Political language: combing for clichés

06 Friday Jan 2012

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No politician is free of platitudes, but some seem more blatantly devoid of meaning than others.  As someone who cares about the meaning of words, hollow-speak of any kind offends me, and I have a hard time looking past the breathtaking abuse words suffer at the hands of federal politicians publishing in national newspapers.

In today’s National Post, Sheila Copps amply demonstrates that she is just another Liberal lemming, continuing the parties’ predictable script that, adjusted only in the wake of defeat, has been changed in word but not in essence.  But my main contention is her constant violation of Orwell’s rules of good writing.

First, she explains the Latin root of the word “manifesto,” as deriving from manifestus, “clear or readily apparent.” As a political writer and a heavyweight politician running for presidency of the Liberals, such a violation of Orwell’s caution against using foreign language is inadvisable, yet she seems to dwell, soak and luxuriate in it, setting the tone for the horrors to come. Anyway, is there a worse way to begin a piece about evolving to modern times than invoking Latin etymology?

No Liberal today can begin a speech without addressing the parties’ recent demise. Next, a self-righteous assessment of what went wrong is followed in turn by a way forward invariably laden with the same hubris-ridden entitlement that caused their defeat in the first place. Of this, Copps’ is guilty.

A Liberal who believes “we have been dining out for too long on former glories” can’t also write in the same article “the values of our beautiful Canada were shaped by the Liberal party. Canada is a Liberal country.”  These statements are incompatible: she professes to understand that the meal is over, yet she can’t stop stuffing her face.

Here is a prolix sentence trying to assume grandeur by using needlessly puffed-up words: “We must use technology to continually interconnect so that we operate as a unified organization to protect the values of all reasonable Canadians.”

Without changing the meaning, this could read: “We must use technology effectively to connect with Canadians.” Hardly a profound or impressive statement in an age defined by social media, though her assumption that only Liberal Canadians are “reasonable” is typically patronizing, condescending, and more evidence of hubris.

Copps hands out clichés like Halloween candy with the expectation we will eat them up just as readily, but, just like devouring too much candy, consuming her hackneyed speech in one sitting sickens my stomach. The offences bleed one into another. Addressing and redressing each example of brutal writing requires an elephantine effort that’s unnecessary. The point is clear.

Copps ends where she begins, with one final Orwellian violation: “winners never quit and quitters never win.” If it were me, I’d conclude with something lucid and powerful.  This common aphorism is irrelevant and vague. It can mean different things. Does she mean that the Liberals lost last May because the quit? No. Presumably, she means she will work tenaciously to get into power–hardly a unique trait in politics, the natural home and breeding grounds for cut-throat opportunists. She doesn’t say what she means. Unlike her Latin definition of manifestus, her conclusion, and everything else, is anything but “clear or readily apparent.”

Post Script:

Every party and politician is guilty of using similar barbarous language. I oppose it everywhere. I hope to alert my very small, noble readership to the dangers of this pernicious breed of writing, not to denounce Liberals in general, though in this case it’s hard to do one and not the other.  Copps was the unfortunate victim of this entry because I happened to fall upon her article today and the mood struck me.

ORWELL’S 6 RULES OF WRITING:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use a passive voice where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

–From, “Politics and the English Language”

A complete history of music in under 500 words

27 Tuesday Dec 2011

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As a devoted historian I went to great lengths to untangle a long, complicated mess of history in order to compile a narrative that’s easy to understand, but, first and foremost, factually accurate.

THE HISTORY OF MUSIC:

Before Bach there was no music.  This seriously hampered the soundtracks of movies.  Bach’s music required specially commissioned music halls and churches with perfect acoustics.  For hundreds of years, Italians sang Opera and various European composers arranged notes this way and that.

This lasted until Black slaves sang while being exploited in fields, paving the way for blues, jazz, and rock & roll. This was by far the most positive thing to come out of slavery, though some countries that got rich may disagree.  At about the same time, deep in the backwoods of various small American towns, hillbillies played guitars, banjos, and had sex with their immediate relatives.  Elvis was a revelation because he showed White people could sing like Black people, even if they couldn’t yet drink from the same water fountains.  Then, psychedelic drugs rendered Black music trippy enough and sufficiently different to be considered not really Black music anymore.

Strangely, glam rock took off at the same time as heavy metal. Wardrobes were weird.  Then, musicians traded instruments for turntables, and the machine that used to play music started creating it.  Rap was a perfect medium for protesting and lamenting the sad state of affairs in Black America. White people ate it up in droves.  Simultaneously, grunge became the perfect medium for White people to vent about all the hardships suffered by the unoppressed.  Seattle became internationally renowned for rain, coffee, and angst.

The internet allowed everyone everywhere to hear everything, and we haven’t seen a distinct style of music since.  Modern bands are accurately described with paradoxical composite adjectives: “They’re a soul, poppy, jam band, with blues roots and an old-school urban, rural, new-wave feel.”

