A classless act of petty personal vindictiveness

"When Joe Clark’s portrait was unveiled in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Stephen Harper skipped the event, a classless act of petty personal vindictiveness." - Jeffrey Simpson's column in the Globe yesterday

Simpson captured the truth very eloquently with "petty personal vindictiveness". I tend to think of Harper as someone who's a savvy political operative, but really he's more motivated by petty personal vindictiveness than by political smarts.

On Thursday Harper snubbed astronaut/MP Mark Garneau by excluding him from the unveiling of the Canadarm exhibit at Ottawa's Space Museum. There was no reason except that Garneau is a Liberal and Harper hates Liberals.

Also on Thursday, Harper scheduled the announcement of a new governor for the Bank of Canada - an event that the outgoing governor cannot miss, to ensure a stable transition - at the same time as outgoing governor Mark Carney's going-away party, which was being held in another city, ensuring Carney would miss it altogether.

These are just the latest in a long string of classless acts by our Prime Minister.

During the Chretien years I would frequently get into discussions with people about how puzzled we were that we felt affection for the man even though we disagreed with a lot of what he did (such as his sloppy environmental record). I think it was partly that he was a good prime minister and got most policies right, but also that we had a sense that he was a good, caring person. That's just not so with Harper. History will probably show that after the AdScam scandal it was inevitable that the Conservatives would replace the Liberals in government, and that Harper squandered that opportunity with mismanagement and an inability to refrain from petty personal vindictiveness.

Troubling news from the Bank of Canada

The Bank of Canada, like all central banks, is supposed to be independent from the government. That, as the Globe & Mail put it this morning, is sacrosanct.

When a governor resigns, the BoC's board of directors is supposed to recommend a candidate to the finance minister. However, we learned this week that Stephen Harper decided to make the Governor of the Bank of Canada a political appointment, so Jim Flaherty did not involve the board of directors at all. This is a disturbing repeat of the way Harper changed the appointment of judges a few years ago.

We learned that Harper's interference in the BoC goes much deeper:

• The whole world sees Mark Carney as one of the great economic minds of our times and as the world's greatest central bank chief - the whole world but Stephen Harper, who apparently pushed Carney out of his position early. Carney's no fool - he got himself a much better job at the Bank of England - but Canada has lost immensely, and at a time when our economy is still in peril.
  
• Carney's pick for his successor, and the person groomed for the job, was ignored by Harper in what appears to be a petty retaliation against Carney. Harper's nastiness towards Carney went so far that he held the Ottawa press announcement of Carney's replacement at the same time as Carney's Toronto goodbye party, ensuring that Carney couldn't make it.
  
• We learned that Harper has been letting his ego drive in other ways: lecturing Carney about basic economics, releasing photos that seek to show Carney as an inferior, and so on.

Is all this important? Very.

A central bank exists to set monetary policy for a country, but its real business is to maintain stability and confidence in the economy and financial markets. The governor is supposed to be free from political interference so the markets (and public) know that central bank decisions are being made impartially. By making the job a political appointment - and by forcing out the previous governor - Harper is removing that freedom from political interference.

Let's be very clear. Our prime minister is not an economist. He holds the same degree I do and has no work experience as an economist. Worse, his approach to economics is ideological rather than pragmatic. He is motivated by ego and political ambition rather than a concern for the citizens of the country.

Note: In a very strange "letter from the editor" in the Globe yesterday, John Stackhouse admitted that during the prorogation, he knew that Carney felt that Harper/Flaherty did not have a plan for how to deal with the recession. Carney's assessment was not exposed at the time, even though the opposition was saying that was why they prorogued parliament and Harper was claiming that prorogation was over the per-vote subsidy.

Improving accessibility

Here's a photo from the inside of the washroom in the COC Friend's Lounge at the Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto:


(Sorry for the fuzziness. The light was really low and I was using my phone.)

The dampening arm at the top prevents the door from slamming - or maybe it's there to ensure that the door shuts itself - but it also makes the door very heavy to open. The Friends Lounge is largely used by elderly people, and it's difficult for some of them to open the door. I had to help someone today.

The typical solution would be to put a handicapped door opener on the door (with one of those big silver buttons). That's really expensive and it doesn't work when the power is out.

Instead of all those handicapped door openers, why not just remove the dampers and hang the doors so that they can be swung with a finger push? A stick could be added to make them pullable by someone with a walker.

Stealing a car to steal a truck

When I first moved to Africa my employer assigned me a luxury double-cab pickup truck. I quickly learned that that particular model was the number one choice of car jackers (a particularly nasty form of crime that was rampant in Tanzania at the time). So I gave back the pickup and asked for the cheapest vehicle they had, which turned out to be a small, very basic Suzuki Samurai. But then I learned that car jackers' number one vehicle preference for car-jacking double cab pickup trucks was, yes, the Samurai - so the Samurai was in fact the most stolen vehicle in the country.

What has all this to do with Conservative strategy in attack ads?

The ad this week was a light lob to energize the Conservative base and generate some revenue. The revenue will likely be used in a massive onslaught aimed at undermining Justin Trudeau with the Canadian populace. The timing of that onslaught will probably be determined on the fly: when Justin makes a gaffe or has a dip in popularity or an election is imminent, the Conservatives will be ready to take advantage of it.

I mention this because Liberal supporters in the Globe comments sections are so confident that Harper's attack ads can't hurt Justin. I hate to see us underestimating Harper again. There is no doubt in my mind that it was attack ads that brought down Ignatieff in 2009. He was riding high in the polls, but the "Just visiting" attack ads raised a question mark that sapped enthusiasm even from staunch Liberal supporters. The effect of the ads was brief, but just long enough to throw Ignatieff off course. And as we know, he never recovered.

The Conservatives have pioneered the practice (in Canada) of running attack ads outside of election campaigns. It is a weapon that has been extremely effective both in generating donations and in undermining other party leaders. The Conservative ads aren't truthful (the one this week used a quote so out of context that it totally misrepresented his words) and their impact is short term, but that's all they need.

I don't see how we're going to survive without joining in. I'm not suggesting that Justin should try to become a nasty pit bull character like Harper: I think we need attacks that come a step away from the leader. Just as high schools have nice-guy principals and disciplinarian vice-principals, we need an attack dog in the upper ranks of the Liberal party, or a new generation of Rat Pack.

A VERY good first week

I supported Justin Trudeau. I voted for him for leader. But I had no idea he would burst from the gate with such incredible vigor. He has far surpassed my expectations. He has outperformed the much more seasoned leaders of the government and official opposition. And he has shown an aplomb that defies typical political handling. He's sincere, honest, frank, thoughtful, and obvioulsy extremely intelligent and politically astute.

Can he keep up this pace? Can he continue without making a gaffe? Obviously not. That's impossible. But then I would have said that this week was impossible.

The right to bear pressure cookers

So the main import of the events this week in Boston is a demonstration that the US is not invulnerable to another terrorist attack. Of course it was never invulnerable, but a lot of people thought it was. A mythos had developed that US authorities have been able to keep the terrorists at bay. Surely nobody still believes that.

Does this change anything? Will Americans become more fearful? Will terrorists be emboldened? And in the end, why do a few people killed by terrorists matter so much more than the thousands killed in other sorts of American violence?

I don't want to sound unsympathetic. I'm an American by birth. I don't want to see anyone hurt, ever. But there are some bigger issues here than outrage at the actions of two young men.

En garde!

Here's a still from the first Harper attack ad against Justin Trudeau, which was released about 12 hours after Justin became Liberal leader.



It's a weird ad. I thought with all their money the Conservatives could come up with something more effective. They're obviously trying to ridicule him, but...

• The ad shows Justin with a goofy mustache - which he grew for charity as part of Movember.
  
• It shows Justin standing on stage slowly removing his outer shirt (he's wearing an undershirt) - which he did for another charity.
  
• It shows him saying that Quebec is the best - obviously pulled out of context, and looking very, very young.

I got an email today with the following text (and I think it's pretty classy that he also asks for donations to the liver foundation). This is the email:

The Conservatives are already back in the gutter.

Now they're using pictures from a charity fashion show to attack me and undermine what we've built. Can you chip in $5 to help us get out our positive message of change?

They've seen what we can do and they're desperately trying to drown us out with the childish, food-fight politics.

We need to move past that - donate $5 or more now and stand up to these guys:

https://www.liberal.ca/be-part-of-the-change/

Thanks.
Justin

P.S. I raised a bit of money for the Liver Foundation but I bet we could raise more if you made a donation too.

The best way to put a stop to this negative advertising is to make a donation against it! (I did.)

Fingers crossed

I admit it: I'm a worrywart. At our last leadership convention in 2006 Conservatives played dirty tricks, circulating fake buttons and posters to try to discourage delegates from voting for Bob Rae. Has Harper dropped another little turd to surprise us with on Sunday? It's probably fine; I haven't heard even a murmur of suspicion; but I can't help worrying.

