Lessons Unlearned

In the aftermath of Boobquake (the boobwake, if you will) I saw a few (generally female) bloggers despairing at what they perceived as a "highjacking" of boobquake by what a film geek might call the male gaze - a sort of objectifying ray emitted by the eyes of men. In all seriousness, it was a good concern; the focus of boobquake was primarily humour and skepticism...T'n A being a pleasant - if non-critical - side benefit. Men who went into Boobquake day looking for nothing more than a show of tits were clearly misapprehending the point. Worse still, I think, is that they were in a way undermining a part of Boobquake's thesis. You'll recall that in Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi's clerical error (oh, snap?) he professed that it is female immodesty that causes male infidelity (and presumably that of women as well)...and that somehow this affects plate tectonics. And how did some of us supposedly enlightened western men react? Well, kind of offensively, actually. I don't have statistics, to be sure, but I think what's important here is to recognize that freedom of clothing choice isn't the endpoint of equality. The objectification of women is still something to be reckoned with in our society, and the blithe equation of Boobquake with "yeah, shake 'em baby"...it does worse than NOT help the cause. It transforms an event dedicated to satirizing ridiculous pronouncements and the mistreatment of women into little more than us ramming our culture down another culture's throat. How DO you like them American hooters, mr. Muslim?



You see, it just trades the spark of genius for the spectre of racism and bigotry.



I'll come back to this, but first I need to work something out that's been bothering me for a while:

" How is this "feminist" response anything but an attempt to squash female expressions of our sexuality, for fear of whipping men into an uncontrollable frenzy?



How is it anything other than blaming women for the fact that many men behave badly?"

I've been going over this sort of reasoning in my head for a while. On the one hand, I think there's a point missing: Heterosexual dudes are genetically programmed to be aroused by the female form, or at least I'm pretty sure we are. I mean, it's not a very good meme for a species that reproduces sexually to be ambivalent about the process. Ah - I can hear the yells forming in your throats and I am not done yet thank you very much! Genetic predisposition isn't really an excuse, but neither is it nothing at all. Dress and manner are means of communication, often nonverbal, but communication they are. Friends of mine will recall the ladies' T-shirt I proposed with only "The medium is the message" emblazoned upon the bosom. It was my own little way of satirizing T-shirts that said things like "my eyes are up here" in bright, eye catching text across the wearers' breasts. Both of these T-shirts are saying the same thing, when you get down to it. When you wear a particular style and cut of clothing you are sending people messages. I admit full well that I try to wear snug T-shirts these days because I've got a little muscle in my upper body and it's nice to have it show. But I am under no illusion that I have a right to complain if someone makes a remark about it on the street, in class, wherever. I'm trying to show off, the least you can do is notice!

No style of clothing is to be taken as a declaration of consent, duh. I still don't think it's really a consistent position to try and separate medium and message. I might not know whether your message is targeted at a particular individual or the world at large, but what "immodest clothing" tells me is that you think you have a body worthy of aesthetic consideration. So while I do not dispute in any way shape or form that physical security is your constitutional, heck your human right when you - and I mean dudes and ladies - run amok with only strategically-placed bands of cloth...a public display is a public display. We do have a sort of content filter when you only want to control access to your sexuality, both in the visual and physical capacities. It's called modesty, and it shouldn't be a dirty word just because some people think it needs to be enforced. It's also not a binary choice of covered/uncovered, there's a lot of room I think to choose an image that you're comfortable with projecting. Now, if you want justification I am going to have to tread carefully on this ground...but hear me out: common critics of Anarchy allegedly miss the point when they talk about total chaos in the absence of law. If you ask an Anarchist you'll probably hear something about "social norms" and "unwritten codes of behavior", possibly "natural-" or "divine" law, maybe even "common sense". You would be foolish to equate the absence of a code of law with the complete absence of guidelines and cues for behaviour. Similarly, you would be unwise to confuse the absence of religious persecution against your chosen style of dress with a complete obviation of your responsibility for your own image! We are likewise never free of our responsibility for our own perceptions of other people; what I am - in essence - arguing for is clarity of communication. Don't send wrong messages, and don't get the wrong ideas. Just don't be surprised if you're showing off your tits or pecs or whatever - and someone pays them a compliment. Is it regressive to believe that people shouldn't toy with each other and send mixed messages under the pretext of "I can do anything I want without consequence"? I hope not.

But back (sort of) on the track that I was intending to go upon. If we indeed wish to show that we as individuals and as a culture have an enlightened attitude toward women, let's do that with respect, consideration, and solidarity. This isn't accomplished by clamoring for tits, nor by indulging those who do.

