Monday, June 28, 2004
An end to a hellish, 36-day roller-coaster ride. The numbers are still volatile at this point, but the end result of the 2004 election is clear: a Liberal minority. After my month-long anti-Harper diatribe, what more do I need to say this election night? Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go pass out from stress.
Follow-up: Early the next morning, the numbers had stabilized: 135 seats for the Liberal Party, 99 for the Conservative Party, 54 for the Bloc Québécois, 19 for the NDP, and one independent. Late-evening hopes for a Liberal-NDP alliance were dashed by the sobering reality that the two parties were a seat short of the 155 needed for a majority, putting the resurgent separatists in a unique position to defend their "national" interests. In other words, although we dodged the bullet of conservatism -- this time around -- we now have the gun of separatism pressed more firmly against our temple. Welcome to Canada's first minority government in 25 years.
Follow-up: Apparently, 39.5 percent of the Canadian electorate is shamefully stupid, up 0.7 percent from the previous election: voter turnout dropped from 61.2 percent in 2000 to 60.5 percent in 2004 -- a new low, if you can believe it. What's wrong with you people? Don't you like democracy? Don't you like having a say? Sheesh. And to think, an increase in voter turnout was my only optimistic prediction for election day; being wrong about it leaves me shaking my head, ashamed of those millions of citizens who, sadly, do not take advantage of one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship. (By the way, if you're one of these non-voting voters, pray that I don't hear you whining about the outcome or proffering lame excuses -- you'll get an earful from me, be it in private conversation or the checkout line.)
Follow-up: Oh, sorry, didn't you Quebecers know that voting for separatists was a vote for separation? You didn't fall for Gilles Duceppe's "this isn't a vote on sovereignty" bullshit, did you? You've been conned, folks; you've been bamboozled by those purporting to represent your best interests. Political doublethink and doublespeak -- "un parti propre au Québec," indeed. Separatist filth. (Said with as much rancor as humanly possible.)
Follow-up: Oh, sorry, didn't you Albertans know that your boy Harper scares a lot of us Ontarians? Given the option between him -- and those around him, many of whom are scarier -- and a so-called "corrupt" government...
posted by media_dystopia @ 22:31 [ link | top | home ]
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Max Barry strikes back. That wacky Australian has gone and done it again: made me piss myself laughing. No, really, I felt a squirt. (I was wearing dirty underwear and jeans at the time so it didn't matter.) This time it was his "Max vs. Telstra" post in which his Internet woes are pinned on cable-chewing koalas. That's the kind of mental image that has me in stitches, probably because rodents are funny. Yes, I know that koalas aren't rodents, but they could easily be confused with them. Well, maybe not. Still, they're small and furry and chew on things and that's close enough for those of us who've grown up with the beaver as a national symbol. While the U.S. has the bald eagle, a majestic, soaring, powerful bird of prey, Canada has an oft-wet, creek-damming, tree-killing, paddle-tailed, buck-toothed, waddling rodent whose pelt makes a warm hat, or so I hear (I prefer toques). Trust me, it doesn't take long to see the humor in them, and, by extension, in koalas, who are arguably cuter and, again, not rodents. If I were having problems with my Internet connection and I or my ISP blamed it on beavers chewing on the cables, that would be funny, no beaver experience required.
posted by media_dystopia @ 10:18 [ link | top | home ]
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Unböring babe magnetism. I've decided that IKEA is the nexus of beautiful women in Ottawa. Go ahead, sit in a POÄNG armchair, put your feet up on a SLÖINGE footstool, and look around the showroom -- it's awash with them! And being the only IKEA in the region -- you think the city gets its cachet from being Canada's capital? -- it attracts a lot of stunning Québécoises from across the river. The only drawback is that the attractive women in the store, no matter where they come from, tend to have their partners and/or children in tow. Just when you're covertly admiring a solitary one from afar, she calls her fiancé over to look at a GRÖNÖ table lamp. Typical. And I don't know whether it's the oft-umlauted Swedish on the price tags or the free monomers in the air, but IKEA makes a lot of couples sickeningly lovey-dovey. (LÄMPLIG trivets make me horny, too.)