Sexy music videos brought in money, so the highest paid musicians no longer burdened themselves with bothersome time-consuming things like writing songs, singing, or playing their own music.  Auto tune could put a goat in perfect pitch. Computers liberated musicians from those old historical obstacles like money, instruments, and talent.  Rhythms and melodic samples could be found ready-made for click and drag stitching together. Yes, music has evolved to great heights where being a musician no longer requires being a musician. And all this on little speakers that fit inside our ears.

We went from Bach to this.

(An exhaustive list of bibliographical sources available upon request.)

This article is also published on Vivoscene.com, a home for me and other music writers.

We are the last pre and post internet generation. Be scared!

05 Monday Dec 2011

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’84 babies, plus or minus a couple years, were the first to grow up with internet but the last to remember life without it. This perspective will be unavailable to future generations. Every generations believes they’re nothing like the previous one, but now it’s true.  Technology is like an avalanche covering everything, so the consequences will be widespread and unpredictable, and not all good. There’s a mentality that’s slipping and there’s no turning back.

It’s hard to sum up concretely, but it has to do with the “boys will be boys” climate that pervaded basically until I was a boy. Not just “boys,” but life will be life. Let it go. You can’t control everything. My guess is 50 years ago, on average, people matured earlier, had longer attention spans, were more articulate, more inclined towards saving money than spending, and reflexively took responsibility for themselves and their actions. Generations used to entail a span of decades. Grandfather-father-son. Perhaps there’s a new generation every 10 years.

The school outlawing “hard” balls during recess after a mother got hit in the head illustrates what I mean. It’s not just the NHL taking head shots and concussions seriously.  I hope soccer mom is OK, but in the name of safety they’ve also eliminated any threat of exercise and fun. Before the 80s I don’t think it ever would have occurred to a mother to outlaw playing with balls during recess. Something has changed. Technology.

Technology, especially the internet, makes society feel entitled: we feel empowered because in real time we talk and see people across the world, book trips, order food to our door, access unprecedented amounts of literature, watch TV and movies from all eras, receive news complete with video from anywhere in the world. And all immediately. We are gods, albeit immensely distracted ones. Those who remember a life before internet can hardly believe our new power, but it’s just a mundane fact of life for those born into a world of fibre optic cables and iPads.

Technology leads to narcissism gone-wild, compounded by marketing campaigns and devices which relentlessly cater to self importance: they’re called “I” pods; playlists rearrange albums to suit our preferences; everyone has a platform to broadcast their “status” to a waiting audience; the “you” in YouTube is us.  We are constantly told to exalt ourselves. If something harms us, it’s wrong and we should outlaw it.

This constant inundation erodes not only critical thinking, but the effectiveness of what used to be reliable institutions–school and news. Education makes things worse by over emphasizing the internet and neglecting the pillars of Western education. Yes, little Johnny’s mind is modern and rapid, as evinced by his innate mastery of social media (writing incoherently and posting vulgar pictures for friends and strangers), but maybe he’d learn more about the human condition after seeing how Odysseus mastered himself through Athena’s grace and Zeus’s justice.  Is there an app for that?  Modern times and serious books have parted company for good, but the head first slide into philistinism isn’t just the teacher’s fault. We were just following curriculums! It’s at a deeper level. That technology provides more access to literature is irrelevant here: if nobody’s reading it may as well be unavailable.

Our news institutions that ought to guard the knowledge are just as prone to change, with mixed results. The Maclean’s special issue from November 14 featured stories in “augmented reality.”  Scan your smartphone over stories with an AR logo to get cool bonus features. Fair enough.

But Toronto Standard ran a worrying article recently about online news sources who, in a hurry to get the scoop, publish first, fact check later.  An article with the same web address can present different facts from one day to the next, with only a vague note indicating a revision, not what’s been changed.  This happens “everywhere,” from the CBC to the New York Times. It didn’t happen in ink.

John Macfarlane, editor of the Walrus, writes in January/February’s issue (currently unavailable online) that “the quality of workmanship in North American newsrooms…is declining.  The reasons…include a generation of journalists who know how to tell a story and little else.” He also says media credibility everywhere is undermined since the Murdoch scandal. “If the press is to continue its independence, it must be seen to be monitoring its own behaviour, vigorously and fairly.”  He doesn’t explicitly state technology is responsible for both, as it’s defined the generation doing the declining work and enabled the cell phone/e-mail hacking, but it’s true. That technology can be wonderful isn’t the point. There are serious drawbacks.

How the internet has changed growing up is the subject of December’s Toronto Life cover story, “the Secret Life of 13-year-old girls” by Alexandra Molotkow.  Sadly (and ironically) it’s unavailable online. Molotkow’s voice is conversational but not colloquial, intelligent but unpretentious. Ruthlessly honest, and funny too. Her article is largely about her experience with internet sex, but she notes the bigger point: “the internet unshackled us from our milieus.”  It was liberating for her, but incomprehensible to every previous generation. There’s never been such a chasm between people, even those close in age. As TL editor Sarah Fulford points out, “I’m only a dozen years older than Molotkow, but her relationship to chat rooms and web journals and texting is so foreign to me we might as well be from different generations.” Indeed.

Those born in the late 90s and early 2000s will look at 80s babies the way we view those from the 40s and 50s. “I was alive before the internet.” Translation: “In my day, we walked 10 miles to school in snow this high, and we didn’t have no boots neither.”

