David Chernushenko, the anti-Clive

I’ve volunteered with David in the past, and I’ve been impressed by what I’ve seen. He’s good at building consensus and working with others, and exudes competence. Over the past few years, David has extricated himself from the federal Green Party, been appointed to the National Round Table on the Environment, and produced two documentaries. He gets stuff done. And non-Glebe residents of Capital Ward (yes, we do exist) will be pleased to know he’s from Old Ottawa South.

The current councillor, Clive Doucet, is running for mayor. Even though I agree with some of his ideas, he’s the wrong candidate for the job. He was right to argue that we should consider multiple routes for the O-train, and he was right that OSEG should have had to compete against other bidders for redeveloping Lansdowne. But both of those pushes were hampered by Doucet’s inability to build a coalition around his ideas, and apparent problem with deadlines. As a councilor, he’s been a poor representative of the Ward: he consistently doesn’t show up to his public meetings at the Wild Oat (according to his column in the Glebe Report), and his previous election pamphlets have taken credit for work done by community organizations.

I hope that Doucet’s exit from Council will make it possible for David to win. But I worry that Doucet will split the anyone-but-O’Brien vote.

An awesome pair of scuba fins? A smoking hot picture of Pamela Hannam (National Bodybuilder) with a sword? A bitchen’ pair of pliers?

Sadly, you can’t get any of those. Your $27.44 has already been spent on a riot:

The federal government spent $933 million on security for the G8/G20 talks in Toronto, which works out to a little over $27 per Canadian. The amount is seems excessive, especially given the amount spent on security for previous G8 meetings:

(Note that the graph above is a dramatic low-ball, as it assumes that half of the $933 million was spent on the G20 summit)

It’s too bad that vandals that showed up with the legitimate protesters. They’ve provided a post hoc justification for a mind-numbing waste of money.

Next time perhaps they could consider renting a cruise ship and buggering off to the middle of the Atlantic. Or maybe head to Kannanaskis again?

Human Development and Sexual Health
C3.3 describe how visible differences (e.g., skin, hair, and eye colour, facial features, body size and shape, physical aids or different physical abilities, clothing, possessions) and invisible differences (e.g., learning abilities, skills and talents, personal or cultural values and beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, family background, personal preferences, allergies and sensitivities) make each person unique, and identify ways of showing respect for differences in others

Teacher prompt: “Sometimes we are different in ways you can see. Sometimes we are different in ways you cannot see – such as how we learn, what we think, and what we are able to do. Give me some examples of things that make each person unique.”

Student: “We all come from different families. Some students live with two parents. Some live with one parent. Some have two mothers or two fathers. Some live with grandparents or with caregivers. We may come from different cultures. We also have different talents and abilities and different things that we find difficult to do.”

Teacher: “How can you be a role model and show respect for differences in other people?”

Student: “I can include others in what I am doing, invite them to join a group, be willing to be a partner with anyone for an activity, and be willing to learn about others.”

(Excerpted from the original proposal on the Government of Ontario’s website and mirrored here)

That’s it? Saying that some kids have two moms is “bordering on criminal”? According to the nutbars cited above: “To cause confusion in a young child’s mind about being male or female is evil.” O rly?

This argument strikes me as thinly veiled homophobia.

Instead of overt queer-bashing, the “family values” crowd is now saying that they want to hide homosexuality from their kids. Their homophobia is suddenly a parental right. They don’t want to openly dis queers, they just want to pretend that gays don’t exist. One gentleman from the Sault is quoted as saying “a child is taught to comply, answer the right questions in school, and at home he’s taught this is not right behaviour, [...] Is that fair to the kids?” That’s right. Teaching kids that homosexuality exists is unfair to them. Presumably because they’ll have to rectify their parents’ bigotry with society’s openness.

I’d like to say that this issue does matter. But it does. Some of the “family values” types will have gay kids. And those kids are going to have a rough time growing up. I can’t help but think that a brief admission that homosexuality is okay in Grade 3 might save those kids a measure of hurt growing up.

(Edit: Changed the title)

Why has Quebec suddenly decided that niqabs are bad? To “protect equality between women and men”¹ and to “stress the values that unite [Quebecers]“²

In other words:

• Quebec has decided to bar women from language training to protect their equality with men.
• Quebec is targeting immigrants and minorities to promote inclusiveness.

I agree with the premise that niqabs are ambulatory prisons that can be used to drive a wedge between women and society.

