blog. I read every post; it makes me ache for New York and thrill for this fledgling movement. Among other things, I learned that the ALA released a statement condemning the destruction of the People's Library. And despite what you might read in the mainstream media, the library was destroyed. Imagine someone gathers up all your stuff, without your permission or consent, throws a big chunk of it into a dumpster, then hauls off the rest of it to some undisclosed location. Would you feel your stuff had been destroyed? No irony about private property here: the People's Library was - and will be - collective property, free from all to all.

saturday, november 19: evict ford: occupy toronto

2011-11-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

EVICT FORD. OCCUPY TORONTO!

Rally and march
Saturday, November 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Assemble at St. James Park, King Street east between Church and Jarvis

In just a few weeks, the Occupy movement has become a global phenomenon, with over 1,400 protests worldwide. In Toronto, a peaceful occupation has been underway at St. James Park, raising demands for economic and social justice for everyone. Polls in Canada show that a clear majority of people support the protests.

But now Mayor Rob Ford is trying to evict the protesters. We think it's time to evict Rob Ford instead. Ford's attacks on good jobs, public transit and city services has turned public opinion against him - and in every ward of the city. While the millionaire mayor spends millions on high-priced consultants, he's trying to make ordinary people pay for the economic crisis.

We won't let him do it. Please join us this Saturday to be part of a city-wide rally and march. Show your support for the Occupy movement, and its demands for a better world for everyone.

"You can't evict an idea whose time has come!"

Organized by Occupy Toronto: on the web, on Facebook and on Twitter.

today: occupy everywhere

2011-11-17T09:20:00.003-05:00

Today, if you can, join an Occupy site for however long you are able.

Today, if you cannot physically join an Occupy site, do something to stand in solidarity with the Occupy Movement: blog, Tweet*, Facebook, write a letter to a media outlet, put a sign in your window, put a sign in the rear window of your car, wear a button, make a donation.

Do something to show that you stand with the 99% and you stand for justice.

*
#occupymap for actions
#N17 is the tag of the day