None of the Above?

So, if Angus Reid were to call me today, and ask, "If a federal election were held today, which party would you vote for?", the interviewer would be faced with a long pause, followed by "None of the Above?"

"So, you are undecided?"

"No, I am decided, and I don't want to vote for any of the federal parties."

Having been a loyal federal Liberal all my voting life, I nevertheless find myself unable to vote for any party led by Stephane Dion. He was elected as an agent of change and principle by the Liberal youth vote, and his first change was to remove the spine from the federal Liberal party. His decisions to vote up or down a bill is not based on whether or not the bill would forward Liberal principles, but only on whether or not he thinks (at that very moment) the Liberal party can win the next election. By abstaining, the Liberals are allowing laws to pass that they don't feel are good laws. So much for being a man of principle. At this point, the federal Liberal platform is meaningless because they aren't willing to advance with any sort of seriousness for fear they might have to face the voters.

My next option is to vote Conservative. At the provincial level, I have voted PC for at least the last two elections, because Dalton has done nothing to convince me that he isn't a typical lying, evasive politician. John Tory at least seems willing to work with the governnment to pass legislation that he feels are good for Ontarians (such as the TTC back to work order). (I know, I know, they voted for their pay raise, but at least they voted on principle, even if it means pissing the voters off).

But Stephen Harper is a different type of conservative. He advocates accountability, but limits the press' ability to ask questions to his MPs and staff. He advocates transparency of government, but even the auditor general feels that his new laws in this area would hide things like Ad-Scam due to the numerous new loopholes it creates. And boy, does he love loopholes. Just look at the "In-and-out" scandal. The official position is, "We didn't do anything wrong because we interpreted election law differently". Wow.

I can't bring myself to vote for any political party, at any level, led by Jack Layton. I danced the Lotto 6/49 Happy Dance when Olivia Chow lost in Spadina Centre.

Greens? Maybe, but voting for a one issue party is bound to bring nasty surprises.

So, to summarize:
Liberals - not willing to stand up for their principles
Conservatives - lives too much by the "do what I say, not what I do" principle
NDP - ABJ (anyone but Jack)
Greens - a party where everyone wants to be the environment minister doesn't make a good government

Miller Time

When the going gets tough -- the tough get going. And sometimes, when the going gets really tough -- the tough get really gone.

During the toughest negotiation Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union has faced, Mayor David Miller got himself gone all the way to China. Then, returning just when a strike-averting agreement was being reached, Miller somehow managed becoming situated as if he’d saved the day.

Union president Bob Kinnear, for instance, had some suspicions the day got saved by Miller. Though uncertain how transit strike was averted entirely by Miller, Kinnear must have had profound suspicions when saying,

I think it's evident the mayor did get involved. If it wasn't the mayor, somebody from city hall sent a new directive.

But Mayor Miller is far too modest, smart or magnanimous to accept such false credit. Mayor Miller stomps false credit down flat. Insists it was TTC negotiators that did the bargaining. And not just this time around. All that credit Miller got for TTC strike-averting 3 years ago when speaking directly to Kinnear? Ayup. Miller stomped it all flatter’n shoe-paste. Said it amounted to a five-minute phone call in which he merely asked the union leader to go back to the table. Which phone call he could as easily have made from China. Maybe even called collect -- as a cost-cutting measure.

Goes to show how well we do without Mayor Miller when the going really gets tough in Greater Toronto. Heck. Some might say we’d do far better without. But here’s the thing. They’re having a rough go of it in China. Falling over themselves, tumbling all over the world stage. Yet they listen to Mayor Miller in China. In China, it might be singularly when Miller raises Tibet human rights issues that the rights message gets clearly heard.

