lotusland - nervous politics from a laid-back city

feminism

i still hate on most men 24/7. ok. my hate-on for male stupidity is due to the fact i socialize as a man with men because i like to listen to loud music, watch cartoons, and discuss politics over too many beers. i hear what most of these tools say about us women, and as a result, i am completely appalled. the worst men on earth for this shit are those who fancy themselves progressives.

i yell at my guy friends regarding their treatment/discussion of women all the time, and it either gets
a) hearty laughter
b) hearty dissing of feminism for being a bourgeois construct

note to self:  kick all men in the balls more often. 

are women stupid? i think we are socialized to be somewhat pathetic. i believe i was, but i do not take well to any socialization process. i think the way men are is due to a really pathetic machismo socialization process.

ive taken a liking to judith butler, because i think that ditching gender as a binary is only a good thing. i dont think you can ditch gender as a binary entirely, since a lot of the gender discrimination is predicated on the male/female or queer/hetero splits. there needs to be a way that people can discuss gender and queerness while defining it for themselves in a way that does not negate either the feminist or gay rights histories/projects.

what i mean by that is i am so tired of all the "im a feminist, but i shave my legs"/"im not a feminist, but i think women get paid less than men" bullshit.

1. you are a feminist if you think the advances made by the womens movement (birth control, pay equity, access to all professions, etc) are noteworthy achievements. this doesnt mean you are a radical feminist or a feminist activist or a butch who doesnt ascribe to a depilatory regime.

the reason i am telling you that you are a feminist is because the history of keeping women down still affects women today, and it would be nice if all women who believe these advances are good could have a label that just means 'i believe in equality and freedom from being a birthing cow' so that we could present a united front against the way things were. nobody is going to confiscate your nailpolish or alienate your male friends the second you are comfortable describing your beliefs as feminist.

2. expanding peoples ability to identify with a wider gender spectrum would enable women to demonstrate that there are so many different ways of living as women and that none of them conflict with acknowledging the need for women to stand up for themselves and their rights.

i know this sounds whack since im advancing one big label while encouraging more small labels.  im trying to advance the notion of one big label that means 'i think women shouldnt be screwed over/treated like babies' co-existing with a complex idea with gender that would enable people to combine their personal gender identity with the broader aims of feminism.

(this post has been drafted as a massive flip of the bird to all the haters out there.)

chantal hebert's secret message: liberals are like a second green party, so ndp/pc better catch up

if i didnt have three finals this week, id write a long post about how the greens need to reclaim the environmental issue.  while we greens often find ourselves asked to articulate what we stand for "besides the environment," we are now in a political arena that is focussed on using environmental issues to differentiate the parties.

dion's minions hand out green scarves to distinguish him from the pack.  chantal hebert issues an exhortation to the tories and dippers to catch up on the environment.   may's 2nd place byelection finish is one of the more exciting bits of news this year.

green groups have been ranking the parties' respective environmental records for ages.  dion was environment minister for quite a while, and his name definitely comes up in these evaluations.  you can wear all the green you want, but it doesnt make you irish on st. patrick's day or green in the eyes of those devoted to studying the impact of environmental policy.

if i had more time to do anything but rant, id cite some of these.  ill return to this over christmas break.

i hope the green party studies and employs these critiques, busts a slim shady, and tells the other parties that we are the green party, yes we're the real green party, all those other green parties are just imitating, so wont the real green party please stand up, please stand up?

had ken dryden won, this would be more interesting

ken dryden was a member of the semi-secret quill and dagger society at cornell.   imagine ezra levant freaking out, regaling us with hypothetical scenarios he stole from  the skulls, which he rented the night before as opposition research.  so much more interesting.

can someone please fill me in on precisely what kind of twat you have to be in order to treat dual citizens with suspicion?  dion spends a decade or so serving the canadian government, but the fact he has french citizenship is just questionable.  his mom's french, so what?  it's an identity thing.  he hasnt used the passport, voted in the elections, or any of that. 

and damian penny counters this dion quote

"There is nothing wrong with multiple identities. The hearts of people are big enough to accept different identities. Canadian citizenship will give me my rights. Identity is the way I feel about the country."

with this, something the media apparently shouldnt let him off the hook for:

No talk of loyalty or obligation, not talk of duties.

do actions speak louder than words, or what?  the guy served in your little legislature as a cabinet minister for years.  he didnt even vote in a french election.   

people, get over it.   this is beyond stupid.

new zealand students may text-speak on exams

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand's high school students will be able to use "text-speak" -- the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers -- in national exams this year, officials said.

this is fucked up beyond belief.  i write this blog and my personal email in a brand of punctuation-free lowercase netspeak, but ive never done so in any academic or professional communication.

wtf nz ur on crak!!!1!! LoL! idk y u wud let pplz wryt lyk dat!  n8iv spkrs shud wryt gud 3ngl1sh! plz dun d0 dis.

and now, one of my favourite netspeak classics:

Romeo and  Juliet - Text Messaging Version

Act 1

Login: Romeo : R u awake? Want 2 chat?
Juliet: O Rom. Where4 art thou?

rona ambrose hair drama

the deuce with all these wannabe feminists for rushing to defend rona ambrose from crrrazy environmentalists mocking her hair.  yet again, the right of a girl to dress up and play gender and be pretty is among the most strongly defended rights extended to womankind.   fuck that.

now, let us speak frankly of her hair.   fuck her hair.   dramatic flowing locks 24/7?  come on, does every occasion call for the blatant 'look at me, im young and have a lot of hair' do?   would it kill her to go out with a ponytail or chignon or braid?  im not the only one convinced it is probably covering a neck tattoo.  id feel bad if i was sitting here making fun of her and it was covering up some scar that she was self-conscious about.  but whatever. 

playfully mocking her hair, which she has consciously made into a trademark by wearing it the same fucking way every day she has been on camera, is not a serious affront to the participation of women in politics.   give me a break.  men, such as pierre pettigrew, survived many a barb in reference to his signature locks.   how significant is grooming in relation to political performance?  not at all, unless it cuts into the budget.   if youre going to be on camera every day, can people playfully mock your appearance?  its bitchy, but such is public life.

Linda Trimble, chairperson of the University of Alberta's political science department, said the environmental groups are giving ammunition to their opponents, who now have an excuse not to take their comments seriously.