On the matter of solidarity, I bring your attention to "Everybody draw Muhammad day". Look at the comment thread, even just the first few will do. Is this how to advance the cause of free speech, by calling Islam a "death cult"? How blind and shortsighted we are, then; historically we have been blessed with the gift of arabic numerals (way, way easier than those dumb Roman ones!), the concept of zero (or at least Europe got wind of it by way of muslims)...in fact, the preservation of classical philosophy that would spark the Renaissance? That was totally Muslims! So their civilization is not at its height now, but are we going to pass judgement on the whole of their culture and religion while observing only such a narrow slice? One might as well characterize Europeans as being the peddlars of dogmatic barbarism (middle ages and the crusades) or America as being inherently racist and oppressive (slave trade). Worse still we're talking about a narrow cross-section of a narrow cross-section! So much for this farce of the Western thirst for knowledge and reason! Ok, you know this; what I wonder about "Draw Muhammad Day" is whether or not I should participate. On the one hand, I see a noble purpose and intent: to become one with a group of people who have faced death threats and even death itself (RIP. Theo Van Gogh) for the sake of free artistic expression. As the Blag Hag says, to "dilute the pool of targets" seems a pretty funny, interesting way to deal with some of the hostility that has greeted people who are critical of Islam. Ironically, Christianity is vehemently opposed to idolatry/graven images (depends on the brand/translation), it just happens to be one of those "pick and choose" things that gets discarded and under rug swept. Actually, I recall there being vocal outrage in the West when an artist chose to depict Jesus Christ as a black woman. So on some level this isn't cool. I don't imagine all the people taking part are hypocritical, but it bears a striking resemblance to the problem with Boobquake: this event invites people who aren't here to celebrate free speech, but to denegrate Islam. I think that if we desire logical consistency, we desperately need to expand the scope of this day! I think we need a "Depict God and Jesus as not-exclusively-white-people Day", for starters! it's easy to talk trash about Islam because it has some differences in the value system, and a thriving militant streak that the media loves to talk about. But there are militants of all stripes, and maybe if we did more to provoke them, they'd come out of the woodwork. Hell, just look at the utterly braindead response from the religious right at the abolition of that national prayer day in the US.

You can say perhaps that there aren't any death threats at work here, that we're dealing with a religion that does seek to impose upon others versus some that don't. That's an awfully thin argument. Sarah Palin wants to base US law on the 10 commandments: does that mean the manufacture of graven images would become illegal, 'cause that would just be TOO GOOD right now! In any case, that's an imposition right there, one that has a lot of undesirable implications for those who do not share in her faith. You could even argue (successfully, I might imagine) that inherent to the "don't tread on me" 2nd ammendment-happy ethos are death threats, ie. when those arms you so proudly bear come in handy for overthrowing an oppressive government. For once I'm not trying to make fun of gun culture: I think "Governments should be afraid of their people" doesn't seem much too much more conducive to good policy than the converse (think about the kind of distaste people have for legislative deadlock, and imagine if you will the kind of paralysis you might see if the lives of legislators depended upon their never crossing a rather nebulous line). Everyone has their violent streak - from Marxists to Margaret Thatcherites (ESPECIALLY these, even). It seems pretty hypocritical to condemn another culture because their soft spot is your sacrament, doesn't it?

I think these two issues boil down to a very similar core: people are constructing freedoms in the absence of responsibilities. We have freedom of expression, but we are not without responsibility for the content we express. That is not to say that you "get what you deserve". Clearly, physical attacks are not the correct way to respond to expression that confounds or offends you!

On this general theme of getting things wrong, I saw on BoingBoing the other day a link via Wired to a piece that examined the role of mercenary bloggers in documenting the war on Afghanistan. Some of the comments were very vitriolic, wishing death and ruin upon these individuals, generally to the tune of:

"Mercenaries are the scum of the Earth, I hope they all die."

I'm sorry, I forgot that the purpose of learning about someone in their own words was to justify your kneejerk reaction to their superficial qualities, what was I thinking!? I had imagined in a fever dream for a moment that reading the words of combattants on the ground would humanize them in a way that might challenge our assumptions about who these people are. Yes it is morally questionable that they are effectively paid to kill. Good job. Does the above statement reflect a more developed morality? It would be very hard to argue that it does. Again, you can see that we are receiving information, but not everyone is learning the right lesson. There's something that Christianity says, something like "love the sinner, hate the sin"? You can Godwin that to death if you like, but how else can we approach unsavoury professions like "mercenary"? Are we to decide that some people can be judged solely on the basis of their employment...but not us, oh no! We're just office drones on the weekdays; on weekends we're gorgeous unique butterflies free from the stale cucoobicle! So you don't kill for money - you waste away your life unsatisfied for money. Should I wish death upon you for squandering your human potential five days out of seven? Come on!

These are human beings. Fact. Why do some people refuse to learn that? I don't think any more kindly of the profession, but I can now put words and maybe even a face on these people. I think that makes for a better debate, somehow, if we discard this notion that we are fielding armies of demons abroad in a vein effort at...something, I dunno what. Actually, if you read some of these blogs they are often quite critical of the war effort itself: the uncertain terms of victory, the corruption in government and police forces that we turn a blind eye to...even the anti-war crowd will find some common ground here! In fact, reading these blogs has given me more reason to doubt the war than I might have ever had. I have a much better perspective now, I think, of what we have done wrong. What's very interesting is that there is a palpable level of culture shock going on. Some of the blogs I read bordered uncomfortably on racism, but it did make me think. We're talking about how best to prosecute this war in terms of drone strikes and troop surges, and we're really just not trying to talk about the cultural barriers between our peoples! It seems dangerous to have heavily armed people becoming increasingly jaded and disoriented in a country that we wish to have good relationships with, don't you think?

First, they came for the...

This is shaping up to be a bad week for civil liberties, and it's really getting me down. I've been kicking ass these past few days, so this bad news tempering my excitement? NOT appreciated! I refer primarily, of course, to the complete and utter failure of the state of Maine to uphold the right of same-sex couples to marry. I know only two people from Maine (and only one of them well at all), but I wish that as a sample they had proved to be more representative of the whole (they were both decidedly against the same-sex marriage ban)! My position on marriage is surely well-established by now, so I'll keep any reiteration short and to the point: I...I do and do not understand the idea that same-sex marriage could be threatening or offensive to a person. I mean, sure it might be against the tenets of your religion or something, but did you forget to read the damned bits of your constitution that address the separation of church and state? I mean, yes you could find an idea repulsive on a personal level, but I'm pretty sure that's not how laws work (well, it shouldn't be anyhow). I mean, Etarran hates zucchini, but I can at best imagine him joking about a legal crusade to outlaw its cultivation!