That’s where our Mayor can do the most good. In China -- not in Greater Toronto. Seriously. He could tell Chinese partisans how, despite being for human rights in Tibet, the West is absolutely not against China. How fascinated by Chinese capitalism we are in the West -- having not ourselves experienced capitalism so unrestrained since the English industrial revolution. How, despite always rejecting communism, we have become far more socialist in the West than in China. What embarrassment demonizing the Dalai Lama is for China. What shame abducting Panchen Lama -- world’s youngest political prisoner -- brings to China. What humiliation staging anti-Western protests constitutes for China. As if nobody knew what happens to unauthorized protest rallies in China. Come on, Chinese partisans -- there's no staging anything that inept without laugh-tracks.

Most of all, Miller should venture Canadian help and expertise when it comes to Tibet. China would do well to seek Canadian advice instead of silence. Because China’s sovereignty issues can’t hold either water or candles relative to Canada’s. Chinese partisans would not be called upon to permit referenda -- as in Canada. Chinese partisans would never have to seriously negotiate land claims -- as in Canada. None of the above. All Tibetans seek is some cultural autonomy. Come on, Chinese partisans -- what's the big deal? Relative to Canada’s sovereignty issues, China’s can be walked through parks off-leash most sunny days.

They really listen to Mayor Miller in China. In China, Mayor Miller gets clearly heard. So never mind talking to Dalai Lama -- since no way would Chinese partisans listen to anything he’d have to say. Never mind releasing Panchen Lama –- who’s not likely talking or even breathing by now. It’s Mayor Miller Chinese partisans should be talking and listening to. Some quality Miller time might chill them right out. And if Greater Toronto gets lost without him -- we’re just a phone call away. Toronto would never hang up on Miller -- not even if he did call collect.

Miller overlooking Great Wall of China screenshot from here.

dis-Junction

Back when I first moved to the Junction -- 20 years ago -- no one ever called it that. None had heard of any Junction. And even if they had, residents would never have called it that. Not for love nor for money.

Back then, reference had to be roundabout. Indirect. Oblique. This was Bloor-West -- North. Or High-Park -- West. In events of direst emergency, it became Annette Village. Dire emergencies as when clients confronted real-estate agents with: “You mean it’s (gasp) north of Annette?”

Like some geographic sore spot or socio-economic canker, it was way too unmentionable to rate its own designation. Blemishes seldom get personalized nameplates.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. Everything that mattered. First, the City finally repealed its prohibition against alcohol in the Junction. The economically devastating prohibition lingering in the Junction until 1997. Which meant that instead of lurching along Dundas West, guzzling from paper bags, I could actually sit myself down at excellent neighbourhood pubs. Like Axis, for instance -- where nobody knows my name but they’re damn friendly anyway.


Axis: among first and best post-prohibition Junction watering-holes.

Second thing that really changed in the Junction was when the City installed spectacular-looking, historically relevant light posts all along Dundas West. All the way from Keele to Runnymede. Reminding everyone how great the Junction used to be -- late in the 19th century.


One light to remember the Junction’s better days by.

Now, the Junction has become almost idyllic. People boast living here -- despite what traces of old economic sores remain. Despite how, in the Junction, all sides used to be wrong of the tracks.

Tough either quantifying or qualifying such transformation. Once, Dundas West was considered fraught and hazardous. Now, biking back from downtown during rush-hour, one feels nothing but relieved crossing Keele. Motor vehicles make some room. Instead of swerving around parked-car doors opening in one’s face, smiles are exchanged with motorists waiting until one’s safely passed by. And it’s been quite a while since I’ve heard the fear of walking Dundas West after sundown expressed. Day or night, people seem to flock this way.

That’s what really struck me a couple days back. How flocking to Dundas West might be getting a bit ridiculous. See, this building got knocked down between Keele and Pacific. Then, instead of new building, there was this sort-of stage erected on that lot.


Some sort of stage.

The other day, on this sort-of stage, there were people in top-hats and bonnets. Also, a crowd gathered round watching. A rather large crowd. So large that I roller-bladed the periphery of it spilling into the street.


Spilling in the streets.