posted by media_dystopia @ 04:08 [ link | top | home ]
Saturday, June 19, 2004
Pattern review. The journey of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition: from anticipation to consumption to trepidation to distraction to me saying that I quite enjoyed it. No verbose review required -- my enjoyment speaks volumes.
posted by media_dystopia @ 18:43 [ link | top | home ]
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Talk about a rarity. Not only did I watch Bubba Ho-Tep twice in a week, but the eccentric film -- quirkily described in the DVD special features as an "Elvis-mummy-cancer-on-your-penis movie," by the way -- may convince me to read Joe R. Lansdale, the self-described "champion Mojo storyteller" whose short story inspired it.
posted by media_dystopia @ 00:46 [ link | top | home ]
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Max Beh?rry. The men's washroom in the department-store-sized World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto has one stall, and I had to use it something fierce; unfortunately, so did other patrons. While pacing around in increasing discomfort, grumbling about the one time I really need to use the can, I stumbled upon the store's ad-hoc cyberpunk display. They didn't actually call it that; it was described as the works inspirational to, or in the vein of -- something to that effect -- the Matrix trilogy (Revolutions having been recently released on DVD).
One of the books displayed alongside William Gibson's Neuromancer, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and other classics of the genre was Max Barry's Jennifer Government, a novel I was unfamiliar with. I had enough time to read the blurb on the back cover before the last of the stall-hoggers walked past. I rushed off to claim the still-warm toilet seat, quickly forgetting about the book and its description; simply -- and perhaps disturbingly -- put, my memory dumped as soon as I did.
Fast-forward a week and a half, and I'm perusing The SF Site's author directory, when, for some reason -- Barry's site isn't listed there -- I remember the eye-and-bar-code cover art of Jennifer Government. So, I Googled the book, clicked my way to his site, read the first chapter, and, as a result, decided to buy it. (Not yet, though; I have a pile of other books to get through first.) I'm even willing to pay the exorbitant trade-paperback price for a new copy -- that's how intrigued I was by the online preview.
Next, I read a bunch of his essays and blog posts, and found myself not only getting excited about writing -- his and mine; he's inspirational -- but laughing out loud. That combined with his post about his first novel's poor sales in Canada convinced me to buy it as well. At the time I made this decision, I really had no idea what Syrup was about; nevertheless, Barry made me laugh at a time when I really needed to, and on that basis alone, he deserves to see a digit attributable to me on that pitiful royalty statement.
Score one for fickle consumerism.
Follow-up: With apologies for capitalizing the word "Internet" (in general) and dissing Cryptonomicon (in a linked post). If it's any consolation, my style is a hodgepodge of CP, AP, and Merriam-Webster -- consistency being the key, of course -- and my copy of Snow Crash is sacrosanct.
Follow-up: Change of plans due to the election campaign and the exasperation it's causing: as soon as I finished Pattern Recognition, I went out and bought Jennifer Government. I would have also bought Syrup, but every Chapters I visited was "out of stock," which I suspect is a euphemism for "we only stock books that sold more than six copies across Canada in the last half of 2003." Philistines.
Follow-up: Barry has since been added to The SF Site's author directory. Unless, of course, my eyes and Ctrl+F were playing tricks on me a month ago -- I could have sworn that his site wasn't listed there. Now I'm wondering whether I was even looking at the B section in the first place. No matter; I bought Jennifer Government so I'm allowed some factual leeway...right?
