Eye Contact

The Beautiful Game

2010-07-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get back into the habit of maintaining a semi-regular blog although it's not a sure bet as I have a hard time remembering tasks that aren't staring me in the face. I have been gathering up the resolve to sit down in front of this computer and write for some time now but I'm always fighting off the temptation of another external stimulus, in the case of this month, it's World Cup Soccer, which I have been engrossed in.
The game is aptly named the 'beautiful game' -- it has symmetry, grace, a mesmerizing flow and artistry, not to mention strategy. I count myself as a recent convert to the ranks of World Cup soccer enthusiasts even though my familiarity with the game itself reaches back to my childhood where I played it (although I was not much of a competitor). It's a game that hasn't caught on in North America because winning is almost secondary to skill -- and because victory itself is hard-fought and of such a low-margin that it doesn't appeal to the North American impatience with process. Soccer, (or Football) is also, hands-down, the world's game, and it brings nations together to revel in their tribalism for a brief-period every four years.
I've heard the predictable refrain that international competitions like this, are divisive and manifest crass expressions of nationalism. Some of this may be true, but who can deny the outcome of a match won fairly between two talented opponents? In the end, people are brought together by the love of a well-played spectacle.
In this post-feminist age, men are being culturally emasculated. The hunter-instinct is being legislated out of existence. In light of this, team sports serve as the last outpost of the warrior code where the ancient ritual that exults male prowess is provided a safe venue.
Once again, the critics of the male domain of team sports are completely wrong. Our biological evolution has not yet caught up with the social and political strides that have been made in the last four decades, although the purging of instinct through social engineering is well underway. In the absence of noble masculine virtues such as honour and gentlemanly conduct, a troubling trend has been developing in the western world aided by young men who are growing up to embrace thuggish, idiotic role models in the vacuum of traditional male role models. I believe we're looming over the cliff of our social evolution in which the human progress is in direct tension with the confusion and decadence that it engenders -- and at times, the latter appears to be tipping the scales. This is very often confirmed when I am subjected to the brute thumping and chanting of rap music, which is defended by liberals as somehow a legitimate "cultural" expression right up there with Mozart or Miles Davis. Sports offers a constructive 'directing' of our collective aggression and that's not going to change anytime soon.
The nature of masculinity in the west, especially in the younger age group, appears to be morphing into two directions -- it's either cowardly effete or psychotically macho, and the shades of grey in between seem more inconsequential. Team sports as become hijacked with the pressures of the marketplace and an ego-driven, win-at-all-costs mentality has replaced the quaint civilizing values of character-building and teamwork. Despite this, a well-played World Cup soccer match is a far less-destructive means of channeling our testosterone than UFC fighting which is merely a barbaric, Road-warrior-like grotesquerie. Soccer is about the collective and the individual supporting each other in the interest of an advantageous outcome, like components of a machine working in unison, it is simple in it's application and rules and only requires minimal investment vis-a-vis equipment. A third-world village has a greater chance of producing the next Pele than it does the next Wimbledon champion, and it's mere accessibility alone is testament to the sport's enduring appeal.
The World Cup is universal because developing countries have as equal an opportunity to shine in the limelight every four years as their richer counterparts. Unfortunately, the results of the matches often underscore the economic disparity of the world as the poor African countries competing in the tournament, rarely stand a chance against the wealthier European nations. How does one explain the perennial success of the South Americans? It's an obsession verging on religion down there and the economic and political instability in South America, I'm willing to bargain, is still relatively less than in sub-saharan Africa. Economics does have alot to do with sports and obviously in a country like Nigeria or Cote d'Ivoire, there are simply fewer resources available for promoting and nurturing football talent compared to places like Europe or Brazil for that matter.
I had been cheering for the African nations all the way and was disappointed that Ghana, the last remaining African side in the tournament, was eliminated by a pesky Uruguay. A Ghana win, psychologically, would have been a substantial boost to pan-African morale and on this level, the game is epic -- it becomes a symbol of an entire continent's pride.
In actuality, I'm not really attached to any outcome in this tournament because in reality, no matter who wins the World Cup, it's an opportunity to feast on dazzling skills and breathtaking drama. And, I can't help but think that a fraction of Canada will win the World Cup. There are hyphenated-Canadians from every continent flying the flags of their countries of origin and whoever the two teams are in the final match, there will be a roar of celebration by one ethnic group in one neighbourhood and the moans of defeat in another.
When all is said and done, it's about watching the very highest-level competitors trying to out-think and out-run each other, this is the evolutionary contest at its very finest.

Futility Factor

2010-07-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

This blog has seen a long drought of neglect, mostly due to my energies being consumed by the demands of the workaday existence. I've settled into a bit of a routine that has carried me along for the last few months now and so much of my mental capacity is used up teaching, (as anyone who's ever taught before knows) that finding the motivation and discipline to maintain a blog is not easy to summon. Often I just want to find a comfortable horizontal position when the demands of my workday are complete, and stay there. I would be lying if I said I didn't have time for this however. There are a myriad of reasons why someone decides to continue or discontinue their blogging habits, and my situation is no different. There's the whole "blogging is futile" factor. When I stop to consider how massively saturated the blogosphere is, with a forum for every obscure fetish or extremist political view, I get that sinking feeling that my meagre contribution is just another forgettable blip in an ocean of forgettable blips. Why does anyone blog then? Does it give us that empowering feeling that we are candidly sharing our thoughts with a hidden audience out there in cyberland and thereby influencing change on a mass scale? Nobody can be so naive as to believe that this has the power to do much of anything other than provide an instant profile of recognition for said blogger. It's another filtering device for our egoes, one that presumes that people out there are going to take precious time out of their lives to read the self-conscious pontificating of amateur social-scientists. If futility factor weighs in heavily to discourage me from maintaining a blog then that can be used to justify avoidance of other endeavours, like making music or art or even housecleaning. If the chances of someone stopping to appreciate it or even acknowledge it are miniscule, then why bother with the whole exercise? It becomes merely another vehicle for self-indulgence in our culture -- as if we need any more, and it implies that the blog author is not someone who is doing something out there in the world of consequence like all the busy and productive people who don't have time to read blogs.
So why do I keep (or sporadically keep) a blog going? It's because, even though I know that it may not be read by many, it is a chance for me to distill and refine my views and because standing on the street corner and unleashing my disgust through a megaphone would get me arrested.