No, the whole miserable business is indefensible. One cannot pretend to live in an open and free society whilst all the while denying his or her countrypeople the same rights he or she enjoys. At best, that can be called hypocrisy. I think I call it tyranny, which is a good segue into another troubling assault on personal freedoms: the recent ban on violent video games in Venuzuela. This has also been an issue in the US, and I guess that it is fitting for a country which is more at ease with making war than making love that their citizens and courts should uphold the right of citizens to simulate all manner of slaughter, but not to marry whomsoever they choose. Wonderful, isn't it?

There's a wonderful essay written by a Venuzuelan on the topic, which can be read here. I'm not sure if I agree that banning violent videogames is tantamount to making protest illegal (although making the expression of views contrary to those of the government a crime? Yeah, there we go!). I think it might be something different, something more than just silencing protest. I think it's entirely possible that the Venuzuelan government is trying to silence an entire generation, regardless of what it is they are saying. If you're incredulous, simply imagine [insert your government here] bans text messaging, facebook, or twitter (hey, wait, hasn't that HAPPENED ALREADY SOMEWHERE?) It could be - at least on the surface - a move to silence particular voices of dissent, but you would realize soon enough I think that the real effect of such a ban would be to effectively evict our generation from home turf. "oh, POOR YOU, you'd have to resort to communications in person, how terrible!" I hear the parents droning sarcastically. No, for serious: That was your way, we have our own way now! It would be like taking away paper and quills before people had phones in their houses, or killing all the troubadours in medieval Europe. Back to videogames, though: I don't think they really express "dissent" of themselves, but they provide our generation with cultural anchors of a sort. Weirdly, I think that the backlash from gamers might be the source of more dissent than games themselves could ever be.

I think that for too long I assumed that 'socialist' meant 'good', and that Hugo Chavez was simply the victim of the kind of slander you're liable to hear about socialists when you live next to one of the most heartless capitalisms the world has ever known. Now, I'm not so sure what I believe. It would be too easy to say "well, now I know the opposite to be true", but I don't think that would actually bely a better understanding of the situation. What I do know is that I want to live in Venuzuela even less than I did before...

...and there's the rub. This is all very well and far away for me, but it's terrifying to think that it IS TRUE somewhere. My hard drive and collection of optical disks? VENUZUELAN CONTRABAND?!?! Weird stuff!

I wonder if there are any gaming speakeasies already in operation in Venuzuela?

Loud!

Madness? n-no, this is Sparta. Madness is in Corinth...Over There

Although I may be a sucker for a gorgeous autumn, I'm not what you'd call a guy with a particularly strong seasonal preference. When it's too hot in summer I wish for winter, when it's too cold in winter, well...you get the idea. Seasonal opportunist, perhaps? I think I may not be anywhere near smooth enough an operator to deserve such a title, regardless of whether or not it's a technically correct description. So, what I'm NOT going to tell you all now is why summer is my favourite, or the best season, 'cause I'd be lying to you if I said I thought so. Summer isn't really better or worse as a season than any other, it just so happens to be when tradition slapped down a really big fat gap in the school year. There's something comfortable about the summer stasis, when you can forget the upcoming changes and challenges, until at least the final month or so. Vacations happen, birthday parties, midnight snacks, more parties, bike rides, still more parties. The necessity of getting a job has put something of a kibosh on the anytime, anywhere parties, but I've been managing pretty well so far, if I do say so myself. In short, Summer is pretty much what I live for. This is problematic, but I'll discuss that later.

Case in point: after something of a slow start, I managed to get together with Daydream Believer, Gold, and Sphinx, and we spent a marvelous afternoon essentially walking back and forth around downtown with no real agenda other than “see stuff, and maybe buy it if it is cool enough”. I suppose Sphinx's customary pilgrimage to Venus Envy counts as an agenda of sorts, but then that's really just her doing what comes naturally (and all power to her!). Having been making altogether too much use of the car and my house lately, I relished the chance to put rubber to the road (see, I have these shoes, right? And because their soles are made of recycled tire, I put rubber to the road when walking AND driving!). To top it off, a former classmate of mine was singing at the Elephant and Castle's open mic, so after sending poor oppressed Sphinx home on a bus, those remaining dropped in to have a listen, and as a bonus also enjoyed a number of remarkably solid acts. The former classmate was every bit as good as I recall from her standout performances at a school coffee house years ago, being in the possession of a voice whose caliber can be crudely approximated by the word “enchanting”. Other notables of the night were local band Distant Society, and what must have been Amanda Rheaume, although I am not 100% certain. It's funny, but I really had no idea that the Ottawa music scene had any kind of vibrancy, but what I saw and heard really did restore some of my faith in this city that fun forgot. Definitely something to go see again.

Hey, Mister! Get Your Laws off my Sister!

I really do have a sister, for any hypothetical readers who don't know me. So, yeah: get your filthy bill C-484 the hell away from her!

Daydream Believer and I had a bit of a debate on the nature of said bill, after Sphinx and I signed a petition against it. Essentially, it was her opinion that since the bill specifically exempts abortion, it shouldn't be a problem. Fair enough, but there's more to be upset about than just that.