But saying “you musn’t wear a niqab” is pretty close to saying “you must wear a niqab.” It removes a woman’s right to self determination. In both cases she’s not quite as equal as the man who gets to choose his own duds.

If I were to draft my own Bill 94, it would look something like:

1. The only time someone’s face needs to be shown is when they are being authenticated. Women will have to show their faces to bankers, police, doctors, and pharmacists. If a woman can complete her studies with her face covered, then the only time she need show her face at a school is when she’s taking a test or examination.
2. Make school uniforms mandatory. Adults have already formed habits and ingrained behaviours that many Quebecers find distasteful. Let them be and concentrate on the next generation. If niqabs are as onerous as their critics suggest, children should jump at the freedom afforded by their uniforms.

“Reasonable accommodation” is a two way street: immigrants will have to adjust to showing their face when necessary and Quebecers will have to adjust to seeing people with different customs. It’s reasonable to expect immigrants to respect our laws and other codified norms, but we can’t expect them to entirely discard their native culture. Similarly, recent immigrants should be able to expect that they will be treated in the same manner as other citizens, as a society we realize that their history is part of who they are and we accept that. Even if have decided we don’t like its origins.

Image by leeno.

1. That’s according to Chrstiane Pelchat, president of the Quebec Council on the Status of Women.
2. So says Jean Charest.

But I don’t get the “turn off their lights” part.

If we’re trying to convince Canada’s population that we should do something about climate change, we aren’t going to win any converts by telling them they have to reduce their quality of life. People associate lighting with being modern. In our society, you only sit in the dark if there’s something wrong with you. If we want to actually do something, we should try to show how easy it is to live green. We should point out that we waste a crap-load of energy on inefficiency. We should point out that our energy consumption has risen by 10% between 1990 and 2003¹, but our standard of living hasn’t changed (while our real incomes have fallen).

If I got to design a replacement for Earth Hour, it would go something like this: A bunch of my fellow hippies would gather on Parliament Hill on Saturday morning with batteries and generators. We’d build a stage, and invite a bunch of acts to come out an play. Come 8:30 we’d start the show. It would be powered by generators running on non-food sourced biomass (such as agricultural waste) and batteries charged from renewable sources. Everyone who could produce a valid bus transfer, or a piece of ID with an address within two kilometers of the event would get a free drink. Everyone who brought their own drink container would get $1 off booze ($2 if the container still had the skanky remains of their morning coffee). Anyone who drove would have to stare into Fat Cat’s unblinking eye for ten minutes.

And now for a numbers rant: the bizarre part about Earth Hour is that lighting really is the least of our problems. In 2003, Canada produced 10,477,207 terajoules (TJ) of energy from green house gas emitting sources. 15.3% of that was converted to electricity.² In 2003, we used 63,000 TJ of electricity for lighting. That’s 3.9% of our total green-house-gas emitting electricity use, or .6% of our total energy use.

1. According to public data, we consumed 7,539 kilograms of oil-equivalent fuel in 1990 and 8,278 in 2003.
2. Calculated by adding together the GHG emitting sources and dividing by total: (134019+337441+1138645)/10477207. This clearly doesn’t cover non-GHG emitting energy sources such as hydro, nuclear, and renewable energy. Those sources do, indirectly, emit GHGs, of course, but that makes the calculation harder.

Conservative types are holding this up as an affront to free speech. Last night’s “John Counsel” show on CFRA had the usual suspects: various flavours of little-”c” conservatives complaining that the Man is holding them down.[1] And, on the small scale, they’re right.

But I’m not so sure about the bigger picture. Anyone who wants to find out about Ann Coulter’s ideas can do so. You can find her on TV. You can find her in the library. You can find her on Youtube and on the Fox website. One could say that there’s a Coulter surplus in the mediasphere. Assuming she’s towing the Republican/Conservative party line, there are plenty of blogs and websites pushing the same ideas.

Now I’m going to embark on some speculation. I assume that the pitchfork wielding mob protesters that shut down the talk last night were the people that Ms. Coulter allegedly bashes: Muslims, the educated, homosexuals, people who read, Jews, and political moderates. If I wanted to hear the counterpoint to Ms. Coulter’s tirades, I would have to do a lot more work, as there’s no single socially progressive media outlet on the scale of Fox news, and no think-tank with Fox’s reach.[2]

That doesn’t justify shutting down a talk. That doesn’t justify barring hundreds of people from hearing Ms. Coulter speak. But it’s worth remembering.

