Rosemary, Heaven restores you in life:The inviting yet sinister baseline that opens Evil -- a track off Interpol’s 2004 sophomore LP Antics -- is too mesmerizing by half. The rest of the LP, which I think is solid, was greeted with tepid reviews. Surely they weren’t listening to the same album I was listening to. But yeah, good stuff! Turn on the Bright Lights, their 2002 offering, was clearly much stronger; tracks like Untitled, NYC, PDA, etc., have eerie parallels to Joy Division – an English post-punk band I’ve warmed to. Though, I can’t really see anything wrong with the aesthetics of Antics. The wan linearity of mood, an exercise in restrained impressionism, pervades through the album. Many would say it’s a recapitulation of TOTBL; and it generally is. But TOTBL was great, ergo: Antics > TOTBL? Same as?
Moving right along. At the Bodega down the way, purchasing miscellany, I was be-stilled of heart by a thoroughly indiesque Korean clerk -- likely holdin' it down while paterfamilias transacted business elsewhere. She seemed at ease with what can be ineptly described as an unguarded and unpretentious charm. I commented on her shirt since it appeared no other avenues for superfluous blather were viable, without sounding creepy or invasive of course. The shirt, black, up-against the body, fitting the way it should on a girl like her, was unremarkable, the illegible silkscreen graphics altogether uninspiring. It was only an afterthought to even actually look at the shirt, so consumed was I in fixing her a mawkish gaze. (You have to know I’m exaggerating.)
Anyway, the point is that the response to the shirt question was more interesting than the shirt itself. “The Weakerthans” she says, while continuing to catch me up to speed. Apparently they aren’t that bad. Remember Propagandhi, the Winnipeg punk outfit trafficking in agitprop par excellence? Well, The Weakerthans is Propagandhi member John K. Samson’s new (other?) gig. Presently, I’m enjoying Summer Rain and Benediction. I left to quickly and awkwardly to know whether or not said girl was feeling me, although in my experience it’s very likely that she was. (Zing!) Groups I’m enjoying: (Also) see Red House Painters, soul rending stuff.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Saturday, July 30, 2005
The Twenty-Seventh-City
The city of St. Louis, during a bizarre autumn sometime in the waning years of the 1980’s, selects S. Jammu, a Los Angles born Indian -- formally the Police commissioner of Bombay, Indian -- to succeed the city’s former police chief. The development, needless to say, is unexpected. Jammu hasn’t lived in the United States in over a decade, and that she is a woman doesn’t help matters. Unsurprisingly, the political and business community are skeptical -- the county’s benevolent advisory board, Municipal Growth, especially. And then things begin to change.
Where Jammu was once perceived as an inexperienced and inappropriate choice, she becomes a fount of civic adulations and a symbol for the New St. Louis. Members of Municipal Growth conveniently start revising their opinions of Jammu as, inexplicitly, incidences of bombings and terror related attacks are directed at either them or citizens of the city. It would only seem plausible to draw the necessary connections between Jammu’s arrival on the scene and the oddity of St. Louis being targeted by terrorists, or Indians (that is: Native Americans; an erstwhile, non-extant tribe that miraculously reassembles to terrorize the city and county of St. Louis for past pre-colonial grievances.)
No one but General Norris, a member of Municipal Growth and an unreconstructed character, smells a conspiracy afoot, implausible as this may seem. But this is with good reason: Jammu has managed to extort and blackmail nearly every prominent business and civic leader in St. Louis, amassing the necessary political and logistical power to execute her plan -- to create a real-estate appreciation in downtown St. Louis, an area, not too uncoincidentally, her mother has just recently invested considerable capital in. Nevertheless, Jammu has one final obstacle in Martin Probst, a respected contractor, a paragon of morality, and chairman of Municipal Growth.
And so begins The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen’s ambitious if somewhat circuitous first novel. The plot is dense, populated by a litany of characters with oscillating motives. Of the narratives, and there are many, Martin Probst’s is of primary import. Probst is best know for being the man who built the Arch, so naturally the mantel of probity rests on him while Jammu attempts, indefatigably, to break him, thus assuring her plan’s success. The campaign she wages would surely be without scruples if undertaken by any ordinary person; it is therefore that much worse that the police chief of St. Louis is behind it.
Yet Jammu isn’t your ordinary person -- or pol or public official, for that matter. She is a hardened politically militant socialist of Trotskyite bent. She is also a protégé of Indira Gandhi, a person to whom she owes much for her professional advancement in Bombay. Though, there is a strain of aimless malice in Jammu which strikes me as vapid. It is amazing how Franzen is able to masterly construct this gargantuan plot yet also skimp on his characters’ consciousness. This is particularly the case with Jammu, who is rarely, if only partially, psychologized to the extent of illumination. Insofar as she maintains a shadowy mystic to the characters in Franzen’s novel, she remains almost entirely ineffable to the reader.
Martin Probst, similarly, is fleshed out rather feebly. We understand that moral rectitude is his métier and “accomplishing things” drives him, but beyond that his rigidity and opacity become stifling—his asceticism literally frustrates the reader. Even when General Norris approaches Probst with the voluminous evidence of The Conspiracy and Jammu’s unsavory involvement in it, Martin chides the General for his outlandishness. What Franzen, in my opinion, seems to be saying of conspiracy theories -- possibly his novelistic conceit -- is that they are for ‘weaker minds.’ He says this while having elaborated on a baroque novel of conspiracy. Is this not frustrating? Was this his intention? What begins to happen to Probst, while tragic, could be construed as cathartic -- for the reader, me specifically. Martin reminds me too much of Alfred Lambert from The Corrections, a character he anticipates.
But Franzen is adept when he’s waxing political.There are overtones of Cold War critique and, as the thought strikes me now, nearly everyone is afflicted with the symptoms of a cold. This was a peculiar meme that I had first attributed to merely banal symbolism; but on further analysis it seems clear that Jammu, a committed marxist qua terrorist, represents an ideological infection, and her efforts at fomenting real-estate speculation are directed towards undermining (indulge me) the arbitrary logic of capitalism -- even if it’s only in St. Louis.
However, my understanding of this is still very shallow since, it seems, Franzen is all over the place. If it is anything, The Twenty-Seventh City is an astute commentary on the local and the political. That a small group of political and financially influential citizens can steer the course of a city, thus determining its fate, is not a new argument. Franzen, instead, offers something polemical:
Here, Franzen is speaking of the media trying to understand lower voter turn out in a St. Louis referendum -- this is in 1988. Franzen is anticipating the mainstream media’s ‘obsolescence’. Voter apathy was nascent but growing after Nixon and more prominent during the Carter administration. The obsolescence of the media was just around the corner. And now the electorate is mature in its apathy.
In the end, The Twenty-Seventh City is a feat, considering that Franzen was only 28 when the novel was published. A strong novel that is beguiling at turns and cast in the mold of epic grander than reality, it augured great things for Franzen. (As evidenced in The Corrections and Strong Motion (soon to be read)) Unfortunately, for me at least, it was also bloated; so heavy was its narrative enterprise that it began to sag at its edges, nearly making its conclusion indecipherable and, retrospectively, its beginnings fugitive.
Where Jammu was once perceived as an inexperienced and inappropriate choice, she becomes a fount of civic adulations and a symbol for the New St. Louis. Members of Municipal Growth conveniently start revising their opinions of Jammu as, inexplicitly, incidences of bombings and terror related attacks are directed at either them or citizens of the city. It would only seem plausible to draw the necessary connections between Jammu’s arrival on the scene and the oddity of St. Louis being targeted by terrorists, or Indians (that is: Native Americans; an erstwhile, non-extant tribe that miraculously reassembles to terrorize the city and county of St. Louis for past pre-colonial grievances.)
No one but General Norris, a member of Municipal Growth and an unreconstructed character, smells a conspiracy afoot, implausible as this may seem. But this is with good reason: Jammu has managed to extort and blackmail nearly every prominent business and civic leader in St. Louis, amassing the necessary political and logistical power to execute her plan -- to create a real-estate appreciation in downtown St. Louis, an area, not too uncoincidentally, her mother has just recently invested considerable capital in. Nevertheless, Jammu has one final obstacle in Martin Probst, a respected contractor, a paragon of morality, and chairman of Municipal Growth.
And so begins The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen’s ambitious if somewhat circuitous first novel. The plot is dense, populated by a litany of characters with oscillating motives. Of the narratives, and there are many, Martin Probst’s is of primary import. Probst is best know for being the man who built the Arch, so naturally the mantel of probity rests on him while Jammu attempts, indefatigably, to break him, thus assuring her plan’s success. The campaign she wages would surely be without scruples if undertaken by any ordinary person; it is therefore that much worse that the police chief of St. Louis is behind it.
Yet Jammu isn’t your ordinary person -- or pol or public official, for that matter. She is a hardened politically militant socialist of Trotskyite bent. She is also a protégé of Indira Gandhi, a person to whom she owes much for her professional advancement in Bombay. Though, there is a strain of aimless malice in Jammu which strikes me as vapid. It is amazing how Franzen is able to masterly construct this gargantuan plot yet also skimp on his characters’ consciousness. This is particularly the case with Jammu, who is rarely, if only partially, psychologized to the extent of illumination. Insofar as she maintains a shadowy mystic to the characters in Franzen’s novel, she remains almost entirely ineffable to the reader.
Martin Probst, similarly, is fleshed out rather feebly. We understand that moral rectitude is his métier and “accomplishing things” drives him, but beyond that his rigidity and opacity become stifling—his asceticism literally frustrates the reader. Even when General Norris approaches Probst with the voluminous evidence of The Conspiracy and Jammu’s unsavory involvement in it, Martin chides the General for his outlandishness. What Franzen, in my opinion, seems to be saying of conspiracy theories -- possibly his novelistic conceit -- is that they are for ‘weaker minds.’ He says this while having elaborated on a baroque novel of conspiracy. Is this not frustrating? Was this his intention? What begins to happen to Probst, while tragic, could be construed as cathartic -- for the reader, me specifically. Martin reminds me too much of Alfred Lambert from The Corrections, a character he anticipates.
But Franzen is adept when he’s waxing political.There are overtones of Cold War critique and, as the thought strikes me now, nearly everyone is afflicted with the symptoms of a cold. This was a peculiar meme that I had first attributed to merely banal symbolism; but on further analysis it seems clear that Jammu, a committed marxist qua terrorist, represents an ideological infection, and her efforts at fomenting real-estate speculation are directed towards undermining (indulge me) the arbitrary logic of capitalism -- even if it’s only in St. Louis.
However, my understanding of this is still very shallow since, it seems, Franzen is all over the place. If it is anything, The Twenty-Seventh City is an astute commentary on the local and the political. That a small group of political and financially influential citizens can steer the course of a city, thus determining its fate, is not a new argument. Franzen, instead, offers something polemical:
Threatened with the prospect of thinking and deciding, the body politic had surrendered. It embarrassed the commentators -- but only because they failed to place the election within the larger context. Their shame was a measure of their obsolescence. They did not understand that America was outgrowing the age of action. (503)
Here, Franzen is speaking of the media trying to understand lower voter turn out in a St. Louis referendum -- this is in 1988. Franzen is anticipating the mainstream media’s ‘obsolescence’. Voter apathy was nascent but growing after Nixon and more prominent during the Carter administration. The obsolescence of the media was just around the corner. And now the electorate is mature in its apathy.
In the end, The Twenty-Seventh City is a feat, considering that Franzen was only 28 when the novel was published. A strong novel that is beguiling at turns and cast in the mold of epic grander than reality, it augured great things for Franzen. (As evidenced in The Corrections and Strong Motion (soon to be read)) Unfortunately, for me at least, it was also bloated; so heavy was its narrative enterprise that it began to sag at its edges, nearly making its conclusion indecipherable and, retrospectively, its beginnings fugitive.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
His head is flat.