Governments are longing for WikiLeaks... or should be

So the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists scored the largest leak in history, and they've got the names of thousands of people with off-shore bank accounts, many (or maybe all) of whom are tax evaders. They have more than names: they have emails detailing fraud; they have transactions; they have amounts; they have account numbers... they have all the things a prosecutor needs.

But the problem is that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists doesn't want to let anyone see their info. They say that it's a journalistic principle, but I suspect it has more to do with hoarding valuable intellectual property. They can dole out this stuff little by little in all sorts of stories and make a mint.

The Canadian government is apoplectic, arguing (reasonably) that there is a law on the books that any Canadian with knowledge of tax evasion over $100,000 must report the info to Canada Revenue Agency. The CBC (the sole Canadian member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) is standing firm.

It's got to be the case that the US government is similarly desperate to get its hands on all those details. The irony is that if WikiLeaks had the info, they would make it all public. WikiLeaks doesn't hoard info so that it can enrich itself by dribbling out tidbits. WikiLeaks works for the public good.

...which is just why the US government is engaged in such a malicious attempt to wipe WikiLeaks out.

Tribute to Bob

I'm watching the leadership convention live at liberal.ca/live. It's great - John Turner is giving a very funny speech at the moment - but the tribute to Bob Rae is bittersweet, given that he was denied the chance to run for leader... again. Last time, it was decided we needed unanimity so Bob was pressured to bow out and let Ignatieff run unopposed. This time he was told he couldn't run because he was interim leader.

I will happily vote for Justin Trudeau, but Bob was always my first choice.

The class system is alive and well and living at the GRT

(Conestoga College, WLU and UW fares are based on a 4-month term, and I converted that to monthly to compare them to monthly pass prices.)(Update: Perhaps the figure for high school students should be $47, which is the monthly equivalent of a 5-month pass.)

There is something wrong with a system where the privileged are treated to nearly free transit, while the less privileged are forced to pay nearly full fare.

Add to that that the universities are getting a billion dollar train that bypasses most of Waterloo to provide improved comfort to their students, while the Region says it's too poor to create decent bus routes to Conestoga College.

The difference isn't just that one set of students goes to university while the other goes to community college. It's also that the universities are in Waterloo and the community college is in Kitchener.

As a UW alumna and Waterloo resident, I'm ashamed.

Loliondo and the Shiek

The A marks Loliondo, a Maasai village in northern Tanzania.



I have written about the Maasai before, on this blog in The Wheat Field, and in African publications in the 90s. In the fight between pastoralists and farmers, I support the farmers, if only because poor countries need food sources. But in the fight between the pastoralists and the oil sheiks who want to turn Maasai land into the Disneyworld of Big Game Hunting, you have to support the Maasai.

At this very moment, the government of Tanzania is evicting Maasai from their land in northern Tanzania to please Mohamed Abdul Rahim Al Ali, an uber-wealthy Arab who bought the rights to hunt there. This is the sad end to a land dispute that has been going on for over 20 years.

Eighteen years ago, I visited Loliondo and saw what was going on.

The drive from Arusha to Loliondo is less than 400 km, but it's a hard trip. The first little bit is a paved road, but quickly you have to turn on a road with ruts so deep that people are regularly killed when their cars roll because of them. The going is slow. About 100 kilometers from Loliondo, in the heart of the Serengeti plain, we had to abandon roads altogether and drive cross-country, navigating by the stars. We had to use all three of the spare tires on our truck. It's not a trip that anyone would want to make frequently.

The rich man from the United Arab Emirates doesn't have to drive. He built himself an airport. He also built himself a large compound, which for some reason I was invited to visit. Two decades ago large screen TVs and satellite reception were rare even in North America, but he had both in a huge tent with a sand floor covered in layers of carpets. Giant hookahs with many hoses were scattered around, along with large pillows. The compound was surrounded by high fences, and there were lots of security personnel with lots of guns.

Tanzania doesn't allow hunting, but this fellow apparently bought himself an exemption. His airport and compound awaited his occasional weekend visits with friends.

The Maasai are semi-nomadic cattle herders who graze their herds over large areas. They don't believe in killing wild animals, or even their own cattle if at all possible. However, the Tanzanian government (apparently at the behest of this fellow) is claiming that the Maasai are killing wildlife, and that the wild animals need to be protected by ousting the Maasai and their cattle from large tracts of land. The restrictions that are being imposed right now are so large that Maasai cattle herds will have to be reduced by 75%.

There aren't a lot of people in Loliondo, and those that are there live on a narrow margin. These reductions mean depopulation, the end of a traditional way of life, and possibly starvation. For the wildlife they have stewarded so well, the future also does not look rosy: with no laws to stop them, the Arab hunters are already known to hunt from helicopters.

Here's an excellent brief video that shows the Maasai speaking on this issue: Voices of Loliondo.

Tanzania relies greatly on tourism, and so the government is sensitive to international public pressure. There's a petition that needs a lot of support: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_the_maasai.

More information:
History of OBC in Tanzania

Update: I just remembered how I got on to that compound. I met a Maasai man who was selling honey to the cook on the compound, and I tagged along - then got a tour.

What I would do with a 3-D printer

Every time I see a piece of furniture or plant or piece of art or food that I like, I would take a 3-D photo of it and then reproduce it in miniature with my 3-D printer. Then I would build a little house and arrange my little stuff in it. (If this caught on, it could become a replacement for acquisitiveness. Especially if we could melt the plastic back down.)

I would also like to use my 3-D printer to make consumer items instead of going to the store. Maybe also parts for my appliances and automobile and so on. For consumer items (for example plates and bowls), I would like to be able to customize the design.

This raises whole new sets of copyright/etc issues. Please, please, please let design be free. If I have a 3-D photo of my favorite Phillip Hoffman chair and I "print" it for my personal use, will I be breaking the law? What about a Calder mobile? A new roof for my Smartcar? A full-size bust of someone living? (I hate this Brave New World where I'm a criminal for possessing digital copies of things, even though I don't make money off of them. It's an affront to personal freedom and democracy.)

Not that I have a 3-D printer... yet. But the price has dropped to $1200 and they seem destined to be household appliances soon. It's pretty cool that we will all have replicators, but unfortunate that they are restricted to replicating plastic. (That reminds me of a bit from Charles Stross' Singularity Sky: an alien race called The Festival disrupts planetary civilizations by giving the people replicators that require no input, but The Festival is like a genie that never gives you quite what you want: one group gets a replicator that makes nothing but plastic cutlery, and the cutlery endlessly gushes out.) Of course one day 3-D printers may move beyond plastic... maybe soon.

Back in the bad old days we used to be restricted to whatever the local retailer wanted to sell us, be it books or music or clothing or whatever. Nowadays I have a far, far wider choice on the internet. But with 3-D printers the choices will expand again: if I want a little clip to attach my orchids to a stem, I will be able to search for exactly the one I want, and possibly also customize it. This seems like a Very Good Thing.

But as the need for local brick-and-mortar retailers diminishes, urban form will change and new business models will need to be developed. Is anyone ready for that?

• When there are less trucks delivering manufactured goods, we'll need less roads.
• My town continues to build endless strips of big box stores that all sell the same old sad junk. (If I could print whatever design of ceiling fan I wanted, why would I ever go to Home Depot to buy their tasteless crap?) What will we do with all the space we'll save?
• Will municipalities have to change the way they collect taxes? Plan downtowns?
• If I pay import duties on the Italian ceiling fan that I have delivered ready-made, will I pay import duties when I print the same fan?
  

I'm only ever-so-lightly scratching the surface of change to come.

Hail, Isolde

After Richard Wagner had been working on the Ring Cycle for about ten years, he took a break for two years to write Tristan und Isolde. With Tristan, he did something that seems unbeleivable: he took the plot of the last opera of his unfinished magnum opus (the libretto was finished, but it would take him 15 more years to complete the music) and he ripped it off.

What he repeated was the love story between Siegfried and Brunnhilde. In both operas, the man is a great hero, and the woman is equally heroic: Brunnhilde the goddess warrior queen, Isolde the Irish healer princess. Both women are proud and regal, with high status. Yet in both stories the hero gives the woman to another man, with the result that the woman is humiliated and brought to the brink of sexual subjugation. In both stories, a love potion deprives the hero of free will. In both stories, the hero is slain and the woman chooses to follow him in death.

In the Ring Cycle Wagner wrote a libretto that is the equal of the best of Shakespeare, and it is an enormous, complicated epic. Tristan und Isolde is the opposite: a splendid opera, but despite its length it is a very simple story. It has just two of themes, and they are hammered home with a heavy hand. Those themes are light/day (worldly ambition, falsity) and night (sex, death, the womb). The two extremes suggest (but don't quite admit to having) religious overtones.

In a libretto that is barely 10,000 words (in the English translation), there is a heavy repetition of the day/night themes. “Day” appears 63 times; for example, envious day, importunate daylight, spiteful day, the noonday sun of worldly fame, slave of day, day’s false glare, day’s deceiving light, spiteful day, the lies of daylight honour and fame, day’s empty fancies, lying day, phantoms of day, accursed day, night casts me back to day so that the sun can forever feast its sight upon my suffering.