For one, if anyone physically abuses a woman, and the fetus is lost, the damage is done. If the woman wanted to have a child, in particular the one developing in her before said assault, is more jail time going to make things any easier for her? I for one agree with the voices calling for more preventative measures against abuse of women, a project which would keep wanted fetuses alive, and not pose a threat to a woman's right to choose. Let's have a look at what the bill is saying, shall we?

“(5) It is not a defence to a charge under this section that the child is not a human being. “

This is an unnecessary clause. Something does not have to be declared a human in order to make harming it wrong under the law. For that matter, why not just make “fetus” its own entity under the law? Then you could make new rules for the fetus-entity, and avoid the whole issue of what a fetus being human implies

“(6) An offence referred to in this section committed against a child is not included in any offence committed against the mother of the child. “

It's not a child, not until it's born, morons! Also, why separate these charges if the idea is to protect women? The crime is against the woman, the fetus is A PART OF THE WOMAN until it becomes autonomous. I suggest that were it not for the horrible ramifications to the field of assisted reproduction that we could instead consider the death of a fetus an act of theft against the woman, so instead I propose we treat it as if he, say, destroyed/stole one of her kidneys, or a lung. I mean, doesn't it make sense to just put the fetus somewhere on a scale of “things that a woman can be deprived of through assault” table, which stipulates that the loss TO THE WOMAN represents the need for greater punishment. The child is entirely dependent upon the mother, and in fact exists at her discretion, and so should be seen as a legal extension of HER PERSON, and no separate entity.

What I see here is a missed opportunity. Instead of trying to have mature deliberations about how to improve the reproductive and sexual health and well-being of the country, bill C-484 comes across as a little patronizing, and a lot scary to women who like things like, you know, rights. Also scary to men who like women who like their rights. What we should be doing is looking at ways to make contraception MORE affordable, MORE widely available, to make sure that groups like Insight Theatre continue to bring a pro-choice, non-judgmental education

about Pro(phylactic)s and Con(traceptive method)s, to eradicate gender discrimination and violence (I refrain from saying that we need only teach men not to be violent towards women, because women – however rarely – sometimes abuse men. I ain't saying the problems are in any way equal, but you've gotta deal with a problem in every form). We need to look at our glaring lack of regulation on abortion, and decide if maybe the right to choose should have some attached responsibilities. Before anyone jumps on me for embracing the same kind of ambiguous statement that could be used to justify an abrogation of that right, I will tell you straight away that I'm pro-choice. Now, as my paternal grandfather (Grootvader, as I call him – it's Dutch, you know*) likes to say, Western culture focuses too much on rights and too little on responsibilities. We have the right to free speech, but the responsibility to say things that enrich, that provoke thought, and to not propagate hate and irrationality. We have the right to a fair trial, and the responsibility to be fair when we judge others, and so on. To claim that any right should or can exist without any attached conditions on how it should be used is wishful thinking. Regulations on abortion in the past put too many limits on the practice, but I would like to see some healthy debate on what reasonable, formally-defined conditions of the right should be. And before you hit me with the “easy for you to say, you don't have a uterus!”, allow me to point out that men have to pay child support for children they father. Sure, it's not anywhere near the same burden, but our sexual freedom is NOT without consequences, should we fail to use adequate protection. Please note that I am open to the idea that no limits on abortion are justifiable, but you'll have to convince me.

To summarize: Bill C-484 addresses NONE of the actual concerns that we should have, and does NOTHING to help women. If the Conservative government were actually concerned about saving women or fetuses, it would be trying to break the cycle of abuse, and not playing a dangerous game with womens' rights!

-LOUD!

4/7

*Technically we could also call him “Opa”, but the literal translation was used for a few reasons: a) it's not an incorrect or made-up term, b) it helped our generation learn the Dutch “G” sound, and c) because my great-Grandmother was still alive and “Oma” when my generation came around, and having Opa, Oma, and Oma would have been confusing for everyone.'

-Markets, -Speech, -Bird!

A Very Political Day

To immediately dispel any fears you may have, this post shall not dwell on Stockwell/Doris, however political he may be. A few happy accidents transpired today, and as a result I found myself immersed in political discourse on multiple occasions. Incidentally, I also have my Political Science lecture today, to speak nothing of the ensuing discussion group. Those aren't so much accidents, but they both contributed to the volume of debate that I experienced. This is actually the sort of day I would like to find myself living more often, but enough with the tangents: I'll get sidetracked enough conveying this story and the thoughts and opinions that surround and colour it.

It started with a radio, the one I keep in my room. Normally, I have it set to CBC Radio 1, partly because the CBC is quite good if they hit their stride, and the other reason is, well...have you heard the noise that passes for radio here in the 'wa? Sure, sure, we have occasional gems like Live 88.5's musical-history show, but by and large our radio stations play either iffy mixtures of good/bad/wtf from the '70s-'90s, overplayed/too-mainstream rap and hip hop, or repeticious rock mixtures, classic and contemporary. Hell, even Live 88.5 - which my clock radio was set to for a while - woke me up with "Hey there Delilah" more than once. Hell, once is too much to hear the aural assault that Plain White Tees has the temerity to call "music"! This morning, my radio was set to neither CBC nor Live. By some late-night accident, it had been set to 93.1 - some kind of public radio station (Gold will begin to snicker at this juncture, and so too shall the rest of you once you've seen this) - and lo, here was a very interesting interview. I can't say too much for the interviewer besides "meh, ok", but Interviewee Justin Podur I found to be quite well-spoken and informative. Justin runs a vastly more spiffy blog than this (and when I say "vastly" it is an understatement) called The Killing Train. The topic of the interview was the current situation in Columbia, something that I had heard nothing about by radio or newspaper...although it is quite possible that I simply missed the time or page when/where it was mentioned.