In one paragraph a New York Review of Books essay offers a stinging rebuttal to the Panglossian polemics on globalization's behalf. Once again, Thomas Friedman -- with a mustache that assures him eternal allegiance with snake-oil salesman everywhere -- turns out looking silly. John Gray opines thusly:
Globalization has no inherent tendency to promote the free market or liberal democracy. Neither does it augur an end to nationalism or great-power rivalries. Describing a long conversation with the CEO of a small Indian game company in Bangalore, Friedman recounts the entrepreneur concluding: "India is going to be a superpower and we are going to rule." Friedman replies: "Rule whom?" Friedman's response suggests that the present phase of globalization is tending to make imbalances of power between states irrelevant. In fact what it is doing is creating new great powers, and this is one of the reasons it has been embraced in China and India.
Friday, July 22, 2005
A Man Walks Into a Room
Nicole Krauss’s first novel A Man Walks Into a Room is a beautiful, poetic, lilt that is at once endearing and intellectual. Samson Greene is found wandering the Nevada desert, unknowing and unknown to authorities. Initially, law enforcement officers are doubtful if the identification that bears Samson’s name is, in fact, actually his; but it is soon confirmed that the Samson Greene aimlessly walking the Nevada desert is Samson Greene -- resident of New York, professor of English at Columbia.
To the surprise of a neurosurgeon and, later, his wife, Anna, it turns out that a tumor the size of a cherry has wiped out Samson’s entire memory – well not exactly. Samson will remember nothing of the past twenty-four years of his life once the tumor is removed; not his job, not his friends, and not, more tragically, Anna.
Recalling only the first twelve years of his life, Samson enters his new reality with timidity and awe. The geopolitical tête - à – tête that was the Cold War is over; an older and more intoxicated Billy Joel appears puzzling to him; modern technology like the computer, to say nothing of the internet, is altogether incomprehensible; and when he finds out that his mother has already passed away, five years prior, the pain is too much to bear. And in the interim, while he recovers, reconnecting with his friends and colleagues proves awkward and stifling, further exacerbating the swell of alienation and loneliness he’s already undergoing.
So what of Anna? In these exchanges Krauss deploys the language of restrained expectance. Anna is torn – wanting to, on the one hand, sooth and finesse, slowly, the lost memories to the surface, or, alternatively, shake, cajole and pull from Samson the experiences they shared together, experiences that are as much a part of his identity as hers. But Samson’s condition is irrevocable; and, inevitably, Anna and Samson drift apart. There is a culpability Samson feels, and as Anna begins to lose hope, he too loses rasion-d’etre, wandering into an ineffable anomie.
The novel follows Samson back to Nevada as he embarks on an experimental project that is touted to advance science and society, and then next to the center of his material mind where he is confronted with tough questions. Why this? What now? The journey is gut-wrenching and at times almost meaningless, but in the end it is cathartic.
I found Krauss’s prose fluid, and though initially the structure, even the narrative, seemed illegible, the second half of the novel was paced well, with the requisite amount of suspense. There were a star-lode of ideas that, in and of themselves, could buttress an entirely different novel. Ideas like the authenticity of memory, the psychology of the individual in relation to habits and memory, the cognitive structure of personalities as regards memory. (I may be repeating myself with the last clause, but oh well.)
I highly recommend the book. During the past month I’ve also read Philip Roth’s The Counterlife, which I’ll attempt to a mini-review of, and on the recommendation of my mother I’ve also read Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
US environs
Ambitions are low. I’ve been derelict from duty for the past two weeks for two very good reasons: a) Visiting family in Connecticut, and b) catching up with friends in Toronto. To say the very least, the time away was constructive -- and calming. The day I arrived in Hartford was the day of the London Bombings and, naturally, security was tight. My sister recalls hearing F-14 fighter jets flying over-head as she came to pick me up from the train station; and surrounding the station were numerous members of the US law enforcement apparatus, bomb-sniffing dogs, first responders, and, possibly, characters in radiological suits. (Though, this may have just been a peculiarly dressed individual.)
Somehow the overall mood seemed to be tepid, as though absolutely no threat existed, even though the transit systems are likely the most porous and vulnerable when it comes to point of weakness -- but nevertheless.
Connecticut is a breath-taking vision of pastoral with its Classical, Colonial and Victorian architecture, expansive and florid green-spaces, and historical landmarks. I had the opportunity to pass by Mark Twain’s Manor. And interestingly enough, I passed through the Berkshires, a prominent local in Saul Bellow’s Herzog, a novel that I’m currently reading.
There were, of course, no shortage of American flags; and the national pastime, contrary to popular falsehoods, is not baseball but shopping. I truly believe that ‘Hearts and Minds’ could easily be won over if detractors of all things Americana were sent through the extravagance of a shopping mall. Shopping is good -- but good for a reason. I now understand why Americans are the most productive people in the world -- their stores, it seems, never close. Consumption is a socializing and collectivizing force, first, and a patriotic refrain, second. The sales tax kicks in only after a certain amount, making many of my purchases incredibly economical.
But then there is the inequality. Almost as stark as it is in Washington, Connecticut could move quickly from uber-affluence to desolate squalor. It’s only a two minute drive from the Governor’s Mansion to crack-houses and car-jackings. This is the Two Americas that John Edwards so breathlessly and eloquently speaks of.
And yet, what struck me as constituting the underlying ethos of America was its entrepreneurial verve. Literally everyone is trying to make a dollar -- trying to attain that upward mobility so embodied in the American dream. The pitiful thing that stuck with me is how unquestionably popular Bush is when it comes to the economic argument. The 'Ownership Society' rhetoric has been appealing to the middle class, pinched on both sides by the vast entitlement tax-encroachment and the tax-avoiding, tax-sheltering, tax-haven plutocrats. But Bush’s 'Ownership Society' rhetoric is just that: rhetoric. The substance, pace R. Salam, has been a thin greul.
Unless they’ve already been obsolesced, the Democrats need to speak bread and butter to the electorate -- pocket-book issues resonate. Though, this is far easier to say since, as Kulturkampf persist, the Republicans have been successful at framing the debate around values—a debate they’ve soundly thrashed the Democrats in. On balance, my time in Connecticut was good.
Toronto was altogether another story. The city is always beautiful, always vibrant. The nightlife is extraordinary, there is too much to do, too many places to go. Celebrities and athletes mix with quasi-celebrities and quasi-athletes in clubs that putatively have guest lists but admit commoners. The city pulses at two-thirty-am when the bars and clubs let out, enveloping its denizens as they wander the formidable maze of heated concrete and elevated steel at altitudes close to Olympian. There is a depth and context to one’s surrounding, as if this is the three-dimensional and anything else you’ve otherwise encountered is ersatz. It is a city, in a continent, in an era whose history is being debated, written, shaped. For a moment, one is on history's stage, involved in a series of events with no particular coherence to their agents (us). Are we history's objects, simply being acted upon, or are we the subjects pushing the narrative? What will they say of our generation, of our culture?
My friends are always my friends and the city is always hot.
Somehow the overall mood seemed to be tepid, as though absolutely no threat existed, even though the transit systems are likely the most porous and vulnerable when it comes to point of weakness -- but nevertheless.
Connecticut is a breath-taking vision of pastoral with its Classical, Colonial and Victorian architecture, expansive and florid green-spaces, and historical landmarks. I had the opportunity to pass by Mark Twain’s Manor. And interestingly enough, I passed through the Berkshires, a prominent local in Saul Bellow’s Herzog, a novel that I’m currently reading.
There were, of course, no shortage of American flags; and the national pastime, contrary to popular falsehoods, is not baseball but shopping. I truly believe that ‘Hearts and Minds’ could easily be won over if detractors of all things Americana were sent through the extravagance of a shopping mall. Shopping is good -- but good for a reason. I now understand why Americans are the most productive people in the world -- their stores, it seems, never close. Consumption is a socializing and collectivizing force, first, and a patriotic refrain, second. The sales tax kicks in only after a certain amount, making many of my purchases incredibly economical.
But then there is the inequality. Almost as stark as it is in Washington, Connecticut could move quickly from uber-affluence to desolate squalor. It’s only a two minute drive from the Governor’s Mansion to crack-houses and car-jackings. This is the Two Americas that John Edwards so breathlessly and eloquently speaks of.
And yet, what struck me as constituting the underlying ethos of America was its entrepreneurial verve. Literally everyone is trying to make a dollar -- trying to attain that upward mobility so embodied in the American dream. The pitiful thing that stuck with me is how unquestionably popular Bush is when it comes to the economic argument. The 'Ownership Society' rhetoric has been appealing to the middle class, pinched on both sides by the vast entitlement tax-encroachment and the tax-avoiding, tax-sheltering, tax-haven plutocrats. But Bush’s 'Ownership Society' rhetoric is just that: rhetoric. The substance, pace R. Salam, has been a thin greul.
Unless they’ve already been obsolesced, the Democrats need to speak bread and butter to the electorate -- pocket-book issues resonate. Though, this is far easier to say since, as Kulturkampf persist, the Republicans have been successful at framing the debate around values—a debate they’ve soundly thrashed the Democrats in. On balance, my time in Connecticut was good.
Toronto was altogether another story. The city is always beautiful, always vibrant. The nightlife is extraordinary, there is too much to do, too many places to go. Celebrities and athletes mix with quasi-celebrities and quasi-athletes in clubs that putatively have guest lists but admit commoners. The city pulses at two-thirty-am when the bars and clubs let out, enveloping its denizens as they wander the formidable maze of heated concrete and elevated steel at altitudes close to Olympian. There is a depth and context to one’s surrounding, as if this is the three-dimensional and anything else you’ve otherwise encountered is ersatz. It is a city, in a continent, in an era whose history is being debated, written, shaped. For a moment, one is on history's stage, involved in a series of events with no particular coherence to their agents (us). Are we history's objects, simply being acted upon, or are we the subjects pushing the narrative? What will they say of our generation, of our culture?
My friends are always my friends and the city is always hot.
Monday, July 04, 2005
The Wisdom of Crowds
Let’s wade into l’affaire Homolka and her on-going attempts to prohibit media outlets from publishing her whereabouts. A Quebec Superior Court Justice rejected this plea last week. Too bad for Karla. She’s in a “State of Terror” contend her lawyers, and with no shortage of hate-mail and death threats Ms. Homolka is understandably fearful for her personal safety upon release. (Which, incidentally, is today by sundown.)
Offhandedly, Homolka’s lawyers caution that rather than the major media outlets being the culprit, internet bloggers zealously publishing Ms. Homolka’s whereabouts will create the real threat to her safety. It’s not hard to imagine some unreconstructed vigilante -- a sociopath at the very least -- taking it upon himself to met out society’s just deserts. This isn’t even to speak of the disparate common citizens, struck with a peculiar morbidity, field-tripping it to Québec for the day -- Ms. Homolka’s place of residence their primary draw; and why not Old Quebec for that matter?
There is that side of me that says “This citizen has served her time, let her be.” This is my far too charitable side. And then the sensible side of me says, “Well, actually… It was later proved that Homolka’s involvement in the rape and murder of three women -- one of them her sister -- was far more integral, her mens rea not diminished by her earlier and more dubious testimony. So really, she hasn’t served nearly enough time in prison; and who am I to stop a concerned citizen from airing his/her misgivings.” (I’m not condoning vigilantism.)
Of course I’m not suggesting that the streets of Montreal run with the blood of a triple-murderer. Not at all. Though, the thought that the media, concerned citizens, reckless bloggers, and the denizens of Montreal have to somehow respect Ms. Homolka’s privacy is painfully laughable. And the last time we respected Ms. Homolka’s privacy? (Ok, this is vile demagoguery and silly rhetoric. My bad.) All I have to offer Ms. Homolka is a trite aphorism: If you sow the wind you reap a storm. And did she ever sow the wind.
Offhandedly, Homolka’s lawyers caution that rather than the major media outlets being the culprit, internet bloggers zealously publishing Ms. Homolka’s whereabouts will create the real threat to her safety. It’s not hard to imagine some unreconstructed vigilante -- a sociopath at the very least -- taking it upon himself to met out society’s just deserts. This isn’t even to speak of the disparate common citizens, struck with a peculiar morbidity, field-tripping it to Québec for the day -- Ms. Homolka’s place of residence their primary draw; and why not Old Quebec for that matter?