The underlying things we take for granted have permanently altered. Teenagers with cell phones will never again feel the liberation of being out of reach from their parents. Depraved behaviour at parties, or by police, isn’t only captured on camera, but potentially circulated online. We can get around in any city with Google maps. There’s too many to name.

Imagine when the last pre-internet person dies. If the sensibilities, habits, traditions from our collective past only exist on screen for concerned historians, but inhabited by nobody, it’s hard to predict what things will look like. This is worrying. Like democracy, the internet is wonderful, powerful and permanent, but it’s what we make of it. And it’s what we keep from before.

So, when people ask why I don’t do every modern thing ever, maybe there’s a reason besides I’m cheap. Maybe.

Republican morons: all just different shades of disgrace

28 Monday Nov 2011

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Even staunch Republicans can’t deny that the leaders on offer today have never been more pathetic. They are not merely poor or bad, they are abysmal. It’s beyond embarrassing, and if it were my country I’d be ashamed that such abjectly inadequate people could be taken seriously at all, let alone be poised for a Presidential race.  Such a thing could only take place in an anti-intellectual climate that celebrates stupidity. It’s hard to describe without it sounding like exaggeration. British writer Martin Amis published a terrific collection of his journalism on a cross-section of American topics in the 80s called the Moronic Inferno, a perfect phrase for the climate that enables such monstrously stupid politicians.  We expect left-wing media to attack Republicans, but it should be noted whenever the right does. The Canadian right has stepped forward in this regard.

The National Post did a segment Saturday where eleven writers named their pick for Republican candidates, followed by a brief explanation. They mostly sounded jaded and hopeless, as if they were picking which gun they’d use to shoot themselves in the head.  My two favourite NP writers, George Jonas and Robert Fulford, opted for “none of the above.”  Beyond pessimism, Jonas suggested politicians should be drafted since anyone who believes they possess all it takes to run a country is a lunatic, and should be disqualified on these grounds alone.  Fulford said it’s the worst lineup of potential candidates he’s seen in his lifetime.

This week’s Maclean’s discussed Republicans in an article titled “American Idiots.”  It proposes that perhaps becoming a presidential candidate is no longer solely a political objective, but a financial one. Presidential candidates are assured of fame. Politics is merely branding.  This perspective explains why Herman Cain was so stunningly unprepared to answer basic questions about Libya. Even more revealing was his explanation for the gaffe: “I got all this stuff twirling around in my head.” This should disqualify him off the bat: thinking is a non-negotiable job requirement for the leader of the free world.

The article notes that the New York Times looked at Cain’s calendar of campaign events and found that “19 of the 31 days of October were blank.”  Commentators suggest his campaign is fake, just a publicity stunt masquerading as politics. Maybe this is true, maybe not: what’s the bigger disgrace? For a serious political campaign to be so stunningly amateur as to be mistaken for a joke is pathetic, but is it worse or better than using the most serious office in the country for such shameless pursuit of profit? Instead of work on his campaign, the devastatingly prudent thing to do, Cain promoted his book. This is a scandal! It used to be that if you wanted to gain money, fame and notoriety from the President’s office you didn’t try to become the President. A blowjob sufficed.

But this isn’t a dictator ruthlessly inserting himself.  This is democracy. Pathetically, Cain actually has voluntary support, making Americans complicit. The bigger problem is that Cain is not out of place beside Gingrich, Bachmann, Perry, Palin, and Trump, and too many voters are OK with this.

In Ancient Greece, citizens not only voted for politicians, but could vote to ostracize for ten years any politician who they felt was a threat to the state.  While there’d be no politicians left in Greece today if this were still practiced, it would allow the US to filter politicians who perniciously hijack the political system to get rich. Although, it is shameful that this can’t be entrusted to the voters good sense. But Presidential candidates must all be devoted, capable politicians who know about the world and care about the country. Does this really need to be said? It’s a bizarre, scary world when this statement is not overwhelmingly self-evident, but it cannot be overstated.  This is a race for President of the United States, not high school.

But even ostracizing politicians is a band-aid solution if the climate of stupidity which enables them doesn’t change. Otherwise, a new moron will rise.  Any aspect of culture, media, or even advertising which actively or passively encourages or takes advantage of people’s stupidity is guilty of contributing to fanning the flames of the moronic inferno.  This should not be considered an “elitist” view, a term stupid people use as a shield. And anyway, movies like Dumb and Dumber, intelligence only lacquered in low IQ, aren’t the target of my criticism.  I’m talking about Fox News and everything else that trades the collective IQ of the country for ratings and money. I am not so naive to believe this will ever stop. Indeed, money at all costs is practically the country’s guiding principle.  Perhaps Obama recognized this essential hopelessness and won on a slogan of “hope.”

I fear the media get a kick out of bashing Republicans so much that a part of them is glad they’re there. Bad for politics, good for journalism. But this isn’t funny. This is a deplorable state of affairs that jeopardizes the country, and even the world. Millions of Americans understand this and helplessly watch their country sink into a bog. The focus of concerned, responsible adults should be on rising up; laughter just makes the sinking more enjoyable.