Image by Gage Skidmore.
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1. I stopped listening to the show when John Counsel started shouting down a caller that said “I agree, but what Ann Coulter says isn’t true.” Apparently freedom of speech is only important when it echoes your opinion.

2. You could argue that the BBC or CBC would approach the scale of Fox’s reach, but neither conglomerate pushes a single viewpoint in quite the way that Fox News does.

The premise of the post seems to be that religion alters “traits” rather than current state, and that these altered states are a good thing.

I disagree with both of these assumptions.

Did good ol’ fashioned religions cause people to “radically re-think the social order”? Not really. When religions are adopted by the state, they preserve the social order. Think of Islam or Catholicism. Universal suffrage, the (US ethnic) civil rights movement, and abolitionism were artifacts of their time that were adopted by populist religious groups.

When religions are used as tools to change the social order, are the results necessarily positive? No. Just take a look at the crusades or Iran’s Basij (volunteer religious vice squad). We can toss Afghanistan’s Taliban or any number of other self appointed moral police forces throughout history.

The West’s move away from organized religion probably has more to do with the US anti-establishment backlash of the 60s and the Christian church’s failure to keep up with current morality (viz the Catholic church’s various sexual abuse cover ups, and the spasms of hate reacting against gay marriage and the ordination of women). At the same time, less and less of our lives need a mystical explanation, and people are finding it easier to operate without the small scale mutual aide that religion once provided.

Religion isn’t falling to mysticism, established religions are creaking under the weight of an open and accepting society. As time goes on, either religion will become more personal (meaning fewer organized religions) or organized religions will adapt to our progressive social landscape. Or we’ll fall into a spasm of social conservativism and the old-skool religions will suddenly be relevant again.

PS: Is the “the Market” a religion? No, not really. Fervent belief isn’t a religion any more than believing in Santa Claus or cheering on a sports team.

Highly recommended:

• Planet Money (by NPR) – I can’t recommend this podcast enough. It’s a lay-person’s economics show, covering current issues relating to the US economy. The hosts are to economics what ninjas are to kicking ass. And they do it without being boring.
  
• The Age of Persuasion (by CBC and Pirate Radio) – An insider’s view of advertising. Given that it’s produced by an advertising writer, it’s not surprisingly that it’s really, really fun to listen to. A little short on content, but the production value makes up for that.

Recommended:

• Search Engine (by TVO) – A current affairs show dealing specifically with internet-related issues. It’s pretty geeky, which is probably why CBC dropped it, but the host is knowledgeable and (kind of) funny.
  
• This American Life (by NPR) – A general interest show. Each podcast features four or five stories relating to a theme. It’s kind of humorous, but occasionally dips into serious topics. About half the episodes are too saccharine for my taste.
  
• White Coat, Black Art (by CBC) – A current affairs program about health related issues. The host, an ER doctor, interviews doctors and other health professionals for their perspective on various issues. The show is interesting, but rarely looks at the public policy side of medicine (such as lowering cost, improving quality of service). Worth listening to, nonetheless.

Recommended with reservations:

• Shot of Jaq – A show about open source from a couple of Ubuntu employees. Each show covers a specific topic, and is intended to get listeners talking on the show’s website. The shows are quick (which is probably the best thing about them) but tend to ramble. The hosts rarely offer much insight into the issue they’re talking about.
  
• The Current (by CBC) – A middling current affairs program. Each podcast is about 20 minutes long, in which the host tries to conduct at least two sets of interviews. The interviews usually sound rushed, and the guests are of variable quality. At the end of each program, I feel like I’ve been given a quick overview of the given topic, but without any real depth. I’m not sure why I keep listening to this.
  
• Quirks and Quarks (by CBC) – I really, really want to like this show. It’s CBC’s sole science show. It features interviews with various boffins about their latest discoveries. But it’s really, really dry. As much as I try to listen to it, I find myself tuning it out. Which is too bad, since the quality of reporting is top notch, and the host does a great job at making complex information accessible.

Terrible:

• The Moth – Imagine the worst whackjobery of CBC’s Ideas, mixed with the bland self-adulation of CBC’s Tapestry. Each relatively quick episode is supposedly a true story from some egoist’s person’s life, being told on-stage without props or a script. It’s like nails on a chalk-board. I suffered through four episodes before I finally unsubscribed. Why did it take so long? Because I’m a masochist.