Countdown City

2010-02-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

The city feels like it's under some laid-back west coast version of martial law as the 2010 Winter Olympic games are about to descend on us. The downtown core is a maze of makeshift road barriers manned by police and security personnel, directing traffic and eyeing any suspicious persons. It is a bit of an unsettling addition to the landscape. I feel so leaden about it all. I am not able to summon enthusiasm for this giant spectacle that will thrust this usually low-key backwater of a city into the harsh spotlight of international media attention. These games have been surrounded by controversy from the day that they won a slim majority of support by Vancouverites in a plebiscite. It has been a nonstop build-up since then with construction projects sprouting up everywhere inconveniencing many and forcing nearby businesses to close down. It has sponged up massive public expenses with a spiralling deficit that has appeared to many as a frivolous extravagance in a city that boasts one of the most addicted and transient neighbourhoods in North America.
Others have blamed the provincial government here for ignoring the plight of the marginalized while pouring money into a "corporate event for the world's elite." The games' critics point to cuts in healthcare and education and other high priorities. The games are seen as an untenable white elephant that will cripple the host city with debt for the next two decades. No good can come of this and any attempt to argue on behalf of the games' merits is met with a shrill chorus of rebuke by the fervently partisan anti-Olympics crowd.
Yet, despite all of this, I am of two minds about the games. I have learned how to keep silent around friends who are vocally anti-Olympics because these same people are well-briefed with facts and figures that they can recite at will. They are prepared to back up their rhetoric with sources -- flimsy and biased sources -- but sources nonetheless. I am not inclined to look at the Olympics through a limited "either/or" ideological lens however. My feeling about this all is that the verdict is out on the 2010 games and that their long-term legacy is likely to prove mostly positive, this won't placate the games' self-satisfied critics, however, who can point to the immediately measureable costs and adverse impacts that the games have imposed on the city and the province. The games are too omnipresent and they resonate far too wide to simply categorize.
There is a sizeable, organized and vocal activisit community in Vancouver that is poised to jump at every occasion in which an injustice whether real or perceived might surface. They have seized the Olympics as a catalyst in which they can direct all of their energies and resentments. These mostly professionally-unemployed malcontents never bother to factor in that the drastic budget cuts to healthcare and education in the early decade were more a result of a neo-liberal government's blueprint and that these cuts would have been the case with or without the games coming to town, it is impossible to convince those who I would describe as the "knee-jerk" left, of the error in their assumptions. They are just as extreme and uncompromising as their counterparts on the right -- untainted by the truth and impervious to contradictory logic.
However, I've learned that to raise a dissenting voice is not to be heard among this zealous, chanting congregation in the church of contrarianism. I have to admit that I feel reluctant to reveal my political differences in their company because their groupthink mentality is so tight and so insecure that it excommunicates anyone who doesn't properly get with the party line. I've learned to bite my tongue and contain my opinions when I hear yet another friend of mine spout "Olympics = bad."
Any astute observer can agree that Vanoc (the organizing committee for the 2010 games) has been overly protective of the Olympic copywright and has been a regulatory bully. It's easy to dislike Vanoc as a governing entity. I dislike its strongarm tactics and its attempts to micro-manage the spirit of this event. I even dislike our provincial government more for their mean-spirited policies and their whoring to big business. Critics of the games are right to point out the exorbitant pricetag for all this has resulted in rent gouging as Vancouver's housing market has heated up in recent years -- but i would argue that this is also not exclusively the games' fault. Critics are right to complain about the mass inconveniences and gridlock that the games will cause, I cycle to work every day on my bicycle and I have to take a much more circuitious route, that wouldn't be so bad if cyclists weren't sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians.
There has been mismanagement and duplicity in this and to top it all off, we are experiencing one of the warmest winters on record here. Just this morning I heard robins singing. The other day as I was riding home, I had to shed layers of clothing because I was getting very toasty in balmy 12 degrees weather under a pale yellow sun and a feeling that spring was in the air. It's almost impossible to snap into a winter Olympics fever when it's plus-10 and you are leaving your winter clothes at home every morning.
With all this said, I am going to step up and make a case for why I think the games ultimately is a good thing, however.
On the surface, the Olympics celebrates the power and beauty of the perfectly conditioned human body and the spirit of peaceful competition among nations. But more importantly, it reflects the highest values in our society -- self-reliance, discipline, pride, hope -- in a word -- excellence. All of these values have fallen far out of fashion in the last 40 years and are mistakenly conflated with "fascist ideals"-- when they were in fact, just as much the guiding values of the generation that defeated fascism. The spoiled boomer children of that generation, of course were willfully blind to this in their orgiastic rush to shed their garments of repression and with them, any other inconvenient obstacles to their instant gratification ethos. Naturally, all of us who've come after have inherited the boomer frame of reference and the social order of the present has been so enfeebled by officially sanctioned mediocrity and learned helplessness over the forces of striving and self-sacrifice, that no sector of society is immune from the scourge of the lowered bar it seems. This slackening trend of the western world with all of its apologists -- academics, journalists, activist judges -- a generation bred and trained in culturally-correct revisionism, is the entrenched status quo. Optimists might claim that there's nothing to despair about here and that this cultural warfare reflects the wonderfully diverse and fluid nature of the west, where currents rub up against each other and that the dialectical tension is healthy. Can these same optimists make the same defense for disintegration of values, the decline of prosperity and political apathy? Are they indicators of a healthy and vibrant liberal democracy?
Radicalism used to have very real enemies, yet now radical opposition to authority looks increasingly more desperate and destructive and protesting mobs resemble sophomoric, attention-craving ingrates who, lacking any real prospects thanks to their selfish parents, resort to a nihilistic lashing-out at all symbols of authority. The Olympics serve as a useful target for frustrations by those who are quick to ignore the universal message of self-betterment that the games represents in favour of cynically focusing on its worst aspects.
It is presumptuous to declare the 2010 games to be either "all good or all bad" -- they are simply too interwoven into our community now and they represent an investment that will yield a tangible legacy. Will the games pay for themselves? Probably not in the immediate term and I rank among those skeptics, - however, I think this will have long term benefits for this city although it may not be to my liking or to that of the anti-2010 protesters who see progress in a narrow light.

In with the New...