"It's churlish, sexist, and gratuitous,'' said Trimble. "It's sending the message that you can't be a woman and a politician, that they are somehow mutually exclusive options which is of course, ridiculous.''

partisan hackery at its finest, folks.  uh, yeah its mean.  its a literary device called caricature, which was not executed that brutally.  please visit your colleagues in the english department.

yeah, dont take greenpeace or civil society (and why the fuck are reports saying 'environmental groups' rather than nailing a specific environmental group responsible for the offending publication) seriously because they dissed poor rona's hair and pushed female participation in politics back a hundred years because the real thing holding us back is the refusal of the patriarchy to defend our most-serious right to have big, sexy hair.

having a stupid, ever-present hairdo is rona's right, but being mocked for it is a privilege of public office.   we shouldnt judge women on their bimbo hairdo, and ive had many a woman prove me wrong in this department.   

that being said, fuck you if you are rushing to defend a young womans right to show off her mane and calling it feminism.   back in the day, feminism was about pushing for rights, being active in the political sphere, and helping your fellow woman.  now, its all about irony, college students yapping about gender performance, and average women picking the right to wear a corset under a business suit without being judged on the fact your boobs are hanging out as their marquee issue.

women are free to be feminine, but this is not the right we should really focus on.  are women avoiding politics because all women in politics have to be butch, or are there other economic and social considerations?

men who have had sex with men banned from donating to cbs, gay virgins and closet cases a-ok!

i took this from this website - its author was on a local news channel this morning.

Canadian Blood Services explicitly states: "all men who have had sex with another man, even once, since 1977 are indefinitely deferred [from donating blood]."  The organization's rationale for adopting this policy is allegedly based on information that suggests a higher risk of HIV/AIDS infection among men who have sex with men (MSM) compared to other groups. Blood Services' practice of rejecting MSM blood donors is being challenged for three reasons:    

* It is illegal under Section 5(a) of the Canadian Human Rights Act.    
* Assessing the overall proportion of HIV/AIDS infection among MSM is impossible, since the exact population of this group in Canada remains unknown.    
* Given that 54.3% of HIV positive tests in 2004 were attributed to causes other than MSM activity, all Canadian blood donors should be equally subject to rigorous testing and screening.

For more information, please read Hossein Kia's open letter to Canadian Blood Services CEO Dr. Graham Sher, which explains each of these points more specifically.  The news release also provides additional information.

my take?  test the blood for freakin aids!  thats how you tell if blood has aids.  hot and steamy unprotected gay sex since 1977 may be one of a few risk factors but asking people if theyve had gay sex as a means to counter this risk is pretty dang unscientific and unreliable.

petition found here

peter mackay is not hot (from the department of how many times do i have to say this shit)

peter and condi, sitting in a tree, etc.  cute.  lets proceed to what is not cute, and thats peter mackay.  i feel like im taking crazy pills because hes so admired as "the hot mp" when hes actually quite ugly, even by 'lol hes 40' standards.

ok. 

pros:  decent build, nice shoulders
cons:  beady eyes = very no.  big chin.  non-descript wasp face not given character by odd-looking long nose.  am i the only person who notices how beady those eyes are?  please.  he looks like a frat boy, except at least they tend to have innocent wide doe eyes exploding with enthusiasm every time kegs and tits are mentioned, and not the beady eyes featured on mr mackay.

anyone can go to a gym and get buff and i have great respect and admiration for the buff as the muscles are sexy, as is the devotion.  he is buff, but that does not make him hot.

PETER MACKAY IS A BUTTERFACE, PEOPLE.  not a hot guy.  a butterface.

have i seen mr. mackay in person?  bitch, please.  of course i have.  it's not like seeing bill clinton in person - somehow he radiates man-essence and you are compelled to find him attractive.  peter mackay is boringly polite and likes to do cutesy nonsense like wink at women, which is bullshit i just dont appreciate.  call me a feminazi but i feel like saying "no thanks, i prefer ego boosts from people who arent you at places that arent a workplace" every time i get that shit from a dude.

"racially divided fisheries" is a bullshit misnomer.

in his bid to appeal to the whiteman like a modern-day brown vs the board of education, harper announces he is going to end "racially divided fisheries."

canada, an institution which was built from the structures of pre-confederation british and french governance, never properly addressed the issue of aboriginal title (specifically in reference to BC).  this is why we have supreme court decisions like this, and treaties like nisga'a (and soon tsawassen).  canada's creation was racially segregated as mostly white settlers called the shots. 

it is a misnomer because "racially divided" tries to evoke the idea of evil segregation.  this segregation is more of a contractual obligation to honour aboriginal title than blantant racism.

and im sure its no effing coincidence that phil eidsvik, the chief activist lobbying for this decision, ran unsuccessfully in surrey last election.  plus ca change, bitches.

blame multiculturalism and trudeau and the damn ukranians AND FUCK YOU FOR NOT LETTING ME ENTER THAT ESSAY CONTEST!! I AM SO OPPRESSED!!!!

the robert fulford opinion thing in the national post from monday june 12 was full of fun.  did you read it? 

this column is quite ignatieffian as it a) disses ukranian nationalism and b) attempts to discredit an institution simply by labelling it a sacred cow even though its a totally critiqueable institution and canadians ought to be capable of entertaining a serious debate on the matter.  this hommage to the great american liberal leadership contender is particularly evident in the 8th paragraph of the piece, where fulford blames ukranians for impregnating canada with the sacred cow of multiculturalism when they petitioned alberta for some third language status. 

laughably, fulford cites a 1994 essay contest open to first nations and people of colour as an example of the oppressive power (he calls it "the ugly side") of multicultural policy.  yeah, lets lump this writers' union essay contest (that nobody could give one iota of a fraction of a tiny little piece of shit about) in with possibly the some of the most shocking canadian news we have had in a while.

i dont think ethnic neighbourhoods (uh, i mean, balkanized terror-breeding ghettos from hell) are the sum total of what multiculturalism has meant in canada.  ethnic neighbourhoods existed well before the charter.  it wasnt these guys' neighbours who were encouraging them to blow you up and behead harper.  they were reading and corresponding with people in other countries (and not necessarily their countries of origin) who shared their extremist goals.  id think theyd do it whether their neighbours were homies from the old country or some white dude named doug.

i dont think one needs to seek out a hyphenated canadian to find a young person who "neither understood nor respected the institutions that had made canada a desirable immigrant destination" ... muslim-canadians do not have a monopoly on this whole 'alienated to the point of criminal intent' thing.  yes, violent islamic extremism is experiencing more popularity than the flq these days, but theyre not the first people to come up with this sort of thing.

really, this issue is less about multiculturalism (and policy on multiculturalism) and more about religious extremism, a fact fulford only discloses at the end of his rant.   people dont start building bombs over the charter of rights and freedoms.  im pretty sure this one is going to have something to do with individuals reading stuff they got from all over the world that talks about revenge and reckoning and provides straightforward answers and solutions to global problems (that usually involve some measure of theocratic thought control and violence, but hey).  im no fan of this sort of thing either, mr fulford.