Senator Assange

Julian Assange is running for Australian senator for the Wikileaks Party. Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK, but Australian law allows non-residents to run for office. Whether he can actually win in those circumstances is unknown. What interests me is the effect of a possible win.

In Sweden, Pirate Bay was knocked off the internet by legal attacks on the ISPs that hosted it. Pirate Bay is still on the air because the Swedish Pirate Party won two seats in the European Parliament. The Pirate Party registered an ISP and agreed to host Pirate Bay. As a political party with representatives, it was untouchable. Wikileaks also used the Pirate Party ISP to host its site.

As an elected Australian senator, the US might have a more difficult time persecuting, er, prosecuting Assange. Or would it?

As an official party with representation, would Wikileaks have more freedom? You would think it would have to.

In a system of proportional representation, it doesn't take a huge number of voters to change the game for the entire world. These are interesting times.

Too Many Goblins...

...Orcs, whatever. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. Otherwise, quite good.

Remembering the massacre

On December 6, 1989, I was on holiday in Arizona, spending a week by myself driving around the Navajo and Hopi reservations. I kept the car radio on a local Navajo station and I didn't understand much of it, but when I started to hear Montreal mentioned in newscasts I flipped to an English channel.

My first thought, given the general ignorance of Canada in the US, was that the news stories were mistaken. Back in 1989 there weren't a lot of these types of shootings, and there were certainly none in Canada. The idea of men being told to leave the room so the women could be lined up and shot, the idea of the shooter resenting educated women so much that he murdered female engineering students en masse, the idea that he could legally obtain the fire arm in Canada... it was all too much to comprehend. I didn't believe the story till I landed back in Toronto and saw the Canadian papers.

Women have come a long way since 1989: you could say that what Marc Lepine feared has come to pass. But let's not kid ourselves that women are equal yet. I don't want to make a long list so I'll mention just one small example of the real state of our world: Women's names don't appear in phone books. In most families, the man's name is listed but not the woman's. For single women, it's too dangerous to print more than an initial. We have a ways to go.

Leadership, leadership, leadership

I'm leaning towards Justin Trudeau for federal leader and Sandra Pupatello for Ontario provincial leader. But I don't claim to be engaged enough to make an informed decision this time. I argued for Bob Rae when he lost to Dion and then lost to Ignatieff and then lost to party politics. I think Dalton McGuinty was a great premier but all I ever hear in local media is that he sucks. Apparently my opinion doesn't go very far.

On the federal front, we keep putting someone up there, watch the Harper attack ads undermine their credibility, and then turf them out.

On the provincial front, it's hard to get excited about electing our version of Kim Campbell - someone who, according to reports, will fight an election that results in a drastic reduction in party support. The party's modus operandi is that whoever oversees a poor election will get turfed out (or forced to resign): what's the point of getting excited about that scenario?

If I thought our party would actually get behind a leader and help them succeed in the long term, I'd be more interested. As it is: meh.

The problem with Rob Ford's defence

Rob Ford says he didn't benefit from the conflict of interest that got him kicked out of office. He said last week, "I had nothing to gain and the city had nothing to lose". Later, a campaign ad was released on YouTube that pushed this message.

The problem is it's not true. Ford voted on a motion that would have made him reimburse $3,150 that he had improperly solicited. He had $3,150 to gain.

We in Waterloo know a lot about conflict of interest. Many councillors and mayors at the regional and municipal levels were unable to vote on the LRT because of possible conflicts of interest. Some, such as a councillor who sat out the vote because he works at the University of Waterloo, seem to have gone too far. Some, such as the regional chair whose kids own property on the route and who was active on the file until the final vote, seem to have not gone far enough. But an extraordinary amount of thought and scrutiny went into the decisions. Many councillors got advice from multiple lawyers before deciding. The local papers printed numerous articles on the topic.

You'd think that if a Waterloo city councillor making roughtly $25,000 a year could take conflict of interest seriously, the mayor of Toronto could.

A Keynesian Cliff

When we have a recession and there's a call for stimulus, a lot of people - especially on the right - dispute the effectiveness of Keynesian economics. People like Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were so ideologically committed to small government that as we entered recession in 2008 they tried to cut spending... resulting in a threatened coalition and subsequent prorogation, with crisis averted only when Harper gave in to opposition demands to enact a stimulus package.

Throughout this recent recession, many on the right argued that deficit-cutting must be the priority. They didn't care that the IMF and central bank governors were calling in the strongest terms for stimulus. They disputed claims that stimulus causes the economy to grow, which reduces the deficit. They just wanted to cut.

Now we're facing the so-called fiscal cliff (Paul Krugman prefers the term "austerity bomb"): taxes will rise and spending will be cut on January 1 unless Obama and Congress can come to an agreement to stop it. The fiscal cliff is pure Keynesian economics: raising taxes and cutting spending will slow down the economy. But when it comes to the fiscal cliff, Keynesianism is suddenly acceptable. The same Stephen Harper who wanted to cut spending in 2008 is out giving speeches about the dangers of the fiscal cliff.

Soldiers as personal servants, 28-vehicle motorcades to parties, and other glimpses into the military life

We go from day to day having a certain sense of what our world is like: that all people are created equal, that strong class distinctions don't apply anymore. And then sometimes the mirror cracks and another view appears.

There are the obvious stories of the super-wealthy, of course. The story that sums it up for me is something I once read about Bill Gates: when a member of the Gates family enters a room in their massive house, the household staff must lower their eyes to the floor or turn to the wall. Gates presents himself as a down-to-earth, humanitarian, nice guy sort, but his wealth has apparently corrupted him to the point that he puts himself in a higher caste.

Then there's the diplomatic world. Leaders of democratic governments use most diplomatic posts as perks for people who have helped them gain power. With the increase in the number of sovereign states over the last decades, the opportunity for patronage posts has skyrocketed. The lavish lifestyle enjoyed by many top diplomats should be an enormous scandal, but for some reason they get away with it.

To a lesser extent, aid workers fall into the same category. When I was working in East Africa I saw a lot of that. One couple from England told me that back home, they had never even been able to afford a washing machine, but in Africa they had a staff of eight attending to their every need.

The latest crack in the mirror came about courtesy of the David Petraeus sex scandal. A Washington Post article (Petraeus scandal puts four-star general lifestyle under scrutiny) describes some of the perks that top military brass get at their homes. Some highlights:

• Enlisted men serve as staff at their homes to do yard work, run errands, and do other menial tasks.
  
• The military provides the generals with a valet and personal chef.
  
• For private parties in their homes, the military will provide an orchestra or choir.
  
• For personal trips, they can summon motorcades. (In one trip across town to visit Jill Kelley, Patraeous had a 28-motorcycle escort.)
  
• For travel, they have jumbo jets with beds.
  
• ...And then there are the usual scandals of individual excess caused by budget cutbacks that removed expense oversight.
  

Is there a connection between this royal treatment and the scandal now enveloping Petraeus and other top military brass? Absolutely. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be well-compensated and have perks, and I can guess that some of the perks are required in a day when you wives have jobs too. But a line is clearly crossed here. Petraeus and General Allen (he of the 30,000 pages of flirtatious email to a Tampa socialite) seem to have morphed into jet-setting celebrities - when in reality they were military commanders in a time of war.

A little respect for downtown residents - please!

I needed to go to Toronto today, and had to cross King Street in Waterloo at the start of my trip. But there was a run of some sort going down King, and cars weren't allowed to cross. I tried two intersections before I found one that even had a possibility of crossing, but even then the cop directing traffic only let a car through when there were no runners nearby. It took forever.

Waterloo talks the big talk about getting people to move downtown and create density nodes and all that, but then there is no respect for downtown residents. Any sort of traffic obstruction is okay on Sundays because businesses are closed. But hello! We live here, and we need to get around on Sunday too.

What would happen if you put a marathon through a suburb, blocking people from getting out of their neighbourhoods in their cars? Or past the big box stores or in the mall parking lot? We'll never know because nobody would ever do it. But downtown seems fair game for any kind of disruption. It sucks.

Bullying, anti-bullying, and anti-anti-bullying

A couple of days ago a 15-year old Canadian girl committed suicide after a long bout of internet bullying that followed her even when she switched schools. Prior to hanging herself she drank bleach and cut herself. The RCMP are investigating online activity before the teen's death to see if any criminal charges should be laid. But the online activity after she died seems to have become even more vicious and frenzied.

The predominant online reaction to her death is sympathetic, of course, but there is also a huge presence of unsympathetic responses. Many people have even posted nasty jokes and jeers on the Facebook page that was created to honor her, "RIP Amanda Todd".

In addition to jokes and jeers in text form, dozens of people have taken the time to make homemade posters that put captions on pictures of her. Here is the text of some of these posters, preserving case and errors, that I've divided into categories.

Lance Armstrong, Doping, and Testicular Cancer

The reason we have to stand up against performance-enhancing drugs is not because it's cheating. It's not to protect the people who bet on sports. The idea of protecting gamblers over competitors is heinous; it's the Hunger Games.