There are a few separate stories covered in the interview: It seems that Columbia's president has decided not to enter into proposed negotiations with FARC, and has - of all things - now accused Hugo Chavez (proposer/proponent of the talks) of supporting terrorism. The discussion ranged from the nature of hostage-warfare (we'll call it) between the government and FARC, Columbian President Uribe's paramilitary connections, and those of party bureaucrats, the role of multinationals in sponsoring said paramilitary groups. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I was informed that Canada is pursuing a free-trade agreement with Columbia! The theory presented by Mr. Podur was that this was a move to help the US ratify a similar agreement, on the grounds that "if it's good enough for Canada...". Any free-trade agreement with Columbia, it was also argued, was essentially part of a campaign to allow multinational companies greater access to the country and its resources. Canada, for example, has mining interests in Columbia, and business can only get easier for our corporations under free-trade. I can't really comment on this analysis, because I have very little background knowledge about the situation in Columbia. The most I remember are bits and pieces from the group which covered FARC in World Issues last year. That being said, it doesn't sound out-of-place or out-of-character. Mr. Podur has a link to the uploaded interview, so have a listen for yourself!

Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine (on my to-read list), and Ms. Klein herself are mentioned more than once during the interview, and I suspect that it's hard not to look at free-market economics anywhere after having read the book and not see coercive forces at work. In doing some research for a project some two years ago, I picked up a very small work by Klein, which I can only assume was a preview or precursor to The Shock Doctrine: No War. Her thesis was that the Bush administration had plans to transform Iraq into a free-market Utopia, to showcase the superiority of Capitalism, the Free Market, and the Invisible Hand. The risks of doing business in Iraq are certainly part of the failure of these plans, but Klein's real point is that it took a full-scale war in order for these changes to be made, because ordinary Iraquis would never accept them if given time to contemplate the ramifications of a completely open market. While the entire scope of the Shock Doctrine is as-yet unknown to me, the concept is at least not foreign to this mind. Back to Columbia, where the very same procedure was employed to scrap those social services for which FARC is fighting (again, so sayeth the interview).

I have a lot going on in my head in relation to this, because it touches on a lot of issues. First up is the humanitarian tragedy that the West is at best complicit with, and at worst actively creating. I have to hand it to the Neo-Marxists, because of the three post-9/11 IR theory adjustments, theirs is the only one that makes a decent amount of sense. While a rejection of "Western" culture and liberalism certainly isn't impossible, it doesn't really hold up when you consider that for all George Bush and his predecessors have talked about spreading democracy and freedom, have we really done so? In the case of the Shah's reinstatement in Iran, it's clear that our economic needs have always, and will always - so long as we continue not to care - be placed before humanitarian concerns. On a political level, it makes sense: Money and Oil get votes, keep the corporations happy, and just a few of those infomercials begging for your money to save some terribly unlucky child in the developing world are all you need to mitigate any guilt which might arise from a comparatively Kingly/Queenly lifestyle. The second tragedy is that these colonial policies have given a terrible name to what is for the most part a good way of life. I don't think that the West is perfect, but one cannot say that living in a warzone is superior. Women may still be fighting for equality, the environment may be suffering dearly at our hands, but we are at least cognizant of these issues, and there are growing numbers of people (well, so the increased popular vote for the Green Party would indicate) cognizant of this sort of issue. Maybe our proposed solutions are no better than the beg-o-mercials, but at the end of the day, you can live in relative safety and wealth here, and while we're bound to take that for granted, people who have lived in far worse places can appreciate the true value of what we have here. The tragedy is that when we go abroad, we speak about this quality of life, and then what we deliver isn't really about democracy and free markets, it's about what we want to strip-mine your country for. IR Realists will, of course, take this as evidence that self-interest rules the international system. That would make sense, sure, but I suspect that the bastards who have done this are IR Realists, privately if not publicly.

I imagine that Adam Smith is turning in his grave, because of the horrible suffering that has been inflicted in the name of his free-market ideology. From what I read in studying his work, Smith's ideal Capitalism was not the monopolistic, plutocratic, sadistic abomination that now lays claim to that name: it was a place in which the best product was sold at the best price - a zero-profit system! - to the benefit of all. Was this empty rhetoric, for the purpose of acquiring support, only to establish a new economic order no kinder, no gentler than Mercantilism? I don't like to think so: As a thinker of the Enlightenment, Smith lived around the time of the American and French revolutions, a time in which the ideals of Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire and others were new and in fashion, values that are now at the core of what we call "Western Civilization". No, this was not empty rhetoric - it was the libertarian dream, perhaps a little like the American dream, although not necessarily with the same excesses desired. I can only speculate as to what Smith's personal dream might have been, to speak nothing of what dream he might ascribe to the working man or woman.