we do demand conformity from our immigrants in that we expect them to follow the laws and live within  restrictions and learn an official language or two before they enter the workplace. 

happy june 2nd, wops.

this is probably the greatest two days in the history of north burnaby as the italian republic's national holiday (we are a bunch of fascists) falls the day before hats off to burnaby day, which is the annual neighbourhood merchants street fair (you miss the guest appearances by svend robinson). italians know how to have a fucking referendum.  this is the ballot.  it has two words and two pictures. 

do want to vote for cross of savoy or fascist insignia?

call me life

first we are requested to call bob rae "bob" and now we are instructed to call co2 "life" ...

i can respect the lomborgs of the world to the extent that i tolerate free speech and dissenting opinions, but im more than weary of any activity that deepens our ecological footprint. 

pure awesome: "We had started work on this several months back, but we sort of changed course once the flood of glacier-melting stories began," doh!

in other news, someone named dustee is the spokesperson for hud.

jack layton on afghanistan = stephen harper on afghanistan?

so, thanks to those two chaps and their mutual desire to look appealing, we are having a debate on the issue.  people are going to be allowed to say non-binding things in parliament about the afghanistan mission.  how very progressive and not futile at all...

note to les boys:  deliberative democracy doesnt mean parliamentary 'wank n shout' fest.  im pretty sure it involves a bit more action and thought than that.

 

belinda stronach and jack layton are like two erupting lolcanos

it's not sad to see a woman drop out of the race when it's *that* woman, you know?  that she insists she'll be back is a bit sad, though.

"By that time, she might be able to speak French," said Fife. "She may be able to get some policy ideas developed," he added.

might and may do those two things, eh?  im positive her little problems can be solved with money.  she can hire some consultants and why doesnt she just find some belinda-looking francophone and pay her to be her doppleganger?  i think she will feel mighty silly when she inevitably reads this blog and realizes she didnt have to drop out so soon.  doye.

also, i dont know if the rest of you got the memo, but jack layton and the dippers have made it very clear that they won the the throne speech.  all this corny positive spin and the insistence they want to make the conservative parliament "work" is making me hurl.  erm, yeah, im glad the geniuses in all those parties figured out we arent going to be into yet another election.  it's not like i find the liberal party automatic criticism mode less objectionable, it's just that it isn't as ridiculous.  if the ndp could just keep it real and not have to stand up every 10 seconds and scream about how they came up with all these policies and doesn't that make them a contender yet, that would be nice.  theres nothing wrong with asking for credit when credit is due, but canadians know the ndp comes up with policy.  we've had inspiring tommy douglas moments rammed down our throats for the past two years courtesy of the good ole cbc.  they know this, and theyre still not going to flock in droves.

thank god for the green leadership race on the horizon, because the folk in parliament have begun to bore me.

dutch tolerance test

Amsterdam — The camera focuses on two gay men kissing in a park. Later, a topless woman emerges from the sea and walks onto a crowded beach. For would-be immigrants to the Netherlands, this film is a test of their readiness to participate in the liberal Dutch culture.

If they can't stomach it, they need not apply.

Despite whether they find the film offensive, applicants must buy a copy and watch it if they hope to pass the Netherlands' new entrance examination.

interesting that people from canada, the usa, japan, switzerland, new zealand, australia, and eu nationals dont need to take this exam, nor do skilled workers making more than $62 400 per year.  this demographic is clearly ok with boobs and homosexuals, right?

it's cute and kind of disturbing that the dutch consider themselves so tolerant that newcomers have to watch the movie and see what theyre getting into.  though one can legally smoke pot with three prostitutes identifying at different points on the kinsey scale on dutch soil, the entire country isn't exactly the red light district.  amsterdam is not like the rest of the randstad and the rest of the randstad is not like the rest of the country. 

the netherlands is interesting because they really hate the idea of conservatism or labelling anything they do right wing, yet their current coalition is tied together by a platform of integrating/assimilating  immigrants (namely muslim immigrants) and deregulation.  theyre a racist libertarian regime, i guess.

im not particularly pious or easily offended or pro-censorship, but this is completely ridiculous.  firstly, it's not like the relative social freedom of western liberal democracies is some kind of well-kept secret.  secondly, this video should either be mandatory for everyone or not used at all - im sure we all know a few people in the exempt regions who arent tolerance incarnate.  the research behind this is a tad lame as some of the countries not exempt from the video do have progressive social policy regarding legal recognition of same-sex relationships.  finally, it implies that dutch tolerance means it's ok to label people as potential problem-causers based on their country of origin and income bracket.

i can understand nervousness as a result of racial tension in the country, and i can appreciate their attempt to be creative in policy formation... but lets consider that a) pim fortuyn was murdered by a dutch-born, ethnically dutch activist and b) theo van gogh was murdered by a dutch-born, well/over-educated, insane male of moroccan descent whose ties with violent, fundamentalist islam were completely domestic.  theo van gogh engaged in some more er, rational rebellion, like making that porno  movie on women in islam with ayaan hirsi ali... but he also popularized the term "goatfuckers" to refer to practicioners of islam.  no, im not saying crazy people should be able to kill eachother... but if youre going to be confrontational and nuts, expect that youll attract the attention and ire of similar individuals.

in short, this tension wasnt imported - it's a product of dutch society.  maybe they should focus on race relations in their own country instead of repeatedly patting themselves on the back for their lgbt rights and celebration of nudity.

page fired at by premier

from ctv, via everyones favourite c-grizzle comes news of a page attack:

The Liberals used the invitation to send over a copy of their health policy red book, which a page took over to the premier.

"The premier admits he threw it back at her and called it crap," Kobe said.

Later, Klein said: "I ought not to have thrown the Liberal health policy at our page Jennifer, and to Jennifer, I apologize most sincerely. ... And I also apologize for referring to the document as crap, Mr. Speaker."

Kobe said that while the page was in the legislature when Klein issued his apology, Klein hadn't spoken with her personally as of mid-afternoon, but that he planned to at some point.