The reason we have to stop performance-enhancing drugs is that if any athletes do it then they all have to do it (or they might as well stay home). It's not fair to athletes to force them to take drugs, shoot up their own blood, or do anything else that could harm their health.

In the old days we saw elite athletes on steroids die of heart attacks in their twenties. We don't know what harm the current drugs do. Could they have caused Lance Armstrong's testicular cancer? There's a chance they did.

I don't blame Lance Armstrong for cheating. As the US Anti-Doping Agency found, it was "not possible to compete at the highest level without them" during the time he was competing. Lance Armstrong is not the problem, the system is. If we react to each scandal by blaming the athlete, we won't stop the scourge that's endangering our young athletes.

The Pros and Cons of Iran Getting the Bomb

There seem to be a lot of people running around with their hair on fire, lamenting that Iran will get nuclear weapons and Israel will become a smoking hole. The history of nuclear weapons suggests otherwise. Nuking Israel would be suicide for Iran, as Israel (and the US) would retaliate in kind. There is no reason to think that Iran is suicidal. There is no cause for fear that it would behave differently from the other nuclear countries.

The main effect of an Iranian nuclear program would be that Israel would no longer be the sole nuclear power in the middle east. This could be a good thing. Creating a more balanced power structure could actually help Israel's relations with its neighbors.

I have some concerns, and I don't know how valid they are.

One: In the past, Iran has expressed some hegemonic tendencies. Its backing of Syria's suzerainty over Lebanon is a concern. However, Iran is primarily Shia Muslim, and the only other countries where Shia is the largest religious group are Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain. Shia is a minority in Syria but the government is Shia. Does this limit Iran's sphere of influence, or sphere of interest? Is there a real interest in this Shia, non-Arab country to take over Arab, Sunni states?

Two: Iran's close relationship with North Korea. However, does Iran really want to be involved with North Korea, or has it become so isolated and threatened that it's making the only ally it can?

Low Expectations are Justin's Friend

The Globe published a rather odd little article today: "Former MP Mulroney: Underestimate Justin Trudeau at Your Peril". Some of the online commenters interpreted Mulroney's statements as support for Trudeau.

As I was reading the article, I took exception to this sentence: "The 40-year-old politician is already a polarizing figure for the party, simultaneously inspiring a rockstar-like idolization and criticism that he lacks the political acumen required to take the party forward." My thought was: What bunk. I know a lot of people who admire Justin Trudeau, but I don't know anyone who idolizes him, and he's not that inexperienced...

Then it hit me.

Mulroney is bang on the money in doing the one thing to thwart Justin.

If people see Justin Trudeau as a pretty boy / charmer / son of a famous man / dilettante, then expectations for his performance will be lowered, which is exactly what he needs to get a good footing as party leader.

With Dion and Ignatieff, our expectations were so high that nobody could meet them. We wanted Instant Success - we wanted them to win in their first election - we suffered agonies when they made missteps. If the Liberal party is going to climb back up, we have to break that habit; give our leader time to grow.

During the 2000 US presidential election campaign, George Bush performed very badly, but he got away with it because he exceeded the very low expectations people had of him. During his debates with Al Gore, the commentators would say that while Gore did much better than Bush, Bush did better than expected - and they'd call the outcome a tie.

Low expectations are a powerful tool. Let's not be quick to dismiss them.

Iran, Embassies, Omar Khadr

Prime Minister Harper took a ridiculous and counter-productive hard line against Iran a couple of weeks ago. Breaking diplomatic ties with Iran was a move that left politicos around the world scratching their heads and wondering what the heck happened. Was there a threat to Canada's Tehran embassy? Had Iran done something that nobody else knew about? Apparently none of the above - there was no reason for Canada to suddenly treat Iran as Enemy Number One.

Today we discover that Harper has finally bowed to pressure and let Omar Khadr return to Canada. Harper's backers are very unhappy about Khadr's return: just look in the Comments section of today's Globe article about it. There are strong feelings that Khadr should have his citizenship revoked (despite his having been born in Canada), that he should be tried for treason (despite already having spent his entire adult life in prison for something he did at 15), that he should be executed (despite Canada not having the death penalty).

It seems likely that Harper, knowing he would be unable to keep Khadr out any longer, used Iran as a bone to throw to his base. The politicization of every policy is the hallmark of the Harper regime.

The Information Age

A factoid I recently stumbled across... The price of a passport for a child under 3 years is $22. For $24, you can get a passport with 48 pages (double the usual amount). That's what we used to call a "businessman's passport".

I want to know how many toddlers have 48-page passports. I was unable to find out through Google or True Knowledge. Back in the day I'd call up the Globe & Mail fact-checking department or ask a reference librarian. There also used to be giant books of facts like the Canadian Almanac and the New York Times Desk Reference.

I had a similar problem a few months ago when I was trying to discover the closest hippopotomus to my house.

In some ways we have less access to information than we used to.

Mark Carney for Liberal Leader

Okay so it's all rumors and his office is denying it, but the idea is so wonderful that I have to try to spread it further.

A leadership race between Trudeau and Carney would be... boffo. Carney on our side would be... world-changing.

[Not] Solving Traffic Problems in Uptown Waterloo

I attended the Uptown Traffic summit last week. It was a success - over 120 people, lots of careful consideration of the problems that were posed.

In the promo for the summit, Ward 1 Councillor Melissa Durrell said, "When I was going door to door campaigning during the election, traffic was the Number One concern." Kudos to Melissa for holding the summit.

But. Big but.

The summit started with city and regional employees giving some presentations about the context. They described the Waterloo city Official Plan, city and regional Master Transportation Plans, the Complete Streets initiative (that's what is causing all our "roads on diets"), and the provincial Places to Grow plan that legislates intensification in Uptown Waterloo (among other areas). Everything they said emphasized that cars are not the priority; bikes and public transit are the priority.

Then we got into the summit, which consisted of four questions:

1. How might we support Waterloo's desire to become a bike, pedestrian and public transit-friendly city while recognizing the significance of the car?
   
2. How might we handle the increase in traffic while maintaining a neighborhood feel?
   
3. How might we reduce the number of parking spots available while maintaining a strong, vibrant economy?
   
4. How might we create safe streets while still enabling access for traffic?

Good questions all. But nowhere in there is a question that addresses what all those voters were talking about on the doorstep. Nowhere was there a question that would lead to solutions for how hard it is to turn left off of Alexandra onto Caroline in the morning; or the backup of cars on Bridgeport heading towards the Erb intersection in the evening; or the huge amount of traffic cutting through the Uptown on Erb, heading from the west side subdivisions to the expressway because there is no west side expressway.

There were no questions about how we're going to cope with the new traffic generated by the thousands of new residents who will move into the condos that are currently being built, many in a small area around King and Allen.

There were no questions about how we will cope with the huge impact LRT will have on Uptown traffic. John Shortreed estimates that the LRT will cause King Street to lose 60% of its capacity. He estimates that Weber can only take part of the load. Where will the other cars go? (Sidestreets.) I don't know if John has estimated the loss of capacity caused by the LRT on Caroline, but I do know that rush hour traffic is already heavy heading north on Park, jogging along William and continuing down Caroline. The Bridgeport-Caroline intersection is already very busy at rush hour, and the LRT will make it a total mess.

It seems that there is no awareness of the real traffic issues in Uptown, and no desire to fix them. What really slays me is that all these politicians and city employees who are fixated on "walking, biking and rollerblading" and who hate providing infrastructure for cars - they all have cars.

I am not an enormous proponent of the car. I never had a car when I lived in Toronto, and didn't buy a car till I was 40 (and even then, only because it was required for work). I wish Waterloo was designed in such a way that one could live conveniently without the hassle of owning a car. But it ain't. And I want my government to be based on reality, not ideology. This isn't a trivial issue. The health of the every aspect of the Uptown depends on getting this right.

Robosurveycalls

My first career was as a market research analyst, and ever since then I've been a market research hobbyist. As part of that I always volunteer to do surveys - I like to keep up with how questions are asked, critique technique, and so on.

But in recent years it has come out that the Harper Conservatives use surveys as a political device to keep tabs on voters. They maintain a huge, sophisticated database that we're all in, and that tracks not just our political affiliations but also our spending habits, activities, beliefs... who knows what. There is increasing evidence that they used this database to devise a program of voter suppression in the last election, as well as a program of dirty tricks, calling voters and pretending to be Liberals while doing things to piss the voter off, like calling late at night or sending a rude message.

It's got so that I often don't answer surveys. Surveys are supposed to be anonymous, aggregating data but protecting the privacy of each respondent, and it's clear that a lot of them aren't doing that.

Now for the latest in dirty surveys. In the lead-up to the KW by-election tomorrow, I have been getting a ton of robo-survey-calls. They start with a voice saying they want to ask some questions about the by-election. The first question asks who I would vote for if the election were held today. I answer Eric Davis, the Liberal candidate. The second question asks me if I know that Dalton McGuinty is destroying the province. Then it abruptly hangs up and I get a bleeping busy signal.