Follow-up: When you remove all possibility of a Syrup impulse buy in Canada, it's no wonder that only six copies are sold in as many months. If the Chapters locations in the Toronto and Ottawa metropolitan areas are any indication, Canadian bookstores aren't stocking the book anymore. I finally -- and grudgingly -- had to order it from chapters.indigo.ca, which I hope will count towards Barry's royalty statement for Canada. Luckily, I was able to qualify for free shipping by tacking on a second trade paperback: Jeff Noon's Vurt -- a book I've been meaning to read for years.
posted by media_dystopia @ 05:03 [ link | top | home ]
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
At least I accomplished something today. Almost a decade and a half after first seeing Total Recall, I finally read Philip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," the short story that inspired the movie. (It was included in the Pat Cadigan-edited anthology The Ultimate Cyberpunk.) Yes, I'm still reading Pattern Recognition; I just feel like jumping around a bit. By way of an explanation, while in Toronto last week, I did a circuit of Queen Street and Yonge Street's used book stores; the resulting pile of cheap books, by authors I'm long overdue in reading -- again or for the first time -- is rather tempting, so William Gibson's novel may take longer than expected.
Follow-up: A few days later, for instance, I started Frank Herbert's Dune (on my to-do list for years) and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (in advance of the movie).
Follow-up: Pattern review.
posted by media_dystopia @ 19:17 [ link | top | home ]
I didn't want to be rude. If you're in a Chinese restaurant -- in this case, one in Markham, just north of Toronto -- and deep-fried pigeon is prominently listed on the menu, is it polite to ask whether it's local? I'm curious as to whether Canada has a thriving import market for pigeon when the bird -- and its shit -- is so abundant here. If so, is there anti-foreign-pigeon lobby working behind the scenes in Ottawa? Is there a crafty Canadian black market attempting to thwart the overseas pigeon cartels? Do young children supplement their allowances with homemade pigeon traps? Interesting questions all, but as the chances of me keeping a straight face while asking about the dish were slim to none, I skirted the issue altogether by ordering some less thought-provoking fowl: crispy chicken with black-pepper sauce and rice. (It was delicious.)
posted by media_dystopia @ 04:47 [ link | top | home ]
Monday, June 07, 2004
Feel better? I know I do. Out of Tampa Bay's 34-player roster: one is Slovak, one is Ukrainian, one is Swedish, one is Finnish, one is Swiss, one is Czech, three are Russian, four are American, and 20 are Canadian. And while half the U.S. contingent are bench-warming goalies -- the ice time going to Nikolai Khabibulin -- Murray Harbour, P.E.I., has a hometown hero in Conn Smythe Trophy-winning forward Brad Richards. Therefore, although Calgary didn't win the Stanley Cup tonight, statistically speaking, Canada did. (Talk about making the booing of O Canada counterproductive, eh?)
posted by media_dystopia @ 23:50 [ link | top | home ]
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Stephen Harper: fundamentally disturbing. I didn't want to talk about the federal election campaign, but just over a week into it, there is a knot in my stomach so tight that I get nauseated thinking about what could happen on June 28 -- a day that could very well signify the end of the Canada I know and love. That's why I have to say something to Stephen Harper -- and the electorate -- before it's too late:
You and the Conservative Party do not speak for me. You do not speak for those of us who believe in the equality of Canadians and the sanctity of their rights and freedoms, irrespective of language, gender, and sexual orientation. If the first week of the campaign did anything, it's brush away your carefully prepared facade of tolerance, and expose a far-right agenda opposed to, among other things, bilingualism, abortion, and same-sex marriage. Simply -- and frighteningly -- put, you are anti-French, anti-woman, and anti-gay; therefore, to me, you are anti-Canadian. If, God forbid, you form the next government, I shudder to think what will be left of our much-envied liberal policies and leanings, as well as our cherished legal bulwarks -- the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Official Languages Act, to name some essential ones -- once you are done with the country. I hope, no, pray that my fellow voters see past their anger towards the Liberal Party and exercise their franchise fully aware of what yours, true to its Reform roots, is really about: right-wing bigotry. (Is that really the kind of change people had in mind?) Personally, I would rather vote for a party that squanders taxpayers' money than for one that shamefully turns back the clock on Canada's social progressiveness; the thought of you doing that is as terrifying as it is disgusting.