There's no confirmation the booklet struck the page. The page refused to speak to the media.

as most of you know, i was once a page, and let me tell you... parliament is no place for idealistic 18-yr-olds.  you get to witness all kinds of amusingly depraved human behaviour and your bosses wont let you discuss it in the outside world.  the level of page secrecy is pretty hardcore.  i didnt start blogging until later, but i did have some kind of website back then.  inevitably, this website did contain some political content - a little paragraph on a factual error made by my mp during an educational speech for high school folk.  one of the pages decided to confront me about my blatant partisanship. see, pages are instructed to honourably uphold the following mantra in order to protect them from the snivelling, gossiping ottawa hordes:  "i have no opinion." apparently, i wasnt allowed to have an opinion two years prior to becoming a page. 

given the popularity of blogging and reality tv and tell-all memoirs and interviews, i say the former pages should get together and write our memoirs of pagedom.  not all the stories will feature drunk, angry, or stupid mp moments.  most of the time, the mp's ignored us completely as they scanned fat memos or got a head start on signing all those damn christmas cards.  when they didnt, however, 95% of our interaction with them was positive, and many a good lol was had.  i think ive blogged about this before.  i think the clerks and staff and everyone on the hill should get together and compose their own trashy tell-all. 

which, very clumsily, brings me to my next point - this book's audience.

i was explaining "otaku" (anime-obsessed dork lacking social skills) to an old friend from ottawa, who asked what you would call someone who was politics-obsessed and lacked social skills.  i think the correct answer would be someone who would actually bother to read trashy tell-alls written by hill staffers.

transparency and corruption

im writing this post expecting that the reader is reasonably familiar with the changes in figure skating judging in the wake of the great collective wtf that went down at the slc 2002 games.  i think we have to thank the americans for the changes, because the publicity the pairs result received at the games exerted a lot of pressure on the officials.  canadians have been bitching about this kind of judging for ages, but an individual country's kvetching isnt as embarassing for the ioc as a big, well-publicized scandal. 

so, the old system had the judges and their marks laid out individually, which led to block voting and bribery and all that.  every score counted, and was traceable back to the individual judge.  the new system randomly chucks a few marks out, and does not post scores from individual judges.  this is said to prevent single or groups of judges from fixing the results. 

now, i have to put my "skating rulez" tinfoil hat on.  i cant say i trust the ioc or any figure skating regulatory body.  how can i be confident that this system works when i cant see if the euro-judges are being euro-chauvinists?  how do i know the individual judges arent continuing to post unfair marks and just hoping that enough of these low or inflated marks make it through the lottery?  longtime canadian commentator paul martini insists the proof is in the pudding - marks for this competition have been reasonably fair.

this judging reform and my mistrust of the system kind of reminds me of certain political appointments. canadian law and convention certainly does safeguard some positions from being politicized, either through the granting of some level of immunity or anonymity.  though transparency is the best safeguard in terms of armchair whistleblowing, it also makes it easy for the corrupt and manipulative to see that their bidding is carried out. 

should we assume that professionals have integrity if we leave them in a dark room with nobody to impress or receive bribes from, or should we want everyone under the microscope? 

tolerance museum

as bza said, wtf.  except he said it in font size 48, all caps, italicized, and underlined.

emersonmania 2006 marches on

back to emerson for a second, since it seems to be vancouver's 15 seconds of fame in the national news cycle.  basically, id like to alert people to this fact raised by declan: I find it amusing that a riding in which the Conservatives got less than 19% of the vote, a riding which hasn't elected a Conservative since 1958, is now represented by a Conservative cabinet minister. Go Democracy Go!  - and, how.

david emerson is a skank, whore, tramp, slut, tart, hobag, "lady of the night"

hey, somebody has to say it.  the cities (the real ones, anyway) sent a message to the tories, a message that could be summed up in the raising of a single finger.  we wanted out, man.  way to violate us, emerson.

in spite of the fact nobody has been that dilligent re: repeatedly calling him a prostitute, there are a lot of similarities between emerson and stronach.  on the matter of stronach, stephen harper said, "there's no grand principle involved in this decision, just ambition."  eh, business is all about gambling and personal ambition.  in essence, we have two businesspeople tarding out politically as they make rational choices based on business rationale. 

i am going to call this a bad business decision (although emerson may not be used to making those) until he gets re-elected as a tory.  knowing vancouver-kingsway, i dont know if that's going to happen.  i dont know how the small-c liberal failed to notice that all the east vancouver denizens who helped push him over the top were, er, actual, centrist, partisan liberals.  i dont know if he noticed that his biggest electoral threat was former provincial ndp cabmin ian waddell.  vancouver-kingsway is a very-coveted safe liberal seat, with a pretty solid constituency association.  it wasn't some david emerson cult of personality that carried the day.  he ran as a liberal in liberal-land and thats why he won as a liberal in an election where the liberals werent as popular as they have been.

tdh injects some crazy talk into the emerson debacle by declaring that emerson could run against (and handily eliminate) owen in vancouver-quadra.  sure, quadra loves a MP in government, but owen's margins of victory are fairly vast.  hmm.  (tdh is an interesting chap who has made but one other crazy statement: "George Drazenovich is a young and bright Tory candidate")

sure, emerson gets the perks of cabinet, but i think the real beneficiary of this decision is ian waddell.  surely, my readers will agree this merits infinite lolz.

on the quebec side of things, harper appoints some unelected backroom partisan (the renowned michael fortier) to sit in cabinet.  i cant even contain myself, here.  what the fuck is this!  you run emphasizing accountability in quebec and you make some party organizer guy who is accountable to no voters in charge of effing handing out mother-effing public works contracts... uh, yeah.  moreover, he just appointed a lifetime party hack to the senate, a practice the tories and their blogging minions did love to criticize.

you cant just chalk one up for that "power corrupts" maxim.  i think spending their entire time in opposition crying wolf corrupted the tories.  how many years of "waaah, scandal!" and now its business as usual in ottawa.  heh.  the reform movement wasnt about appointing mulroneyite hacks to the senate for optics.  im tired of all these msm and blogger hacks talking about the albertification of canada - this is just ontario and quebec running the show again. 

lol, election: my acceptance speech for the 2006 federal vote

to the americans out there, who think their northern neighbour has gone all ralph reed on them:
1. the joys of first past the post parliamentary elections:  yes, we have a conservative prime minister, but more than 60% of canadians voted for non-conservative candidates and parties, such as the liberals, ndp, bloc, and green.
2. it's not a carte blanche majority government, so there's only so much he can do.  prime minister harper said so himself.
3. you cant bitch at me with that tired old american refrain of " why are you voting green instead of rallying against the conservatives" because the ndp has held my riding... since 1979.  the liberals were 2nd as usual, and our sad excuse for a conservative candidate was a distant third. 

