dot, dot, dot...

I've not written anything in this space for over a week with only one excuse for my absence: simple exhaustion.

To recover my energies I'm taking a break from the world of current events and burying my head in a good history book with a bit of fiction on the side. Consider me "on hiatus for retooling" until further posting...

words, words, words...

A good friend forwarded the following quotations to me today, some lucid words by Gore Vidal, a man I consider to be among the most brilliant writers of our time. These are taken from a book of his collected non-fiction titled "At Home: Essays, 1982-1988":

"I have said very little about writers because writers have figured very little in our imperial story. The founders of both republic and empire wrote well: Jefferson and Hamilton, Lincoln and Grant, T.R. and the Adamses. Today public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either."

"When Confucius was asked what would be the first thing that he would do if he were to lead the state -- his never-to-be-fulfilled dream -- he said rectify the language . This is wise. This is subtle. As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. Finally, words must be so twisted as to justify an empire that has now ceased to exist, much less make sense."

to borrow some fine words from a friend...

I received an email from a friend today that to my mind perfectly summarizes the madness of our present political moment and the media's backwards approach to the whole mess.

I quote:

So after following the vote to restore our rights yesterday I'm still trying to wrap my head around the mentality of the Conservative voter. Let me get this straight, allowing the police to arrest you with no proof is good, but telling the police about your guns is bad. Along those lines, $200 million for Afghanistan reconstruction is good, but if any of those projects were good for the environment and counted towards our Kyoto target, that would be throwing our money away.

Also, I've noticed a new thing about the political media that I'm not liking. Both after the vote yesterday and the vote on the Kyoto private members bill, the pundits I saw commenting on it (Coyne, Hebert, Taber and Duffy) only discussed the implications for the parties. Like why would the liberals vote against the terrorism laws when it's splitting the party and making Dion look weak. Does anyone really care if the Liberals look weak? What I care about is my rights as a Canadian Citizen.

on the decline of the empire...

I came across this poem yesterday, and it continues to resonate strongly with me. I won't attempt to analyze the meaning, or draw links to our time, but simply offer it to any who happen upon my little blog, and leave it to you dear reader to make your meaning(s) as you see fit.

Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are to arrive today.

Why such inaction in the Senate?
Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
What laws can the Senators pass any more?
When the barbarians come they will make the laws.

Why did our emperor wake up so early,
and sits at the greatest gate of the city,
on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
And the emperor waits to receive
their chief. Indeed he has prepared
to give him a scroll. Therein he inscribed
many titles and names of honor.

Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
today in their red, embroidered togas;
why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,
and rings with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
why are they carrying costly canes today,
wonderfully carved with silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today,
and such things dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't the worthy orators come as always
to make their speeches, to have their say?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today;
and they get bored with eloquence and orations.

Why all of a sudden this unrest
and confusion. (How solemn the faces have become).
Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,
and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?

Because night is here but the barbarians have not come.
And some people arrived from the borders,
and said that there are no longer any barbarians.

And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were some kind of solution.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1904)

notes from the conservative underground...

This tidbit culled from the NY Times was quite an eye opener. A secret council of conservatives handpicking the next Republican Presidential candidate; truly, a fine example of America's world-famous "democracy" in action. Grassroots, what? I'm sure it's not important...

what does "soft on terror" mean anyway...?

I enjoyed this post on commondreams.org a lot. The phrase "soft on terror" quite recently made its way into the Canadian political discourse, something that makes me more than a little nervous, especially as a federal election looms large...

beyond the pale...

A friend forwarded this story to me earlier today. I couldn't believe it. If it was only speculation before, I think this confirms it: Federal politics has officially filed for moral bankruptcy protection.

la belle budget...

Charest's Quebecois Libs unveiled their pre-election budget today. It's strange, but there are no shocking theatrics involved in this tidy fiscal plan, no mention of sparkling priorities, and quite frankly it seems strangely sober for Canadian politics.

Of course the PQ hate it.

But then again, firm rumour has it that the writ will be dropped tomorrow, so...election season is almost open! Strap in folks, it's going to be a bumpy few months...

war is over (if you're stoned enough)...

Who knew that Canada owes its claim to the second iconic John and Yoko "bed-in" at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel to "heat and marijuana." Fabulous. Now that's what Valentine's Day should be all about...