Democracy isn’t inherently good or bad, as Jonas reminds us in an earlier NP article from last week: “democracy is only a method of succession.” It fails without a body of intelligent, discerning and informed citizens. The Maclean’s article suggests that Mitt Romney, “the only serious Republican candidate,” is stuck at 21% support since he fails to make attention grabbing gaffes. He alienates his voters by refusing to behave like a vulgar spectacle on a reality TV show. This is his obstacle.

I was seriously disappointed in American intelligence after the show Arrested Development got cancelled (though intelligent Americans created it), but politics is important.  Countries need more than one plausible political party. The States has only two parties, but one is pathologically immature and obstinately refuses to care about the good of the country. I love the United States. This isn’t disappointing, or funny. This is terrifying.

Inappropriateness on Queens campus…so much can go wrong, and did

24 Thursday Nov 2011

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When I’m in the company of a good trusted friend there are no jokes I can’t make, and I make them, but I have the good sense not to publish them because I don’t have the same trust and understanding from my small group of noble readers (though I’m sure you’re all wonderful people). I’m irreverent, but just because I make a horrible joke doesn’t mean horrible moral behaviour will ensue.  This trust is not extended towards students at Queens University.

Father Raymond J. de Souza writes in today’s National Post about the Queen’s band who, when they’re not performing at football games, sing from their own songbooks “a compilation so explicit, so depraved, so celebratory of promiscuous debauchery” that they were suspended for the rest of the semester. It was too lewd for the National Post. Thankfully, this blog has no such standard of decency.  Choice excerpts:

“The pamphlet contained phrases like ‘I will rape you with a lamp’…’Chew me, screw me, suck me, fuck me, yaaay Queen’s.'”

“Front page titles over the last three years have included ‘mouth raping your little sister since 1905.'”

No doubt performing lyrics that may as well have been written by the Marquis de Sade, while wearing your school’s uniform, was beyond stupid.  What did they expect? But does this mean the students involved are necessarily moral failures who will slip into a depraved abyss without the universities’ intervention? The university thinks so: in addition to their suspension, they are being sent to “human rights and equity training.”

Here’s where things go wrong in the article. De Souza makes a huge leap, putting the pitiful judgement exercised here on par with Yale’s alleged sexual-assault problem. Bad lyrics in bad taste, however bad, is fundamentally different than an act of sexual-assault. Equating them is dangerous. If there is a sexual-assault problem at Queens it must be immediately and thoroughly dealt with, but the article doesn’t say this is happening.  There’s only a tenuous connection: Yale has a rape culture on campus while Queens students are told not to sing about it for recreational amusement. Charges of rape are too important to be invoked without foundation.

What de Souza really condemns is the “hook-up” culture at Queens.  He cites the Yale report, which sounds more than a little totalitarian: “Because the social environment is so open, students seem unsure of how to develop meaningful relationships, set appropriate boundaries, determine their own social values or act in their own best interests, short and long-term” [emphasis mine].

Wow.  Claiming that Queen’s students (young adults, but adults nonetheless) are incapable of maintaining meaningful relationships or acting in their own self-interest is a serious charge that requires more evidence than de Souza offers, and it’s also none of his damn business.  Students are old enough to go into the army: they can manage their personal relationships and determine what’s in their own best interest without anybody’s approval. I’m inherently sceptical of the patronizing attitude that adults can’t live their own lives free of the “exquisitely progressive,” whether it’s an advisory committee or a celibate priest.  Most people don’t have it all figured out at 20 but they grow up OK.

It’s a little rich that de Souza denounces the sexual climate on campus while accompanying the article is a photo of literally six upside down cheerleaders, asses out, legs wrapped around the crotch of a male counterpart who smiles gleefully. It’s a shade away from acrobatic Roman-Greco coitus. Maybe the NP needs equity training too. Lurid. Eye-catching sure,  but I’m offended. Horribly offended.

Is common sense too much to ask in all of this? “University band: don’t sing about raping girls with lamps.”  Equity training, a vague and terrifying term, is just the universities’ empty recourse for publicly demonstrating accountability. Don’t worry donors, we’re on it.  Keep giving us money.  Equity studies doesn’t enhance students’ critical thinking ability the way, say, studying English, history, classics, law, or other extinct university subjects would. That students are busy adults with their own minds and things to do, including school work, doesn’t concern the University as much as reversing their tarnished image…of course, not remotely surprising.

But strangely, the article makes it seem like university students would otherwise be devoted prudes abstaining from all “debauchery” if only the university climate wasn’t so tantalizing. Revelation: students do drugs, drink, and have sex because…wait for it…they can. Many find debauchery more fun than work, and their schedule is permitting. I’ve even heard rumours of sex and drugs in high school. Maybe young students would take up sobriety if they could occupy themselves with a harmless diversion, say by playing with balls during recess. University students don’t have sex because they’re “bombarded by various campaigns for sexual health,” a bombardment which de Souza calls “not the noblest vision of the human prospect.”  Maybe it doesn’t promote true love, but it might spare them from STDs.