Turned out to be guided-tourism. No doubt by the Junction Historical Society. Got me curious enough to rush home, dump roller-blades, grab camera, hop on bicycle and rush back. What I wanted to know was this: would tourism-guides point out sores and cankers remaining from the Junction’s bad old days? Or would focus get restricted to the Junction’s more ancient, spectacular history -- and the new, so much improved look?

There are plenty sore spots remaining. Architectural restoration and improvements along Dundas West of Keele shoulder tight against a century’s dilapidated neglect and dereliction. Certainly some business survives -- even prospers. Yet, despite famously cheap rents, there linger legacies of the ghost-town this used to be. Commercial activity still fails so predictably and repeatedly here -- storefronts get boarded up and papered over just about more often than not.

Listening in best I could -- nothing said about the bad old days. How residue from those days still lingers. Ancient history? Heaps. Everything new and improved? Loads. The days in between and reasons how bad those were? Nothing I could hear.


As if the ghost of McBride Cycles weren't looming right there.


Strenuously ignoring commercial ghost across from McBride's.

There's so much remaining to ignore in the Junction. Historic tourist-guiding must demand real careful stepping. Almost like around open graves in otherwise splendid grave-yards.


Spectres of a former Handyman's..


Of a former Upholsterer's..


Even the long-abandoned corpse of an overly Hasty Market.

That’s why I’m so not into history. Including the Junction’s. Because how often history seems to mean the mistakes we’re bound to repeat.

Failing Economics II

Hey -- what’s with the partial nudity?

That’s just how Robert Nadeau regards economists. Because, according to his recent article in Scientific American, economists are scientifically ignorant. That’s why, on his view,

Unscientific assumptions in economic theory are undermining efforts to solve environmental problems.

Essentially, Nadeau’s argument isn’t that economic theories are inconsistent. Only absurdly incomplete. As if mainstream economists were describing nothing but straight narrow portions of spectacularly long winding roads. Thus, particularly when it comes to ecological impacting, economists mislead us. Their theories can’t lead us anywhere we need to go.

Economic theories are misleading rather than explanatory due to how absurdly incomplete they are. Nadeau is calling for economic upgrades:

Because neoclassical economics does not even acknowledge the costs of environmental problems and the limits to economic growth, it constitutes one of the greatest barriers to combating climate change and other threats to the planet. It is imperative that economists devise new theories that will take all the realities of our global system into account.

Some economists might not take Nadeau’s threat to tinker economics lying down, though. “Bender”, for instance, commented that,

In an article purportedly discussing economic analysis and environmental policy neither externality nor externalities ever appeared! I don’t know which is more depressing, that someone could be stupid and ignorant enough to produce this tripe or that the Scientific American has sunk so low as to publish it.

How pedantic. That's exactly what Nadeau's talking about -- how overwhelming economic externalities like ecology are getting. But Nadeau not utilising the specific terms “Bender” recognizes resulted in “Bender” utterly missing Nadeau’s point. Standard economic theories mislead us precisely because environmental crisis constitutes such overwhelming externality.

Nadeau’s right, of course. We are rushing full steam and toxic waste to being overwhelmed. Not just economically.

But should economists seek to internalize theoretically and factually overwhelming externalities like environmental crisis? No. By no means. Absolutely not. There is no economic solution to our problems. Rather, let’s better appreciate how limited and incomplete economic theories are -– and let’s start looking way past economics for what it means to be more natural. What it means to be at all natural.

Can we do that? Toronto living is just about the most economically affluent anywhere –- ever. We expect some economic turbulence ahead. Will we be willing to look past it –- for what it means to be more natural? Or do we remain forever fixated on economic maximizing -- regardless how affluent we get? Regardless the cost to everything natural so precariously remaining?

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

Screenshot from here.

This Browser Officially Hijacked

This is what you’ll see when your household exceeds the bandwidth quota allotted by Rogers.

You’ll be sure to see it. Rogers will hijack your browser and show it to you.

And your browser window will wind up looking like this:


But I refused to believe it this morning when it happened to me. What -- over 60 gigs? Just in March? No way. I monitor every last drop of bandwidth percolating through the router. No way.