2010-01-21T22:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a long stretch since I last checked in and alot has happened since. For starters, another new decade has crept up, it's already 2010 and I remind myself of this with a staggering disbelief. I'm still living in the city I grew up in but don't feel I belong in. It is about to host the winter Olympics here which has been plagued with controversy not to mention an unseasonably mild winter that is closing down the ski slopes.
On the personal side, I finished my B.A. last month by completing an online Science course to fulfill the credits needed to graduate. This last year I became better at taking care of my matters although external situations more or less thrust that upon me. I, like many of my generation, have voluntarily or quite unwittingly, avoided adulthood for most of my life and I'm now beginning to understand what my parents meant with their finger-wagging sermons about how there were no options outside of the ambitious pursuit of a respectable profession. I have been at all out war with their value system for years and have used up the reserves of my defiance to their narrow, bourgeois definitions of success. I have resisted any slight concession to the truth in their damning and critical world-view. But as what was once a leak in a boat now grows to waist level, I have to concede that their fear-based value system could boast some merits -- insofar as putting oneself on the right side of the financial divide goes. I've been more or less steadily employed since July so I shouldn't complain too much. This has put me in an overall better frame of mind and enabled me to move into better and more centrally-located digs in a hipster enclave of the city that is soon to be converted into condos and chain franchises. In late October, I was able to bring my girlfriend over from Taiwan and she stayed for an entire month until early December before returning to Taiwan to deal with all the crap that she had stockpiled. During her visit I was reminded of how similar our natures were -- our tendency to put off matters and avoid taking care of the minutiae. This pattern, I think created an unspoken sense of unease in both of us, despite how much more responsible I had become in her view. My instinct tells me it's over but my emotions want to hold on. The long distance relationship that we had going for two years gave me solid goals to work towards. Completing my TESOL and finishing university, getting my credentials for teaching, burying my father, setting up my own place. The prospect of having her come here and stay with me fueled these initiatives and inspired me to make important changes in my life to accommodate her potential visit. I am proud of the fact that we stopped the vague promises and cheap talk and that, through my initiative, her visit became a reality. She made it here, spent one month in my apartment (unfortunately it was November -- the most rainy and dismal time of year here) and then promptly turned around and went back to Taiwan. I showed her my best, I demonstrated to her that I was competent and could manage my situation (working two jobs and being gone all day must have been a good tip) and I showed her I could take care of her but this was not enough of a glue to hold it together and the nagging priorities she felt needed addressing at home meant that this relationship could not compete for her attention. We were both dismayed at this realization and as it stands now, I don't think we are likely to continue. It may very well be that she had come to psychologically symbolize my lingering attachment to Taiwan, in effect, she was that link, that purpose that could provide me with the excuse to return one day.
What else needs be said here? This is a case of making a huge personal investment in what I believed was love. It has certainly let me know that I am capable of doing it again should the opportunity present itself and that maybe this served as an anchoring "goal" to work towards. With that gone I feel a bit hollowed-out and thrown into slight confusion about my next step. I have resolved to get back into promoting myself as a graphic artist, but it seems so daunting, and to continuing to make music. I have alot of ambitious directions in mind and sometimes I get stuck in my tracks because of the "dizziness that comes with too many possibilities" but I have resolved this year to take myself far less seriously and to appreciate the transient and brief nature of my existence as a call to action in the here and now.
The Science credit I had to take to fulfill the requirements for my B.A. was the a combination of Earth-Ocean Sciences, a course designed for non-Science majors. The theme of the course was the science of natural disasters. Throughout it we studied modules on earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, landslides and impacts from space. It was fascinating and informative and helped me to appreciate the scientific discipline much more than I had in previous years. What struck me the most in this course was a unit devoted to the Earth's age and the relative age of life on our planet. I learned that all life forms comprise barely a quarter of the Earth's history and that in that history of 4.6 billion years alone, there have been five major extinctions of life due to external circumstances of climate change and the re-configuration of continents. What is astonishing to me is how infinitesimally brief and insignificant our lifespans are in the time of the cosmos and yet how phenomenally precious we are at the same time. This alone should serve to liberate the soul and to ensure that we consciously pursue lives of fulfillment. This is perhaps the hardest task before us.

Entering the Curve

2009-09-02T01:17:00.000-07:00

Summer is fading fast, although increasingly the passing of every summer seems shorter and even less-eventful than the previous one. The dogged pace of time feels like it's a gathering trajectory along a race course and I've entered the curve of the track where the momentum accelerates. Aging itself not only delivers one a perspective of reality and time that is opaque to youth, but it abridges one's experience of time and folds it inward - a sort of warping of existence within time. I'm more or less attempting with the broadest strokes possible, to explain a relativistic equation without the math or the physics. The inescapable processes of aging are hinting louder and louder now. The stresses and self-judgment around monetary uncertainty at 43 are more acute and harder to ignore than they once were. The sense of my vulnerability and physical limitation is insinnuating itself more. I can't help but reach for another convenient metaphor - the one that involves crossing the river of youth and age and I stare back at the other side and see arrogance, vanity and ingratitude. I can still readily locate these immodest attributes in me and can't quite wrap my mind around this separation because a rebellious and youthful spirit lingers inside that refuses to accept the world on its terms no matter how much common sense dictates otherwise. It may profit the artistic endeavour but it does little for the bank account. Young middle-age it seems, borders the confusion of youth with the reconciliation of age. The confusion lies in the fact that you feel like you're 30 but your actual vintage is reflected back at you by others around - the palpable vibe of disinterest from young women passing by and the implied disdain from those whose relative younger age bespeaks a certain entitlement complex. The cruel dictates of human biology and the laws of attraction ensure who gets voted off the island and how soon. Our society markets eternal youth by instilling a disgust and loathing at the alternative, and ageism is the last frontier where political correctness hasn't yet imposed its inquisition-like mandate. It is generally accepted behaviour for the young to manifest their obligatory resentment of the old. The contempt shown towards a person's maturity in years has become the clicheed norm in our youth obsessed culture and it is hardly met with the blink of an eye. So much of this is premised on an inarticulate anger from the children of the self-absorbed boomer generation. Borrowing from the pseudo-tenets of social darwinism, popular culture reflexively declares that anyone who's 22 is past their prime. As if one's personal development ends at the age when they are most likely to become more independent in their thinking and expand beyond the superficial loyalties to music and fashion that define adolescence. This is not a grown up culture because the commodified illusion is what slicks the gears of the economy. The selective, focus-group-tested fetishization of lifestyle and objects of status must not relent and the dedicated and ingenious hucksters and pimps of the American dream examine every margin of every negligible trend in prolonged strategy sessions to devise a new angle on an old practice. They are tasked with the conundrum of how to sell blue jeans in a fresher and bolder way that will compete for the four-point-one-second attention-span of the iPod and texting immersed "youth demographic." The branding of youth is sold like an exclusive membership to a gym or nightclub reserved for flawless specimens freshly emerged from the design laboratories of antiseptic childhood - a privileged club of looks and airs. The cult of youth has dominated our shallow cultural landscape for the last 30 years, and it's no wonder that puerile self-indulgence rules the era. The worship of youth guides the collective mythos and when it's taken away we hold fiercely to it because age is not allotted dignity or respect in the west than it is in other cultures where to live past a certain age up until recent times, was indicative of beating the genetic or environmental odds and therefore a worthy accomplishment in itself.
What perhaps brings me closer to understanding the shift between youth and age is the experience of loss and the closing in of mortality that one gains a more sober appreciation of when confronted with its unavoidable truth. People around you die, parents die, the stable adult figures in your young past who seemed so robust and ageless are shrunken and humbled before the ravages of age and become frail wards of middle-aged children. The inevitable pulse weakens and the bony clutches of mortality are mirrored back at us in the sickness and the passing of those around us. I lost a friend this summer to cancer. A cancer that was so unexpected and so cruel that it didn't give him time to linger around the exit. I found out about his passing after the months of not having communicated with him yet having the intention of wanting to call him up. The shock of this friend -- of similar age and sensibility -- being ripped from this world so mercilessly and unjustly, like a page out of a book, taught me more about the random and tenuous nature of existence. My own father's passing by comparison, while heavy and sad, at least allowed us time to grieve beforehand but my friend's life was snuffed out so suddenly and with so much yet to accomplish that it further attenuates my belief in the existence of a benevolent divine presence. It did serve to remind me of what a precious gift life is, despite being annoyed by the idiocy, hypocrisy and misguided priorities of the world around me. The "life is short" mantra as hackneyed as it sounds, is hackneyed because it's been overused, it's been overused because it's true. Life is really a short race to the finish and it's best to get on with it.