things actually overheard at a ubc election results party
-let's go smoke a joint before harper makes it illegal (a fratboy whose parents probably voted harper)
-i think i live in a bubble (quasi-political arts student girl, surprised at how many conservatives actually exist)
-this is the best election ever! (a self-described communist)
-bush is going to love this (group of morons more interested in dubya-bashing than anything else)
-im looking forward to listening to harper's crappy french (angry grad student)
-yeah, the conservatives won, but dont you think the liberal shindig would have more booze available per person? (nerd in canucks jersey)
-there is election?  can i go vote? (very confused, drunk exchange student at about 10 pm, pacific time)
-martin resigned so calmly, and this worries me (lotusland classmate and martin-hater)

scott janzen green party pub crawl recap

you know all those suburban pubs and clubs you kind of laugh at, point at, and make elaborate plans to visit one day, not that youll follow through?  i went to all of them last night.  yes, i went to the paddlewheeler, the thirsty duck, pub med, and fever on a bus full of green party supporters, including candidates scott janzen (burnaby-new west) and sven biggs (new west-coquitlam).

contact with voters was very positive - i think the fact sven and scott are so dang cute and nice on top of being informative certainly helped.  i even saw people *reading* the pamphlet i gave them with their green mardi gras beads (no flashing required).  policy talk eventually gave way to free bar drinks and rounds of alcohol administered either by green jello shooter or by squirt gun.  all the school bus mates were a favourable combination of rowdy and decent, so good times were had by all. 

(yes, angus, we sang god save the queen on the school bus.)

sigh, such a good crew.  it almost makes me wish this stupid election wasnt over yet. 

apologies for the lack of posting, but i really do think this election is stupid, depressing, and not worth discussing.  depressing election aside, the green party has been worth the afternoons spent hitting the pavement.  i cant wait to see the results roll in.

best election cartoon including a vagina

courtesy of kristen.

marc garneau comedy hour

The former astronaut said at a press conference that separatist politicians are like the American military in Iraq, getting themselves into a messy situation without thinking ahead about the consequences.

i think the situations arent analogous at all... to the point of hilarity, really.  i think that liberal star candidate has to stop hanging out with liberal folk who watch too much cnn (but claim they hate it) and love all the american blogs and really only ever talk about iraq because that's the biggest issue theyre into.

totally unrelated p.s.: hahahaha

have fun with your stupid little election, suckas.

im going to an undisclosed location in latin america for a week.  before i start bragging about that, id like to comment on something.  i dont really see anything that wrong with saying that jack layton has a boiled dog's head smile.  if some honky man cursed someone out in italian, id probably give him props.  then again, i swear like a sailor.  david emerson is lame because he is pro offshore drilling on the pacific coast, not because of his naughty gweilo slip of the tongue.

also, id like to note that all the leaders should have good enough vision to know that theyre all pretty much ugly.

in other news, i voted today.

see you all in a week.

murray dobbin's green critique

the murray dobbin article is kind of hilarious, really.  im going to refute some of the more tenuous assertions he puts forth.  section 15 does a way better job due to his fancy research, and we totally owe him a beer.

1. the greens are a business because they exist to collect $1.75 from each vote? wouldnt that make every other big party a business?

2. "Harris has been almost invisible since the last election, has done little organizing, no membership drive, has managed to raise just over $200,000 and has paid virtually no attention to policy development." thats interesting, because in vancouver, ive seen a lot of organizing, membership signups, and policy discussion. ive also seen a concerted effort to get green news into the news cycle, so maybe people like murray dobbin and whoever else can actually see the green party as something besides "OMG THOSE PPL R STEALING NDP VOTEZ!!!!11"

3. "They would be shocked to know that the party is the most top down of any of the federal parties - and that Harris simply ignores decisions that he doesn't agree with." um, ha. did the greens give anyone $50 000 to quit a nomination? no. can anyone honestly proclaim that a party that has trouble fielding candidates has reached liberal party levels of candidate appointments? dissenting green riding associations, such as those in nova scotia and the fraser valley, actually want to start their own parties. thats not the worst thing on earth. does dobbin bring that grassroots issue up? no, hes too concerned with the higher-ups and their dissent. this "top down" party has a bunch of disgruntled officers on the top bickering and whatever, but on the ground, campaigns are happening. during the martin vs chretien infighting, or the conservative-alliance merger, or even those marxists vs democrats ndp policy conventions, we see the same kind of bickering and the same kind of "authoritarian" resolution process. for dobbin to suggest that this is unique to the greens is fearmongering.

4. the saskatchewan greens having their own agenda... ok, so for one paragraph, the greens are too centralized and authoritarian. then, theyre not centralized or authoritarian enough - their regionalized campaign is "too confusing"...

5. "Green voters often think of themselves as amongst the most principled voters in any election. If they are serious about this claim, they should be wary of voting for Jim Harris - and what remains of the Green Party." lol, man. i think the problem here is that ndp supporters, who think of themselves as amongst the most principled voters in any election, take "progressive" voters for granted, and get their panties in a knot over the fact a party that is not affiliated with traditional canadian leftistas and jack layton is "taking" their voters.

6. "Going to the 'Site Map' you can connect to "Living Policies", an innovative approach to engaging members in policy debate and development. The problem is that the man in charge of that process ran afoul of Harris last winter and he was fired by the executive. He was never replaced because Harris and his advisors (one of them an operative formerly with the Alliance Party) thought the whole exercise a waste of time. The 300 or so people engaged in the process were left with no moderator."  again, it's hard to tell what dobbin wants from us.  i dont really feel all that abandoned, to be honest with you.  id say theres less chaos involved in a "wiki in progress" than there is at any political party's policy convention.

you dont own voters, ndp. you earn them. this mudslinging on the greens is exactly the kind of crap the liberals are pulling with the conservatives when they tell us harper is creepy and militaristic and then sign on to star wars and all that.

green voters are likely seeking an alternative. the ndp as an institutionally peripheral party has failed to lure these voters in great numbers. if their negative campaign against the greens works out, we will probably see the ndp beat all the other small parties down before they get the chance to inch onto the canadian political radar.

the debate was... yeah.

im not going to address content in any substantial way because this was not a debate but a talking points delivery session.

harper:  why do you smile like that?  what are you smug about?  creeping people out and losing elections against a really anemic, hated liberal party that gets to be the lesser of all the evils? 

martin:  why did you plan out two little individual "shame on you" spazzes for duceppe and harper?   youre not good at that acting thing.

layton:  you didnt have to end every single sentence with vote ndp.  maybe all the other leaders did this, but you were the most shameless about it.  it was either "vote ndp for change" or "vote ndp for a coalition government since this one turned out so swell"

duceppe:  no comment, really.  im not one of those english canadians who thinks hes quaint.  im one of those english canadians who doesnt have some kind of fanatical devotion to transferring money to the provinces as a means to solve everything.