That’s what I said when I finally got through that crazy voice recognition system of Rogers’. No way.

“Well,” replied their living and breathing tech support fellow, “what does your record show?”

“20 gigs -– give or take a few,” I growled. All indignant.

So we compared daily bandwidth records. And it turned out I was totally wrong. The 20 gigs I’d been looking at? Corresponded with the last 10 days’ use. Only.

“Alright, fine,” I relented. “But how confident are you guys in tracking everyone’s bandwidth? And what will you do when individuals dispute your readings? How will you resolve that?”

“Pretty confident,” he said. “We’ve been testing the hell out of it. Of course, computers do make mistakes. And in such cases, customers self-tracking their bandwidth will stand a good chance of getting credited.”

“Ok, but why do it at all?” I asked. “Didn’t your high-speed customers sign up for unlimited use?”

“We have no choice,” he replied. “We pay for bandwidth and now it’s getting to the point where some customers are using 200 gigs. More even. That’s what’s wrecked it for everyone else.”

Ok. Fair enough. But still. The link provided by Rogers to view one’s bandwidth usage -- rogers.com/keepingpace –- is not accessible. In fact, Rogers’ website has been down all day. How to trust Rogers’ bandwidth tracking everyone –- when Rogers can’t even keep their own website up?

I’ll keep right on self-tracking, thank you. And this whole browser hijacking thing? I’ll have to think about that some more. Because, going by first impressions –- it just seems like some sort of security nightmare. But first, I’m gon’na find out who’s been abusing the torrents @ my household last month. That’s one mystery won’t require much brilliance detecting.

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

p.s.: Are there any decent providers left -- or is the whole virtual universe getting chocked by Bell "traffic shaping"? Anyone know -- Carolyn, Richard?

Beyond Ignorance and Understanding

Not long ago, I wrote that we clash cultures while the world plunges to climate-change hell in burning hand-baskets.

Sure there might be some hoping for the future -- if only human beings bothered understanding cultural principles and ideologies better. Cultural principles and ideologies defining who people are -- and who the enemies of the people are. Because then, just maybe, we might start bridging gaps between ourselves and cultural others by discourse -- rather than plugging them with bullets.

But better understanding is not enough. If cultural ignorance of self and others escalates conflicts, let’s absolutely struggle against ignorance. What to do, though, when hatred precedes mis-understanding? When the hatred precedes and surpasses all ignorance? When we set out to genocide cultural others -- knowing full-well what we set out to do?

That’s what I was confronted with on Thursday while at York University. How hatred has a life and death wish all its own. Surpassing both ignorance and understanding.

First there was the Toronto Star article about China’s ambassador to Canada accusing Dalai Lama of “telling lies to the world” and masterminding violence in Tibet. Lu Shumin actually expects us to believe the Dalai Lama is some sort of lying, violent devil. That the Dalai Lama just pretends to be an angel. According to Lu Shumin,

Dalai Lama has presented himself to be a peaceful, like an angel kind of figure, for such a long time.. the Western public take this for granted…

Sorry, Mr. Ambassador. Every public in the world knows the lies are all yours. Because everybody knows the Dalai Lama is as close to angels as human beings get. Everyone knows where the Dalai Lama stands against violence. So best luck with your crass, transparent vilifying and demonizing campaigns, Mr. Ambassador. Such lies do nothing against the Dalai Lama -- they just trample the shreds of China’s dignity from the world stage.

And then, doing my usual rounds, I started hearing ululations. Following the sounds of which across campus led me to Vari Hall -- and this unbelievable mob scenery.

Not just the regular mob that occupies Vari Hall, though. Nope. Now there were two mobs. As if the regular had somehow, amoeba-like, split. Found themselves waving different flags. Just went collectively insane. Competing to drown each other out by megaphone-amplified histrionics. Barely separated by York security guards. With eight police cruisers parked right outside -- just waiting for York security to collapse.