The Private Life of Fame

2009-06-27T02:58:00.000-07:00

The storm of media attention surrounding the same-day deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett has probably already hit saturation point. Some will read more than coincidence into this, others will conclude that it was another spectacular publicity stunt by Michael Jackson to go out in style with the former vixen queen of the 70’s. Whatever the case, the inundation of media gossip and tabloid-style overkill has already started raging forth and one can only duck to avoid the sheer breadth and speed of the coverage. Death’s ever-present shadow poses a merciful boon to ratings in the dumbed-down, hyped-up pop-culture “Neverland" we are living in. A place where we can find permission in Michael Jackson's Peter Pan syndrome, to linger in our own juvenile fantasies. Yet "Death" still comes knocking at the gilded gates of stars' estates and pushes through the undigestible clutter of mass media with its bleak finality.
Michael Jackson was arguably a “captive persona” of stardom. A product of this continuous production line of celebrity idols yet never able to fade away quite as forgettably as most and determined to let his freakish persona rival and then eclipse his talent as an entertainer. Is it possible Michael Jackson was a casualty of his own forever-morphing and cartoonish image? He was undivisible from his own celebrity, and in a sad sense, it was all he had, and it devoured him. In these waning moments of the Hollywood-American empire the obsessive effort to mass-merchandise youth and beauty has doubled in recent years - as if to show to the world that America is still the young land of hope, prosperity and remade has-beens. And as the ouverture of the final movement swells in its cacophonous soundbite babble and desperation presses itself up against the glass outside, the grimace of used-up fame and shattered myths are locked up securely in steely celebrity vaults. We are taken by the pitiless storm, the synthetic replaces the organic, and the juvenile and the profane are held onto as safe illusions masking a vitiated and self-indulgent culture in rapid decline. There is a compelling resonance here between the stretched-over grin of greedy success and Michael Jackson’s disappearing nose. A scalpel wielded by a quack plastic surgeon is no different than a pen wielded by a fraudulent real estate broker. It’s the illusion that sells.

All of this dead celebrity spectacle of course is compelling because it tugs at our elbow and catches the corner of our eye with a stark sense of unease. It serves as a wider ontological frame of reference for our own fleeting time. These public display of mass mourning for dead celebrities are completely mired in some atavistic need to congregate and observe ritual. Indeed, occasions like this that are inflated to such magnitude (Princess Di’s death is a fitting example,) approximates the ersatz sacred or ceremonial in a cultural landscape of pre-fab subdivisions and Twitter. It is a phenomenon that can’t be easily dismissed or avoided for that matter. This type of public hysteria and outpouring of grief over the deaths of strangers save for their pop-icon status, reveals a confused and childlike public craving for Godhead wherever it can be found. More importantly, there is a proprietary aspect to all of this. Michael Jackson, Princess Di, Elvis, Marilyn were not merely symbols -- they were trademarks – the property of millions and destroyed by the pressure of the spotlight. Could it not be argued that the adoring public holding these mass "orgies" of grief, are registering their sense of betrayal? Of having their beloved icon torn from their grip only to reaffirm the shocking truth that mortality is the great equalizer? More on this in the next blog.

Is that a Feeling or a Sensation?

2009-06-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

I just came across a quote from Oswald Spengler, in "The Decline of the West," in which he writes that one of the key features of the end of a culture is when one can't tell "sensation from feeling." It's hard to dispute this claim as one looks around at our hyper-stupefied age where the general level of discourse is of a teen gossip magazine variety. It seems as if we distrust deeper and more "authentic" human emotions and prefer to hide behind the safe dishonesty of the "cool" surface. The culture of "cool" permeates our conscious environment. Cool means noncommittal and disaffected. The whole cool "facade" is about "trying too hard" to detach and steer clear of vulnerability. Our collective consciousness is blunted by the flood unfiltered trivia that permits undue influence to the insipid or the tasteless or even the the likes of bloggers without lives (personal references aside.) How have we arrived at this juncture in our evolution where a shrugging detachment has become a necessary survival method? We've even come to misunderstand "feeling" as opposed to "feelings." To have or discover "feelings" has an Oprah connotation - usually associated with something touchy-feely, sentimental and easily sold to a self-absorbed and gullible public looking for the next quick fix from the latest self-help guru. Then there's "feeling" - that "all-too human" condition in which one responds to stimuli by genuine engagement. Any of us who are products of this cynical branding culture are jaded in the knowledge that sensation sells. It keeps the presses warm and the heads of our media and entertainment industries well-remunerated. I don't want to accept that humanity is now reducible to sets of predictable shopping behaviour and that all the rest is history, but it's obvious that our failure to access a sense of the profound, of the transcendent is diminishing amid our unrelenting need to satisfy our shrinking attention spans. There are rare moments when I am transported by a piece of music, for example, and am touched with either a "feeling" of joy or gravity depending on what it conveys and I will be surprised by the genuine emotions that are stirred up from within. Music is particularly effective at doing this but so is art and literature -- albeit with more effort. A great work of art is able to connect the viewer to the universal -- to immortality. It has the power to access the higher senses and is not quickly digested and forgotten upon the viewer's exit. A great work of art doesn't merely take you by surprise and shake you out of your routine, it infiltrates your consciousness and quietly alters your perception and experience. Indeed, it ought to subvert and leave you a bit confused. We have not merely lost our ability to "feel" -- we have more importantly lost our ability to understand why we're feeling it. If you listen to the "Marriage of Figaro" by Mozart for example, there are arias that are soft and healing -- that literally take the weight of the world and liberate the listener with a "feeling" of heavenly levitation. This is not a mere sensation -- it's a humanizing experience that has a purgative effect on us. A great piece of jazz or even a well-crafted, melodic and intelligent pop song also have the same effects but we're now living in the age of the deejay and it seems that the technological advances that allow for deafening crystalline volume with earth-shaking bass are commensurate with a decline in quality or substance of the music being played. The twin trends of idiocy and mediocrity seem inescapable and the brash noise of a world impoverished by excess overwhelms higher and more reflective states of being.