This is a decent, if forced segway into my views on Samuel Huntington, and the Clash of Civilizations. In case you're wondering why a paper written in 1992, re-enforced in 2001 is being discussed in 2007, it's because it also happened to be the focal point of today's Political Science lecture. It's also something I refuted in an essay which I wrote for grade 12 History. You may be asking yourself how this relates at all to the betrayal of Adam Smith's ideals, and with good reason. I shall begin by explaining the thesis of my essay. It was my observation that the "Clash of Civilizations" was nothing more than meta-nationalism, a convenient excuse to promote hateful patriotism and war for the benefit of an elite few in both Western and Islamic society. Someone, I think it might have been Gorbachev, some old soviet guy...whoever it was, they said that a farmer could desire nothing more from war than to return home alive and intact. This is true for the civilian population of any supposed "civilization": war brings the specter of death down upon them, their comrades, and their loved ones. Perhaps I overlook the spoils of war, but then I have this suspicion that the elites masterminding the aggression would not be so inclined to share the bounty. Building on this, I think it can be said that the bellicose elements claiming to represent "western values" in the face of some outside threat, be it terrorism, Russia's new authoritarianism, or some as-yet-uncreated "enemy" are seeking to usurp the title of "western society" for their own ends, even though their moral character is not at all in line with that of the population. In the absence of aggressive socialization and propaganda, public pressure doesn't start wars, doesn't call for torture, doesn't abide the abrogation of rights and freedoms! The "Clash of Civilizations", the "War on Terror", this is the conspiracy of Smith's usurpers, the "Western" pretenders, making use of this "Shock Doctrine" to bring us into line. It's about money, power, and it's not about the kind of values that you or I have. I'm not even remotely possessed of the idea that these people are a real-life Section 31...I think they serve their own ends, and I don't buy for a minute that we need their cruelty, their insatiable lust for profits to live as we do. Think about it: if a shoe costs $250, what difference does it make to you whether it was made by an American, properly paid and with safety standards and legal recourse, versus a man in China, with none of those protections, and one-tenth the pay? NONE! It only makes a difference to the company that's squeezing more profit out of the Chinese man. Local production and proper pay doesn't have to make items more expensive. It CAN, but only if the company selling it to you is still convinced that it is entitled to $249.99 on top of what that shoe actually cost them (economies of scale being what they are, I suspect that the price of an indiviual shoe, or pair thereof is essentially infinitessimal)

So, where am I going with this awful mess of tangents and anecdotes? Basically, hearing about how Columbia has been abused has got me in another funk about the state of the world. My PolySci prof has on more than one occasion quoted Francis Fukuyama as saying that with the triumph of liberalism over socialism at the end of the Cold War, the time of ideological conflict is over. I beg to differ, because liberalism has yet to win over Disney Despotism, AT&T Authoritarianism, or McNopoly.

It was brought to my attention by a fellow Political Science student in my discussion group that the room used for said class would be playing host to a panel discussion on how to revive conservatism (the pure ideological form) in Ontario. Not wanting to be impolite to this fellow student, I decided I'd stick around to see some of the discussion. Fortunately, another student from my class was also encouraged to do the same, so I wasn't alone in a room full of conservatives. Well, guess who was coming to sit on the panel? None other but Randy Hillier, and so I got to meet the man and shake his hand. The guy has a granite-like grip, it's quite formidable! He's not as bad in person as I might have expected, and - more surprisingly - not as ideologically conservative as I might have expected!

A Citizen columnist was the first member of the panel to speak, and it's quite safe to say that he was a conservative. This might be a compliment, but only because he was consistent, and even then I'm not sure if that's for the best. A speaker with strong conviction will put on a better show, but the very ideological flexibility that this man so condemned is precisely what makes a person or party fit to govern, in my opinion. The reality of the situation is that Canadians didn't elect a Conservative government. Even FPTP - which proponents claim produces strong governments - did not result in a majority. Enough people voted for them in the right places, and the populace has accepted their control of Parliament without invoking the Lockean right to armed resistance, so they have legitimacy. If they had a commanding majority of both seats and the public vote, that would be a clear mandate to pursue their ideological ends. Such as it is, they have been allowed to govern, but not to impose the fullness of their beliefs upon Canada, or at least that's how they seem to have treated their stay in office so far. Returning to my original thought, I guess I'll commend the Citizen columnist on giving a very confident speech. Ok, good feeling's gone.

Conservatism just cannot be sold to me at any price. There are the obvious social and sexual freedom issues (namely that conservatives want there to be none), and on top of that, the entire establishment has very religious overtones. The columnist used a quotation that said "the only successful revolution is one in which you repent" (not an exact quote, but as close as I can get). At another point, he addressed members of the student society hosting the event as "young and rebellious" people. It was very odd to see that the philosophy of "THE MAN" had taken on something of an activist culture, especially when contrasted with statements extolling "traditional family values". While I enjoyed the parts of his presentation in which this columnist laid out the groundwork for a political revolution (because those instructions are more or less universally applicable), he predictably brought up the twin dead horses of the right-wing: Abortion and Same-sex marriage. Well, I was preparing myself for the usual bashing, but I didn't expect this man to support the use of the notwithstanding clause to make both illegal again. On top of this, he noted that a string of Roman-Catholic Prime Ministers had not taken that action. I wonder if this man was aware of that event called the Enlightenment, from which we take our current secularist-rationalist tradition? For all his words about following the lessons of the past, this guy is just as selective with those as the ruling Conservatives are with their ideology!