There were a couple signs getting totally ignored up in the rafters -- requesting dialogue instead of mob-action on campus. And on spur of that moment, it seemed I could do better. After all, hadn’t I been writing articles against cultures clashing and dashing the future of everything natural to cinders?

That’s why I laid me down between mobs. Vaguely hoping the mobs would realize that by lying down between them I was standing up for the future.

Well, the mobs paid no slightest heed. Either didn’t notice or didn’t care. York security, though, reacted instantly.

“Sir! You are going to have to move. Right now!”

“Where to?” I asked.

“One side or the other, sir. Right now!”

Great. York security demanded I pick sides. So I settled for walking back and forth. Asked a few questions. Read some literature.

Nearest I could make out, the entire dispute was semantic. Whether the border fencing separating Israelis, Palestinians and Egyptians ought to get called an “apartheid wall” or not.

Well, wasn’t that obvious? Of course it shouldn’t. Apartheid is offensive -- not defensive. When walls are defensive life-savers, we tend to think of them as being great. Not just when they’re huge -- like the Great Wall of China. Also when they’re relatively smaller. Like that wall of Hadrian’s. Even when they’re relatively tiny fortifications. They’re all great when built as defensive life-savers.

The Berlin Wall was offensive. It was pretty huge -- but it sure wasn’t great. No way was the Berlin Wall defensive.

The real issue, of course, is how to quench burning cultural hatred such as surrounding Israel and Tibet. Before it’s too late. Can better cultural understanding suffice to span gaps and contradictions between human cultures by dialogue instead of bullets? Not likely.

But not because the issues are too complex to resolve. To the contrary. When it comes to Tibet, Communist Chinese partisans keep demanding Canadians remain silent. Otherwise, how would Canadians like it if China began agitating for Quebec sovereignty -- or the return of our home and native lands to the native peoples they were stolen from?

Such nonsense. China ought to seek Canadian advice instead of silence. Because China would not even be called upon to permit referenda or seriously negotiate land claims in Tibet. All Tibetans seek is some cultural autonomy. Relative to Canada’s sovereignty issues, China’s can be walked through parks on any sunny day.

Issues get a tad more complicated when it comes to Israel and Palestine -- but not too much. All distinct peoples and societies must possess territorial integrity to secure cultural autonomy. Otherwise, absent some territorial integrity and cultural autonomy, distinct peoples are at constant risk of genocide. That’s just how we are once cultures get clashing. What else is human history even about other than our clashing cultures?

Hence, Palestinians must have their own country. But not a shittier littler country to stew in eternal resentment, for crying out loud. Palestinians must have a country they can be proud of. A country they can proudly work to build -- rather than constantly looking to destroy someone else's.

That’s why everybody has got to chip in. Not just the Israelis with the West Bank and Gaza. Everybody. Internationally. Jordan can give up a little space, surely, on the river’s east bank. Egypt can provide a chunk of the Sinai. Why not? These would just be territorial crumbs. But crumbs which, together, would create a decent dignified future.

So simple. Palestine must be larger than Israel. Come on, Arab brothers. Contribute. Just some crumbs from your laden territorial tables. The days of the Palestinian people foddering your cannons against Israel are over. You threatened Palestinians to leave, to get out of your way when you came shooting to genocide Israel in 1948. Yet Israel still stands. You promised Palestinians they’d return to feasting on the corpse of Israel. And not only haven’t you delivered to this day and age -- you continue burying the Palestinian people, heaping perpetual shame on them as refugees. As if Israel still standing were their fault instead of yours. But it was your threats and broken promises, Arab brothers, which broke Palestinians from their homes. It is your duty, Arab brothers, to contribute making the Palestinian people whole again.

Contribute, Arab brothers. Don't shrug off every responsibility onto Israel -- there must be more honour. And give up levering the Palestinian people to genocide Israel already. You've been trying for 60 years. Give it up. If god were willing, you would long since have succeeded. Help make the future better, please. Not always worse. Come on. How hard can it be? Any future would be better.