Viciou$ Cycle

2009-06-17T03:18:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time but it now looks like the recession has finally caught up with my life. I've been facing a tight market in the line of work that I've been attempting to establish myself in which is E.S.L. teaching to be precise. I live in an overrated city that is paradise for those who can afford it and just another landlord-enriching, hand-to-mouth exercise in futility for most. Lately the embers of anger have been rekindled inside me. I'm 43 years old and fall far short of the "upwardly mobile" criteria. I have no real assets to speak of, no career, no investments, forget RRSPS. I have a long-distance relationship going on two years with a woman who I want to marry and yet the paralyzing weight of financial reality threatens this possibility. To add insult to injury, a former friend of mine is pursuing a small claims case against me. His aims are dubious and based on an informal understanding that we had about my living there for a time. The circumstances I was in when I was living at his house were as such that I wasn't able to pay him rent but now he remembers it differently and adamantly insists that we had a verbal contract from the very beginning. It's a convoluted story in which he is seeking maximum damages because he is under financial pressure from his mortgage creditors. He decided that rather than wait for me to set my life up and return the favour when I was in a position to, he opted to push ahead with a claim. He did this by editing his memory and trumping up his version of events on legal documents. This is the abyss that I'm staring into right now. Conniving former friends who will stop at nothing and are willing to believe their own lies and spin facts, to get what they want. This former "friend" won't rest until I suffer as much as he claims he has. This is what the world is becoming now. A snakepit where at any moment someone who you thought you could trust might turn on you. Where the enormous economic pressures just to survive are quickly eroding our humanity and where moral lapse, deceit and where many interpersonal relationships are based on some form of transactional pragmatism. I can't help but want to point my finger at the greedmeisters - the untouchable corporate elite who foster these mechanisms and then stand back and unleash them on an unwitting public. Yet I am not so naive as to actually submit to some Marxist or Anarchist solution as I've come to believe that ideology itself is far too limiting. In fact, ideology itself doesn't seem sufficient anymore as the problems we face on a global and planetary scale don't demand one set of solutions. I may not have a sophisticated or detailed knowledge of the international monetary system, but I do believe that if there is a culprit, it's the persistent notion that is propagandized to us by media and governments that market-based capitalism is the indisputable measurement of our success as a civilization. My own life is a microscopic statistic with its own unique history of personal mistakes and poor choices but thrown against the backdrop of a much larger composite I see how the reality of my "statistic" reflects a demographic trend. Should I take comfort in this? Or should I recognize the cold isolation of my circumstances - that my own incompetence and neglect from an earlier age should dictate the present crisis of my life? Is my life a microcosm of the world that has been created in the last 30 years? Booms and busts, sudden bumps and turns and an increasingly rootless and humiliating life of poverty and debt? Perhaps this is why I have chosen to write this in my blog, it's the closest way that I can scream back at the world from my rooftop without being arrested or institutionalized. How can one continue to deny that these pressures arrayed around us are not largely and fundamentally systemic? This blogging exercise might help me to get some things off my chest and I can only hope that it will be a modest contribution to a greater dialogue but I think we're all compassion-weary in the developed world and have become almost de-sensitized to the pain of others, we have adapted this Darwinian reflex that shuns the weak and the dispossessed for fear of becoming so ourselves. Hence this denial is reflected in exaggerated displays of wealth and power in our culture. The usual status-conferring objects like expensive cars or accessories take on even more value in these times. The individual who displays his toys is effectively declaring his "fitness" - that he's risen above the muck of hard economic times and has passed the evolutionary test. And as the times come to reward the crassest modes of behaviour like ruthless opportunism rather than the community ethos of mutual support without a contractual due-date, it seems the collapse of everything we've known and bothered to fight for becomes more and more imminent.
Money has always pervaded our conscious waking-lives and will continue to do so, but now it seems that as we become more fragmented and left to fend for ourselves in this economy, many of us who have simply slipped through the cracks will find ourselves getting too familiar and even comfortable in their surrounding.

Help Wanted

2009-06-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

Below is a piece I came across that I wrote in 2002, recently I've experienced similarly frustrating setbacks in my life and I'm trying to examine how much personal choice overlaps larger economic forces beyond our control. I argued from more of a political framework of analysis then, but now I would see the political as symptomatic of a broader social and cultural underpinning. Here goes:

At the time I write this I am unemployed.
In the age of public confessions, this is a mild one, but it still invites negative stereotypes.
I can already hear that dismissive refrain of - “get a job” .
It infuriates me everytime I hear it, and I am forced to defend my integrity by having to reassure the smug, sadistic fool who utters this line that I am leaving no stone unturned looking for work.
At my age, 36 to be exact, I know that I am not the prime candidate for most labouring jobs, though I continue to apply, and equally, I lack the skills for specialized work. I’m caught in the crevasse of the new economy. I am aware that I made earlier decisions that landed me here. I am aware that I need more training and I intend to go back to school. I refuse to be helpless in this situation.
Being a student of larger events, I have come to the conclusion, however,that we are shaped by global forces as much as we are by personal choices and circumstances.
The developed world has undergone a“ paradigm shift” in recent years. This catchphrase means that the traditional structure of our economy has become outmoded and we’re in a whole new game with a whole new set of rules - somebody else’s rules, I might add.
Governments have responded by shrinking, deregulating and privatizing at a frantic pace in order to seem relevant in a technology based economy. For the shortsighted this is a welcome development, but for others who believe that government plays a balancing role in society, this threatens human and planetary progress.
I grew up in the eighties with the belief that all you needed to do was graduate from post-secondary school and you could simply take your place in the world. Faced with the new reality, this notion seems quite romantic now. Still the old belief system that fosters this kind of hyper-individualism is still very potent in out society.
The Calvinist tradition in our country presumes an individual’s worth is defined by productive labour. This doesn’t have the same resonance nowadays. However, as a member of the jobless “statistic” it s not easy to overcome the sense of shame that to be unemployed reflects moral failure. I have experienced feelings of self-loathing, to resignation ,to disgust at my situation. I sense that I am not alone, that I am among a permanent, growing underclass .
To view it in context, Gordon Campbell like George W. Bush is an employee of big business more so than a servant of the public trust. The Campbell Liberals argue that their attacks are aimed at financing the debt, they convince us with distorted math, but it is a front to cater to the business elite.
In the current economy, getting a decent job feels like winning a lottery draw and holding onto it means working with the ever present fear that you are replaceable.
In the shadow of NAFTA, September 11, and the recent softwood lumber tariff, we are confronted with the fact that we are at the mercy, more than ever, of international forces in B.C.
Campbell’s stubborn,cost-cutting might create a business friendly environment in B.C. but it will mean very little if the services that allow for a decent quality of life aren’t there anymore and therefore as
Unemployed persons, we must resist these feelings of shame and burden. To fall into this mindset absolves the powers-that-be so they can continue their assault on the most needy.
I think it’s important to become aware of the larger context in which we’re all living even though when you’re out of work it’s hard to get beyond the momentary and immediate. For the next few years the unemployed in this province will have to get used to being out in the cold unless we become informed and organized and defend our rights to live and work in a civil society.