The video on the site shows a diatribe against John and Yoko by Al Capp, the celebrated American cartoonist and born-again Conservative, trying to bring the famed peaceniks down a few notches on their now famous bedpost. Le plus ça change...

(Taken from a special CBC Valentine's Day Archive page.)

the state of the state...

Jokers to the left of us, uninspired policy to the right, here we are stuck in the centre with...

The news is too depressing to chronicle at length. I'm going to pick up trashy fiction and pour a glass of red wine. I'm so very tired of the state of the state.

déjà vu...

Oh dear god...

worth a listen...

If you have an hour to spare, and the speakers turned on, click here. Not entirely unrelated to my last post...

(Taken from the excellent collection of mp3s on the CBC Radio Ideas website.)

why, oh why, do we pay taxes...?

This piece on arts funding got me all riled up... it's a long article by Andrew Coyne, originally published in Next City magazine, and very much worth a read. It basically counters the prevailing view among most media and elites that what Canada needs is more public funding of the arts if its culture is to survive the American behemoth in our back yard (or are we in their attic?), and continue to celebrate national identity and creative excellence.

I will admit up front, that while Coyne makes a compelling case for his point of view, I think he oversimplifies what public arts funding actually amounts to, and reveals a pronounced blue streak in his "individual-knows-best" approach to taxes.

Coyne argues that individuals should only pay for culture they directly consume, and therefore arts funding is unfair to people who couldn't care less what's happening beyond their local Blockbuster. This kind of argument, favouring individual "market-driven" choice, cites historical examples of excellence in artistic creation that made no use of the public purse, as though the only thing public subsidy of the arts was trying to do was discover another Shakespeare or Michaelangelo, by spraying a buckshot of cash at anyone with even the slightest inclination towards making something "great".

Public funding of the arts is a good deal more complex than the model Mr. Coyne presents, so his piece is more correctly viewed as a direct attack on the Canada Council (lord knows it's not the first one, and won't be the last).

Public arts funding in Canada is responsible for an impressive array of cultural public works projects over the last sixty years, including all of the major regional theatre centres, galleries and museums (both small and large), the maintenance and presentation of national collections, encouragement of cutting edge artistic and curatorial practice (recognized and celebrated internationally), the establishment of viable cultural industries, and the list goes on...

And despite all of this, many artists do still make a good living outside of the realms of public subsidy, in the (gasp!) commercial art world, that exists alongside and in fact benefits greatly from the creativity fueled (and funded!) by what Coyne sees as an onerous tax burden on average boors.

An example. Toronto theatre-goers need look no further than the Mirvish Theatre season: originally staged at the (publicly funded) Toronto Fringe Festival in 2001, Trey Anthony's da kink in my hair opened at Theatre Passe-Muraille, a mid-sized not-for-profit (also publicly funded) Toronto theatre, in a remount production in 2003 and did extremely well, boasting sold out performances, a rare achievement in the mid-range theatre scene. Two years later the play went on to a large-scale commercial remount at the Princess of Wales Theatre as part of the 2005 Mirvish theatre season. The production was a massive success, with sold out performances (again) and subsequent television and movie development deals. Was this a bad investment by the public purse?

On the flip side: Atwood on the underfunding of the arts in Canada (sadly, this is only available to Globe online subscribers). This one is a bite-sized opinion piece, a five minute read, and an interesting take on the state of the arts in Canada from one of our most recognized literary figures. To be sure, Atwood's been on the scene long enough to have something to say worth listening to.

heh, heh...

Just click here, and look for "Ken Dryden is not a goalie" posted on February 6. Full credit to my friend MA for this one...

zero means impossible...

Okay, it's a bit (or a lot) pedantic, but the Ottawa city budget, currently in the agonizing throes of council approval, is driving me crazy.

Our recently elected mayor, Larry O'Brien (or Mayor Larry, as he's sometimes called) promised if elected to balance the city books with absolutely no tax increases while guaranteeing no reduction in services. Umm, I'm no economist, but...

His budget proposal seems improbable if not impossible in reality, and the idea that an already cash-strapped set of services could continue to be offered without even a meager a cash infusion in line with inflation is ridiculous. It's citizens who will pay the difference through semi-hidden service fees and stealth taxes, like a proposed increase in transit fares to the tune of 9.5% (just over five times the rate of inflation), and the gutting of parks and rec maintenance budgets along with a reduction in law enforcement capacity. All this because an unelected candidate made a badly researched and irresponsible promise in order to win an election.