There, I've said what I had to say; unfortunately, though, my words are going fall on the deaf ears of the Conservatives, and the disgruntled ones of the electorate. Once you realize that voters -- that is to say, those who actually bother to vote (the others making a mockery of the democratic process) -- are intent on change, no matter the cost, it's hard to feel good about the outcome of a campaign. In fact, I feel so uneasy about this election that the dropping of the writ might as well have been the swinging of the axe, with Canada's civil liberties, even its open-mindedness, on the chopping block. I fear for my country at the best of times; I'll fear for it even more if it falls into the hands of Stephen Harper, Canada's own George W. Bush.
Follow-up: Add the following to the Conservatives' extremist mantra: capital punishment -- good; Parliament's supremacy over the Supreme Court and the Charter -- good; hate law protecting gays and lesbians -- bad. At this point, I'm not sure whether to scream in terror, or retch my guts out. (And to think, these additions only took them half a week; there are still 22 days left to go.)
Follow-up: And no, I don't need the Liberals to spoon-feed me my opinion of Stephen Harper and his intolerant party; if anything, their attack ads and political rhetoric merely corroborate -- after the fact -- what is painfully obvious to me: the Conservatives are an affront to my beliefs. What's also manifest, at least to this voter, is that a government of Liberal boondogglers -- thieves, even -- is a much lesser evil than one of Conservative hatemongers. The latter may be asking me to "demand better"...but they ain't it.
Follow-up: You know, for a party campaigning on a platform of "accountable government," the Conservatives don't seem very accountable to those of us who believe wholeheartedly in the wording and spirit of the Charter, including a woman's right to choose and same-sex equality. I had hoped the Tories would heed the advice of Isaac Asimov, who said that you should "never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right"; however, I see no evidence that they're capable of separating their fundamentalist morality from their increasingly probable governance -- and that's what scares the hell out of me. Suffice it to say, the 19 remaining days of the campaign are going to be worry-filled ones for me.
Follow-up: With 17 days left until liberal Canada's political doomsday, I defy social conservatives to prove to left-leaning or progressive Canadians, myself included, how derogating the Charter -- denying rights, freedoms, and protections -- is in any way good for Canada. (Or how it is anything but just plain wrong, for that matter.)
Follow-up: If that wolf in sheep's clothing Stephen Harper thinks I'm going to allow him to sink his sharp fangs into Canada's social progressiveness, he's sadly mistaken. Being a blogger is as close as I've ever been to being an activist; however, if the Conservatives win in 16 days, I may have to turn to real-world activism in order to stop them from destroying all that I hold dear. There are plenty of groups in Ottawa I can volunteer or hold a placard for; thanks to Stephen Harper, you may see me on Parliament Hill with the likes of Canadians for Equal Marriage, Egale Canada, or some other laudable organization.
Follow-up: If, in two weeks, disaffected Canadians vote -- or, worse, not vote at all -- to punish the Liberal Party, in spite of its new and respected leader, they may end up hoisting all of us by their petard. (Thank you in advance.) Personally, I'm comfortable voting on social issues -- what's right for Canada -- in this election because I know there's a level playing field between the Liberals and Conservatives when it comes to scandal and waste; in fact, any politician who proclaims an end to either is like a pyromaniac proclaiming an end to matches or fire.
Follow-up: Proof positive that I'm worried about the election: I watched both debates -- four hours of doublespeak and grandstanding in both official languages. (Skipping the simultaneous translation this time not only allowed me to hear the leaders' French, but it kept translator rage out of the psychological mix.) In what has got to be one of the signs of the coming apocalypse -- if you're a Liberal, that will probably be in 13 days -- Gilles Duceppe, the Quebec separatist, made more sense to me and spoke more to my values than Stephen Harper, the social conservative. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.)
Follow-up: The election of Stephen Harper as prime minister in 12 days is going to be the death knell for same-sex marriage (with or without the shameful use of the notwithstanding clause) and, worse, national unity in this country -- that's the best-case scenario, if I'm charitable with my predictions. If I'm not, I'd say that the list of the Tories' victims will be expansive indeed: the Canada Health Act and one-tier healthcare; the Charter; abortion rights; the hate law protecting gays and lesbians, not to mention their rights in general; the prohibition against capital punishment; comprehensive gun laws; the Official Languages Act and bilingualism; the CRTC, including protection against anti-Canadian broadcasting; media ownership rules; the liberal attitude towards our airwaves that keeps the morality police at bay; support for the arts and Canadian culture; the CBC...