There is that side of me that says “This citizen has served her time, let her be.” This is my far too charitable side. And then the sensible side of me says, “Well, actually… It was later proved that Homolka’s involvement in the rape and murder of three women -- one of them her sister -- was far more integral, her mens rea not diminished by her earlier and more dubious testimony. So really, she hasn’t served nearly enough time in prison; and who am I to stop a concerned citizen from airing his/her misgivings.” (I’m not condoning vigilantism.)
Of course I’m not suggesting that the streets of Montreal run with the blood of a triple-murderer. Not at all. Though, the thought that the media, concerned citizens, reckless bloggers, and the denizens of Montreal have to somehow respect Ms. Homolka’s privacy is painfully laughable. And the last time we respected Ms. Homolka’s privacy? (Ok, this is vile demagoguery and silly rhetoric. My bad.) All I have to offer Ms. Homolka is a trite aphorism: If you sow the wind you reap a storm. And did she ever sow the wind.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Sightings
The approaching night’s dusk was naturally balmy and visibility, considering my waning but once impeccable night-vision, was marginal. Ed Broadbent crosses us on the left as we wire up the thoroughfare toward the House of Commons and the Peace Tower. Inexplicable to us at the time is the medium-size crowd assembled expectantly outside the doors of the Commons—Canada Day celebrations this Friday on the Hill, obligatory stage set-up with large T.V screens and alternating-ly grating lights; maybe the crowds are out early? No—something else entirely.
Man with familiar gait walking towards us surrounded by burly minders and two or three photographers as well as a cameraman who navigates backwards adeptly, like he’s practiced this many times. “I think it’s Paul Martin” my roommate says. Not believing him I raise my hand almost wryly, straining my face with an incredulous smirk, as though offering an affected greeting. “Hello. How are you doing Mr. Martin?” I say. A voice very similar to that of Prime Minister Paul Martin replies. “Fine Thank you. How are you?” Double-taking five or six times, I’ve just realized I was in the presence of the Prime Minister.
And then this realization: How is it possible that I, a common citizen, should be any where that close to the PM? Shouldn’t he exit through the back, possibly? (Indeed he has nothing to worry about; although I have Johnsonian foot speed, my slight upper body can be restrained with very little effort.) So the PM passes five feet from where I stand.
Get on the cell-phone to make self-aggrandizing calls to family and friends, I miss Belinda Stronach pass by me. “She's very attractive” says the roommate. The pastel green power-suit is enveloped by the night, a pate of blond ambition disembodied.
And in order of appearance Joe Vople, Pierre Pettigrew (“Ca va? Il dit. Je dit “Bein”) Hedy Fry, a man who at first appeared to be a chauffeur but on further reflection was house speaker Peter Milliken, Anne McClellan (Big round of applause), Gilles Duceppe, Stephen Dion ( a Quebecer beside me grudgingly confirmed this.) and Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler. Apparently, the same-sex marriage legislation passed in the house; therefore, interested parties were out to congratulate and celebrate.
Man with familiar gait walking towards us surrounded by burly minders and two or three photographers as well as a cameraman who navigates backwards adeptly, like he’s practiced this many times. “I think it’s Paul Martin” my roommate says. Not believing him I raise my hand almost wryly, straining my face with an incredulous smirk, as though offering an affected greeting. “Hello. How are you doing Mr. Martin?” I say. A voice very similar to that of Prime Minister Paul Martin replies. “Fine Thank you. How are you?” Double-taking five or six times, I’ve just realized I was in the presence of the Prime Minister.
And then this realization: How is it possible that I, a common citizen, should be any where that close to the PM? Shouldn’t he exit through the back, possibly? (Indeed he has nothing to worry about; although I have Johnsonian foot speed, my slight upper body can be restrained with very little effort.) So the PM passes five feet from where I stand.
Get on the cell-phone to make self-aggrandizing calls to family and friends, I miss Belinda Stronach pass by me. “She's very attractive” says the roommate. The pastel green power-suit is enveloped by the night, a pate of blond ambition disembodied.
And in order of appearance Joe Vople, Pierre Pettigrew (“Ca va? Il dit. Je dit “Bein”) Hedy Fry, a man who at first appeared to be a chauffeur but on further reflection was house speaker Peter Milliken, Anne McClellan (Big round of applause), Gilles Duceppe, Stephen Dion ( a Quebecer beside me grudgingly confirmed this.) and Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler. Apparently, the same-sex marriage legislation passed in the house; therefore, interested parties were out to congratulate and celebrate.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
The Corrections
The word good would be an incredible understatement. In fact, the word excellent would seem a slight of the first order. (I’m overstating it, I know.) These were but a few of the initial thoughts that came to mind when I endeavored to write a review of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, an ambitious novel about family, depression, and our attempts to reconcile expectations and their resulting outcomes.
Set in the fictional Midwestern suburb of St. Judes (Franzen grew up in St. Louis) Franzen introduces the reader to the Lambert family and then begins to construct a series of clever, internal narratives around them: Alfred, the patriarch, is now approaching the winter of his life and is debilitated by the mental atrophy of Alzheimer’s and the corporeal rapaciousness of Parkinson’s; The mother Enid is preening, aspiration-al, and sometimes exacting, though more in a endearing than harsh way; Gary, the first child, is the fulfillment of his parents expectations, the vice president of a Bank, father of three and responsible to a clinical degree; Chip is the middle child struggling to find his moorings after losing his professorship at an Ivy League college for sleeping with a student—he’s the intellectual without a clue; Denise being the youngest child is the emotionally impassive uber-striver who seeks and is rewarded, continually, her father's approval, while, at the same time, staking for herself a life that appears an affront to Enid’s pedagogy.
Alfred and Enid arrive in New York to have lunch with their son Chip and daughter Denise—who’s flown in from Philadelphia—before they depart on a cruise that day. What ensues is nothing short of comic genius and, similarly, tragedy. Chip’s life is seemingly falling apart as he escorts his parents from JFK—only to be met at his apartment by his current girlfriend, Julia, who promptly dumps him after being introduced to Chip’s parents. Ever the irresponsible son, Chip leaves his parents in Denise’s care to persue Julia, embarking on a jarring self-assessment that is both neurotic and forlorn, while falling to find Julia. Chip does, however, find his way to the office of a friend of Julia’s and is offered a job that, though it pays well (much better than his not so lucrative job as a proofreader), appears to be criminal. The job is also in Lithuania—and to accept the offer would mean leaving that day. Naturally, Chip leaves. Denise is left to deflect the probing questions of her mother and watch the degradation of her beloved father.
Franzen then takes the narrative thread to alternating gears of emotional tone. With Gary, we are led through the psychological travails of a man so willing to embody the picture of refined domesticity that his very abiding becomes pathological. He begins to believe that his wife and children are conspiring against him—are driving him to a depression of their own construction. Gary’s wife Caroline is an emotional potentate (this is what I gather) who is adamant—after eight consecutive Christmas of not visiting Enid and Alfred in St. Judes, to Gary servile dismay—of not even considering going this Christmas'—even if it may be the last Christmas the Lamberts have together, even if her lack of compromise is pushing her husband closer and closer to this constructed depression.
Enid and Alfred’s narrative is more comedy than Gary’s grating supplication. Alfred was once a paragon of moral life, self-denying, modest, and truthful. Since his retirement, which was days before his pension was to kick-in (this being incomprehensible and unexplained to Enid) Alfred has wasted away in the basement, off with his own diminishing thoughts. Enid has always been denied the Alfred she hoped she would have when they married: The caring Alfred; the expressive Alfred; the kind Alfred; the, once in a while, sexually attentive Alfred. Her life has been that of a subject to Alfred’s Schopenhauer-ian will. And so the excess of her energy has been devoted to raising her children. And now that this may very well be their last Christmas together in St. Judes, she wants all of her children home for the holidays. Enid is easily my favorite character; she’s full of foibles and neurosis and traffics in a populist, Midwestern charm.
The most intriguing narrative, though, is that of Denise Lambert. I had difficulty keeping my mouth closed, as my jaw kept coming ajar. Not that the lesbianism wasn’t appealing; nor was the lifestyle she led unremarkable. Denise Lambert was singular as a character, touching and at times harsh, strong yet milquetoast. She was without humor but the situations she found herself in were humorous. And that filial love for her father anchors much in her life—it also portends other tectonic revelations.
The Corrections, needless to say, starts off furiously, eases comfortably into the middle, becomes intellectually intriguing during Denise Lambert’s narrative thread, and tidies up well—Franzen’s pacing and tone a touch of methodical mastery. Apparently it took him five years to create this Magnus opus, and at just over six hundred pages Franzen’s style makes the novel incredibly readable; even-though, at parts, it’s a complicated read, it is still very lucid.
Will the Lamberts be together for one last Christmas? Read the book and find out.
Set in the fictional Midwestern suburb of St. Judes (Franzen grew up in St. Louis) Franzen introduces the reader to the Lambert family and then begins to construct a series of clever, internal narratives around them: Alfred, the patriarch, is now approaching the winter of his life and is debilitated by the mental atrophy of Alzheimer’s and the corporeal rapaciousness of Parkinson’s; The mother Enid is preening, aspiration-al, and sometimes exacting, though more in a endearing than harsh way; Gary, the first child, is the fulfillment of his parents expectations, the vice president of a Bank, father of three and responsible to a clinical degree; Chip is the middle child struggling to find his moorings after losing his professorship at an Ivy League college for sleeping with a student—he’s the intellectual without a clue; Denise being the youngest child is the emotionally impassive uber-striver who seeks and is rewarded, continually, her father's approval, while, at the same time, staking for herself a life that appears an affront to Enid’s pedagogy.
Alfred and Enid arrive in New York to have lunch with their son Chip and daughter Denise—who’s flown in from Philadelphia—before they depart on a cruise that day. What ensues is nothing short of comic genius and, similarly, tragedy. Chip’s life is seemingly falling apart as he escorts his parents from JFK—only to be met at his apartment by his current girlfriend, Julia, who promptly dumps him after being introduced to Chip’s parents. Ever the irresponsible son, Chip leaves his parents in Denise’s care to persue Julia, embarking on a jarring self-assessment that is both neurotic and forlorn, while falling to find Julia. Chip does, however, find his way to the office of a friend of Julia’s and is offered a job that, though it pays well (much better than his not so lucrative job as a proofreader), appears to be criminal. The job is also in Lithuania—and to accept the offer would mean leaving that day. Naturally, Chip leaves. Denise is left to deflect the probing questions of her mother and watch the degradation of her beloved father.
Franzen then takes the narrative thread to alternating gears of emotional tone. With Gary, we are led through the psychological travails of a man so willing to embody the picture of refined domesticity that his very abiding becomes pathological. He begins to believe that his wife and children are conspiring against him—are driving him to a depression of their own construction. Gary’s wife Caroline is an emotional potentate (this is what I gather) who is adamant—after eight consecutive Christmas of not visiting Enid and Alfred in St. Judes, to Gary servile dismay—of not even considering going this Christmas'—even if it may be the last Christmas the Lamberts have together, even if her lack of compromise is pushing her husband closer and closer to this constructed depression.
Enid and Alfred’s narrative is more comedy than Gary’s grating supplication. Alfred was once a paragon of moral life, self-denying, modest, and truthful. Since his retirement, which was days before his pension was to kick-in (this being incomprehensible and unexplained to Enid) Alfred has wasted away in the basement, off with his own diminishing thoughts. Enid has always been denied the Alfred she hoped she would have when they married: The caring Alfred; the expressive Alfred; the kind Alfred; the, once in a while, sexually attentive Alfred. Her life has been that of a subject to Alfred’s Schopenhauer-ian will. And so the excess of her energy has been devoted to raising her children. And now that this may very well be their last Christmas together in St. Judes, she wants all of her children home for the holidays. Enid is easily my favorite character; she’s full of foibles and neurosis and traffics in a populist, Midwestern charm.