Listen to the Rhythm of the Gangs

2009-03-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

There's been a high-incidence of gang-warfare here in pleasant, liveable Vancouver. I decided to put together a rhyme about it, it goes as follows:

GANGSTAR

Listen to the rhythm of the night
A multicultural gang fight
flying bullets they unite
Black, yellow, red and brown and white

Celebrate diversity
At gangstar university
Beats without the melody
And justice waiving felonies

Check out Rajiv's pimpin’ ride
He wears the colours of his tribe
Gino’s got a hit out on Wang tung
Who’s got the Latinos on his turf
The Bikers are after everyone
Watching from their sideview mirrors

How’d ya get those big and shiny toys?
I didn’t think you were employed
Must be chummy with those boys
Who live at home and on steroids
Hey why’dyou look so pale?
Slumped and bloodied at the wheel
On the wrong end of a deal,
Now where’s all your tough gangster appeal?
Seen too many simulated crimes
On HBO and on Showtime
Heard too many half-wit, urban thugs
Boastin’ of the homies that they’ve plugged
Flashin’ the gold in their teeth
Countin’ all the coeds in their sheets
It’s the Horatio Alger myth
On testosterone and speed
A few they might just end up stiff,
You gotta meet your market’s needs
If it’s a white powdery whiff
Or another potent-grade of weed

Celebrate diversity
Here at gangster university
Beats without the melody
And justice waiving felonies

C’mon give the kid a break
He’s all about family and good grades
He wants to do his MBA
He’ll have done his practicum in spades
Don’t let the bling and track suit
make you think he’s one of them
He’s statistical fluke
just hangin’ with the wrong friends
He’s just really misunderstood
Except when he’s in your neighbourhood
Then your social theories can’t compete
With the sounds of gun blasts in your street

If the Shoe Fits...

2008-12-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

Like many, I witnessed the footage of U.S. President Bush narrowly ducking a pair of shoes hurled towards him by a protesting Iraqi at a press conference. This desperate, futile gesture of shoe-throwing reveals not just one individual's statement of visceral loathing but in a sense, symbolizes how many others both in Iraq and around the world feel towards Bush even in the dying days of his presidency. It is quite telling and remarkable that a U.S. president could have so singularly, in eight short years, successfully alienated world opinion to the degree that a reporter, in the normally safe bubble zone of a press conference, is willing to part with his shoes to demonstrate this.
I won't miss the Bush presidency and believe it was a disastrous spell not just for the U.S. but for the globe, yet, despite the administration's use of outright fabrications and perversions of justice as a rationale for its invasion of Iraq, Bush might have had a point when he brushed off the incident by remarking how this kind of protest was normal in an open and democratic society -- inferring that Iraq had achieved some measurable form of democratic progress. Of course, it's very tempting to be cynical about anything that comes out of the mouth of this president and his platitudes about democracy are outweighed by the reality on the ground there. Yet, it has become far too easy to dismiss everything about the Bush presidency as a caricature of arrogance and villainy combined with gross ineptitude. Such was the divisive and controversial nature of the Bush administration that it polarized the U.S. and the world to such and extent that any of its remotely positive accomplishments were eclipsed by its obvious failures.
There was much discussion and speculation in the news media after the "shoe-ing" episode about how to throw one's shoe is a mark of ultimate contempt in Arab culture and this was followed-up by a recounting of how hundreds of Iraqis gathered around a lowering Saddam statue to hit it with their shoes. What's curious here is that had it not been for the ill-considered U.S. invasion, Saddam might have still been around today gassing minorities, jailing opposition and torturing anyone who got in his way -- and people would have most definitely kept their shoes on. If there was one thing that came out of this that could be construed as redeeming, it was the removal of a vicious tyrant who, although some argued was a contained threat, ran his government like a mafia and repeatedly and mercilessly suppressed and murdered his own people. I describe myself as anti-Bush for a host of considered reasons -- although unlike some, I don't lay awake at night seething with his visage in mind and I don't subscribe to some of the more hysterical strains of Bush-hating out there -- I wouldn't even go so far as to assign him the equivalency of a Hitler or a Saddam - much to the surprise of some in my own circles . I've heard people time and again associate Bush to this stellar cast of infamy and I find it inaccurate, historically-ignorant and giving Bush too much credit. Bush was no evil genius but an "employee" or a "front" for a clique of paranoid, power-hungry neo-cons. As much as neo-cons have shown their capacity for inhuman enterprises, they are a few degrees of a lesser evil than Hitler or Pol Pot.
While Bush's neo-con led foreign policy has resulted in high numbers of casualties both direct and indirect during these last eight years, it now appears that it is now - hopefully - on its way to becoming another discredited, morally-bankrupt ideology like Fascism or Communism. I don't think I can recall a president who was so ridiculed and reviled since Nixon. Opposition to Bush was persistent, vocal, furious and creative in both the U.S. and internationally. True enough that the administration smugly ignored world opinion to satisfy the interests of its oil lobby supporters, yet now reality has finally come home to the U.S. in the undesired dividends of body bags and soup lines and a disillusioned and angry public has spoken by electing Obama. It would have been vindication for many had an impeachment process guaranteed an earlier exit but such is the way things are when the weight of the system and its legal obfuscation are against you.
The shoes were a size ten which almost matches the percentage of the outgoing president's approval rating. All things considered, this president led a charmed presidency considering he could have been ducking a lot more than a pair of shoes.

Goodbye, Dad

2008-12-01T01:44:00.000-08:00

Exactly a week ago my father passed away. Knowing my father and his generally sound judgement, if the timing of his death was of his own volition, late-November was perhaps an appropriate time to go. The inconsolable drear and darkness of this month can discourage the will to get out of bed let alone live.
Although this had been long expected - with his confinement to a care home for three years succumbing to
the ravages of Parkinson's, two-strokes and dementia - the actual reality of
his passing still hit us like an emotional tsunami.
After the initial week of intense grief and sorrow and the busying around of making official arrangements and finally the funeral service, the sense of
the loss itself is only now starting to penetrate. One could say that the first week
was the early shock phase that involved denial and disbelief combined with confusion and episodic tears but now, after the ceremony and the family and public mourners have gone home, I am alone in the still moments to reflect and quietly mourn his loss and what he meant to me. He was a powerful influence in my life, as most strong fathers tend to be, and although he was absent through much of my childhood and youth, when he was present - he was unmistakeably so. He had a deep, full-timbred baritone voice that could naturally project, and a compact physique that he carried with swift confidence, but more importantly he was so energetic and driven. I think the life he lived was equivalent to several lives all concentrated into one. He was so determined and had so much fire within that he was comparable to a steamroller and it was often easy to feel flattened in his path. He was an impatient man from a very old school Catholic-Depression-era-upbringing who rose to prominence in public life here in Canada by the sheer might of his determination to succeed and his extraordinary self-confidence and focus. I always found him to be hard to live up to and spent years trying to live down to him instead. He felt that I had been given opportunities that he never had and I think he envied me for that. He and I had typical father and son conflicts,and I inherited his stubbornness, which meant that I was unwilling to admit it when he was right.
Even now, as I reflect about my relationship with him, I recognize how strained it was and how I wish that we had both respected each other more. He was a very accomplished man from humble roots who had charisma to burn and a larger-than-life presence. He was a "happy warrior" who maintained his values throughout his career and never compromised where it mattered most. It feels as if a void has opened up. That this world is less one more man of his generation -- a generation which did not eschew self-sacrifice and loyalty.
As we become more time-managed, distracted and coarsened by our lives that are circumscribed by the consumerist ethos of "more still" to placate the shallow needs of our own vanity and when we have slid into this festering hole of non-committal relativism underscored by a mistrust of social institutions, we are left softened at our edges and hollow at our core. To witness the lives of those who reflect a time in which standards existed and when values mattered is almost to be marveling at a museum display.
My father was a product of a simpler time, a time when the world was framed in dualities and not multiplicities. Obviously, significant and progressive changes have happened since then that he wasn't resistant to, and even helped to bring into being, yet for all of this, he was a man of his era and he did not swim easily with the currents that were to follow.
He did not go gently into that good night. He will be missed.