Randy Hillier, the next speaker, was not as well-prepared as the Citizen columnist, but then he's a shit-disturber-turned-MPP, and unlike the preceding speaker, does not make his living on eloquence. Hillier's tack was to explain his definition of conservatism, which happened to sound a lot like classical liberalism. In Mr. Hillier's opinion, there are two philosophies of government: one in which the people control the government, and vice-versa. Hillier calls the latter socialism, in that sort of tone which carries a subtext of "those commie bastards", and says that it's the conservative's job to oppose the curtailing of liberties. If he's a true conservative, I assume he means unless those are the liberties of women, homosexuals, and workers. His first example of a farmer being banned from selling raw milk was quite solid, but his second example was not at all convincing. Mr. Hillier came down against smoking bans, including one in Nova Scotia (I believe), forbidding individuals from smoking in the car if they have a child. Elsewhere in his speech, the same man proposed that conservatives stop being so afraid of what people will think, and speak their minds on issues such as abortion. Now, he never did specifically condemn the practice (only increasing the irony, given that he was saying to conservatives that they should not be afraid to voice their opinions on it!), but the circumstantial evidence is very much against his having a Red, no, Orange-Tory soft spot on one of the right-wing's key issues. Essentially, Mr. Hillier apparently supports more protection for the unborn than for the children that the unborn will become! He did not make his opinion known on smoking during pregnancy, but it would be more than a little amusing if he was so pro-individual choice that he would allow some forms of fetal damage, but just not abortion. I doubt he could be that hypocritical and not notice, though. My impression is that Mr. Hillier, such as I heard him speak, has been the unfortunate victim of big-letter/little-letter confusion (how people confuse political parties with ideologies of the same name, the only difference in spelling being initial capitalization). Even if he is not pro-choice, and condemns same-sex marriage, that would only make him a very hypocritical classical liberal. As I've heard it, and this is a theory supported by the Citizen Columnist's speech, conservatives don't so much mind the violation of rights and the democratic process, so long as the result is in line with religious/traditional morality. While this does not make his Conservative party membership at all contradictory, it is a little puzzling that he was chosen for a discussion on the future of ideological conservatism in Ontario.

While my decidedly unfriendly bias may have you wonder if the event was really as hypocritical as I make it sound, I think you'd find the same level of contradiction in anything so rigidly ideological. There's an upcoming left-wing event on the first of December which I will try to attend, which may shed some light on my hypothesis.

I think that about covers Monday's events, and so with that I will close the post.

"Give me strength, reserve, control....give me heart, and give me soul"

-Coldplay, Politik

LOUD!

Pull -, Break- , Hook-

(Title Hint: you know that game where you get three words, and you have to figure out what letters or word can be added before or after each to make three new words? This is essentially that. )

"I put two and two together and I got 'IV'..."

Et tu, Loud?

Nothing stings worse than a cold knife in the back.

...Actually, I suppose that if you took the nest or hive of each and every stinging insect on the planet and then screamed loudly while smashing them together that it would sting worse....

Right, right, Knives in the back, I was getting to that!

I have just been informed that my Ex - yes, she's my Ex now, get over it already - has been smoking for the past few months. You'd think she might have said anything about it? Actually, this was the first I'd heard of it. It would have been nice to know before, it would have forced me to wake up and smell the rancid tobacco stench of a relationship long past its expiery date. Years ago, I struggled to pull her away from the jaws of self-harm, at the cost of many a sleeping hour. Now, it seems that she has conspired to slowly expunge any lasting positive effects I may have had on her. While our relationship could never be repaired to any state resembling that of a "healthy" one, I took some comfort in the knowledge that I had made a difference when it counted, as if following some relationship-campsite rule. This lapse of hers, then, seems the ultimate betrayal: it's a natural continuation of those early behaviours. Bad enough that I've been effectively set back two years by this break-up, does she now seek to erase it so that none who lay eyes on us from this day hence might ever guess as to what once was?

Perhaps, of course, this isn't about me at all. She could have started smoking on a whim, on a dare, on some stressful night when nothing else offered a hope of respite. Perhaps she didn't tell me because she didn't believe it to be my business. Perhaps if I didn't notice, I wasn't worthy of being informed. Attempts to discern her motivation and intent bear a remarkable likeness in tone to those long slogs of the early days. Her defeatist attitude, my callous rationality...we haven't changed a bit.

Do I want to be angry? No, I don't want to be angry in the slightest. I want to believe that everyone can make educated choices about what substances they choose to use BUT NOT abuse. Are people capable of this? Yes, and I've met some who are or seem to be. Are ALL people capable of this? My faith in humanity is tested this way. I always wonder, when I see some twentysomething taking a drag on a cigarette, WHY? Why do you foul your mouth with smoke and choke your lungs with tar? I'd like to rationalize why this is different from someone taking E at a rave, and maybe it is. I've never smoked or taken E, so I haven't the slightest clue. Point is, they're both chemicals that act on the brain and nervous system. Incidentally, I am not above the occasional coffee, and I've taken Ritalin for years. Now I take it when I know that I need to concentrate (and yes, it IS perscription!). Is THIS any different from someone who smokes because of how it makes them feel? Well, I have to say that my pills don't come with a bigass YOU WILL DIE warning on essentially half of the container. I don't necessarily take it daily anymore, and when I did it made the difference between an out-of-control kid without a lot of friends, and the guy that you (and you know who you are) befriended. Either way I think my quirks were the same, and as it is said by doctors and mothers alike, Ritalin doesn't change who you are. I believe that, I'm still me on or off the drug, but to a 3rd grader, let me tell you that being able to sit still long enough to be taken seriously (combined with being placed in a congregated gifted class) was what let me get anywhere in life. Can anyone say this about smoking? Maybe some can; their first pack of cigarettes could have been the path to the in-crowd, or maybe they could have fallen in with some of the rougher folks, whatever. Maybe cigarettes have helped people gain social acceptance in the past. There's also that episode of House where he perscribes cigarettes to the man with a bowel problem, which I assume to be true because 1) FALSE advertising of cigarettes by popular anything stirs up some intense shit, and 2) the whole point of the scene is the "strange but true" angle. If cigarettes didn't actually help in some cases, why risk the potential shitstorm when you could just make up some nonsense about avocado-juice enemas? I'll grant that there is the possibility that a large payoff and a widely-believed urban myth could have collided to produce the same effect, but that's not really in the spirit of the irreverent House. Then again, maybe the Suits knew this, and plotted their viral marketing around it...