The Trouble with Buskers

Before I start in with the griping, I need to say that I love the Uptown Busker Festival. I like the pulled pork barbecue and the cheesey kiddie rides. I love the two guys dressed as mounties wearing puppet horses marching around looking serious. I love the whole carnivally feel of the thing. But I have a beef with the buskers.

It seems to me that when this event started in Waterloo a number of years ago, the buskers did full performances. But now they all seem to have about one minute worth of material to fill up 20 minutes of routine. I get that they want to do some patter to attract a big crowd, but it needs to be better patter. Or more tricks. Or a better split between filler and performance. Pulleeze.

(As Carrie Fisher said, "Instant gratification? Instant gratification takes too long!")

###

Teaching Hate

Julian Assange is now on American terrorist trading cards in a kid's coloring book:

The sales blurb:

We Shall Never Forget 9/11 - Vol. II: The True Faces of Evil - Terror Graphic Coloring Novel - Terrorist Trading Cards

Price: $6.99
Item Number: SCB-WSNF2
Manufacturer: Really Big Coloring Books, Inc.

We Shall Never Forget 9/11 - Vol. II
The True Faces of Evil - Terror A Graphic Coloring Novel
Including Terrorist Trading Cards!
Truthful - Factual - Honorable - Indifferent to Political Correctness

The We Shall Never Forget 9/11 Vol. II The True Faces of Evil - Terror, rated PG-13, is about the real world. It is about being human: Good vs. Evil. There is no fantasy in this book. Designed as a consumer friendly, family publication for use with children and adults, this excellent graphic coloring novel helps expand understanding of the factual details and meanings in the War on Terror.

Inside this edition are several pages of perforated, removable card-stock terrorist trading cards. Inspired by real people, real life and reflecting the truth, Vol. II presents terrorism in direct open simplistic terms: what it is, what it looks like and what it means. In this book you will find names, dates, numbers and locations exposing the men, women and governments behind terror as we begin to hold them accountable. Details include a letter from within the Department of Homeland Security signed by five current Congressional Leaders a service organization page directed to the public and family friendly action notes, and The Congressional H.R. 847, the 9/11 Health & Compensation Act. Also in the book is a recap of the original 9/11 Coloring Novel published in August 2011.

Composed with a clear message the graphic coloring book novel calls out for open and honest discussion. We educate children about something besides the "TMZ Society" which bombards them with "important" news. Truthful and honest education about serious subjects for youth is an essential part of learning and considered a critical step in beginning to comprehend the world in which we live.

In describing the inherent bad nature of a terrorist we have included their horrific crimes. This is Good vs. Evil. We Shall Never Forget 9/11 Vol. II Terrorist Trading Cards clearly identifies the evil that may sit next to you on an airplane, or it could be an avowed Atheist in the parking lot of your local grocer on a sunny morning.The world should look at them, make fun of them, name them - shame them, recognize who they are and rid the earth of them. No comic book published, nor any nightmarish fiction written, can compare to the absolute evil pictured in this book. And realize as well "They" are not finished. Imagine a terrorist with a nuclear bomb.

Source: www.coloringbook.com/NeverForget9/11TerroristTradingCards

****
Meanwhile, here's a really interesting article on Assange in the Guardian: The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange

###

RIM Layoffs in Waterloo? Deafening Silence

If you go to Google News and type RIM layoffs and sort by date, you'll see a whole bunch of articles about the recent layoffs in Halifax: exact number (95), how it was done (employees were called to a meeting and told by video conference), how employees feel about how it was done (some are angry), and more.

Last week many hundreds of employees were laid off in Waterloo, a smaller town where layoffs have a larger impact, yet there is not one iota of news about it. Zilch. Zippo. I have heard through the grapevine that whole teams were let go. I have heard that some teams were replaced with low-priced contractors. I have heard that the cuts went very, very deep, but I have no idea of overall numbers.

Waterloo is a town of 100,000 where RIM recently employed over 10,000 people. Layoffs affect commercial real estate, residential real estate, the tax base, the health of most local businesses, the economic optimism of the community, and more. In an earlier post (RIM and Waterloo), I quoted someone as saying that every job at RIM creates seven other local jobs. As a city, we need to know numbers. As a community, we need to know what's happening to our neighbours and acquaintances.

RIM is notoriously careful about publicity. There have been persuasive arguments that, for its own good, RIM should be more transparent in this process (Lessons learned from layoffs in Yahoo Finance).

However, RIM seems to be more opaque than ever about the Waterloo layoffs. There is nary a mention of Waterloo layoffs on forums.crackberry.com or bgr.com/tag/blackberry. I talked to some local media who said they are trying to find out what happened but are still in the dark.

If RIM won't step up, then maybe people who know what's going on should consider speaking up. They could call or email The Record, The Chronicle, CTV or 570 News Radio.

###

The Bizarre, Surreal Persecution of Julian Assange

Earlier today, Britain said it might revoke Ecuador's diplomatic status and stage an assault on the embassy to get Julian Assange out. (link)

This is over an extradition request by Sweden on a charge that even if true would not be a crime in Britain... and there is much evidence that it is not true.

How far will Britain and Sweden go to help the US get their hands on Assange? So far:

• A dozen US financial institutions, including MasterCard and Visa, blocked transfers of money to WikiLeaks.
  
• Sweden is pursuing obviously false trumped up rape charges with a vigor that is never seen even for real, serious rape charges.
  
• Sweden refused to interview Assange about the charges over video phone or in the UK, and insisted he return to Swedish soil.
  
• Interpol issued an arrest warrant - unheard of for someone wanted for questioning in a case like this.
  
• Sweden demanded extradition, and spent over a year in court
  
• Britain puts Assange under house arrest for over a year, and eventually decides to extradite him.
  
• When Assange takes refuge in an embassy, Britain threatens to revoke Ecuador's diplomatic status and storm the embassy!
  
• Britain has 50 police outside the Ecuadorian embassy, making sure Assange doesn't escape.

All because Assange embarrassed the US. This is the most outrageous anti-democratic event of the century. We the people need to stand up for Julian Assange. The US has made a massive effort to discredit him, but his work stands for itself, and the world will be a poorer place if he is stopped from persuing his work of exposing the secrets of big corrupt organizations. Even I have to wonder: What will the US do to me for writing this? Where is free speech now? ###

Dylan, Asshole

In January 1974 I saw Bob Dylan perform at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. It was Dylan's first tour in eight years - the first since I was eight - and Dylan was an uber-icon. I was a pro at scoring good seats, but even though there were two shows the best I could do was on the side and high up.

The concert started late and the crowd was restless, by which I mean drunk, stoned, loud and obnoxious. Finally The Band came on and did a couple of songs. Then this guy came out with a big hat pulled down over his face and started singing Lay Lady Lay. I leaned over to my friend sitting next to me and asked, "Who the hell is that?" The guy behind us leaned in and shouted at me, "It's Dylan, asshole!"

I was expressing incredulity more than asking a question. Dylan wasn't singing the same melody he had sung on New Morning, and he was screaching out the lyrics instead of the rounded tones of his recorded versions. Dylan's singing has never have been particularly musical, but his performance that night was six steps worse. He was unrecognizable.

In the previous couple of years I had been to a lot of concerts. Stadium concerts were a pretty tight show back then and I had never been disappointed by one.

This Dylan concert was something else. Only part of it was that Dylan sucked: he sang badly, stripped all the melodies from his songs, never looked up, never said a word to the crowd - and he was on stage only intermittently. The format of the concert didn't work: The Band was too different and too distinct to interspere their music with Dylan's. Also, there was a really bad vibe in Maple Leaf Gardens that night. A few drunken louts kept screaming during the songs.

After it was over and we were walking out my friend realized he'd left his mittens at his seat, so we went back into the now brightly lit, empty hall. All around our seats there was vomit and smashed liquor bottles, drug paraphenalia, fast food wrappers, cigarette butts. It hit me like a fist to the gut that this wasn't about music or even entertainment; this was just a place for druggies to hang out. The sixties ended in lots of different ways, but that's how they ended for me.

Just a couple of months before that January concert, folk singer Phil Ochs, depressed by a flatlining career and taking self-destructive risks, got mugged and strangled in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I didn't know at that point if he'd even survived the attack, and rumors were circulating that he'd permanently lost his voice (which turned out to be true).

While Dylan was too smug, Ochs was too needy. Ochs was too upfront about wanting more success; it was uncool. Other than that one characteristic, I think he could have had all the success he craved. On the other hand, Dylan's success always had a lot to do with his creation of himself as an icon - his lies about his childhood and early career, his manipulation of people.

I saw Dylan again in 1979, during his born-again Christian phase when his fan base fled, and finally saw a great Dylan show. It was at The Aud in Kitchener, with a tenth the number of seats of Maple Leaf Gardens. I wouldn't have even gone but a friend talked me into it, and boy was I glad.

Bruce Springsteen once said that the first time he heard Like a Rolling Stone it was like someone kicked open the door to his mind. Dylan's music was like that for me too.