The downtown wards, those that stand to lose most in all of this, virtually shut out Mayor Larry, while the affluent suburbs who could quite easily afford the needed increase, enthusiastically voted for O'Brien, public good be damned.

No matter what happens, Ottawa is going to suffer for the sake of one's man's political pride/hubris, and pay a high price when the city starts to fall to pieces because of a new culture of chronic underfunding being led from the top down.

The man has never held any public office, had never attended a council meeting before running for mayor, and rode into power on the strength of his experience implementing "21st Century management practices" (whatever that means). Oh, and the mayor can't stop wearing his ceremonial chains absolutely everywhere he goes. Dark times...

this is so fun...

I told you, in a huff of resignation (with much pouting and sulking), that for the time being I'm ignoring politics, but Scott Feschuk's blog makes it fun again!

it's official...

The science is REAL. Oh, and it's totally our fault.

sticks and stones will break my bones...

Today the federal Conservatives released three attack ads aimed at discrediting Stephane Dion by questioning his leadership abilities, and his credentials as champion of the environment, among other things. It would seem that in the absence of well crafted and comprehensive public policy, Harper's Conservatives feel that name calling is a more appropriate tool in fulfilling their role as stewards of the public trust.

Will this accomplish anything positive for the environment, clarify the role of Canada in Afghanistan, meaningfully address the crumbling public healthcare infrastructure, or deal with any other issue of importance to Canadians? Nope. At best the only things gained are gained by the Conservatives and amount to a few percentage points in the ephemeral public opinion polls and a modest but temporary bump in majority status probability. And after this immature publicity stunt we're supposed to look to Harper and company for increased integrity and accountability in public office? That's the sound of me laughing all the way to indifference.

I'm just going to tune out for the time being and hope against hope that our government decides to actually govern instead of playing opposition politics with the power they were given by the Canadian public in the last election (by a minority of Canadians, it is worth remembering).

the price of secrets...

This past week Maher Arar finally received two things long overdue him: over $10 million in financial compensation from the federal government for their complicity in giving him up to the US anti-terrorism machinery and ultimately to a nightmare of unjust detention in subhuman conditions for nearly a year; and more importantly, a formal apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

It is worth quoting that apology here:
"On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you…and your family for any role Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002 and 2003."

All of this was a result of misused (and likely non-existent) "classified information," a growing body of invisible truth being used by political leaders in supposedly democratic nations to demonstrate to citizens that they are making gains in the all-too-abstract "War on Terror." The public exoneration and compensation of Maher Arar makes clear that there is a concrete financial cost to such secrecy, in addition to a political one.

And yet the continued presence of Mr. Arar's name on the US "no fly list" is a sad example of the failure of our public institutions to right the inevitable wrongs that the culture of over-classification commits. It would seem that even the rational light of public justice is not enough to put to rest some of the worst kinds of secrets, namely the kind that justify unfounded hearsay, and unjust detention.

With this in mind, I find the op-ed contribution in today's New York Times particularly relevant.

'da behrrs...

Wow, there are fans and then there are FANS. In the words of Mama Rose: "Some people got it and make it pay." I don't think the mother of all stage mothers had the Super Bowl in mind, however...

blue is the new green...

Poor Rona. I mean, where was this $1.5 billion in spending on the environment when she needed a career saving announceable? I guess no matter how it's come about, seeing the resurrection of Canada's "old government's" environmental programs is progress of a sort, right?

we interrupt your regularly scheduled life...

...to bring you a word from our sponsors.
This is completely crazy.

saturday afternoon quotable...

"The country of one's dreams must be a country one can imagine being constructed, over the course of time, by human hands."
-- Richard Rorty, philosopher

day one...

The Dems are in charge again...

First female speaker in the history of Congress and the first Muslim Congressman in US history are two major highlights of the newly opened 110th Congress. So far, so good. Fingers crossed...

the holidays are over...

The tinsel has only just been swept off the floor, the decorations put away and the tree put out, and already we're back to the kind of petty politics that made 2006 such a parade of ignorant rhetoric all across North America. Sadly, it's happening in Massachusetts once again...time warp, anyone?

the year ahead...