The most intriguing narrative, though, is that of Denise Lambert. I had difficulty keeping my mouth closed, as my jaw kept coming ajar. Not that the lesbianism wasn’t appealing; nor was the lifestyle she led unremarkable. Denise Lambert was singular as a character, touching and at times harsh, strong yet milquetoast. She was without humor but the situations she found herself in were humorous. And that filial love for her father anchors much in her life—it also portends other tectonic revelations.
The Corrections, needless to say, starts off furiously, eases comfortably into the middle, becomes intellectually intriguing during Denise Lambert’s narrative thread, and tidies up well—Franzen’s pacing and tone a touch of methodical mastery. Apparently it took him five years to create this Magnus opus, and at just over six hundred pages Franzen’s style makes the novel incredibly readable; even-though, at parts, it’s a complicated read, it is still very lucid.
Will the Lamberts be together for one last Christmas? Read the book and find out.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Grewalgate
Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal who so surreptitiously endeavored to entrap Minister of Health Ujjal Dosanjh in a qui pro quo for his, and his wife’s, support of the Liberal budget bill has suddenly taken a leave of absence(follow the chronology)—due, we are led to believe, to stress. Understandably, the stress and growing dread of being found out as a fabricator of tape recordings you earlier alleged to be proof positive of Liberal corruption and influence peddling would be enough to make even the fiercest political animal retreat. Now that the entirety of the recordings have been released—a full four hours!—a number of independent experts say that portions have been doctored. But why the suspicion?
It took Mr. Grewal, with the sage advice of his party it is assumed, over two weeks to release all of the tapes; initially, only a tendentious hour and thirty minutes were released—of which, predictably, reflected poorly on Mr. Dosanjh and Mr. Murphy, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
And now even his wife, Nina Grewal, has distanced herself from the matter by saying “Nobody approached me, I wasn't part of any negotiations.” Mrs. Grewal is also avoiding the press, choosing to leave her office in the East Block through the back doors. Calls to her riding office are being directed to her husband’s office, who is away on leave.
Stephen Harper doesn’t need this. After the Liberals passed their budget bill (more work still needs to be done in committee) whispers about the fate of Stephen Harper’s leadership were soundless, out of respect, but various. Then Tapegate or Grewalgate, what have you, prefigured a grave outcome for the Liberals, insofar as Grewal’s allegations were true. Even if it were the case that the tapes proved ambiguous on the question as to who initiated the meetings, Liberal involvement carried its requisite stench of impropriety.
During this time Harper was strong in his fulminations, and with good reason: the tapes appeared to implicitly convey the Liberals attempt to buy Mr. Grewal’s vote, along with his wife’s.
At the very least it has now been proven that the tapes were doctored, and, as they were in Mr. Grewal’s possession this whole time, questions surrounding his motives have arisen. Mr. Grewal’s leave of absence is only evidence of the doubt Stephen Harper has on the matter. The truth may still lie somewhere in the abstracted middle, but for Stephen Harper and the Conservative party the perception isn’t helpful.
It took Mr. Grewal, with the sage advice of his party it is assumed, over two weeks to release all of the tapes; initially, only a tendentious hour and thirty minutes were released—of which, predictably, reflected poorly on Mr. Dosanjh and Mr. Murphy, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
And now even his wife, Nina Grewal, has distanced herself from the matter by saying “Nobody approached me, I wasn't part of any negotiations.” Mrs. Grewal is also avoiding the press, choosing to leave her office in the East Block through the back doors. Calls to her riding office are being directed to her husband’s office, who is away on leave.
Stephen Harper doesn’t need this. After the Liberals passed their budget bill (more work still needs to be done in committee) whispers about the fate of Stephen Harper’s leadership were soundless, out of respect, but various. Then Tapegate or Grewalgate, what have you, prefigured a grave outcome for the Liberals, insofar as Grewal’s allegations were true. Even if it were the case that the tapes proved ambiguous on the question as to who initiated the meetings, Liberal involvement carried its requisite stench of impropriety.
During this time Harper was strong in his fulminations, and with good reason: the tapes appeared to implicitly convey the Liberals attempt to buy Mr. Grewal’s vote, along with his wife’s.
At the very least it has now been proven that the tapes were doctored, and, as they were in Mr. Grewal’s possession this whole time, questions surrounding his motives have arisen. Mr. Grewal’s leave of absence is only evidence of the doubt Stephen Harper has on the matter. The truth may still lie somewhere in the abstracted middle, but for Stephen Harper and the Conservative party the perception isn’t helpful.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Critical Theory
I'm reading an interesting book, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas, on the intellectual movement founded by the Frankfurt school -- a group of like minded academics and critics whose analyses on culture, capitalism, and society attempted to refigure the impracticalities of Marxian orthodoxy. In a summation of Marxian tenets, David Held, the book's author, offers this.
The progressive rise in the organic composition of capital -- the amount of fixed capital per worker -- exacerbates the inherently unstable accumulation process. In order to sustain this process, it's protagonists’ utilize all means available -- including imperialist expansion and war.Though an obvious point, it is also compelling on many levels. For instance, the relative move towards trade liberalization, fostered by institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF, has sustained the appetites of growing multinationals (usually Western) looking for new and pliant markets (almost always developing countries). Western industrialized nations are no different in this respect and, in essence, underwrite the political legitmacy of these international institutions. The Iraq war has been perceived through this lens, as critics see its rationale to be more convoluted and involving the unintelligible logic of capitalism. To this effect, the London Review of Books had an essay in April's issue entitled Blood for Oil? Its conclusion is eerily persuasive and, therefore, needs to be excerpted at length.
p. 42
But something has clearly shifted over the last ten years. Even as recently as the late 1990s, there was confidence that the new world of capital penetration would come about essentially by means of agreement between governments and corporations, ‘fiscal discipline’, fine-tuning of subsidy and bail-out, and non-stop pressure from US creditors. What constellation of forces put all this in question is still open to debate. But it happened – precipitately. Cracks began to appear within the World Bank establishment: Western Europe fought with the Washington consensus, and the South often refused to take its bitter medicine. The grotesqueries of Third World indebtedness and First World subsidies to corporate agriculture became more widely recognised. The back-slapping and mutual congratulation of the Uruguay Round descended into the fiasco of Seattle, and then Doha and Cancœn. At Cancœn, an in-house insurgency of 20 nations refused to endorse the massive US-EU subsidies to North Atlantic agriculture and the WTO rules crafted to prevent the South from protecting itself.
This is the proper frame for understanding what has happened in Iraq. It is only as part of this neo-liberal firmament, in which a dominant capitalist core has begun to find it harder and harder to benefit from ‘consensual’ market expansion or corporate mergers and asset transfers, that the preference for the military option makes sense.
Marx had no illusions about the role of force in his own time. But he did seem to believe that the age of violent expropriation was at an end. It was capitalism’s strength that it had internalised coercion, so to speak, and that henceforward the ‘silent compulsions of economic relations’ would be enough to compel the worker to ‘sell the whole of his active life’. We are not the first to think Marx too sanguine in this prognosis. In fact it has turned out that primitive accumulation is an incomplete and recurring process, essential to capitalism’s continuing life. Dispossession is crucial to this, and its forms recur and reconstitute themselves endlessly. Hence the periodic movement of capitalism outwards, to geographies and polities it can plunder almost unopposed. (Or so it hoped, in the case of Iraq.)
Will military neo-liberalism endure? With the US deficit rolling along at $600 billion annually, and the national debt rising to $2.5 trillion, the cost-benefit balance of the strategy looks dubious. And, two years after the tanks rolled across the Euphrates floodplain, the occupation and its Vichy surrogate barely have control of Baghdad. With unemployment running at perhaps 50 per cent, the Mahdi army steadily draws new support from the ranks of the urban unemployed in the slums of Sadr City and Basra, now twice dispossessed: once by Saddam, once by Bush. Even the lustre of the privatised contract economy has tarnished. Of the $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds allocated by the US Congress in October 2003, less than 9 per cent had been spent a year later – and untold amounts of that was spent on ‘security’. During the same period, more than a hundred criminal investigations of contractors were launched, and cases opened on hundreds of allegations of fraud and ‘waste’. As if to confirm falling expectations, Halliburton is reported to be putting Kellogg, Brown and Root on the block because it has become so unprofitable. So much for the Great Iraqi Oil Robbery. As Rumsfeld has admitted: ‘We lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror.’ However you calculate it, in the present equation a few more million barrels of oil won’t matter a damn.
Monday, May 30, 2005
The Neo-Mainstream Media Agenda
Wake up. Early this morning, bleary eyed and cotton mouthed, I heard an interesting report on CBC radio. ‘The public is losing confidence in politicians and public officials in general…’ I was unsurprised. Should such a platitude be so unobvious to the media? For the media the public had even lower regard.
I was flummoxed to hear that 'bloggers' may have higher repute with the public than the Mainstream Media (MSM). This is supremely silly; I say: enough already with the blogger triumphalism. If you want your political slant steeper, you’re substance the consistency of a watery broth, the scope and focus negligible, read a political blog. At least this is the case for amateurish political blogs, present company included. Political journalists who maintain blogs are a staple for me; so are fledgling public intellectuals qua writers—for no other reason than ideas shape the world. Political Journalists are backed by incredible news gathering organizations that pay them. Anyone else with a political opinion and the requisite leisure time can register there inaudible gripe.
Why should I find the argument that the public is skeptical of the media misconceived, or merely miss-framed? One reason: if the public has grown skeptical of politicians because of the rise of personally invasive journalism, it should follow that they also appraise this invasive journalism as scurrilous on the media’s part, therefore lowering the opinion they hold for reporters and journalists.
Terry Eastland, in a piece from Wilson Quarterly, speaks to this point.
So whether the chicken or the egg came first -- if I can construct this awkward analogy -- is difficult to assess and will remain an open question for now. I'll be back to this in a moment.
The good days. Eastland offers up a historical sketch of the idyllic past of the MSM.
An improper, slovenly analyzed, postulate: Doesn’t public cynicism greater reflect the electorate’s discernment and sober thought, aided and abetted by journalism’s aim at demystify conventional political fictions? Another query—if the electorate is so malleable, then why is it so disillusioned and jaded? So, is it that the media has been doing it's job overzealously? Maybe.
(Notwithstanding the ideological pall cast by an unintelligible, self-manifesting, disparately unknowing and self-perpetuating, shiftless mass that is the Neoliberal agenda.)
And now back to the politicians. This passage from the CBC report irked me.
Does it really matter what the respondents to this poll think? Really--that 23 per cent of them believe none of the political parties can govern with honesty and integrity is irrelevance bordering on…. I don’t know, ridiculously, trite irrelevance. Voters already have their own built-in prejudices, either as a result of economics or social experience, so accessing which party can govern with relative probity is patent self selection: you’ll define honesty and integrity on the metric that suits you’re political allegiances—you’ll elide any inconsistencies that don’t agree with these definitions.
(I do this all the time.)
The eternal cynics don’t vote, regardless of the poking and prodding, yet still complain about government. They’re hemming and hawing is of no consequence. (Electoral reform is another issue entirely. And if you are to believe that our current political system is acrimonious, the experiences of PR electoral systems, though definitely fairer as regards plurality, appear far more bizarre and surpassingly acrimonious--'minority governments anyone'?.)
One in three people polled said they had little or no confidence in the media – unchanged from a year earlier. Only 11 per cent had a great deal of confidence in what the media had to say.
I was flummoxed to hear that 'bloggers' may have higher repute with the public than the Mainstream Media (MSM). This is supremely silly; I say: enough already with the blogger triumphalism. If you want your political slant steeper, you’re substance the consistency of a watery broth, the scope and focus negligible, read a political blog. At least this is the case for amateurish political blogs, present company included. Political journalists who maintain blogs are a staple for me; so are fledgling public intellectuals qua writers—for no other reason than ideas shape the world. Political Journalists are backed by incredible news gathering organizations that pay them. Anyone else with a political opinion and the requisite leisure time can register there inaudible gripe.