2008-10-26T04:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece I came up with that indicts
the baby boomers as being largely responsible
for the credit crunch. The boomers have made the pursuit
of their self-interests their highest priority at the expense of
the generations that have succeeded them. If one has to
wonder how this whole financial disaster came about in the U.S.
then it wouldn't be a stretch to implicate the "Me Generation's" ethos
of instant gratification, spend now and let someone else pay later.
I think this mentality really lies at the root of much of the problems --
economic and social, that we're facing today.

Whobama

2008-10-25T01:52:00.000-07:00

As I was walking home tonight a poster caught my eye that announced "Come Celebrate Obama's Victory Party." My gaze caught the smaller text below that read "organized by the African-Canadian community." It seems as if Obama is all but declared the winner before the Americans have even gone to the polls. The victory celebrations have jumped the starting gun it would appear and this smacks of presumptuous overconfidence despite the onslaught of daily polling data that suggests an Obama win is a foregone conclusion.
I think that before everyone who's pro-Obama congratulates themselves, a closer scrutiny at their candidate of choice is in order. With all of that out of the way, if I lived in the U.S. I'd probably vote for Obama -- but not without some reservation.
What I can't shake and want to get beyond here is the sense that Obama's presidential run is as much (if not more ) about identity politics than anything to do with policy. If one were to look past his dynamic veneer, and -- let's face it -- his "colour" -- then we might discover that he is another well-briefed, skilled politician with carefully-rehearsed responses and an oft-repeated buy-line promising some sort of unspecified "change." It's a no-brainer to conclude that Obama is far more suited to be president than Bush and arguably better than McCain, and after the Bush debacle, it will take a certain degree of courage to inherit the daunting mess that has been left behind. Yet the honeymoon with Obama persists and the tough questions are not being lobbed his way. This is precisely the time to be demanding to see a semblance of a coherent blueprint from Obama, or will it become one of these consensus-made, patchwork blueprints that will have to placate every special interest group that put him in power? Perhaps he's shrewder than he plays at. He is certainly trying to communicate the image of being the cross-partisan healer --- the one who transcends the ugly, nasty, rumour-plagued world of party politics and emerges as an iconic figure for a nation -- and a world -- on the cusp of hard times. But perhaps that's all the presidency is, -- a substitute for the monarchy that the American's thought they had so proudly vanquished in their war or independence. Ronald Reagan was certainly a figurehead for a conservative revolution in the U.S. He was backed up by whip-smart albeit dangerous ideologues who were later recycled in the Bush administration -- the Rumsfelds, the Cheneys etc. The Republicans have made a high art of using the presidency as a mere smoke and mirrors distraction for the masses while the real behind the scenes power brokers go about their business of running the show. However the Democrats -- the party that always insists on its ethical superiority than the former (something that isn't that hard to achieve I might add) look like they're borrowing from the enemy's playbook -- never to repeat a Gore or a Kerry. Wow'em with some of that Obama magic and they might forget about everything else. Or at least be more receptive to the administration's agenda.
It's time to really examine King Barack before his coronation. There are those within his camp that are simply proud of the fact that they have the chance of electing the first "non-white" president and this seems to preclude any further consideration of the details of his plans. It would seem to me that these same people who are more inclined to support him just for the symbolism alone -- are ironically and unwittingly making race the issue here. The real question should be "Who is Obama and what does he believe is best for America? "
I fear that the American obsession with "novelty" and "celebrity" has now permeated the political culture. Take for example, the respective candidates campaigning on late night talk shows. It's all ratings-generating show biz and one presidential candidate is just another prop in the routine of late night talk show land. The American worship of the movie star politician probably started with JFK and it certainly was manifest in Reagan while Bush played the straight-talkin' rube but now, with instant polling numbers and a media-fed, globally-connected YouTube generation making or breaking the latest trend at the click of a mouse, it seems that the image of the celebrity politician is more manufactured and pre-formatted than ever. This is not to suggest that Obama is generic -- although underneath the electricity of his appeal -- his message might be. Has the YouTube generation bought into the mere symbolic importance of Obama as president and ignored the rest? Could any other candidate get away with sounding like a Republican on some issues and still maintain the adoration of the many on the other side of that ledger? A demographic who may lack any critically informed political ideas of their own but have fairly inculcated values about race and identity. These young Obama supporters are products of a post-modern education system that has steeped them in doctrinaire credos of one-world togetherness and gender and race consciousness without a solid, basic foundation in Civics, Economics or History for that matter. In other words, they don't get the wider view but instead prefer to hyper-focus on affirmative action and same-sex marriage -- which are much more exciting and attention-retaining than economic policy, foreign affairs, trade relations and line-item vetoes.
Obama may in fact, bridge an important divide, and perhaps his "symbolic" presidency may have the power enough in itself to re-direct America (and the world) onto a wiser and genuinely better course. One can only hope so. But what if he turns out to be a modern-day Icarus? What if the colossal weight of expectation that is being downshifted onto his shoulders proves to be too much? What if cracks appear in his polished surface? what if he appears "human" even at times "ineffective"? How will the disillusionment translate itself?
Perhaps Obama is the tonic that is needed right now, but I can't help thinking that he is virtually untested in handling the reigns of leadership in government and he's about to take on the biggest and most unruly reigns there are. Even a turn at Vice President might have had a more humbling effect on him and given him a more gradual preparation for the top job, but in the end, his dynamic flair combined with his race hastened him to the top of the ticket propelled along by a critical mass of guilty, liberal supporters who want to see a black president first and a substantive set of policies second. Fortunately, it seems, that Obama is capable of delivering on both, but his transition into a "great" president, won't be seamless.

2008-10-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

I've been busy getting back into political cartooning lately. The state of the affairs is almost a call to duty for sharp-eyed satirists it seems. These are a few of my latest takes on the situation in the U.S.

There goes the Economy...