If only administrator’s were as concerned with education as they are imposing morals on their adult patrons.  This isn’t grade school!  This doesn’t excuse the band from singing blatantly offensive lyrics while representing the school. Suspensions are in order for the band, but equity training is repulsive.  Maybe students would learn good judgement as a by-product of good education, and exercise reticence instead of singing about raping the mouth of somebody’s sister. It shouldn’t be much to ask.

At least not in public.

Why Canadian cell phone bills are outrageous

18 Friday Nov 2011

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A surprising amount of unrelated parties come together to saddle Canadians with the most expensive cellphone rates in the world. Jesse Brown wrote about it in a convincing piece in December’s Toronto Life (regrettably not available online yet). I love when my complaining is vindicated, not that it’s worth it.

Personally, my wireless bill is relatively small (though still a rip off) since I don’t even have a “smart” phone. Yes, my phone is portable, but it’s a moron. It doesn’t get internet.  I don’t have a full keyboard (it takes four presses to type “s”). I rarely talk because my day minutes are stingy (and so am I). I’m eager to end every conversations because a 1:01 conversation is 2 minutes, universal rounding be damned. I have no BBM, Email, or even ICQ. For accessing the system my phone requires I pay a fee, double-dipping in broad daylight: it’s like buying a hamburger then paying separately again for accessing it.  My cell phone plan is basically incoming calls (but don’t roam!) and cumbersome retrograde text messaging, but it costs me over $55 a month. Your phone is better so you pay a lot more than me, but in Canada all us hosers are getting hosed.

I’ll walk you through the article now.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development claims our roaming fees are the highest in the world.  According to another report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Canadians have the highest monthly wireless charges in the world. Worrying: American banks have never been wrong.  Even “academic sources” say our text messaging undergoes a mark up as high as 4,900%.  Have you ever heard anyone say 4,900%? This goes beyond an acceptable amount of exploitation. In another time and place we’d all be sweeping their chimneys for nickels.

The evil trifecta–Robbers, Bull, Telus (couldn’t think of an evil name for Telus, I welcome suggestions)–has 95% of the market. New carriers like Mobilicity and Wind have to buy a license from Ottawa for billions, incurring debt before they even spend a dime on marketing or infrastructure.  That’s why smaller companies like Fido get eaten up like dog food. Brown claims so called experts on the subject (lawyers, academics, consultants) are either employed by the three-headed monster or are somehow financially connected. Except one glorious man.

Hudson Janisch is a U of T professor emeritus of telecommunications law. His research was “instrumental” in writing the country’s telecommunications act. Even better, he’s 73 and semi-retired, so he’s got no vested interested in lying.  Janisch explains that banks are unwilling to lend money to new companies since their success will cut into that of the big three, who already make more money than any other providers in the world. Banks have no reason to finance new Canadian companies and our government hasn’t let foreign companies offer competition. “Canada is horribly out of step.”

Why is it so expensive? There’s no finite number of text messages that’s depleted every time someone sends a text. No mining company drills into the earth to extract minutes.  Once the infrastructure is up, costs flatten. Companies opt for the maximum gouge because they can. Shocking.

And expensive bills may not be the worst problem.  Our country is supposedly at risk of becoming “a communications backwater,” as only 75% of Canadians have a wireless plan. That seemed high to me, but apparently it’s the lowest of any comparable country, and what’s “comparable” might be surprising.  Internationally, there’s wonderful collaboration taking place between phone companies and forward thinking governments from all those burgeoning telecommunication hot spots in Africa and the Middle East. That’s why the guys who filmed Ghaddafi’s death have a better phone than me.

In the 80s, Ottawa enacted a policy designed to keep foreigners off our radios, and now we’re held captive to this severely outdated policy, which wasn’t designed with current technology in mind.  “It was a policy grandfathered in from traditional telephone regulations.” Normally, or at least ideally, stupid policies are corrected. The NHL made helmets mandatory since they realised not forcing NHL players to wear helmets was ridiculous and outdated.  When it comes to phone bills, Canadians have no choice but to be Craig Mactavish (the last NHL player to not wear a helmet…retired helmetless in 1997).

Also, and this comes out of left field, ACTRA, the actors’ union, is lobbying Ottawa to keep the foreign ownership restriction in place. Where have all the sagacious actors gone? ACTRA declined an interview with Toronto Life (they were all out adopting third-world children) but Brown points to the unions’ website which indicates they believe that if the wireless industry is opened up to foreign investors, we will “lose control of our culture” because “you can’t separate telecommunications and broadcasting.”  Their argument: if people watch TV on their smart phones, which are provided by foreigners, then foreigners control what we watch, and they can’t be trusted to create content that will employ our actors.  But smart phones aren’t seriously going to replace TVs.  Could the actors position be stupid and self-serving? Brown reminds us that Rogers and Bell produce/broadcast a large percentage of Canadian shows, and the union is probably just sucking up.

Our politicians are doing nothing. This problem won’t fix itself, as no company voluntarily decides to forego profit. Pitching a tent in a park is for problems that only affect 99%, but at 100%, this is major.  And it’s cold out.