martin had the best suit, which makes sense, cos he is a millionaire.  layton tried to bust out the serious black blazer and the serious white shirt and the serious rust-coloured tie, but i kept picturing him on one of those socialist brown suits the whole time.  no, that isnt some lame brownshirts reference... it's just that the ndp wears brown.  that's the way she goes.  harper should have ditched the electric blue hanky and tie.  gilles was very 2001 with the pinstripes and the silver shirt/tie combo.

what does an aesthetically-minded person have to do to see some decent clothing adorning these yapping meatsacks?  how about some bias check or variegated stripes on those shirts?  where were the rich winter colours?  harper would have looked great in an indigo tie instead of that baby blue.  if he has some sentimental attachment to powder/electric blue, he could have gone for a micro-stripe or chevron print to integrate his baby blue into something a little more sexy and credible. someone should have worn some rich plum or a nice, matte copper or chocolate brown or something.  on the national, andrew coyne was ever the little trendwatcher with what looked like a floral print tie.  kudos, man.

the debates

if anyone tells me how i can get seats at the leaders debate, i will be forever grateful.   do they even have a live studio audience?

update:  no, they dont.  all they have in terms of audience-type things are taped questions from those 'average canadians' and little hospitality areas in the cbc building where the parties can set up camp during the debate.   boo.

courtship 2006

im being courted by some dippers to come vote for them and avoid vote-splitting by casting my ballot for the greens.  one of them offered to sign a petition to include harris in the debates, while another offered to trade my bill siksay vote for a sue barnes vote in london.  cant say the latter excited me as much as the former.

the green party should be at the debates

a number of arguments have been posted, and id like to highlight two diverging posts made by some dippers.  if youre convinced the greens, who are a taxpayer-funded, national party deserve to be on the debates, you ought to hit up the official petition via the green website.

lets visit holden wake's post and its claims, except for the little dig at the beginning about how jim harris used to be a corporate motivational speaker.  im not visiting that.

"with every additional leader it becomes more cluttered leaving less room for detailed debate. So its good to keep it sweet and simple, picking only the short list. And i'm sorry, the Greens just don't cut it."

i dont know that having another leader present would really complicate, clutter, or otherwise add to the cacophony levels of canadian televised debate.  shouting talking points and calculated digs at one another (oh, boo hoo, im sooo cynical and dark) isnt really detailed debate.  how important is the actual substance of the debate to a) the media's reportage of the night b) how people will remember it.   how significant is the debate's 'turning point' to the rest of the election?  i dont remember a particularly good turning point - we're still talking about how mulroney schooled turner and i was in elementary school when that thing went down. 

debates are important because they are part of campaign culture in canada.  they draw a big audience.  they legitimize a party.  the green party deserves to be in a different category than the parti populaire des putes because taxpayers deserve to hear from a party they are funding. 

according to the post, the threshold should be their ability to win seats.  this is what makes regional parties, such as reform and the bloc count:  "They cite the Bloc and Reform being included in the 1993 debates despite the fact that they weren't recognized official parties. Though they fail to mention that both parties managed to elect MPs previously, the Bloc even had 10 sitting MPs at the time. Both parties were poised to easily elect MPs via landslide victories, and even win most of the seats in several provinces."

i dont know how just this "if youre not already on tv for free, then you cant be on tv for free" rationale is. 
true, many canadians, namely that insignificant 4% that voted green, didnt need the greens to be in the debate to make their decision.  still, it is unfair to justify the exclusion of a novel party that has national support because it wouldnt be constructive since theyre not going to win when two of canada's (legislatively speaking) least constructive parties were awarded a ticket to ride.  as any good liberal might say, nobody gave a crap about the opposition during the chretien majorities.  the green party garnered national support on its own merits, while  bloc 'incumbents' werent elected as such, and the reform party demonstrated it was simply a wing of the conservative movement by rejoining it (and absorbing it, lol, peter mackay is a party-killer) a few years later. 

hell, even ed broadbent (speaking on electoral reform in the ottawa citizen) thinks the greens should be given a break:

"I really want to see Parliament evolve....We have a system designed for two parties, when the people of Canada want more and they want them to work. The Canadian people want at least five parties. I think the Green Party should be represented. They have a voice and they have something to say. We need an electoral system that doesn't shut out these new voices."

and it seems our ndp friend agrees with broadbent's assertion that the greens demonstrate the need for electoral reform:  "A post-modern party just can't cut it in a modernist electoral system. If we change our electoral system, then maybe we might elect some Green MPs, but that someday is not now."

id say the first past the post system is pretty postmodern because it yields surreal results with levels of absurdity that highlight the meaningless of both human existence and big-t truths.  im going to assume he believes that someday isnt now because electoral reform isnt currently on the federal table.  of course, the rest of the post kind of hints at why the greens arent needed at the debate:

But if your passionate about the environment, social justice, electoral reform, and left-leaning parties, i'd still highly recommend voting for the NDP. Especially if its a winnable riding or one where they came close.  So if you live in these following ridings and have Green sympathies, i'd like you think about voting one for the Dippers: Burnaby-Douglas, Oshawa, Trinity-Spadina, Vancouver-Centre, Hamilton-Centre, Hamilton-Mountain, Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, Victoria, Ottawa-Centre, Vancouver-Kingsway, Toronto-Danforth, the prairies, etc. any riding where the NDP might win.

i see where youre coming from.  hey everyone, vote for the liberals, because if you dont, the conservatives will turn this country into a bad evil scary place.  if youre passionate about same-sex marriage not going to a free vote, not abandoning reason for the pseudo-science of trickle-down economics, not giving people with kids $1200, then vote for the liberals.  any riding where the liberals might win.  even if you hate the liberals, because you hate harper more, mmmkay?  dont mind the scandal and all that.

some green members (ok, me) dont see the greens as interchangeable with the ndp.  i mind the scandal.  a post on the green platform will follow.

in conclusion
a) the greens ought to be in the debate.  put your partisan shtick behind you and think this through
b) arguments based on strategic voting need to burn and die so i can piss on their ashes. 

my reasons for not being into this new election are stupid and varied.

reason # 42:  my nerd boyfriend bought me battlefield 1942 with both expansion packs and i cant stop playing all the secret weapons of wwii levels because i love riding around europe's battlefields on a little motorcycle, occasionally pausing to dismount and fire some grenades out of my souped-up rifle.

ok, no seriously, thats only a minor reason

not as minor reason #28:  team burnaby, our local right-wing municipal party, had a real tardfest of a campaign and it worked - they got more spots than usual on the councils.  during the election, i was talking to a burnaby politico of sorts who didnt work for team burnaby this time around.  she was strategically out of town for the campaign - she didnt really like what she saw and didnt think any of their operatives would be personally useful for her next campaign.  i spoke to her again when she got back and she was waxing poetic on their ability to get the vote out and streamline the message.  does this spell a future of campaigns with big red signs that only say CRIME IS THE ISSUE and compare us to surrey?  ew.