No. The issues are not too complicated to resolve. Not if better futures were desired. But, of course, there’s no intention of making anything better once cultural hatred starts burning out of control. Sometimes cultures do clash due to plain ignorance or misunderstanding. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, for instance, ought to have been averted by better intelligence, better understanding and a little less ignorance. But too often, once hatred flames out of control, cultures can’t stop clashing. No matter what. Not until at least one is extinguished.

Because hatred can’t be extinguished once cultural others come to be regarded as antithetical to everything good and proper. When some cultural other merely continuing to exist becomes unbearably humiliating. In such cases, vilifying and demonizing cease reflecting strategic lies and tactical propaganda. The hatred expressed in such cases is genuine -- honestly reflecting sensations of utter humiliation entailed by the cultural other merely existing. The cultural other comes to embody everything which hinders attainment and the manifest destiny of one's people.

In this sense, Chinese leadership demonizing the Dalai Lama indicates profound humiliation that Tibetan culture continues existing. Chinese leadership expects to be believed despite what the whole world has been witnessing for decades -- how the Dalai Lama stands against hatred and every manner of inadvisable material attachment. Because Tibetan culture continuing existing, cankering China's becoming super-powerful and preparing to host Olympic Games, necessarily means the Dalai Lama must be some sort of lying, violent devil.

Just the same in the case of Islam and Israel. Islam can never stop shooting at Israel because nothing can more profoundly humiliate Islam than Israel continuing to exist. How can Israel’s existing 60 years despite all Islam’s best efforts even be conceived? Like, whose side is god on, anyhow? It can’t be conceived. Islamic maps deny even the geographic fact of Israel. That’s why it doesn’t matter what Israel does. From how much land occupied in defensive wars Israel retreats. How great the walls Israel builds to defend itself are. What truces Israel ratifies. How relatively well Muslim citizens fare in Israel. None of that matters. Islam can’t ever stop shooting at Israel. When Israel builds walls to stop violence, Islamic leaders vilify those walls as if offensive rather than defensive. Since Islamic leaders honestly don’t get how Israel could be entitled to self-defend. When Israel gets forced to shoot back at Islam in self-defence, Islamic leaders holler that Israel commits genocide. Despite how unabashed Islamic leaders have been calling for Israel’s genocide since 1948. Despite how some Islamic leadership is actually chartered on genociding Israel. Despite how Israeli culture was conceived in resisting genocide. Despite how desperate Israel is for peace with Islam -- i.e., to not itself get genocided. None of that matters. Israel continuing existing entails such humiliation for Islamic culture -- it means Israel must be the genocider rather than the genocidee. Thus, when vilifying and demonizing Israel, Islamic leadership isn’t intending to lie. They are just expressing their feelings of cultural humiliation -- and reminding us, once again, how to really hate.

We can’t always be forgiven for not knowing what we do. Sometimes we know perfectly well -- but our hatred surpasses all ignorance or understanding. Times like that, it doesn’t matter whether we boycott the Olympic Games. Since, whether we boycott them or not, these games will likely come to be known as the Cultural Genocide Olympics. Nor does it much matter what road-maps we draw to Middle-East peace. There’s no place for Israel on Islamic maps. Ultimately, the power of hatred to clash human cultures suggests Armageddon will long precede our climate-change hell. And, if only so, the world might become a far better, more natural place.

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

Dalai Lama image screenshot from here -- CBC interview with the Dalai Lama. Very much worth reading.

Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit

an article by David Brin, Ph.D.

This unusual article looks at how truth is determined in our four 'accountability arenas' -- science, democracy, courts and markets. It was lead article in the American Bar Association's Journal on Dispute Resolution (Ohio State University), v.15, N.3, pp 597-618, Aug. 2000.

Copyright © 2000 by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

Dr. Brin's the 3-part article:

I. The Need for a New Kind of Dispute Resolution

II. Toward a New Dispute-Resolution Process for the 21st Century

III: A Concept for Implementation