Expect a strongly worded letter to come in this space. And unlike the civil writing here, the strongly worded letter to come won’t be based on research or facts, just my violent, unswerving hatred for these wireless robber barons.  Let us complain loudly…it’s about all we can do.

Taking the “remember” out of remembrance day

11 Friday Nov 2011

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This week, the National Post reported there’s a high school in Ottawa that is forbidding veterans who come to speak to classrooms on remembrance day from bringing any military replica guns with them, something they have done for nineteen years.  Making history “come alive,” as cheesy as it sounds, is hard enough for a teacher, and I can think of no better way than having someone who was there tell stories, gun in hand. If I held the veteran’s rifle and tried to imagine the trenches, I’d feel sheer terror, surely the point of it all. But this year the school changed its policy. “No tanks or guns.”  “There are many students from the school who come from war-torn countries, and when they saw the replica gun, it did upset them.” The article doesn’t say if the committee, made up of school staff, actually received a direct complaint from a student or whether they changed the policy on their own initiative. A history teacher from the school resigned in response–a principled move, if somewhat dramatic.

This story is in line with the times, being as hyper-sensitive as possible to those perceived most vulnerable, though I would bet most schools would strongly criticize this policy. Here, the modern urge to “accommodate” is stronger than the urge to teach history. This is a problem. There are times in my writing where I fear I’m saying something painfully obvious, but this story forces my hand: the teaching of history needs to be the first priority in a history class.

If a student from a “war-torn country” is actually traumatized upon seeing either a replica gun or a real gun that’s disabled, they can leave the class. It’s not exactly the same as seeing the Luftwaffe hover the skies in formation or hearing a nearby bomb explode, but students are only kids and they can be fragile, especially if they have actually escaped war themselves. We need to remember war as vividly as possible to try and ensure it never happens again, but they may need to forget war to go on living a normal life. Fair enough. But this should be done only on a case-by-case basis in the event there’s an actual student with such a severely traumatizing past.

Before anyone is excused, consider that Canadian citizens sacrificed a lot more than a moment’s discomfort, and do still today. This is what the gun in class brings home: it is a gun that could have put a hole in the head of a mother’s child. It should be uncomfortable for everyone. If we forget this, what are we remembering? Over 45,000 Canadians died in WWII alone. Is there another symbol besides the gun that can be brought into class to evoke the horror of war? Short of a replica of “little boy,” no.  Maybe the ubiquitous poppy should be replaced by a gun.

A gun in class does anything but glorify war. What kind of student is urged towards violence after seeing a weapon and hearing all the horror stories first hand from a soldier?  Remembering can’t be a hollow moment of silence, but a meaningful reflection of what people actually did. It should cause revulsion, fear, and wonder that it actually happened. If it’s comfortable, it’s inadequate. It should be horrifying. How can it not be?

Perhaps this symbol of death is even more poignant for being in a classroom, the very last place a gun should ever be. War would be the most fundamentally absurd thing imaginable, if only it could be imagined. I literally can’t imagine hiding behind trenches and shooting at strangers with the understanding that killing them increases my own chance of survival. It’s too absurd.  Seeing and actually holding a realistic gun, gently touching that cold trigger with a curled finger, would bring those points home better than any text book, or even a first hand story told by a brave old man in a uniform.

Lest we forget.

The Curmudgeon’s Fall Fashion Style Guide for 2011

04 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Comedy

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The effortless, laid back look is so hot right now, but what do hard working fashion gurus know about effortless looks? When it comes to this style, the current vogue, their opinions are less than worthless. With this in mind, I am a male fashionista, a trend setter. My credentials are superb, as I haven’t gone clothes shopping in years and I hate fashion. Fashion and fascism both start out the same way. I find shopping for clothes a torture on par with waterboarding, and I see a very small distinction between Yorkdale and Guantanamo. Yorkdale Bay. Ironically, my total lack of care is what makes me a style icon. Even the media has complimented me on my dishevelled appearance.  Follow these fashion rules and you too can achieve the rumpled look without much effort.

THE HEAD-TO-TOE STYLE GUIDE:

The cornerstone of any fashionable wardrobe is good plaid. Red with bits of green is timeless, always a hit. I have another plaid with just greens too, and I’ve worn blues and browns in years past. Unfortunately, a shirt can only withstand so much wear, and those wonderful plaids of old have disintegrated, their ashes in an urn on my shelf.  Now that the Halloween rush is over, Value Village is civilized again. Spend between 5-10 dollars on a plaid, and if you see any sold for more, give the proprietor of the store/garage sale a piece of your mind. You need t-shirts too. When you visit a city or go to a concert, buy a cool shirt with Jerry Garcia’s face on it.

I recommend having two or more sweaters so you don’t need to wear the same one every day. A smart look is to wear your sweater over a plaid shirt so the collar sticks out. This gives my monochrome sweaters a hot accent.  I have a blue, brown, and green sweater: believe me boychicks, this fall, dark, earthy colours are totally in. Some sweaters of mine have a round neck, others are V.  If you do this, girls will just swoon over the variety.