how come our parents generation got to have their fake ass poser revolution of hippiedom and dream of a better world and all this generation gets as we breeze through our 20s is the damn intarweb and anger-inducing bouts of cynicism?

jack-o-layton!

best ndp idea ever!!!!!!1!!!1!!111one

i think im still buying squash and making them aliens with tinfoil antennas and drawing face parts all mr potato head style on 8.5" * 11" label sheets and cutting them out.

those janus-faced liberals

according to everyone else, the liberals are stealing their ideas.

you cant expect much more from a minority liberal government - any tendency to gravitate towards the amoeba school of ideology can only be exacerbated in this scenario.  heh.

since when do "left wing" voters vote liberal, anyway?  are we going to start using this term as loosely as americans?

the ndp f'ed up on the desjarlais business, eh?

why am i so mean to the federal ndp?  maybe i have a special place reserved in my hardened little acorn of a heart for hating on the holier-than-thou.  its right next to the part of my heart that melodramatically announces it wants to stop beating every time i see paul martin's mug.  maybe the two of them can team up and pass a budget or something.

so bev desjarlais was replaced by nikki ashton, a 23-yr-old who speaks eight languages and has been active in the greek community and the athens olympics as a volunteer. 

as much as the ndp wants to say this came from the bottom up, i wouldnt call people at nomination meetings anything but the partisan grassroots.  jack layton is bustin a lady macbeth right now fo reals.  did kim campbells stint as first female prime minister count less because she was selected by tories at a convention?  i kinda thought so.

a few over-eager posters on the rabble boards call desjarlais a bigot.  as someone who has backed ssm before it was even on the table, i have to say there is kind of a difference between being a bigot and opposing ssm. 

to quote myself, human rights has never been anything but an uphill battle, and youd think the ndp could have more respect for that. the womens movement and the civil rights movement and the green movement have all made inroads, but no matter how many pieces of legislative paper these campaigns accumulate, there are still going to be people that resist progress.  most canadians support ssm and most parliamentarians did too, thats why it became law.  remember how shrill the right was?  thats how people act when they know theyre going to lose.  bev desjarlais voted according to something besides the party line in a situation that wasnt exactly make-or-break.  come on, people.

you can go on all your rants about how your party is "different" but the fact of the matter is that desjarlais was replaced with a cabinet ministers daughter by ndp members.  stop patting yourselves on the backs, dippers.  at the end of the day, youre likely going to be facing an uphill battle in churchill.  you lose bev, but you might re-gain svend.  wtf indeed.

yuschenko is too emo

from my ex-soviet correspondent (aka lotuslav), comes this tidbit o'news.

i think i might be yulia timoshenko for halloween, just so i could do that braid thing without biting her style.

$400 day!

so, albertans get $400 each.  how many people in alberta actually need 400 more dollars?  i am using a generous definition of "need" which includes middle class people in credit card debt due to the kind of thinking that justifies buying their kid a louis vuitton purse.

no, you dont have to be some kind of moscow-metro-loving fan of statist grand projects to think this tax break is whack.

oil prices being what they are, i hope alberta comes up with something a little more constructive than sending the entire province to the mall and the liquor store next surplus day.

daveberta makes the most excellent point:

And of course, in the true spirit of Alberta's democratic tradition, the decision to spend the $1.4 Billion on rebate cheques was made in a closed-door Tory caucus meeting in Lethbridge Yes, that's right, a party which in the last election received the votes of only 22% of eligible Alberta voters has decided that it has the authority to spend $1.4 Billion while behind closed doors.

high gas prices, yeah.

drive less, drive smarter, and get over it.  we are spoiled brats.  i could play the "fossil fuels are bad for the environment, mmmkay?" card, but i dont even have to.  im sorry you all live in the burbs and have to cram your three kids into the suv and drive them to soccer games all over the other burbs.  im sorry it never occurred to anyone that this level of car dependency was an unsustainable lifestyle. 

even the conservatives are promoting a government solution to the problem, rewarding transit use through tax rebates.

vancouver-based rescue team dispatched to louisiana

the deuce with martin, and all the politics-playing that is going on with katrina.  pierre bourque serves up a steaming hot serving of pablumesque indignation and so does robert mclelland.   given the fact the leaders have well-deserved reputations for being pretty inept, making the case that the bush-martin dyad is screwing up is too easy. 

b.c. was asked for help, and the province is sending our urban search and rescue team.  ontario and manitoba have offered technical assistance.  at the usa's request, canada completed the first step in directing emergency supplies to the area.  the canadian red cross is organizing a bank of experienced volunteers to relieve american workers as the reconstruction continues.

UPDATE on vancouver-based search and rescue team (at chimera's cavern)

moron of the year

denise bollinger, philadelphia tourist, on the looting in new orleans:

"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."

i dont know if you noticed, but for frig's sake, half the city is underwater.  desperate times, etc.  moreover, people arent being shot at enough to warrant a comparison to baghdad.

international development and fishing

i stole this off a very lovely ubc girl's blog

Aid: Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.

Development: Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.

Modernization: If we could teach that man to be like us I bet he'd fish great.
Women In Development: Teach a man to fish, he'll drink it all away like the dumbass he is. Teach a woman to fish, her and the kids will eat too. Women will be totally liberated once they become fisherwomen.

Gender And Development: The cultural and gender roles of women and men are complex and interrelated with their manner of fishing, and thus important to consider for any fishing trip.

Post-Colonial Development: The First World stole all our fish in the first place, and they continue to invent new and imaginative ways to purloin our fish, so please just fuck off about our fishing failures.

Neo-Colonial Development: Europe has stolen our fish for generations and we the People's Liberators will no longer take this humiliation! Now will each peasant please fork over 20 fish...the People's Liberators need to repopulate their fishing pool on the French Riviera.

Sustainable Development: Just where are all these fish supposed to come from anyways? According to David Suzuki, if everyone fished like North Americans we'd need 700 oceans!

Economic Trade and Development: If you give me 3 trout and I give you 2 salmon, we'll each end up with a whole boatful of fish, according to Ricardo's Wealth of Oceans

Post-Development: Just who the hell are you to tell these people how to fish? They have been fishing for generations upon generations and now you come along and tell them how to fish their own rivers? Who says they want your big trollers anyways when their hand-nets seem to work just fine? ...What do you mean, "high rate of infant mortality?". Don't impose your Western bias on their lifestyle!

Development as Freedom: Maybe...we should...try asking them how they want to fish?

fair share ontario funnies!