Why should I find the argument that the public is skeptical of the media misconceived, or merely miss-framed? One reason: if the public has grown skeptical of politicians because of the rise of personally invasive journalism, it should follow that they also appraise this invasive journalism as scurrilous on the media’s part, therefore lowering the opinion they hold for reporters and journalists.
Terry Eastland, in a piece from Wilson Quarterly, speaks to this point.
The negativity in the news may have resulted from the more personalized or interpretative journalism that began appearing in the 1960s. It represented a break from the old norm of objectivity by which reporters were obliged to keep their own views out of articles, and it was thought to help in uncovering the “real story” beyond any official statements and scheduled events. Perhaps the urgent need to compete for smaller pools of viewers and readers also played a role in the rise of negative news. But to judge by opinion polls, the public wasn’t impressed. The negativity, not to mention the arrogance with which it was often served up, caused many to tune out.
So whether the chicken or the egg came first -- if I can construct this awkward analogy -- is difficult to assess and will remain an open question for now. I'll be back to this in a moment.
The good days. Eastland offers up a historical sketch of the idyllic past of the MSM.
The media establishment emerged at a time when Americans generally respected those in authority. But when, beginning in the 1960s, authority took a severe beating, the media establishment was the one authority that actually gained in strength. Crusading reporters and editors became cultural heroes—the rebels and nonconformists who refused to kowtow to anybody. The Watergate scandal in particular confirmed in the media the sense they had of themselves as independent guardians of the public good and the very conscience of the nation in times of crisis. Over the years, judicial decisions also went their way, securing greater protection for the exercise of media power. For the establishment media, life was very good
An improper, slovenly analyzed, postulate: Doesn’t public cynicism greater reflect the electorate’s discernment and sober thought, aided and abetted by journalism’s aim at demystify conventional political fictions? Another query—if the electorate is so malleable, then why is it so disillusioned and jaded? So, is it that the media has been doing it's job overzealously? Maybe.
(Notwithstanding the ideological pall cast by an unintelligible, self-manifesting, disparately unknowing and self-perpetuating, shiftless mass that is the Neoliberal agenda.)
And now back to the politicians. This passage from the CBC report irked me.
The Conservatives came in at 22 per cent – the same level as last year. The NDP, however, was picked by 23 per cent – up four points from last year. But 23 per cent of those polled said none of the parties is best able to run a government with honesty and integrity. That's an increase of five percentage points from last year.
Does it really matter what the respondents to this poll think? Really--that 23 per cent of them believe none of the political parties can govern with honesty and integrity is irrelevance bordering on…. I don’t know, ridiculously, trite irrelevance. Voters already have their own built-in prejudices, either as a result of economics or social experience, so accessing which party can govern with relative probity is patent self selection: you’ll define honesty and integrity on the metric that suits you’re political allegiances—you’ll elide any inconsistencies that don’t agree with these definitions.
(I do this all the time.)
The eternal cynics don’t vote, regardless of the poking and prodding, yet still complain about government. They’re hemming and hawing is of no consequence. (Electoral reform is another issue entirely. And if you are to believe that our current political system is acrimonious, the experiences of PR electoral systems, though definitely fairer as regards plurality, appear far more bizarre and surpassingly acrimonious--'minority governments anyone'?.)
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Revenge of the Sith
Last Saturday, like many people, I watched the third and – oddly enough, considering the anachronism – final installment of the Star Wars sextet, Revenge of the Sith. The movie was good—very, very good. Good enough to have me strongly considering an apostasy from the Anglican Church to follow The Jedi Order. I was completely blown away by the scale and proportion of this fictive far, far away universe; surprisingly, the story was far more engaging than I was expecting. We know that Anakin is slowly being seduced by the dark side yet, though we (the audience) cringe as he makes his descent there, secretly cheer him along.
This is my opinion at least.
There are, to be sure, schmaltzy dialogue exchanges – particularly between Padme and Anakin – and an excess of special effects, some of which are apropos and many others just plain excessive. At one point Ben Kenobi is riding this creature that essential looks like an iguana: It’s ridiculous but cool. One gets the feeling that this is all taking place in some miniature world. And it very well may be. But, for me, the movie pulls the narrative tight together. Lucas accomplishes a reasonably fulfilling end: a fitting dénouement to a Sci-Fi classic.
(The aberration of the appalling Attack of the Clones(2002) is unforgivable.)
But, as I said, last weekend I went to an actual theater to watch the Sith. Not even a week later, though I’m loath to admitt it lest the MPAA is monitoring this blog, I downloaded and watched the Sith, comfortably ensconced in my dank, fetid room. I think it’s terrible, really. Think of all the money George Lucas is losing? This is a canard.
The money, the MPAA suggests, isn’t being lost by Mr. Lucas but countless others involved in the production and distribution of movies—the little guy. And I’m not sure whether this year’s meager box office is a persuasive argument against piracy; but it sure seems like it should be.
This is my opinion at least.
There are, to be sure, schmaltzy dialogue exchanges – particularly between Padme and Anakin – and an excess of special effects, some of which are apropos and many others just plain excessive. At one point Ben Kenobi is riding this creature that essential looks like an iguana: It’s ridiculous but cool. One gets the feeling that this is all taking place in some miniature world. And it very well may be. But, for me, the movie pulls the narrative tight together. Lucas accomplishes a reasonably fulfilling end: a fitting dénouement to a Sci-Fi classic.
(The aberration of the appalling Attack of the Clones(2002) is unforgivable.)
But, as I said, last weekend I went to an actual theater to watch the Sith. Not even a week later, though I’m loath to admitt it lest the MPAA is monitoring this blog, I downloaded and watched the Sith, comfortably ensconced in my dank, fetid room. I think it’s terrible, really. Think of all the money George Lucas is losing? This is a canard.
The money, the MPAA suggests, isn’t being lost by Mr. Lucas but countless others involved in the production and distribution of movies—the little guy. And I’m not sure whether this year’s meager box office is a persuasive argument against piracy; but it sure seems like it should be.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Of Montreal
The Public Places By-law prohibits smoking in certain public places in order to protect the city of Ottawa's inhabitants from the public health hazzards and discomforts of second-hand smoke.
[...]
Any indoor area to which the public has access is a public place including such places as retail shops, hairdressers, restaurants, bars, bingo and billiard halls, bowling alleys, taxicabs and limousines. There is no provision for designated smoking rooms in the by-law.
By-law No. 2001-148
This is an excerpt from one of two Ottawa public health by-laws that prohibits smoking in public places—the other one relates to workplaces. If an analogous by-law had existed in Montreal, I have strong reason to believe that my trip there would have been more enjoyable.
This is not to say that there weren’t parts of the trip that I did like. There were a few, actually.
For instance, pursing through the social sciences section at a Chapters on Ste-Catherine, I happened upon a pair of forest green Nike throwbacks who, quiet auspiciously, were on the feet of Garden State(2004) writer and director Zach Braff. Initially I had to convince myself that it wasn’t Zach Braff and that it would be incredibly untoward to corner the innocent celebrity look-a-like. But at this point I was already making my move in his direction.
The Last Kiss is filming in Montreal, which happens to be starting Zach Braff, among others; the screenplay, interestingly enough, was penned by London, Ontario, native Paul Haggis, and is an adaptation of Italian director Gabriele Muccino L'ultimo Baccio (2001).
This was reason enough to assume that it was in fact Zach Braff wearing the forest green Nike throwbacks. “Hey” I said with some incredulity. He replied back hey, and after a few inert moments of mental vacancy, at which time I was trying not to call him Benjamin, I eerily and very inexplicably called him Braff. (Garden State was essentially homage to Mike Nicholas’ film The Graduate--the main character, Dustin Hoffman, was Benjamin Braddock).
Since he did actually extend his hand while replying yes I’m assuming it was Zach Braff. I quickly turned to my friend, who was himself flipping through a book, and motioned at Zach Braff, in hopes that my friend would recognize him. He didn’t. Now this was awkward. “Garden State” I said. My friend recognized him and Braff graciously offered his hand.
I should have asked him if he was going to the Decemberists show that night at La Sala Rossa, or maybe if he needed another member in his entourage, or maybe offered him some script ideas for a tenth Police Academy. I could have asked him a lot of things, but I didn’t. That’s not how we do in Canada.
Sufficiently star struck, the rest of the day consisted of good eating at the Peel Pub then the Decembrists show at La Sala Rossa, and finally a diversity of night spots on St-Laurent and Crescent. Omnipresent during all of this was the carcinogenic aroma of smoke. The Decembrists show was cool, although the prevalence of smokers, especially in such close proximity to each other and me, was very disconcerting. Being out at some of the "trendy" Montreal clubs left me longing for the staid, sterile clean air of bars in Ottawa, Waterloo, and London.
Montreal—Quebec, for that matter—has astonishing cultural sites which I’ve been to. That a socially progressive city, a darling among the top cities of the world, still hasn’t passed by-laws against smoking in public places is a little troubling. With New York already limiting smoking in public places, it’s time for other major cites to follow suit. The economic interest of private ownership has to be balance against the social interest of public health. But on balance Montreal was alright.
[...]
Any indoor area to which the public has access is a public place including such places as retail shops, hairdressers, restaurants, bars, bingo and billiard halls, bowling alleys, taxicabs and limousines. There is no provision for designated smoking rooms in the by-law.
By-law No. 2001-148
This is an excerpt from one of two Ottawa public health by-laws that prohibits smoking in public places—the other one relates to workplaces. If an analogous by-law had existed in Montreal, I have strong reason to believe that my trip there would have been more enjoyable.
This is not to say that there weren’t parts of the trip that I did like. There were a few, actually.
For instance, pursing through the social sciences section at a Chapters on Ste-Catherine, I happened upon a pair of forest green Nike throwbacks who, quiet auspiciously, were on the feet of Garden State(2004) writer and director Zach Braff. Initially I had to convince myself that it wasn’t Zach Braff and that it would be incredibly untoward to corner the innocent celebrity look-a-like. But at this point I was already making my move in his direction.
The Last Kiss is filming in Montreal, which happens to be starting Zach Braff, among others; the screenplay, interestingly enough, was penned by London, Ontario, native Paul Haggis, and is an adaptation of Italian director Gabriele Muccino L'ultimo Baccio (2001).
This was reason enough to assume that it was in fact Zach Braff wearing the forest green Nike throwbacks. “Hey” I said with some incredulity. He replied back hey, and after a few inert moments of mental vacancy, at which time I was trying not to call him Benjamin, I eerily and very inexplicably called him Braff. (Garden State was essentially homage to Mike Nicholas’ film The Graduate--the main character, Dustin Hoffman, was Benjamin Braddock).
Since he did actually extend his hand while replying yes I’m assuming it was Zach Braff. I quickly turned to my friend, who was himself flipping through a book, and motioned at Zach Braff, in hopes that my friend would recognize him. He didn’t. Now this was awkward. “Garden State” I said. My friend recognized him and Braff graciously offered his hand.
I should have asked him if he was going to the Decemberists show that night at La Sala Rossa, or maybe if he needed another member in his entourage, or maybe offered him some script ideas for a tenth Police Academy. I could have asked him a lot of things, but I didn’t. That’s not how we do in Canada.
Sufficiently star struck, the rest of the day consisted of good eating at the Peel Pub then the Decembrists show at La Sala Rossa, and finally a diversity of night spots on St-Laurent and Crescent. Omnipresent during all of this was the carcinogenic aroma of smoke. The Decembrists show was cool, although the prevalence of smokers, especially in such close proximity to each other and me, was very disconcerting. Being out at some of the "trendy" Montreal clubs left me longing for the staid, sterile clean air of bars in Ottawa, Waterloo, and London.
Montreal—Quebec, for that matter—has astonishing cultural sites which I’ve been to. That a socially progressive city, a darling among the top cities of the world, still hasn’t passed by-laws against smoking in public places is a little troubling. With New York already limiting smoking in public places, it’s time for other major cites to follow suit. The economic interest of private ownership has to be balance against the social interest of public health. But on balance Montreal was alright.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Turnabout
Hyper-speed prediction-falsification is not the case with my earlier thesis that the Liberal government wouldn’t fall as a result of being defeated on Thursday’s budget vote. As if this should be news to anyone, Belinda Stronach, former CEO of Magna, former Peter MacKay flame, perpetual political neophyte, did a fancy two-step across the figurative floor of the House of Common to join the Liberals. So astounded was I with this development that I literally (literally) jumped out of my shoes—my feet returning to the ground minutes later. Now my reaction should come as no surprise since, as has been stated prior, I’m a Liberal partisan.