I got to thinking about all this when I recently rewatched D.A. Pennebaker's documentary Don't Look Back, which provides a snapshot of a few days Dylan spent in London during a 1965 tour. Dylan seems impossibly young in the film, nasty and bombastic, and also isolated and lonely. The film is popular with Dylan fans, and I have never heard anyone say that Pennebaker meant to be critical of Dylan: I have to think that the maker and the fans of the movie held Dylan in such high regard that they didn't see anything unattractive in the scenes where he yells at people, makes snide comments about a fellow folk singer, and even - right at the end - calmly picks his nose.

###

* * * New Blog * * *

I'm not giving up on Yappa Ding Ding (which I have been writing for going on seven years) but I have started a work blog, Focus on Readers. It's a work in progress and as with many of my ventures, I have no idea where it will lead...

###

Priorities

In the US, the FBI monitors orders of grow lights over the internet so they can arrest poor schmucks who have a couple of pot plants in their dorm room, but they don't pay any attention to a guy whose profile screams "Unibomber" who orders a veritable arsenal of weapons and ammunition.

More than you want to know about.... mustard. Part 2

So here we have Canada with its waving fields of yellow, just screaming out for a homegrown condiment industry. "What kind of mustard do you want?" waitresses should ask all over the world, and patrons should reply, "Canadian!"

But we don't want to stick our brand on a tired old product. Not American mustard (turmeric) or Dijon (wine vinegar) or German (whole seed) or British (pure heat). We need something new. I myself feel it would be cliche to flavor our mustard with maple syrup, not to mention disgusting. I don't like sweet mustard much, so for me Saskatoon Berries and so on are out. You might be thinking Rye, but American bourbon has already cornered that idea.

So here's a proposition: smoked mustard. Has anyone done this? Sounds yummy. We can call it smustard. Or to be extra fancy, smoutarde. I offer my idea freely to anyone who will produce Smoutarde in Canada. Go for it!

(Oops. Seems that Alaska has a brand of smoked mustard called Moosetard, but I consider it an inconsequential novelty brand, unlike the serious culinary product Smoutarde.)

Quite unexpectedly

I was reading about Syria today, how it's teetering at the abyss of becoming a failed state - failed like Somalia, a place with no government, a chaos of pirates and warlords - but a failed state with massive caches of chemical weapons that will almost certainly fall into the hands of terrorists and could end up killing untold numbers of people. It's WMD again but for real this time. It's almost too much to comprehend. What keeps going through my head is The End of the World by Archibald MacLeish, which describes a circus performance and ends,

Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

More than you want to know about... mustard

Canada is the world's largest producer of mustard seed, and grows about one-third of total world production. The only other major producer is Nepal (who knew!), but Nepal's production seems to be used mostly for mustard oil, dried seeds and greens.

Canada does not produce mustard-the-condiment*. The US has at least ten manufacturers of mustard-the-condiment. US mustard seed production is a tenth of Canada's, so not much of the seed is coming from there. The packaging doesn't seem to ever source the origin of the seeds, but I wrote Zatarain's (I'm a fan of their Creole mustard brand) and they said the mustard is produced in the US with seeds from Canada.

Most Dijon mustard is made in France, and 90% of Dijon mustard is made from Canadian seeds. Canada is a big importer of French mustard made with Canadian seeds.

I will not write a conclusion to this sad little litany of mustard data.

---
*Apologies to Kozlik's!

What for do ya carry the hose?

Eric Davis FTW

The upcoming (as yet undated) by-election in Kitchener-Waterloo could change our minority provincial government into a Liberal majority. As a Liberal and an ardent supporter of Premier McGuinty, I think that would be a pretty great thing.

I will continue to monitor all the candidates, but at this point I am so impressed with Eric Davis that I want to give him my endorsement.

I got a personal call from Eric Davis. I have never met him but we had a great chat: this is a candidate who knows how to speak substantively to voters.

I also got a persusasive email from him with the subject line "Why I'm Running." What he wrote resonates very strongly with me. Here's an excerpt:

"I knew I was a Liberal because I do not believe that the answers to today's problems lie at either end of the political spectrum; that you need to be able look at issues from a variety of different perspectives to find the appropriate solutions. I also believe that compassion, balance and compromise are important in politics. I see all those values reflected in the Liberal Party."

Eric Davis has been an active member of the Liberal party for 16 years, including serving as President of the KW Young Liberals, President of the KW Provincial Liberal Association, an Executive member of the KW Federal Liberal Association, and a volunteer on countless Liberal campaigns, including Election Day Chair for Andrew Telegdi.

Then of course he ran against Elizabeth Witmer in the last provincial election. Witmer was such a powerhouse that noone thought he could make a dent in her support, but he did - garnering 2,000 more votes than our candidate got in the previous election.

Eric Davis could win this thing. He's smart, committed, has the right vision, and is an incredibly effective politician. He would be a wonderful representative for our community. Here's his web site: ericdavis.ca. It has a link for people who want to join the provincial Liberal party so they can vote at the nomination meeting.

###

Make room for aaaAAAaaa...

There's no way this could be as drawn out as the Hail to the Chief episode, and it could never get as annoying as the Pennsylvania Polka episode, and in fact some would say that having O Fortuna from Carmina Burana stuck in your head is not the worst thing in the world, but for two things: (1) it has been stuck for two weeks now; and (2) the lyrics that I'm singing in my head are from a "lyrics misheard" video and they go like this:

Gopher tuna!
Bring more tuna!
Statue of big dog with fleas

Some men like cheese
Green chalk can taste like hippies

You caught two rocks?
Pet two cool rats.
You don't like cheese or chicken.
Play chess all day
Hold his sock tip
She sold me good, hot chicken.

Saucy hot peas
Get me cod, please
Rock talks to boy who believes
Suck juice from moose
Fun, handsome goose
Cement pizza? Noobie please!

Open bra top
Got him locked up
Leaky aquariatares

Look there! Fruitloop!
Don't sue YouTube
They wrote teh dictionary

Salsa cookies!
Windmill cookies!
They gave you gonorrhea

This octopus
Let's give him boots
Send him to North Korea

Ow, paper cut
Sandpaper, ahh
Potato soup and chicken
Go taste the dip!
Made with Cool Whip!

Make room for aaaAAAaaa
Piece of lovely cake

References:
Beware Oktoberfest
Music Fails: Opera lyrics misheard

###

Rant: Mount Everest

I recently read Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and then spent a couple of days on the internet looking up information about Mount Everest and the people who attempt to reach its summit. To my mind, the most important aspect of the Mount Everest tourism industry, and the thing that is virtually never discussed, is the barbarity of the people involved in it.

I had heard about the mountains of garbage left by the "climbers" (they're not really climbers; Krakauer says few of them have any climbing experience at all, and you can read accounts of people reaching the summit who are blind, legless, elderly, or have severe rheumatoid arthritis - better to call them tourists). Apparently someone started a fund to pay Sherpas to haul down discarded oxygen tanks and other junk, so that's supposedly getting better, although recent photos still show lots of garbage.

I had heard about nearby valleys being clear-cut for firewood for the base camp. That's bad enough.

What I didn't know is that the hiking route on Everest is littered with dead human bodies. The tourists sometimes have to step over bodies on the trail. There have been dead bodies lying near the tents where they camp - lying there for years. The tourists give the bodies jovial nicknames; apparently one there right now is dubbed Green Boots. While watching videos about Everest I saw tourists pass several dead bodies, and nobody even winced.

It's not just the tourists who die. The Sherpas, who are paid a pittance compared to the western tour guides, also are regularly killed or injured. So many of their deaths, like those of the tourists, seem to be wholly preventable. People get outraged at sweatshops but the plight of Sherpas seems to me to be much more serious.

The tourists who walk up the slope don't just tolerate the bodies; in some cases they contribute to the headcount with their single-minded drive to get their money's worth and reach the summit.

At the time of Krakauer's book there was very little done to rescue people. A guide or Sherpa would refuse to help someone if they were a client of a rival tour company. In Into Thin Air, two living people were left outside, unprotected, overnight in -40 weather only 200 feet from camp - on the flat - because they couldn't walk. Basic alpine rescue equipment, like a toboggan to drag the injured, was not available.

The tourists often don't help other tourists, and even refuse to turn back to allow others to rescue someone. In just about every description of someone dying, other tourists walk past and don't help. They manage to find the time to take photos though. In this picture, note the ropes. The tourists hang on to the ropes as they walk up the mountain, so these bodies are right there.

Compare this behavior to boating, another sport that is both dangerous and held in an isolated location. It's a rule of the high seas that you can't abandon a sailor in distress. If you're in a regatta and another boat gets in trouble you are obligated to stop and help, even if it costs you the race. You'll be disqualified if you don't, and probably charged with a criminal offence.

Another issue is whether the tour companies provide adequate supplies. Oxygen could be brought up in advance and cached, but despite charging as much as $110,000 a head for the bragging rights of "climbing" Everest, the tour companies seem to operate on a shoestring. At times 300 tourists are jammed together on the trail, and tourists complain that they can't pass the slow people so everyone is slowed down and everyone's oxygen runs out. Wouldn't that indicate, at the least, that they have insufficient oxygen? This happens all the time, and just happened again in spring 2012 when a bunch of people died (link).