"western alienation" is so 2004.   from the mindset that brought us phrases such as "reverse racism", comes a new political buzzword:  "everybody alienation" ... or something.*

one of the first sentences from the 'fair share' homepage reveals that the ontario govt is trying to present this as not at all like alienation: "No group identifies more closely with Canada than Ontarians."

only in ontario is it taken for granted that other canadians won't take issue with that statement.  ha.

*'reverse racism' is a stupid, incorrect phrase.  while the garden-variety definition of racism in most dictionaries is lacking, the best political definition for racism is discrimination and power.  other forms of racial discrimination should simply be labelled 'discrimination against ______'

softwood lumber, forum shopping, the damn american boyfriend, and canadian cojones

sinister thoughts had a post back in the day about whether we should enter the shark tank that is the washington lobbying game.  i dont know if the law is enough when the usa doesnt seem to give a crap about it.  if theres anything that representing the usa at a model WTO conference at queen's university has taught me, it's that the damn thing has zero enforceability due to the fact people can go court-shopping, (pdf version) receive different verdicts in different courts, and basically abide to whatever they feel best serves their view of the dispute.

im in the states right now, with my american boyfriend.  i am bitching semi-regularly about the softwood lumber ripoff.  his only response, as a politics-obsessed, principled massachusetts democrat who loves neoliberal economic concepts such as free trade, is to flippantly exclaim that until he started dating a canadian, he had no idea what softwood lumber was, ergo, who gives a toss.  he insists $5 billion is nothing in terms of money.  he doesnt care that we are the biggest oil exporter to the united states and that if we grew some gender-neutral cojones, we could use that as a bargaining chip. (canada emulating opec would be cute, eh?)

as americans (or people in general) go, he is incredibly intelligent, suspicious of bushian unilateralism, and very interested in obscurantist academic aspects of international trade and politics. shit, he even had a good blog back in the day (though youll notice it has evidence of the dark ages, when he initially supported the war on iraq before not supporting it - then again, he *is* a flipflopping massachusetts democrat).

so what does this anecdotal evidence amount to?  basically, we have to get this issue on the american radar, because if blue state phd students who view canada somewhat favourably cant even appreciate the injustice of the situation... WHO WILL?

so maybe donolo is onto something and we should do the lobby thing rather than sit here and whine about not getting our money back even though the law is on our side.  a bird in the hand is worth an archaeopetryx in the bush, etc.  if some dork from georgetown can see through the illusion of wto enforceability, why shouldnt the canadian government?

(other lessons of the student wto simulation, such as 'last-minute renting a limo to kingston from ottawa for several people is actually cheaper than several ottawa-kingston bus tickets' and 'cab drivers who do rex murphy impersonations are really quite funny after youve spent the night downing pints at kingston's lovely pubs' are equally significant, but not entirely relevant to current affairs)

an open letter to pierre bourque

dear mr. bourque,

how much is the sun news chain paying you to post and plug
one
two 
three
four
five

of their columnists today?  if you still want to be considered a news site, cease this asskissing and  douchebaggery at once.  usually, youre a little heavy on the canwest global linkage, but this is just too rich. 

sincerely,
ainge lotusland
(fuelled by pizza and bawls)

p.s.:  dear owners of the suns,

i also linked to your eloquent columns, please send a bit of the payola my way.

michel chossudovksy, what have you done!

so apparently, my former economics prof at ottawa u is in a spot of trouble over posts a few wingnuts have added to his site. i took the economics of globalisation course with this man.  it was good times.  he was interesting and engaging and the class was always full of debate.  he let neoliberal kids hog the floor even though theyd still complain that he was biased and never let them talk.  we dragged our friends to the classes regardless of their acceptance of marxism because the class was lively and he was a great lecturer. 

im tired of students being wankers and wanting the profs to spoon-feed us every side of the story.  profs are people, people have biases, people who do academic research probably think their bias is the unadultered truth.  if you think something is suspect, go read a fucking book because thats what theyre there for.  argue with your prof.  take them to the school senate if they mark unfairly.  if you feel the need to indoctrinate people, speak in class.

also, im tired of this stupid law that holds website owners liable for the content of forums.  if people believe the internet, which is basically one big fat vanity press, its their own fault for being lazy.   if people believe forums without fact-checking, then they deserve to be led astray.  if youre defamed on a forum, why would you get all worked up over stupid lemmingesque people hating on you?  actually, i can appreciate the jewish community's concern, considering the popularity of neo-nazi and other anti-semitic thought among people who cant appreciate complex situations and need to reduce the ills of the world into one variable.  still, i dont think chossudovsky should have to do anything besides take it down. 

im sure he resents silencing people, no matter how crazy they are.  hell, he might actually be crazy (i mean, hes a prof and all). 

as his student, i was more interested in his views on free trade zones in central america and post-communist economies in eastern europe (which was part of the lectures) and much less interested in his conspiracy theories (which were on the website).  he told us to read the website, mostly cos some of our readings were hosted there.  none of our readings were specifically anti-zionist.

CRTC satellite radio ruling jeopardizes local radio broadcasters

i saw this on a livejournal community, and i decided it needed to be reposted.  i love citr 101.9 and dont want to see it compromised by american interests.  if youre lazy, by all means, do the form letter.  ive emailed david emerson, liza frulla, bill siksay, stephen owen, and libby davies and i hope the gopher checking their email doesnt forward all this to the trash bin or the 'angry hippie file' ...

"Thanks to recent CRTC decisions, two huge American satellite radio companies will soon be flooding Canada with American programs. The federal government can ask the CRTC to set aside its decisions – but only has until early September to act."

What's at stake?

- Satellite radio programming will be 90% American, with Canadian programming ghettoized in a few
Canadian-only channels. For the first time in more than thirty years, the CRTC has licensed radio services with no meaningful Canadian Content requirements.

- Satellite radio won't reflect the diversity of our country. Only 2.5% of their programming will be in French, with virtually no guarantess that content will serve the interests of Canada's diverse communities

- Satellite radio has refused to discuss providing channels for your local station and other campus and community broadcasters (Like UBC's very own CiTR 101.9 FM)
. Rather than partnering with us, they will broadcast a number of channels that will imitate the sound of campus and community radio.

If you haven't already contacted the PM about this, please do so now at http://friends.ca/payradio-ncra-anrec-b5r2e. It's critical that we reach members of the government before they meet on the 22nd to persuade them to overturn these negative CRTC decisions.

When you visit this site, you’ll be able to edit and send a message to the Prime Minister, automatically copied to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and your own MP. It’s fast and easy to use, and your message will be heard by political leaders who care about receiving your vote in the next  election.