When it comes to pants, jeans are a hot trend. Everybody’s wearing them. In terms of colour, I recommend blue.  I used to wear them baggy but I advise against that now.  Everyone has a different standard of how jeans should fit.  My rule of thumb: tight enough to go biking without getting caught in the chain, loose enough to play spontaneous hockey.  That’s some sartorial smarts right there.  Khakis are like jean’s older, sterner brother. Very smart. “First we get the jobs, then we get the khakis, then we get the chicks.”

You’ll need shoes. I like brown dock shoes because they’re versatile, and in the summer they can be worn sans socks, an added advantage when you don’t have a laundry machine at your place. I call my dock shoes the “BCs,” or the “business casuals.” They’re perfect for Saturday night business drinking and for recreational pints. Nikes are good too.

Leather jackets are timeless. Get one that’s soft to the touch…that nice butter leather. Mine is black with beige accents on the cuffs and collar, so I call it the “black and tan fantasy” in homage to Duke Ellington. Sometimes I name my clothes, but you don’t have to. Get a scarf too. It’s cold out there, and it’s an opportunity to accent your earth tones with stripes or geometric shapes. I wear a light brown scarf to bring out the colour of my dark brown jacket…smart.  There are thick scarves that keep you warm and there are those threadbare schmattes worn by terrorists. Fashion faux-pas. If you’re going to look like Al-Qaeda, do it in the summer.

Chic. Dapper. Dans le vent. Natty. Suave. You too can be these things, it’s not exactly rocket surgery.  Just follow my guideline and aspire to dress like me.

[Addendum: BlogTO readers/others who don’t know me: this piece is a playful, satirical shot at pompous, self-regarding fashion writers. It’s a humour piece. It’s become my most well read piece by far, but I never expected anyone outside my friends to read it. I’ve got flak, so let’s be clear: I don’t really think I’m a male fashionista. Hope you enjoy.]

Universities actually threaten freedom of speech

03 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Politics, Statements

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I subscribe to the National Post because they publish a handful of writers I admire, namely George Jonas, an excellent writer and thinker of admirable historical sensibility who writes candidly.  He grew up in Hungary under communism, and of all writers I know sceptical of left-wing ideology, I feel he’s got the most cause.  It’s not just an idea for him, though it’s that too. Policies that make a light go off in my head must stir his stomach.

I provide this background because his article yesterday, “Deliver us from the universities,” is guilty of generalizing a bit, and while I’d actually agree with him if I had to make a bet, I’m holding out for more evidence. Essentially: universities were and are the chief threat to freedom of speech.

Jonas cites a study being conducted by civil rights lawyer John Carpay, who created an index that promises to “evaluate the state of free speech at Canadian Universities.” The findings come out in November, but Carpay demonstrated them last week in an apparently convincing sneak peek organized by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy for Calgary’s Chamber of Commerce.  I’m curious and sceptical about the methodology, but my personal experience inclines me towards agreeing with the conclusion.

First Jonas reminds us that in origin, Universities were religious, not liberal. They believed they had to educate students to learn the truths they already possessed.  In the 20th century, “universities incubated both fascism and communism, along with their many sub-versions (pub intended).” In one sentence, Jonas provides some history, a great use of “incubated,” and doesn’t succumb to that brutal reflex where people claim they don’t mean to write the puns they mean to write. “As for the 21st century, with jihadism infesting campuses all over the world, we’re off to a rocky start.”  He denounces Hamas apologists, dubbing them “terrorist chic.” Wicked stuff.

Aside: academics are disproportionately left wing because they have theoretical jobs, and in theory everything works, even communism. Doubting the theoretical on grounds it’s only theoretical undermines the foundation of their life’s work, and so essentially, it undermines their life.  Perhaps the chief virtue in a good intellectual is to resist the impulse to merge the theoretical and the practical, and be always able to separate and distinguish the two.

Back to Jonas’ idea: I read a fantastic book on Orwell a few weeks ago describing all the left-wing hostility aimed at Orwell during the 40s, despite Orwell’s ardent allegiance of the left.  “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”  In spite of Orwell’s devotion to the left, he admirably refused to stop criticizing where he saw problems.  This was before the extent of Stalin’s crimes, the Gulags, were widely known and the left-wing intelligentsia frequently apologized and praised him.  To do so was modish.  Nobody wanted to publish Animal Farm because, spoiler alert!, in the end the animal’s revolution fails.  Orwell wanted socialism to work, but he couldn’t suppress his doubt no matter how much it irritated his comrades.  His allegiance was wholly to the truth, and for this he was ostracised. Jonas understands this dilemna: if Orwell had trouble criticising the Left, what can us mortals do and say?

My goal isn’t to denounce left-wing ideology, just the practice of silencing the other side’s argument on grounds that the verdict is already in. Though most universities have a dominant left-wing ideology in place, I’d be equally opposed to a right-wing one. I hate thinking that succumbs to grotesque oversimplification that obliterates nuance. Indeed, universities have a mandate to instil critical thinking abilities in their students to overcome this unforgivable weakness in mind.  But academic environments are rife with suspicion and hatred for people who think differently.  The chief fault is the inability to believe your ideological opponent is honest and intelligent.