There seem to be lax standards, little coordination, no regulations, and precious little human decency about the Everest tourism industry.

The inhumane treatment of the injured and dead can only be happening because there's no enforcement of civilized rules of conduct. There are no police at 26,000 feet. Nepal is dirt poor and the Everest racket brings the country over $10,000 a head, so presumably there's not much incentive in Kathmandu to find a solution.

You would think that the countries that register the tourist companies (the US, New Zealand, Switzerland, etc) would create and enforce some regulations. Or that responsible tourist companies would form an organization.

I know there is at least one responsible tourist company because at the beginning of this spring's climbing season, one company decided that the conditions were too unsafe, and cancelled all its climbs. The rest carried on, and as a result several people died. But for next year, that event sets up the same sort of tragic scenario that Krakauer documents for the 1996 season: the most responsible tourist leader had turned people back the year before, and so in '96 was under heavy pressure to get everyone to the top. As a direct consequence, he and some of his crew and clients died.

Meanwhile, tragedies (like the one in 1996 that Krakauer writes about so critically) only serve to make Everest tourism more popular. Everest is the Brangelina of mountains: no publicity is bad publicity.

The bottom line appears to be this: the tourists are so determined to reach the summit that they will not pause to save a human life, and the tour companies are so greedy for cash that they do not provide the supplies that could save lives. The entire industry is beyond barbaric. The idea that these tourists are presented as courageous heroes is mind boggling.

###

RIM and Waterloo

I don't have any argument today, just a report of some things I've read. I have been trying to find information on Waterloo's vulnerability to the problems at RIM.

The Economic Times of India (link) says that nearly one third of the city of Waterloo's office/plant space is owned or leased by RIM. That seems like a lot, but the Waterloo Record supports the figure; it says that RIM occupies 2M SF of office/plant space (mostly in the city of Waterloo) in a total market across Waterloo Region of 12-13M SF.

The Record also says that the local layoff announcements will hit about 3,000 locally. Since our local RIM employee base pre-layoff was about 9,000, that would suggest that around 10% of our office space will become vacant due to this initial contraction of RIM.

The Economic Times also says of Waterloo, "The company has nourished virtually every family here; for, each job at RIM has created seven jobs." I haven't seen this anywhere else; I suppose it could be a general statistic? That figure suggests that the ripple effect of 3,000 layoffs could affect 20,000 other jobs. However, again according to The Record, there are currently 1,300 vacancies at local high-tech companies, which suggests an unemployed pool of more like 1,700, which times 7 is more like 12,000. Our area has some big hitters (Open Text, Sybase, Google, Desire2Learn, etc) as well as about 500 high-tech startups - and great infrastructure for promoting startups. No doubt, some talented RIM employees will not just find other jobs but will also start companies, reducing the ripple effect even further. So the total impact on area employment is unknown.

If anyone has any other info or thoughts, please leave a comment or send me an email.

Meanwhile, a video spoof has Steve Jobs doing a drive-by shooting of a BlackBerry in Uptown Waterloo (link).

Update:
RIM dominates the Waterloo real estate market
Life after RIM: Waterloo Region real estate and RIM
KW Real Estate discussion on Canadian Money Forum

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Waterloo's Reputation Takes a Beating

Waterloo could use a boost from a good PR firm. RIM is being discussed in major media outlets around the world, and nobody seems to have anything good to say about our town.

Last week, on a day that topped 35 Celsius, one analyst site posted a photo of Waterloo in the winter, with a miserable-looking man walking in front of a RIM sign in driving snow (link).

Among the many arguments for Why RIM Failed, a prevalent one is that it is based in a podunk town with no technical talent. You read comments like: the marketing staff are all high school dropouts from rural towns around Waterloo; RIM management failed because nobody with talent would live in Waterloo; RIM would have survived if it had relocated to Kanata or Silicon Valley.

Some commenters on online Globe & Mail articles seem to think that Waterloo got an unfair advantage in having RIM here, as if the government had somehow chosen Waterloo as the recipient of the high tech company. One commenter was angry that RIM wasn't relocated to BC; another that it wasn't in Ottawa.

Nobody seems to remember the University of Waterloo or Communitech or the flourishing high tech sector in Waterloo Region other than RIM. Some even disparage the record of UW, list better schools (one commenter mentions UMass Amherst, UMich Ann Arbor and Indiana Bloomington as all being superior).

But the main thread I'm seeing is that Waterloo is not a good place to live: it's "in the middle of nowhere" and unattractive. Quite a turnaround from just a few years ago when RIM was riding high and we were "the world's most intelligent community." This is my home town so I'm biased, but I don't want to see our reputation permanently tarnished.

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Henry V (review)

A pivotal moment in Shakespeare's Henry V is when Henry tells his army to kill their prisoners.

Shakespeare has taken Henry through a long epic of personal change. In Henry IV Part I, Prince Hal is a dissipate, fun-loving, rich man's son, feeling guilty about the bad deeds his father performed to get the crown. Over the three plays Hal changes a lot. As he assumes the responsibility of becoming king his transformation is so great that he initiates a war to obtain French land. But the chillingest thing he does is during the battle of Agincourt when Henry decides to kill the French prisoners - a gross violation of any rules of war or morality.

Many productions of Henry V leave out the killing of the prisoners. Branagh and Olivier both left it out, and you have to assume that they didn't want their regal portrayals of Henry to be tarnished by such brutality. It's a pity. It changes everything to leave it out.

Des McAnuff's current Stratford production of Henry V leaves in the killing of the prisoners but makes no sense of it. The production is enjoyable fluff, but it makes little sense of anything. The biggest problem is the casting of Aaron Krohn as Henry; Krohn may be a decent actor, but he's more a matinee idol than a Shakespearian: he doesn't have the Gravitas or the technique for Henry.

The second biggest problem is what McAnuff has told Krohn to do. It's like Krohn is just creating scenes without any context. After Henry's ruthlessness, McAnuff has Henry become a lighthearted lover who inexplicably falls in love with the French princess - there's no hint that the alliance solidifies his hold on France - that Henry's transformation is now so complete that even love is for him nothing but politics.

Henry V is full of stirring moments and great lines, but this production lets them all slip away. Henry's stirring pep talk to his troops becomes a conversation with a few of his generals. "Once more into the breach... the game's afoot!" is lost in monotone. Henry has no character and the play ultimately has no meaning.

Stratford doesn't fail the way it used to. Even in this remarkably vapid production, there is much that is good and the play overall is enjoyable, with great staging, music, sets - and a huge talented cast.

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Mechanics of Dysfunction

When I read about towns in the US that are incorporating and privatizing (such as in the New York Times this week), my first reaction is horror at this latest outbreak of libertarianism. Communities take this route in order to shirk their responsibilities to poor people who live outside the new town limits, and they outsource local jobs to huge multinational corporations.

The problem with the ideological-emotional reaction is that it demonizes without understanding motivations, and so isn't at all pragmatic. When I look into the matter further I continue to deplore it, but start to understand it.

Parts of the US have such horrendous disparity of wealth that you find small enclaves of the middle class surrounded by a sea of poverty. It's not just that the rich don't want to pay for the poor: it's that the rich want decent services (such as good policing and roads) and they're having trouble achieving that when the county government is struggling to provide even subpar services to large poor communities. Separating might seem like the only way to attain decent services.

I don't understand racial politics in the US, but places that have incorporated are called "white flight" towns, so part of the problem seems to be racist - especially in the southern states, where poverty falls disproportionately to non-white communities.

Once incorporated, many of these towns outsource almost all of their civic services. Some are left with only one public employee. Many outsource everything except for the police and fire departments (because of insurance prices). The reason for outsourcing is the cost of unionized employees. We might call this union-busting, but think of it from the perspective of the communities that are privatizing. The New York Times quotes John Donahue of Harvard as saying, "A lot of jobs in government are middle-class jobs that in the private sector are not middle-class jobs. People aren't willing to support conditions for public workers that they themselves no longer enjoy" ...like pensions and excellent health coverage.

While incorporation and privatization have been around for a while, they have picked up since the 2008 financial collapse because communities are going through crisis. When faced with imminent bankruptcy during a recession, there aren't a lot of options. Raising property taxes is a problem when people are already losing their homes in record numbers; in some cases it just isn't feasible because it could exacerbate the downward spiral and result in even lower tax revenue. Much of the cost structure is fixed because of union agreements. Reducing financial obligations to the rest of the county is egregious, but it saves towns millions that they might not be able to save otherwise.

Historically, Democrats prevent incorporation from happening, but in the current economic downturn Republicans are surging, and it only takes one term of Republican majority in state legislatures to allow a slew of incorporations.

The tragedy is even greater that the solution to the dysfunction is increasing the dysfunction. Incorporation and privatization are removing local jobs, increasing local poverty, and hurting social services and schools that could help pull the poor out of poverty. When one town in a county chooses white flight, it puts financial pressure on other towns and makes it more likely that they'll go too. Income inequality and racial tension continue to increase.