Anti-Conservative hyperbole on my part? I hope so; I honestly hope that I'm proven wrong about Harper, and that he is a great leader for Canada. I'm just not able to muster that much optimism about the man and his party based on what I've seen and heard thus far. Frankly, they're going to have to do a whole hell of a lot to earn my trust and respect. And I hope they do, because this is not a case where I want to have to say "I told you so"; as Canadians, we will have all lost by that point.
My use of the present tense in this (hopefully) last follow-up shows that I'm resigned to the fact that 24 Sussex Drive is going to have a new resident soon. The winds of change are upon us; like the proverbial train wreck, there is no stopping it at this point, no matter what I or anyone else says. (For my part, over 1,400 words in this post alone.) All I can do now is sigh, shake my head, and hope for the best while Canada plays political Russian roulette.
Follow-up: I'm sorry, but I have to keep talking about this, because with a week left until doomsday -- a description of June 28 born of cravenness and worry -- I'm having a fit of nerves; that is to say, I'm scared shitless of the Conservatives and their oft-denied hidden agenda. It's less what they say than what they don't say that scares me, a feeling made all the worse by the inevitability and inexorableness of the situation, my calm sense of resignation in the previous (and supposedly last) follow-up notwithstanding.
What's more, the party's current feel-good ad is doing nothing to assuage my fears; any warm-and-fuzzy feelings resulting from the images of Stephen Harper with his wife and kids are negated by the shivers sent down my spine by the creepy, slow-motion, up-angle shot of the leader walking through the corridors of power. Speaking of artifice, Harper says that the election is about trust, but he and the Tories have done nothing to prove themselves trustworthy; all they say is that Paul Martin and the Liberals aren't, which, as time goes on, smacks of hypocrisy. In the original post, I called Harper "Canada's own George W. Bush," but that description belies how intelligent, well-spoken, and slick he is -- qualities that make a right-wing prime minister all the more unnerving.
Let me be clear here: I'm not telling people who to vote for, or even who I'm voting for (although the party not getting an X beside its candidate's name can be easily inferred); I'm only encouraging Canadians to exercise their franchise, and to do so armed with knowledge. Given what's at stake in this election, I'm not sure which is worse: not voting, or blindly voting. (With apologies for sounding like Elections Canada or the Liberal Party.)
Follow-up: I've noticed that the better the Conservatives are doing in the polls compared to the Liberals -- thanks in large part to Quebec, but minus any seats there -- the more up front, vocal even, Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Québécois are about their separatist aspirations, while simultaneously claiming that this election isn't about sovereignty. Bloc doublethink aside, given the widening divide, Stephen Harper may just go down in history as the prime minister who, to quote a federalist friend in Quebec, "broke Canada." It's convenient, then, that the Parliament Buildings overlook the Ottawa River: that's where the linguistic, cultural, and political wedges are going to be driven starting June 28. Perhaps I'm being a doomsayer, but it seems to me that this election, with its shift to the anglophone right, is the beginning of the end of Canada as we know it; at the very least, we're going to lose a degree of our social progressiveness and a part of our country -- and the process begins in six days. (Am I expected to sit idly by while this happens?)
Follow-up: And no, I don't need Michael Moore or Fahrenheit 9/11 to tell me what to think of our conservatives or how to vote in our election five days hence. Being liberal-minded -- and, more importantly, not a complete idiot -- I'm able to come up with an opinion of Stephen Harper and his right-wing party on my own, thank you very much. Besides, making comparisons to George W. Bush and the Republicans is the purview of the Canadian electorate -- which, as far as I know, does not include the controversial American filmmaker. I don't think Moore realizes just how different an animal Canadian politics is; he need only look at our volatile campaign to see that.