(This is for no other reason than the electoral viability of the NDP is, well, feeble. Though they are considered the most ethical political party in the country, the NDP aren’t likely to form government in my life time.)
And now a digression, if you’ll indulge me. The jilted lover meme is stirring and incredibly poignant. Whether it’s purely political strategy or an honest account is difficult to assess; though, to be fair, the two can’t be mutually exclusive in this case. Seeing Peter MacKay nearly in tears as he spoke of the close affection he had for Belinda, her children, and her family, and then speak of the inexplicable betrayal (although he didn't use that word) of her decision was decidedly plaintive. The cameraman attempted to focus onto MacKay’s eyes as he fought back tears—a person shudders.
But on with the political machinations. The Liberals and NDP are now up one seat to 152, which ties the Conservative and Bloc seat count. Two independent MP’s, Chuck Cadman and David Kilgour, will determine the outcome. Kilgour looks serious but undecided and his appeals for increased attention and funding to Darfur is worthy political quid pro quo. However, there is something about Kilgour that strikes me as being incredibly flaky. Cadman, a jovial, ready-to-please type, appears more pliant. He’ll bring home the vote. Everybody that thought they had clout yesterday is doubling back, understanding that falling in line with the governing party is canny political strategy.
Apres Nous, Le Deluge. Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is one voice among many advising two regional MP’s, Loyola Hearn and Norm Doyle, to vote yea on the Liberal budget, as it would assure the passage of the Atlantic Accord act—an act that means $2 billon for the Atlantic provinces. This seems to be working. And what of the remaining Bloc and Conservative MP’s who, after realizing it unlikely they’ll defeat the budget bill, consider the electoral calculus of voting against a healthy pork budget? If they’re smart, thoughtful to the necessity of political survival, they’ll vote for the bill.
Let me explain: the budget bill is a beautiful document because it’s like a pristine brook that reflects a sumptuous image. A person looking at the bill sees what they want— since it’s essentially designed to be everything to everyone. Vote against the bill -- when it’s going to pass anyway -- and leave yourself vulnerable to the argument that “You voted against childcare, against the municipalities, against monies for health care, against struggling students, against the environment, against the west, against the east—you sir, or madam, voted against Canada.” Very persuasive indeed.
So even if the Liberals do call an election after the Gomery inquiry adjourns -- the public outrage from which, by that time, would have already dissipated -- the Bloc and Conservatives will be open to this line of attack. However, the Conservatives, logic says, would be more vulnerable to this than the Bloc.
Addendum
Funny how things change so quickly. It wasn't even a week and a half ago that the Liberals lost two consecutive confidence votes on Bloc and Conservative motions. Procedurally these motions weren't considered actual confidence votes and, therefore, the Liberals weren't required to disslove government. But they nonetheless made the Liberals look feckless--notwithstanding the house work they also impeded. And now, a week hence, the Liberals scooped Ms. Stronach, secured the vote of Chuck Cadman, and passed a fairly socially progressive budget bill.
(This is for no other reason than the electoral viability of the NDP is, well, feeble. Though they are considered the most ethical political party in the country, the NDP aren’t likely to form government in my life time.)
And now a digression, if you’ll indulge me. The jilted lover meme is stirring and incredibly poignant. Whether it’s purely political strategy or an honest account is difficult to assess; though, to be fair, the two can’t be mutually exclusive in this case. Seeing Peter MacKay nearly in tears as he spoke of the close affection he had for Belinda, her children, and her family, and then speak of the inexplicable betrayal (although he didn't use that word) of her decision was decidedly plaintive. The cameraman attempted to focus onto MacKay’s eyes as he fought back tears—a person shudders.
But on with the political machinations. The Liberals and NDP are now up one seat to 152, which ties the Conservative and Bloc seat count. Two independent MP’s, Chuck Cadman and David Kilgour, will determine the outcome. Kilgour looks serious but undecided and his appeals for increased attention and funding to Darfur is worthy political quid pro quo. However, there is something about Kilgour that strikes me as being incredibly flaky. Cadman, a jovial, ready-to-please type, appears more pliant. He’ll bring home the vote. Everybody that thought they had clout yesterday is doubling back, understanding that falling in line with the governing party is canny political strategy.
Apres Nous, Le Deluge. Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is one voice among many advising two regional MP’s, Loyola Hearn and Norm Doyle, to vote yea on the Liberal budget, as it would assure the passage of the Atlantic Accord act—an act that means $2 billon for the Atlantic provinces. This seems to be working. And what of the remaining Bloc and Conservative MP’s who, after realizing it unlikely they’ll defeat the budget bill, consider the electoral calculus of voting against a healthy pork budget? If they’re smart, thoughtful to the necessity of political survival, they’ll vote for the bill.
Let me explain: the budget bill is a beautiful document because it’s like a pristine brook that reflects a sumptuous image. A person looking at the bill sees what they want— since it’s essentially designed to be everything to everyone. Vote against the bill -- when it’s going to pass anyway -- and leave yourself vulnerable to the argument that “You voted against childcare, against the municipalities, against monies for health care, against struggling students, against the environment, against the west, against the east—you sir, or madam, voted against Canada.” Very persuasive indeed.
So even if the Liberals do call an election after the Gomery inquiry adjourns -- the public outrage from which, by that time, would have already dissipated -- the Bloc and Conservatives will be open to this line of attack. However, the Conservatives, logic says, would be more vulnerable to this than the Bloc.
Addendum
Funny how things change so quickly. It wasn't even a week and a half ago that the Liberals lost two consecutive confidence votes on Bloc and Conservative motions. Procedurally these motions weren't considered actual confidence votes and, therefore, the Liberals weren't required to disslove government. But they nonetheless made the Liberals look feckless--notwithstanding the house work they also impeded. And now, a week hence, the Liberals scooped Ms. Stronach, secured the vote of Chuck Cadman, and passed a fairly socially progressive budget bill.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Not so hot.
Ok, maybe this month of May hasn't been as unusually hot or warm as I had suggested in an earlier post. The last two days have been unseasonable chilly --down right cold -- despite it being generally sunny. But the political wrangling hasn't cooled down. Another day—another sanctimonious demand for the Liberal’s to step down and call an election.
The Bloc and Conservatives, again, pushed through and passed a motion to adjourn the house, bringing to a halt any house proceedings of substance or action. It becomes farcical when an opposition, in anticipation to a confidence vote they’ll likely not defeat (the Liberal Budget), stymie any convincible government work. Although most work is done within the “committees”, think it unlikely that anything of consequences is being accomplished.
In an interesting aside, Stephen Harpers thinks it's "shameful... disgusting and disgraceful" that the Liberals are holding their budget vote a day after Darrel Stinson's -- Conservative MP from British Columbia -- cancer surgery (queue the violins) . But to the rescue is our perpetual social conscience, the NDP: Ed Broadbent has suggested, and the Conservatives have duly accepted, that a member from his party not participate in the May 19th vote out of fairness.
I’m still steadfast to my earlier assessment that the Liberal budget will pass. However, I think it may be misconceived for two reasons. First, I grossly underestimated the organizational union the Conservative and Bloc have entered into. It’s not an unfair trope to say that the ‘Conservatives are sleeping with the Separatists’. (They clearly are, and why shouldn’t they? They have nothing to be ashamed of; both the Conservatives and the Bloc have at least one thing in common—they both hate Canada. I should, to be fair, put the point finer, and less infelicitously: they both hate, or strongly dislike, the federal government. The Bloc wants Quebec out of Canada, this much is obvious; while the Conservatives want the federal government, already seen as considerably diffuse in its centralized powers, shrunk down to the size of a pin head, leaving provinces to transact business between each other – without, of course, the invasive hands of the federal government in the way.)
Second, they seem to be really, really serious. The Conservatives and Bloc are frothing at the mouth. It’s time to put this rabid dog down.
The Bloc and Conservatives, again, pushed through and passed a motion to adjourn the house, bringing to a halt any house proceedings of substance or action. It becomes farcical when an opposition, in anticipation to a confidence vote they’ll likely not defeat (the Liberal Budget), stymie any convincible government work. Although most work is done within the “committees”, think it unlikely that anything of consequences is being accomplished.
In an interesting aside, Stephen Harpers thinks it's "shameful... disgusting and disgraceful" that the Liberals are holding their budget vote a day after Darrel Stinson's -- Conservative MP from British Columbia -- cancer surgery (queue the violins) . But to the rescue is our perpetual social conscience, the NDP: Ed Broadbent has suggested, and the Conservatives have duly accepted, that a member from his party not participate in the May 19th vote out of fairness.
I’m still steadfast to my earlier assessment that the Liberal budget will pass. However, I think it may be misconceived for two reasons. First, I grossly underestimated the organizational union the Conservative and Bloc have entered into. It’s not an unfair trope to say that the ‘Conservatives are sleeping with the Separatists’. (They clearly are, and why shouldn’t they? They have nothing to be ashamed of; both the Conservatives and the Bloc have at least one thing in common—they both hate Canada. I should, to be fair, put the point finer, and less infelicitously: they both hate, or strongly dislike, the federal government. The Bloc wants Quebec out of Canada, this much is obvious; while the Conservatives want the federal government, already seen as considerably diffuse in its centralized powers, shrunk down to the size of a pin head, leaving provinces to transact business between each other – without, of course, the invasive hands of the federal government in the way.)
Second, they seem to be really, really serious. The Conservatives and Bloc are frothing at the mouth. It’s time to put this rabid dog down.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
The government won't fall...
On Thursday May 19 Parliament will be tasked to vote on the Liberals proposed budget bill. If it is voted down, Canadians are back to the polls—again; and only 10 months after the last election. As the heat and humidity rise in this unusually hot month of May, so does the political rancor and vituperative rhetoric. The Conservatives and Bloc are affecting all the right histrionics of the politically indignant, anxious to defeat the visibly damaged Liberals.
This is only made worse by the daily revelations of further and more troubling Liberal misdeeds coming out of the Gomery Inquiry. Meanwhile, the NDP, our country’s erstwhile marginalized social conscience, is doing what it can to help buttress the Liberals seat total, against that of Bloc and Conservatives combined. Some suggest that by acceding to a few of the particulars in the Liberals re-amended budget – the delaying of the corporate tax-cuts being one; which were initially taken out of the budget as per Jack Layton’s request – the NDP are playing useful idiots to Liberal hegemony.
I, on the other hand, see this differently. Before Jack Layton, in Stephen Harper’s words, made a deal with the devil, the Liberal budget allotted only $10 million for student loans and student debt relief, and $250 for social housing and miscellaneous social project. Those numbers, respectively, jumped to $150 million and $1 billion after Layton’s Faustian bargain.
I like that math.
But still, a push is being made for an election call even before the Liberal’s budget bill can be voted on. The Liberals lost a putative non-confidence vote yesterday – a procedural motion emanating from the public accounts committee – resulting in Conservative and Bloc demands that they step down and call an election immediately.
Immediately… Immediately?
As matter of form, constitutional convention dictates that a government only falls on a loss of confidence from a vote by a majority of the house—when this vote deals specifically with a money bill. The precedent here is the Mackenzie King government resigning after a motion of non-confidence that was unrelated to a money bill. However, since then, money bills -- the budget specifically – are considered the only legitimate confidence votes.
So why aren’t Bloc and Conservatives willing to wait for a legitimate confidence vote, like next week’s budget?
One reason: the budget will pass. And here’s why. During the last month the Liberal government has scattered the seeds of its success all throughout the country: $3 billion dollars to the Provincial government in Ontario, $338 million to British Columbia, child care monies for various Canadian municipalities, redistribution of the gas-tax to the cities, %100 royalties from offshore drilling to the eastern provinces. The Liberal government will not fall for all of these reasons and much more.