Conspiracy theories aside, maybe there's an argument to be made that smoking cigarettes isn't as bad as modern society sees it. The policymakers driving the anti-smoking campaign certainly haven't helped, what with their eerily manipulative "denormalization" strategy. It's old news, of course, but it still irritates me that those fighting what I see to be a good fight have essentially co-opted the tactics of the enemy and reversed the message. I'm sure Sartre would not approve.

I almost wish that I hadn't found out, because while I may not be overly happy with the person, she inhabits a body that I have long cared for. To learn that for months of our relationship she defaced it with poison smoke, and continues to do so makes me want to act, to root out the cause of the behaviour, and make things right again.

But that's not my job now, or it shouldn't be. Maybe in a month, perhaps a year, but don't flaunt your destruction of the person/body that I loved, not now.

"I know....I've got nothin' to say / Someone has taken my place..."
- Fleetwood Mac, Second Hand News

Speaking of other great music, I managed to dig up our Moxy Fruvous cassette. Again, I'm not overly fond of pasting up page after page of song lyrics, but here is one song that you should hear. It's called Gulf War* Song

* The first one, now that it needs clarification

"We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf

But we shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings
So we tried, then gave up, 'cause there was no such song
But the trying was very revealing
What makes a person so poisonous righteous
That they'd think less of anyone who just disagreed?
She's just a pacifist, he's just a patriot
If I said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?

Fighters for liberty, fighters for power
Fighters for longer turns in the shower
Don't tell me I can't fight, 'cause I'll punch out your lights
And history seems to agree that I would fight you for me

So we read and we watched all the specially selected news
And we learned so much more 'bout the good guys
Won't you stand by the flag? Was the question unasked
Won't you join in and fight with the allies?
What could we say...we're only 25 years old?
With 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold
This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable
We'd like to play hockey, have kids and grow old

Fighters for Texaco, fighters for power
Fighters for longer turns in the shower
Don't tell me I can't fight 'cause I'll punch out your lights
And history seems to agree that I would fight you for me
That us would fight them for we

He's just a peacenik and she's just a warhawk
That's where the beach was, that's where the sea
What could we say...we're only 25 years old?
And history seems to agree 
that I would fight you for me
That us would fight them for we

Is that how it always will be?

On a final note, I'm sorry if this post doesn't go much of anywhere. It's therapeutic, mmmkay?

Thank you for bearing with me,
LOUD

I cannot for the life of me think up an original joke about Italy...

So It's Directly to Business for Me!

This is my 101st post, and incidentally one of my very few (2, tops) POSTS FROM OVERSEAS!


cool.

So, after a remarkably fast Un-Jetlagging period (we were on our feet and touring Arezzo the day after we arrived), My family, my aunt & uncle (maternal), their three kids, Star, and I began our Tour of Tuscany. From our Home base/ swank villa, we visited Arezzo, Firenze (Florence, as it is Anglicized), Siena, Gubbio, Monteriggioni, and Pisa. Star and I are currently staying with her uncle in Rome, and will continue to do so until Saturday morning, when my family, Star, and I depart from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci aeroport on the morning of this Saturday. Naturally, I will go into far more detail about my exploits in Italy upon my return, but for now I have to say that I am pleased with my progress...except for my goal of standing on each and every one of the seven hills of Rome. That one would be a lot easier if the maps told a tourist where more than one was located!

On a sad note, I shall not be allowed to purchase fine Italian wine at the duty-free at Rome's aeroport, because I shall have to pass through security a second time in Amsterdam, before boarding a flight for Montreal. I can't have any liquids because, you know, I can totally turn wine into C-fucking-4 ON BOARD AN ALREADY SECURE PLANE. Yep, can totally do that. It's a great party trick of mine, you know. When voicing this frustration at dinner tonight, I was most impolitely ''informed'' that it is a ''logical'' move on the part of the management of Schipol (I think that's how you spell it) aeroport (Amsterdam's) to ensure the safety of all passengers. Which would be true, if I had not already been cleared in Italy. I was under the assumption that one of the perks of the EU's existence was that travel could be facilitated...which I would expect to include a harmonization of aeroport security practices. For Fuck's sake, they use essentially the same machines here as in every other country I have EVER BEEN TO (and this is not a particularly small number, mind you). But no; to ''prevent another 9/11'' - as my condescending roommates agreed - totally and completely justifies an unnecessary redundancy in security. No receipts, no written documents signed by the duty-free staff, not even a fucking notarized document written to bear witness to the fact that I'm just trying to bring my friends a little alcoholic piece of Italy will suffice in that never ending crusade against rights and freedoms which we call ''The War on Terror''. The supreme irony of this is that one of my two current roommates in Rome has published a delightful book which deals with the new culture of suspicion, largely in what I would call critical terms. Granted, the individual stories were from a number of contributors, but this person has his name on the cover.How can one publish a book questioning a culture which encourages us to look upon our fellow men and women as suspects turn around and tell me that the aeroport officials in Amsterdam have every right to suspect me of being a terrorist...after I have already been deemed not so to the satisfaction of another similarly developed country? HOW?

Star is outside this internet point, and is giving me ''the look''. Time to go, I guess.

Goodnight, and Flying Spaghetti Monster Bless,

Loud