But this difference in thought doesn’t even have to be highly charged political opinion.  In all kinds of classes I’ve heard friends lament that they feel uncomfortable diverging from their professor’s opinion in print for fear he’ll disapprove, and they’ll be graded accordingly.  But a different interpretation of poetry or literature doesn’t arouse the indignation and hostility that political disagreement does.  In all situations, students must not be made to feel uncomfortable voicing and writing their unfettered opinion, supported of course by convincing textual evidence. It’s precisely here, in classrooms, where Jonas’ charge resonates most with me.  Most faculty, and especially students, are smart enough to know they ought to voice in favour of freedom of speech, but insufficiently principled to commit to it in full. Rather, they’re principles are devoted solely to their cause, and there are none left over for the cause of free speech.

Example, a professor with an overt bias (voiced in politically correct terms so as not to get fired) would likely go mostly unchallenged by students who either: want to avoid a scene; don’t want to jeopardize their grade; don’t have the confidence to speak up, don’t want to be class nerd; don’t have a clue what the professor is even talking about; feel total indifference.  Maybe they’re simply hung over.  They’re understandable reasons, and at various moments I have succumbed and overcame all these things myself.  How many professors really say and believe: “my class is only useful if I’m challenged at every step of the way because the only valuable opinions are those which have survived the heaviest scrutiny?”  Even the polite Canadian tendency towards non-confrontation is incompatible with a robust academic environment where ideas become important only after they’ve survived harsh, weighty scrutiny.

I’m eternally grateful to Dalhousie, which I realised was a freakin’ Xanadu after spending a year in that putrid swamp OISE.  I left Dal with my innocence intact under the naive belief that academics want to get at the truth. They’re smart, passionate intellectuals.  Yes, but they’re all too frequently under the false belief that their views embody everything that’s good or desirable, and they tolerate no other view.  I’d like to see the results from this Campus Freedom Index and learn how the study was conducted.

If you’ve managed to sit through all this, bless your heart. Next writings will be light hearted: the “curmudgeon’s fall-fashion style guide” or perhaps, “the Kardashian divorce: I knew she was a skank.”

The hockey interview is a farce that should be discontinued

02 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Sports

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Probing. Profound.  Purposeful. These are the last words anybody would use to describe what passes for an interview in the NHL.  It’s totally beyond parody. If the team is losing, the solution is keep plugging away at the fundamentals. If the team is winning, they need to keep plugging away at the fundamentals. If there’s a noteworthy individual accomplishment, it’s because of the team.  If the team is doing well, all the individuals are clicking. It all happens one game at a time.  “What’s the key to your success?” “Our coach designed this secret play, here’s how it works…” What do we expect to be told? As a result, players are asked questions that aren’t really questions with the understanding that after saying something banal, obvious, and wonderfully cliché they’ll be given permission to walk away.  In a Canadian hockey culture that is wary of personality, that celebrates blandness, predictable conformity in media talk is all there is. Except for last week.

After the ridiculous 9-8 game between Philly and Winnipeg, Philly’s goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov could have said he’ll bounce back or it was a weird night for both goalies. But shockingly, he spoke outside the script: “I have zero confidence in myself right now. I’m terrible…I feel like I’m lost in the woods. I am totally lost. I don’t know what’s going on.  I can’t stop the puck.  It’s simple. It’s me.”  That a goalie has no confidence after allowing 9 goals isn’t surprising when you think about it, but the hockey world was stunned to hear an actual candid response.  It was sad, and singularly unique: have you ever felt so bad for a $51 million man?  There are countries looking for that kinda bailout.  I wanted to write on pointless hockey interviews prior to this game, but Bryzgalov’s response made me doubt the premise. Maybe there was a point to the hockey interview? Not if the Flyers have their way.

Bruce Arthur reported in today’s National Post that after Bryzgalov mercifully won a game and joked he had gotten out of the woods thanks to the “iPhone Compass,” the Flyers announced their goalie would only be available after games he started.  Heaven forbid an interview contain honesty or humour.  But this violated the league’s rules regarding media access, so now Philly wants to limit Bryzgalov to three questions, which, as Arthur points out, is the same policy our Prime Minister follows.  Whether this curtailing of interview time is a violation of policy is under investigation. For Harper it’s fine, but it’s important that the goalie is held publicly accountable for his performance.

Before he faces the media again, Bryzgalov will undoubtedly be told not to cause any needless distraction by saying anything worth repeating.  Shut up Ilya!  This doesn’t only make total sense from a hockey perspective, the one that should matter most, but it’s what rightly ensures that player interviews are totally vacuous.  As a fan, I don’t want to put any burden on my team. Radical idea: if the media wants something to write about, write about the hockey.  If a player wants to call out or praise his players in public, there’ll be a hungry audience ready to hear something of substance that’s more meaningful for being spoken voluntarily.  He can even Tweet on his own time and allow sports reporters, who will be following, to report on it then.  For fan appreciation, players can do autograph signings, visit hospitals, deliver presents at Christmas.  But the hockey interview is an illusion that tells the fans absolutely nothing. It’s not a window into the game or into the players’ personalities, and in the rare, rare time it is, hockey culture does all it can to ensure it doesn’t happen again.