The Bloc and Conservatives know this. In fact, though the deciding vote will come down to the speaker of the house – Milliken, a Liberal – count on a number of Bloc MP’s to support the Liberal budget; a budget that is so incredibly socially progressive that it would hurt their constituency cred if they voted otherwise. So this is my prediction—the vote will be 155-150 for the Liberal budget.
This is only made worse by the daily revelations of further and more troubling Liberal misdeeds coming out of the Gomery Inquiry. Meanwhile, the NDP, our country’s erstwhile marginalized social conscience, is doing what it can to help buttress the Liberals seat total, against that of Bloc and Conservatives combined. Some suggest that by acceding to a few of the particulars in the Liberals re-amended budget – the delaying of the corporate tax-cuts being one; which were initially taken out of the budget as per Jack Layton’s request – the NDP are playing useful idiots to Liberal hegemony.
I, on the other hand, see this differently. Before Jack Layton, in Stephen Harper’s words, made a deal with the devil, the Liberal budget allotted only $10 million for student loans and student debt relief, and $250 for social housing and miscellaneous social project. Those numbers, respectively, jumped to $150 million and $1 billion after Layton’s Faustian bargain.
I like that math.
But still, a push is being made for an election call even before the Liberal’s budget bill can be voted on. The Liberals lost a putative non-confidence vote yesterday – a procedural motion emanating from the public accounts committee – resulting in Conservative and Bloc demands that they step down and call an election immediately.
Immediately… Immediately?
As matter of form, constitutional convention dictates that a government only falls on a loss of confidence from a vote by a majority of the house—when this vote deals specifically with a money bill. The precedent here is the Mackenzie King government resigning after a motion of non-confidence that was unrelated to a money bill. However, since then, money bills -- the budget specifically – are considered the only legitimate confidence votes.
So why aren’t Bloc and Conservatives willing to wait for a legitimate confidence vote, like next week’s budget?
One reason: the budget will pass. And here’s why. During the last month the Liberal government has scattered the seeds of its success all throughout the country: $3 billion dollars to the Provincial government in Ontario, $338 million to British Columbia, child care monies for various Canadian municipalities, redistribution of the gas-tax to the cities, %100 royalties from offshore drilling to the eastern provinces. The Liberal government will not fall for all of these reasons and much more.
The Bloc and Conservatives know this. In fact, though the deciding vote will come down to the speaker of the house – Milliken, a Liberal – count on a number of Bloc MP’s to support the Liberal budget; a budget that is so incredibly socially progressive that it would hurt their constituency cred if they voted otherwise. So this is my prediction—the vote will be 155-150 for the Liberal budget.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
To the wilderness...
Revising history can be a rather thorny venture -- especially if done purely out of spite. Chuck Guite, former mandarin and trafficker in the venal art of patronage, is doing some incredibly heavy lifting for Jean Chrétien; at least this is what I'm suspecting. Testimony by Guite in the last two days has implicated both Paul Martin and, yes, John Manley.
(Remember Manley the prime ministerial hopeful but two years ago. This was only the case as a result of Martin pushing Chrétien out of office earlier than he was comfortable with.)
And now: Jean Chrétien is exacting his revenge indirectly, if at all -- which may be considerable. He's doing this through one of his hatchet-man-- Chuck Guite; and the bloodletting looks like it could hurt the future of the Liberal party. From the Globe and Mail is this paean:
And Mr. Martin went to lengths again Thursday to ensure that his denial was clear, telling reporters after a cabinet meeting, that Mr. Guité's claims that he had discussed assurances that Vickers & Benson would not lose federal work were also discussed with former industry minister John Manley and former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano were also false.
Fortunately the veracity of Mr. Guite's accusations are in doubt given that they can't be verified -- his claims aren't only hearsay, the individual who provided him with said information has passed away. Still, I'm beginning question Chrétien’s ominous presence, as it appears his attempts at retribution could have dire consequences, both politically and culturally.
These tactics are desperate and telling of a personality bent on persevering personal legacy rather than purging an arrogant clique within the Liberal party. (Did I just say that?) But understand this -- it is only a theory. My theory.
If Chrétien is responsible for any of this scorched-earth razing -- because we know he has the influence to direct Guite to lie down -- then his legacy, as written by the political historians in the decades to come, will be a pitiful one. He will be the man who sent the Liberal party into the political wilderness.
(Remember Manley the prime ministerial hopeful but two years ago. This was only the case as a result of Martin pushing Chrétien out of office earlier than he was comfortable with.)
And now: Jean Chrétien is exacting his revenge indirectly, if at all -- which may be considerable. He's doing this through one of his hatchet-man-- Chuck Guite; and the bloodletting looks like it could hurt the future of the Liberal party. From the Globe and Mail is this paean:
And Mr. Martin went to lengths again Thursday to ensure that his denial was clear, telling reporters after a cabinet meeting, that Mr. Guité's claims that he had discussed assurances that Vickers & Benson would not lose federal work were also discussed with former industry minister John Manley and former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano were also false.
Fortunately the veracity of Mr. Guite's accusations are in doubt given that they can't be verified -- his claims aren't only hearsay, the individual who provided him with said information has passed away. Still, I'm beginning question Chrétien’s ominous presence, as it appears his attempts at retribution could have dire consequences, both politically and culturally.
These tactics are desperate and telling of a personality bent on persevering personal legacy rather than purging an arrogant clique within the Liberal party. (Did I just say that?) But understand this -- it is only a theory. My theory.
If Chrétien is responsible for any of this scorched-earth razing -- because we know he has the influence to direct Guite to lie down -- then his legacy, as written by the political historians in the decades to come, will be a pitiful one. He will be the man who sent the Liberal party into the political wilderness.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
in absentia
I’m unconvinced that doctors have an incredible workload. Actually, I’m very much convinced that they do little to no work at all—except, of course, for some analyses of symptoms, the determination of particular aliments, and the dispensation of the appropriate medication. Otherwise, if you’re not a surgeon or perform some-type of operation or procedure at least three times weekly, you’re not doing much.
I should state this clearly: nurses, personal care assistants, therapists, orderlies, and administrative support workers do all the heavy lifting. Doctors, on the whole, do very little.
Here’s an example. Imagine you spend a twenty-four hour stay at your area hospital—the particular injury or aliment, in this case, is inconsequential since the condition has been judge severe enough to admit you into care. Your diet, relatively minimal but of the requisite daily nutrition, consists of three meals on a sliding scale of digestion capacity; liquids only, soft foods, normal and hard foods, ect.
Let’s say you’ve been admitted for an aliment that has caused you to lose a considerable amount of blood. You’re blood pressure is low, you’re hemoglobin is low, and, likewise, you’re energy is low. One would imagine that such a physical state requires either more nutrition or supplements directly aimed at re-establishing a healthy stasis—effectively increasing you’re energy levels. This isn’t the case.
The diet, at least in my experience, stays the same irrespective of particular nutrition deficiencies caused by the aliment. If you’re in there for an excess of fluids in your lungs, clotting of blood flow in particular vascular areas, or internal bleeding as a result of a ruptured vessel, don’t expect a varied and flexible diet—one that targets and alleviates you’re particular deficiency.
But I guess this seems somewhat sensible. The preponderance of organizing a complex and individualistic nutrition regime would, doubtless, be irrationally burdensome for the hospital. Moreover, the economy of scale offers a far more expansive nutrition coverage than an individualistic regime would—even if barely sufficient.
This is where private clinics find there niche. Individuals with the economic wherewithal to purchase services like individualistic nutrition regimes and on-call professional medical assistances will. And they’ll find these services at private clinics.
Aside from diet, what other considerations must be accounted during your hospital stay?
One, the most vital in my opinion, is the face time registered by the personal care assistants, nurses, and orderlies; you will see these people all the time. Nurses will be checking your vitals on the hour every hour during the daylight hours, and every three hours while you lie sleepless in the dark, bleak corner of a hospital room. Personal care assistants will fill-in the gaps where nurses aren’t able to, given time constraints and numbers of patients; though, they do this with less authority and usually defer to the nurses. And at the bottom of this hierarchy are the orderlies—who do everything else; everything else that is important, like red blood cells carrying oxygen throughout the body. They serve the food, clean the floors, move the patients, bathe the immobile and pained, and perform any and all necessary errands that keep the hospital smoothly operating—or operating at all.
I would be remiss not to comment on hospital administration. They are, quiet simply, the hospitals nerve center, the brain, where all these movable pieces are synthesized into a coherent whole.
Oh yeah, wasn’t I intending to speak on what doctors do? In the length of the piece you’d be led to believe that I neglected to mention the duties performed by doctors; but I did not. This is what they do: every morning at around eight, it is said, doctors make their rounds, informing patients as to the status of their conditions. The reality is that they show up around ten, if not later, mumble a few indelicate bromides, and then tell you whether you’re staying for another night, or will be free to go. You will see you’re doctor, or a doctor, for about five minutes a day. Seriously. But maybe I’m being unfair; I suppose they have a large number of patients to talk to. They probably do. For now, I will remain unconvinced that doctors are assiduous workers. I have good sources.
Addendum: (Surely they perform surgeries and procedures, but these are the few who actually do considerable work.)
I should state this clearly: nurses, personal care assistants, therapists, orderlies, and administrative support workers do all the heavy lifting. Doctors, on the whole, do very little.
Here’s an example. Imagine you spend a twenty-four hour stay at your area hospital—the particular injury or aliment, in this case, is inconsequential since the condition has been judge severe enough to admit you into care. Your diet, relatively minimal but of the requisite daily nutrition, consists of three meals on a sliding scale of digestion capacity; liquids only, soft foods, normal and hard foods, ect.
Let’s say you’ve been admitted for an aliment that has caused you to lose a considerable amount of blood. You’re blood pressure is low, you’re hemoglobin is low, and, likewise, you’re energy is low. One would imagine that such a physical state requires either more nutrition or supplements directly aimed at re-establishing a healthy stasis—effectively increasing you’re energy levels. This isn’t the case.
The diet, at least in my experience, stays the same irrespective of particular nutrition deficiencies caused by the aliment. If you’re in there for an excess of fluids in your lungs, clotting of blood flow in particular vascular areas, or internal bleeding as a result of a ruptured vessel, don’t expect a varied and flexible diet—one that targets and alleviates you’re particular deficiency.
But I guess this seems somewhat sensible. The preponderance of organizing a complex and individualistic nutrition regime would, doubtless, be irrationally burdensome for the hospital. Moreover, the economy of scale offers a far more expansive nutrition coverage than an individualistic regime would—even if barely sufficient.
This is where private clinics find there niche. Individuals with the economic wherewithal to purchase services like individualistic nutrition regimes and on-call professional medical assistances will. And they’ll find these services at private clinics.
Aside from diet, what other considerations must be accounted during your hospital stay?
One, the most vital in my opinion, is the face time registered by the personal care assistants, nurses, and orderlies; you will see these people all the time. Nurses will be checking your vitals on the hour every hour during the daylight hours, and every three hours while you lie sleepless in the dark, bleak corner of a hospital room. Personal care assistants will fill-in the gaps where nurses aren’t able to, given time constraints and numbers of patients; though, they do this with less authority and usually defer to the nurses. And at the bottom of this hierarchy are the orderlies—who do everything else; everything else that is important, like red blood cells carrying oxygen throughout the body. They serve the food, clean the floors, move the patients, bathe the immobile and pained, and perform any and all necessary errands that keep the hospital smoothly operating—or operating at all.
I would be remiss not to comment on hospital administration. They are, quiet simply, the hospitals nerve center, the brain, where all these movable pieces are synthesized into a coherent whole.
Oh yeah, wasn’t I intending to speak on what doctors do? In the length of the piece you’d be led to believe that I neglected to mention the duties performed by doctors; but I did not. This is what they do: every morning at around eight, it is said, doctors make their rounds, informing patients as to the status of their conditions. The reality is that they show up around ten, if not later, mumble a few indelicate bromides, and then tell you whether you’re staying for another night, or will be free to go. You will see you’re doctor, or a doctor, for about five minutes a day. Seriously. But maybe I’m being unfair; I suppose they have a large number of patients to talk to. They probably do. For now, I will remain unconvinced that doctors are assiduous workers. I have good sources.