I've been hesitant to indulge in some sort of New Year's retrospective, "the year as I saw it" kind of thing, mainly because so much has happened to me personally, and to all of us collectively, that I may yet need the better part of 2007 to process all of 2006. I'm also just as reluctant to make any sweeping predictions about the year ahead since pretty much right across the boards we're living under the most uninspired leadership in a generation as the world continues to stumble ever deeper into the uncharted terrain of the 21st century. The travesty of justice in Iraq this past weekend is a prime example of international leadership taking the low road, and showing off the worst aspects of human kind.

Maybe my somewhat dark view of the year ahead is just a side effect of the strange pseudo-tropical winter weather we're having in pleasant valley, or some low-level post-holiday depression, but I must admit that I'm feeling just a touch cynical about 2007. Which is why I had best bite my tongue.

I did, however, come across this quotation last night which, though harsh, does kind of sum it up for me:

"We are waiting with the cruel, experienced eye of a citizenry that has lost respect for its leadership in general, yet hasn't quite worked out what to do about it and so waits for them to self-destruct."
-- John Ralston Saul, from The Collapse of Globalism

"moral anarchy" and other holiday parables...

Bill Moyers' excellent piece about "moral anarchy" in the US is a worthwhile way to pass fifteen or twenty minutes over the holiday season. It's a bit dense in places, but then again critiquing the social order of the United States isn't light stuff.

bam-bam is coming home...

Last week, while in Toronto for some work and a fair shake of holiday season merry-making, a friend mentioned an odd little story to a group of us gathered for a Christmas party. The players in this tale were a family living in a rural patch outside of Ottawa, a wayward deer they had taken in after its mother had abandoned it by the roadside, and finally the 'by the book' provincial bureaucracy that was forced to separate deer from family because they didn't have the proper permit to keep such a creature, no matter that it owed its life to their care. The whole thing looked like it was going to end badly, leaving the poor deer (domesticated to the extreme) to flounder in a zoo setting (where it wasn't really wanted), with the poor farm family left to pine for their darling deer and shake their heads sadly at Queens Park and its "urbanites-know-best" condescension toward the whole affair. A holiday season buzzkill if ever there was one.

Yesterday the PREMIER of Ontario, yes that's right, Dalton McGuinty himself, made a personal visit to the family's rural environs to announce to much media fanfare that Bam-Bam is coming home. Though it won't happen by the time the turkey is served, the homecoming should take place just shy of 2007, meaning a small glass of bubbly might be in order for this most unusual of family reunions to ring in the New Year.

A true Christmas miracle...and great (though admittedly unusual) political photo-op.

quotation for a saturday afternoon...

"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand."

- Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (1632-1677)

if you can't shout anything nice...

best reality tv ever...

CBC got a lot of slack for its first experiment in reality tv, a failed show called The One, but yesterday it got top marks for the best thing since Survivor: The Liberal Leadership Convention.

After a nail-biting day on my couch, glued to the tv, I was handsomely rewarded with what was dubbed by many pundits as a quintessentially Canadian outcome: the "darkhorse" in the running (or underdog, to mix my mammalian metaphors) Stephane Dion, took the leadership of the Liberal party after a series of reversals, upheavals, defections and despite beginning the whole thing squarely in fourth place.

For a second there it looked as though Michael Ignatieff would up the dramatic ante by shedding a tear or two in the agonizing lead-up to the final ballot announcement. Viewers were treated to live televised close-ups of the two finalists side-by-side, a beaming Dion seemed to know it was in the bag, whereas Ignatieff did all he could to turn a wince into a passable tv smile. The whole time a video-montage of ex-Prime Ministers was being screened in the convention hall to push the announcement time to the 6pm time-slot, a prime time media trick to maximize the national viewership.

Everybody agrees that Dion has his work cut out for him. He seems to be a genuinely good man, and has a lot more on-the-ground experience than many of the other candidates, most notably in cabinet as both intergovernmental affairs minister and minister of the environment in previous Liberal governments. Above all this, he looks like everybody's favorite nephew or kind and brainy uncle (depending on which side of the generational divide you happen to find yourself on), so if not a second coming of Trudeau, at least he's not another "you-must-love-me" apologist like the well-meaning Paul Martin, and certainly not a cold intellectual in the mold of our current PM who, I gather, has no idea how to deal with the new head of the formerly headless Liberal party. Now it gets interesting...