Follow-up: Ditto for that hypocrite Ralph Nader, who's warning Canadians about the dangers of right-wing policies and voter anger; this being the man whose vote-splitting helped put Bush into office in 2000, and who's doing it again in 2004. (Thanks for screwing us all, pal.) Gee, I'm sure glad I have his and Moore's blinding glimpses of the obvious to mull over for the three remaining days of the campaign. Whatever would I do without high-profile American liberals telling me what to think three weeks after I've already thought and written it? You know, I think I'll return the favor shortly before November 4; sticking my nose where it doesn't belong is the least I can do. (Well, at least my sarcasm is intact -- my hope certainly isn't.)
Follow-up: It's the Friday before election day, and according to various polls, it's a Tory-Grit dead heat with Monday's winner headed for a minority government, one in which the Bloc holds the balance of power. (Let that be a lesson to you: your vote does count.) Being a natural pessimist, however, I'm going to assume that the pollsters are wrong and expect the worst-case scenario (as if the separatist resurgence wasn't bad enough): a Conservative majority. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to find a comfortable corner, curl into the fetal position, and suck my thumb for the weekend. Can someone please place a cone of silence over either me or the election so that I don't hear anything about it until I cast my ballot? Maybe then I won't have nightmares about being trapped between the Scylla of conservatism and Charybdis of separatism. Sigh.
Follow-up: Say, does voting Conservative come with a free lighter and a copy of the Charter? Just wondering.
Follow-up: The 38th General Election will be decided tomorrow, a day whose significance for Canada cannot be overstated; succinctly put: we're screwed. Except for voter turnout, that is; if the advance polls are any indication, it's going to see a substantial increase over the 37th in November, 2000, and other federal elections. Now, whether that's because of Elections Canada's ubiquitous -- and much-appreciated -- "Why not speak up when everyone is listening?" advertising campaign aimed primarily at disaffected youth, or the unpredictable, ideologically disparate, down-to-the-wire, nail-biter of a race the likes of which this country has not seen in decades, remains to be seen. But aside from a (hopefully) respectable turnout and all that that implies about the electorate's desires and concerns, we're...fucked. I'm sorry, but given the political fortunes of the Conservatives and separatists in this campaign, soon to be confirmed at the ballot box, there's no other way for me to see it.
Follow-up: As you can tell, I occasionally succumb to verbose prolixity in my blogging. In this case, what started out as an open letter to Stephen Harper has turned into a meandering, 2,800-plus-word diatribe about the Conservatives and election in general, this current digression being a case in point. Adding a twist to this oft-followed-up post was the decision not to link to news stories so as to appear less biased or, at the very least, more aloof; given that I ended up being more of the former and less of the latter, it's no wonder that I'm not a journalist.
Speaking of the press, I spent much of the campaign marveling, sometimes to the point of exasperation, at how reporters could cover the devious electioneering and bitter politicking with such hand-rubbing glee, seemingly at arm's length and unaffected by what was at stake for Canada, even though they're citizens and voters like the rest of us. That being said, that degree of objectivity and independence during a heated election campaign -- especially one involving politicians whose media policies could adversely affect the journalists and their employers -- boosted my already healthy respect for Canadian journalism.
By the way, I got most of my election news and analysis from CBC, CTV, and Radio-Canada, with content coming from their main networks, all-news channels, radio stations (in the case of CBC), and Web pages. As for the local and national newspapers, I only paid attention to them long enough to read their headlines and leads while walking past their coin boxes. I also did my best to avoid and ignore National Post-style editorial partisanship, whatever the medium.
Follow-up: It's Monday, June 28, and I've just voted. (Organized, efficient, and enjoyable as usual, thanks to Elections Canada.) Now I enter electoral purgatory: waiting the rest of election day for the results of a contentious race that's too close to call and whose outcome will have far-reaching consequences for Canada. Suffice it to say, I'm nervous, worried, and frightened. What's going to happen to my beloved country today?
posted by media_dystopia @ 01:34 [ link | top | home ]