Addendum: (Surely they perform surgeries and procedures, but these are the few who actually do considerable work.)
Thursday, April 21, 2005
The Crisis
Despite a few awkward glances at his que cards, the standard vocal stutter step, Paul Martin gave a solid speech this evening; an apologia for the current contretemps brought about by the Gomery inquiry (GI). Martin’s message was clear: Don’t defeat this tenuous minority government—let Judge Gomery do his work. This is a strong yet simple message, but whether it gains traction is an open question. If it should, the Liberals will be given a reprieve until the inquiry tables its final report sometime in December. If it doesn’t, however, a May election looks imminent.
The Conservatives, the NDP, and the Bloc all have their fingers on the proverbial trigger, and if the right polling data convinces them— they’ll pull it. Some polls have the Conservatives at 34%, and the Liberals and NDP at 24%. But their likely electoral fortunes face conflicting data. A number of surveys have suggested that around %53 Canadians aren’t keen on the prospect of another election. (The last one being less than a year ago) Call it political fatigue. So, if a vote were forced by any other party than the Liberals, 5 out of those 10 Canadians would, it should follow, punish the opportunistic party. Yet, I’m not so sure. People have legitimate reasons to be more than mad at the Liberals.
Even though I voted for the Green Party in the last federal election—for reasons dealing with electoral parity through the public financing of fringe parties (a monetary vote)—I consider myself a Liberal partisan. As the evidence trickled out from the GI, I found myself blasé by much of the opposition’s criticism. I thought, naturally: why wouldn’t they clamor so affectedly? That’s what opposition parties do. I also assumed that what happened with the sponsorship scandal, or Ad scam, was dirty politics as usual. I was wrong—if only partially.
It was politics as usual a la Sir John a Macdonald Canadian Pacific Railways. Funneling public monies to friends and political supporters and tendering ridiculous federal contracts without follow up auditing and accountancy seems somewhat understandable; I can imagine this sort of thing happening in the yesteryears and golden years of Canadian politics—and it did. But doing this with very little paper trail of large sums of cash dispensed to people, with optics alone, that appear to be close friends is sloppy and incredibly unsophisticated.
The thing that disappoints me—I understand that political direction in bureaucracies creates patronage, inevitably—is how blatant and unthinking the Liberals were, most particularly Jean Chrétien. Maybe I was hoping that the corruption would have at least been more elaborate, convoluted, or slightly legal. The sponsorship program was not. It was dreadfully obvious and incredibly illegal.
Ironically, Paul Martin was all too eager to push Chrétien out, which may be some evidence to Martin’s actual knowledge of the sponsorship cash-grab. Who’d want to inherit that? And now, minority governments as far as the eye can see. A May election augers a Conservative minority not likely to last any longer than this current minority. How will the Liberals hold off a May election? The dynamic in Quebec appears to be the strongest appeal to fear the Liberals can make to voters. If the Bloc sweeps 75 seats in Quebec, they’ll call for another referendum and Au revoir Canada. I don’t think the referendum will be successful, but it will be called, putting pressure on Charest’s already smarting provincial Liberals. So, it seems fairly underhanded, though this is what generally happens, but the Liberals have to eqaute a vote for the Conservatives as a vote for the dissloution of the federation. Who knows, it may work.
Addendum (Opposition response): Stephen Harper’s eyes are creepy; this man should not be Prime Minister. Jack Layton makes me feel like buying a hybrid. Gilles Duceppe was less scary than usual—which isn’t saying much. The overall opposition response to the Martin speech: It’s not a Canadian crisis, it’s a Liberal crisis.
Random notes. a) Death Cab For Cutie has just been obsolesced, tonight at around 8:14, with their appearance on the second season shark jumping show, The O.C. b) A German Pope? Huh? c) Surprise, surprise, the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t make the playoffs. d) The blog turned 1 on April 16; more on this later.
The Conservatives, the NDP, and the Bloc all have their fingers on the proverbial trigger, and if the right polling data convinces them— they’ll pull it. Some polls have the Conservatives at 34%, and the Liberals and NDP at 24%. But their likely electoral fortunes face conflicting data. A number of surveys have suggested that around %53 Canadians aren’t keen on the prospect of another election. (The last one being less than a year ago) Call it political fatigue. So, if a vote were forced by any other party than the Liberals, 5 out of those 10 Canadians would, it should follow, punish the opportunistic party. Yet, I’m not so sure. People have legitimate reasons to be more than mad at the Liberals.
Even though I voted for the Green Party in the last federal election—for reasons dealing with electoral parity through the public financing of fringe parties (a monetary vote)—I consider myself a Liberal partisan. As the evidence trickled out from the GI, I found myself blasé by much of the opposition’s criticism. I thought, naturally: why wouldn’t they clamor so affectedly? That’s what opposition parties do. I also assumed that what happened with the sponsorship scandal, or Ad scam, was dirty politics as usual. I was wrong—if only partially.
It was politics as usual a la Sir John a Macdonald Canadian Pacific Railways. Funneling public monies to friends and political supporters and tendering ridiculous federal contracts without follow up auditing and accountancy seems somewhat understandable; I can imagine this sort of thing happening in the yesteryears and golden years of Canadian politics—and it did. But doing this with very little paper trail of large sums of cash dispensed to people, with optics alone, that appear to be close friends is sloppy and incredibly unsophisticated.
The thing that disappoints me—I understand that political direction in bureaucracies creates patronage, inevitably—is how blatant and unthinking the Liberals were, most particularly Jean Chrétien. Maybe I was hoping that the corruption would have at least been more elaborate, convoluted, or slightly legal. The sponsorship program was not. It was dreadfully obvious and incredibly illegal.
Ironically, Paul Martin was all too eager to push Chrétien out, which may be some evidence to Martin’s actual knowledge of the sponsorship cash-grab. Who’d want to inherit that? And now, minority governments as far as the eye can see. A May election augers a Conservative minority not likely to last any longer than this current minority. How will the Liberals hold off a May election? The dynamic in Quebec appears to be the strongest appeal to fear the Liberals can make to voters. If the Bloc sweeps 75 seats in Quebec, they’ll call for another referendum and Au revoir Canada. I don’t think the referendum will be successful, but it will be called, putting pressure on Charest’s already smarting provincial Liberals. So, it seems fairly underhanded, though this is what generally happens, but the Liberals have to eqaute a vote for the Conservatives as a vote for the dissloution of the federation. Who knows, it may work.
Addendum (Opposition response): Stephen Harper’s eyes are creepy; this man should not be Prime Minister. Jack Layton makes me feel like buying a hybrid. Gilles Duceppe was less scary than usual—which isn’t saying much. The overall opposition response to the Martin speech: It’s not a Canadian crisis, it’s a Liberal crisis.
Random notes. a) Death Cab For Cutie has just been obsolesced, tonight at around 8:14, with their appearance on the second season shark jumping show, The O.C. b) A German Pope? Huh? c) Surprise, surprise, the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t make the playoffs. d) The blog turned 1 on April 16; more on this later.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Acrimony
Bloc Party is dope. The world honors (says goodbye to) John Paul II tomorrow; let's hope the ceremonies proceed without incident. On April 2, ironically the day of the Pope's death, my older sister gave birth to a 7 lbs 8 ounce wonder kid named Jacob.
At this point, sleep is very necessary. But, I should make some passing comments on the week that was Canadian politics. First, and definitely center, was the not so inaccessible testimony of a one Mr. Brault during the ‘closed to the public’ public inquiry. A publication ban on his earth-moving testimony about a decade of Liberal corruption didn't stop shadowy political cadres -- the Conservative party of Canada being one of them, I suspect -- from disseminating the testimony to reputable American bloggers, Captains Quarters.... think Swift Boat Vets for Truth advocacy.
To say the very least, Mr. Brault's testimony, though sensational, was equally underwhelming. Far from revealing the venal underbelly of political machinations, the testimony, and the Gomery commission generally, is the natural histrionics of ossified, interminable political leadership devouring itself -- the Liberals. The hysteria and malign displayed by the Conservatives are not unnatural for a desperate excuse of a political party attempting to reacquire a sense of semblance.
More later on the Conservative moves to moderation.
Quebec isn't without some blame, also. Acting as though such corruption is in the pale to politics as usual, unworthy of electoral probity, is laughable. Allan Gregg said it best: "This is how politics in Quebec works. The federal government pays for their unity." (Not an actual quote; it's reconstructed from memory) So, on this front, nothing appears to be so intriguing as to portend the demise of the minority government.
Second in the week of political Canadiana is the Liberal strategy of acting like the victim. It seems, as they have suggested, that some shadowy political miscreants my have perpetrated fraud in guise as card carrying Liberals -- sure, and Michael Jackson is innocent. (Cochran wouldn't even rise from his eternal slumber to take on this lost cause:God rest his soul) The Liberals chose the worst week to 'introduce' this theory. Ten months too late, to be sure.
Third, Harper's been offering some suggestions to beleaguered Premier Dalton McGuinty, undoubtedly with the effect of coming across as a moderate and helpful federal leader, something Paul Martin is still managing to figure out. Harper hopes, I think, this tactical position appeals to Ontarians searching for principled leadership, trying to poach some disaffected Ontario Liberals. He is devastatingly wrong. Underestimating Ontarian animus toward Dalton McGuinty while similarly allying yourself, your political party, and your political aspirations to ire inducing Dalton McGuinty is political suicide layered in Potemkin garb, underneath which is electoral genocide.
Again, Bloc Party is dope. It is very necessary that I sleep now.
At this point, sleep is very necessary. But, I should make some passing comments on the week that was Canadian politics. First, and definitely center, was the not so inaccessible testimony of a one Mr. Brault during the ‘closed to the public’ public inquiry. A publication ban on his earth-moving testimony about a decade of Liberal corruption didn't stop shadowy political cadres -- the Conservative party of Canada being one of them, I suspect -- from disseminating the testimony to reputable American bloggers, Captains Quarters.... think Swift Boat Vets for Truth advocacy.
To say the very least, Mr. Brault's testimony, though sensational, was equally underwhelming. Far from revealing the venal underbelly of political machinations, the testimony, and the Gomery commission generally, is the natural histrionics of ossified, interminable political leadership devouring itself -- the Liberals. The hysteria and malign displayed by the Conservatives are not unnatural for a desperate excuse of a political party attempting to reacquire a sense of semblance.
More later on the Conservative moves to moderation.
Quebec isn't without some blame, also. Acting as though such corruption is in the pale to politics as usual, unworthy of electoral probity, is laughable. Allan Gregg said it best: "This is how politics in Quebec works. The federal government pays for their unity." (Not an actual quote; it's reconstructed from memory) So, on this front, nothing appears to be so intriguing as to portend the demise of the minority government.
Second in the week of political Canadiana is the Liberal strategy of acting like the victim. It seems, as they have suggested, that some shadowy political miscreants my have perpetrated fraud in guise as card carrying Liberals -- sure, and Michael Jackson is innocent. (Cochran wouldn't even rise from his eternal slumber to take on this lost cause:God rest his soul) The Liberals chose the worst week to 'introduce' this theory. Ten months too late, to be sure.
Third, Harper's been offering some suggestions to beleaguered Premier Dalton McGuinty, undoubtedly with the effect of coming across as a moderate and helpful federal leader, something Paul Martin is still managing to figure out. Harper hopes, I think, this tactical position appeals to Ontarians searching for principled leadership, trying to poach some disaffected Ontario Liberals. He is devastatingly wrong. Underestimating Ontarian animus toward Dalton McGuinty while similarly allying yourself, your political party, and your political aspirations to ire inducing Dalton McGuinty is political suicide layered in Potemkin garb, underneath which is electoral genocide.
Again, Bloc Party is dope. It is very necessary that I sleep now.
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