It's all just going to shit. That will continue until the US effectively addresses poverty. It might help to change the terminology; instead of calling it the war on poverty, call it the war on lack of opportunity, or the war on hopelessness.

The other issue is how to transform into the post-union world we're becoming. Unions served a useful purpose a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, maybe even twenty years ago; but now their time is done. We need a better transition than moving from unionized income for life to outsourced minimum wage jobs. (And in the US, even the low minimum wage is under attack from business lobbyists.) We need stronger employment laws and better retirement savings options for everyone.

See also:
Did Philip K Dick Dream of Palm Jumeirah?

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Some scattered thoughts about Alan Turing

It is Alan Turing’s 100th birthday today, June 23. Earlier this week I went to a documentary about Turing at Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing and then did some reading. Here are a few things I found interesting...

Early computers were referred to by many names, including radio brains, universal Turing machines, and automatic computing engines. Turing didn’t just envision the computer; he worked on teams that built some. The public archives at alanturing.net preserve fascinating letters and memos from that work.

Turing apparently committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple. Turing’s friend Alan Garner (one of my favorite authors) wrote recently that Turing had “a fascination with Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, especially the transformation of the Wicked Queen into the Witch. He used to go over the scene in detail, dwelling on the ambiguity of the apple, red on one side, green on the other, one of which gave death.” (link)

After being convicted of gross indecency for being gay, Turing worried that his work would be discredited. He wrote facetiously, “Turing believes machines think, Turing lies with men, Therefore machines do not think.” But that argument may also be taken to be causal, as the turmoil of his last years meant that he never published his neural net sketches of intelligent machinery or his ideas for how to program.

I don't find his famous question, Can machines think?, at all interesting. It seems ridiculous: if the Turing Test determines whether machines think, and machines fail the test until something is added to them that makes it possible for them to pass the test, then it follows that machines thought after they passed the test but did not think before they passed the test - even though they did substantially the same thing. Obviously I'm wrong: the Turing Test kicked off the study of artificial intelligence and was enormously significant. Turing's thinking about the similarities of machines and human brains seems also to be based in his understanding that human thinking, including intuition and originality, are computable processes that can be replicated by machines. And of course it's increasingly possible; we could program computers to have emotional responses, lizard brain responses, a collective unconscious, and fallibility (along with things like heuristics and fuzzy logic).

So much of the writing about Turing dwells on the salacious and pathetic. It's his birthday and it seems a day to celebrate the man's accomplishments rather than swap gossip about him.

Liberal Leaders: Guaranteed Support?

Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure. We Liberals have blown through four leaders in recent years (I count Bob Rae among the four because he has been much more than a caretaker). Our leaders have all failed - because we have not supported them. When the Harper attack ads started, we let ourselves be affected. When a new leader had some missteps out of the gate, we called for his head. When the first election the leader presided over didn't go well, we dumped his sorry ass.

It's obvious that what we need to do is give our next leader the time to learn the job. Historically, new party leaders falter in the beginning. Most Prime Ministers didn't get there on their first try. Many didn't look too sharp for the first term or two.

In particular, when we know the leader we've chosen is inexperienced (like Ignatieff), we have to not only give him some slack but be supportive. Any of our last four leaders could have led us to victory, given time and support. What failed is us, the party, not them.

Why does this happen? We have the recent memory of being called Canada's natural ruling party, and there is an impatience to regain our former stature. We blame the leader for not doing it - even though we should all know that it is going to take time for a leader to not just learn, but develop the right team, develop policies, build support in the electorate, make allies, and on and on. I suspect we also have a party loaded up with formerly powerful politicians who are now invested in finding controversial topics to please editors.

We may have to face a situation where our choices for leader are all at the bottom of the barrel. Gerard Kennedy's name is being bandied about - he with a three year college degree, little French, a trumped-up CV and unable to even keep his seat: the definition of an empty pretty boy. He may be what we get. Whoever we get, it is our responsibility to make the most of him: not to whine and complain and demand a replacement.

Why don't we guarantee our next leader that he or she gets the time needed to succeed? Why not say from the outset that they have a two-election term - and we don't expect that they will significantly increase seats in the first of those elections? What about making a pledge (with specifics) to support and help our next leader?

Why would ANYONE agree to take the position without something along those lines? Why would Justin Trudeau want to follow his four predecessors into the pit of humiliating failure?

I have been supporting Bob Rae for leader since he first threw his hat in the ring six years ago. Most of the party divided their support between the four front-runners (in order of support at the convention): Ignatieff, Rae, Dion, Kennedy. Supporters of the first three men have watched the party choose and then pick to death their candidate. It hasn't been a happy experience for any of us. It definitely hasn't helped the party. And it shouldn't happen again.

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A Sad Regret that Rae Said No

Of all our options for permanent leader, Bob Rae is the most competent, experienced, principled, classy, witty, formidable, erudite and knowledgeable. We would have been very lucky to have him as permanent leader.

I was amazed he was willing to continue to stand for the job. It is six years since he first announced he would run for leader. In that time, two other candidates were chosen over him and then the party executive effectively boxed him out. His continuing interest in being permanent leader was a selfless act; the job ahead is to slowly rebuild a crumbling party, or destroy it in a merger with a stronger party, or watch it die. I believe he wanted to stand because he knew he was the best person to save the party.

Unfortunately, the party, or at least some influential parts, made that impossible. For Rae, personally, this has to be the best choice. As for the party, it is definitely a sad day. And let's remember this: it was Harper's attack ads that took down Dion and Ignatieff, but it was the Liberal party itself that brought down Rae.

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Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury had a profound effect on me: my interests, sensibilities, sense of awe, dreams, desires, ideal writing style, values, phobias. When I was a kid I devoured his books: especially Something Wicked This Way Comes, The October Country, and the like; but I loved all of them. There's one story about a boy who has had to wear stiff leather shoes all winter, but now summer is here and he's saved up his money to buy a pair of sneakers that are in the window of a shoe shop on his main street. The long, detailed description of how those shoes feel as he bounces up and down in them is my touchstone for shoe shopping to do this day. And so much more.

Blind Justice?

Ten years ago it seemed shocking when an American politician complained, "We used to put people in jail because we were afraid of them. Now we put people in jail because we don't like them."

Today it seems that not liking someone is an accepted reason for prosecution.

John Edwards had two main things against him: he acted like a scumbag to his former wife, who was a very sympathetic woman; and he was a partisan politician during the reign of another party. That seemed to be enough. Not only was he charged with numerous offences that were widely known to be trumped up, but there was very little public outcry.

I don't want to repeat the whole sad story, but there's a good analysis of it here: John Edwards case was once thought too sensitive, Justice official says and Government failed to prove case in Edwards trial, jurors say.

For the people behind the prosecution it was win/win: even without a conviction, Edwards' dirty laundry has been so thoroughly aired that not only is his career unrecoverable, but his party's reputation is tarnished as well.

It's easy to call for justice in cases like that of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese politician and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize who was detained for decades by a military junta. It's not so easy to stand up for someone like John Edwards, who is thoroughly unlikable. The big story in the John Edwards case is not that he cheated on his dying wife, but that he was a victim of malicious and politically-motivated prosecution.

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Some tips for finding a job

While I hope noone loses their job, it's not looking good. Here are job hunting tips that worked for me. These might be of general interest but are aimed at technical writers in Waterloo.

Post your resume on monster.ca, workopolis.com, and linkedin.com. Keep in mind that employers and recruiters search these sites electronically, so make sure you include all the keywords, software and skills that they will use when looking for someone for a job you want. Look at job ads to figure out what those words are. Set up an alert from Monster to get emails with new job postings. Every few weeks, update your resume on Monster and Workopolis (updates trigger interest).

On LinkedIn, get three people to give you recommendations. (Apparently it is not uncommon for employers and recruiters to filter searches to people with at least three recommendations.)

Register with the major recruitment companies in your town and in any town you would be willing to work in. Try to make an appointment to meet with one of their recruiters and treat it like a job interview. Ask them for advice about your resume. I am registered with a bunch, including Procom, Ian Martin, ProVision... I can't remember them all. Here's a site that has links to some recruiters and similar companies: KW Jobs, but there are loads out there.

Set up a job alert at indeed.ca. Before my recent job switch, I got a daily alert from indeed.ca of all writer jobs in Waterloo Region and Toronto. Indeed is a little different from other sites because it trawls through corporate careers pages finding job postings, so catches some that aren't posted on Monster or wherever.

Bookmark sites that have job postings you're interested in, such as Southwestern Ontario STC, Data Shaping, Charity Village and Mobile Dev Jobs.

If you're interested in living in the US, two must-see sites are dice.com and the US STC job bank.

There are millions of online sources of advice, but here's a good one: STC job bootcamp. My main piece of advice is to have a friend revise your resume. The biggest mistake on resumes is that people don't sell themselves sufficiently: an objective person can point out where you need to beef up your sales pitch.

The University of Waterloo careers department has a boffo career consulting service. If you are a UW alumna, you get three free sessions; otherwise there's a modest fee. It is well, well worth it. You can sign up on this site, which also has lots of great info: UW career action.

I wish everyone well.

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