2008-10-18T23:39:00.000-07:00

Like most observers, I've been anxiously following the news about the financial meltdown in the U.S. and I can't help but feel that we're all standing on the crumbling precipice of an historical shift that is about to sweep us all over the edge. Of course, I could be reading too much into the fearful speculations of the news media. Perhaps it will be another false alarm -- like Y2K -- unnecessary anticipation of what turned out to be a non-event. Yet, somehow, this feels different,-- more real and pervasive. We have been told to brace ourselves for a looming lean-spell that is being billed as a "deep recession" -- "experts" are throwing buzzwords around that imply that this has uncanny resemblance to the crash of 1929. What is one to believe amid all of this panic and dread?
At an individual level, it feels so abstract and removed from our day-to-day realities. A mass-scale defaulting of high-risk mortgages and the subsequent collapse of major U.S. investment banks sounds like some kind of "doomsday" scenario that is too far beyond our control to even contemplate . People of my generation remember living through the end of the Cold War -- a time that was unimaginable prior to when it actually happened. A rapid succession of smaller events built up to the collapse of the Soviet Union and it took us all by surprise, yet still, our lives in the west were not noticeably altered. We continued to live lives on credit and ignore the wisdom of our elders --about thrift and not spending more than you earn. An entire society bred in the instant gratification ethos of the boomer generation. Self-interested entitlement and a rejection of the values of the generation of the Great Depression that warned us about the need to make sacrifices and defer our own pleasure. We've all grown up in a culture of such heedless excess that many of us couldn't conceive of the lifestyle of our more cautious forebears.
At the end of the cold war it was predicted that western capitalism had won out in the end and thus market values had been vindicated. There were some who declared that if history was defined by the Marxian struggle of class, then the ultimate ascendance of free-market capitalism meant the "end of history."
We live our lives against the backdrop of bigger events that frame our more mundane concerns, so why should we be so fazed by yet another one of these larger, unfolding global crises? Anyone with an informed understanding of historical trends(or common sense) could have anticipated the train wreck of the U.S. banking system. Eight years of an unregulated financial sector that was given carte blanche to enrich its shareholers with whatever means possible combined with pathological avarice and a sense of invincibility proved to be the toxic ingredients for a long-simmering brew. This whole crisis ought to translate as a lesson in political economy for the public. It demonstrates how an untouchable financial elite who have been allowed to play by a different set of rules (in this case, no rules) without parameters, or prudence and blindsighted by insatiable power and greed -- have wiped out the hopes and destroyed the lives of the many. I wonder if this is enough to pull the curtain back from in front of the American public's self-focussed gaze and reveal the raw, ugly essence of the dogma of American privilege that they have been duped into swallowing. I wonder if they'll be able to make the connections and discover the source of their forthcoming woe? It is perhaps too optimistic to credit the American public with such sophistication and sense but at least some of that anger and frustration will translate into electing Obama in November. In the eyes of an outsider who will nonetheless be effected, this all reads as some form of karma.
The U.S. electorate handed an inept, callous administration a second mandate to fine-tune its ideologically-driven agenda. Now we're reaping the harvest as it were. In a sense, this wild de-regulation didn't start with the Bush administration, but let's just say that it was certainly aided along with his presidency.
It may take a few generations to recover from this. We have all been violated by this and it seems that anger is not enough, a whole process of reckoning is needed -- on the global scale,on the societal scale and on the individual scale. Will we continue -- as a species, as a population, to live in a collective form of denial? While the planet is dying and the lifestyle of consumption and convenience that we've only ever known becomes more inaccessible to most of us, will this be enough of a clarion call to consciousness? One hopes so, but perhaps it will take another generation -- the true inheritors of our mess -- to take up the cause of real change. But by then it might be too late.

Election(s)

2008-09-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

We have entered autumn (although August here was a good primer) and we are weeks into a national election campaign here in Canada. It is difficult to comment on this subject without risking cliche and making the usual associations. The election cycle has become another predictably episodic ritual of life in the west. The campaign will heat up. The public will become weary of deluge then the voting day will come and a decision will be made that will divide the population for the next four years. It has become such a perfunctory sleep-walking exercise that we forget about how precious this whole process is. Recently there has been a spate of elections across the western world in which there was no clear mandate for any of the victorious parties. A telltale sign that we may have entered the "hanging-chad" era of electoral politics -- where the public refuses to put the majority of its trust in any one party to represent its interests.
What we are coming to witness in the modern election campaign is a "branding" contest that offers up political leaders who are trained to stay on message through carefully-scripted "catch-all slogans. I have tuned into the news coverage and discovered that it's more of documentation of each leader's respective glad-handing photo-ops du jour and less of a dispassionate analysis of their positions on any given issue. The political party itself seems to serve only as a convenient backdrop -- a banner -- to the individual leaders who are given more sustained, front and centre exposure. As a result, we get "cult of personality" politics. The marketing of political parties may be an ancient art, but nowadays its a much more carefully-staged exercise in manufacturing a political leader's made-for T.V. aura.
The once-respectable national news media here has become a mere distiller of more tabloid-style speculation rather than an "objective" and trustworthy news source from which to make an informed decision. I realize that I could invite the accusation of being naive for even implying that the fifth estate has ever been free of bias and true to its historical mission of serving the truth. Yet it seems now that even the most respected news media outlets have come to accept the their role as being an almost secondary news source and have responded with a somewhat more distanced approach of "meta-analysis" -- or coverage of the coverage itself. What we countenance in the television news media's superficial approach to election coverage is a tacit admission that serious analysis hurts in the ratings department and hence a stepping-back from any attempt at being a credible source of serious reporting. Spin itself, once the exclusive chicanery of governments to manage the message, has saturated media as well. The public is too savvy -- too hip to the art of spin --- and to fit expectations, the media has thus had to re-invent itself by succumbing to a the role of being an electronic carnival sideshow. The media's role is now fait accompli: diverting the public's critical gaze to a contest of readily digestible images rather than explaining the complex dimensions of underlying ideas.
Here in Canada, we're in the final days of a federal election campaign that has this overlapping effect with the U.S. presidential election, so the atmosphere here is saturated with election advertising, debates, speculative news reports and of course, damning soundbite moments that betray a proverbial chink in a candidate's armour. It can all become quite confusing for the average pundit on the street when so much of this obligatory charade of electioneering has become more tightly managed and slickly orchestrated to the point that if a candidate appears as contradictory or god forbid, less than superhuman, the carefully laboured illusion crumbles to the ground.
I will have a difficult time choosing who to vote for because I don't necessarily believe that party lines satisfactorily reflect much more nuanced and complex shifts in the world that demand more pragmatic and flexible approaches rather than rigid ideological ones. The problem with political parties is that there is always internal pressure for the party to adopt measures that mollify the special interest factions within that party and this often limits the party from assuming a more universal and outward-looking approach in addressing issues. This perhaps explains why so much emphasis is placed on the party leaders themselves. The leaders become iconic embodiments of the party's primary focus. Hence, Obama Democrats, Reaganites or Thatcherites, or here in Canada - Harperites or Trudeau-Liberals. The party is an extension of its leader and the leader's name becomes a hyphenated-label for a party in a given era. Is it fair to declare that the party's over? That in the age of the internet and ever-present and up-to-the-minute media coverage, the voter/citizen/consumer formulates his/her opinions based on impressions of individual political leaders rather than on the more cumbersome philosophical platforms that the leaders represent. The voters make a gut decision based on 30 second visual-clips rather than on the issues. It's easy to be impressed by Barack Obama for example, he is likeable, dynamic, telegenic and an outstanding orator but there is just as much mystery enshrouding his persona. Who is he really and what does he stand for? Although he may reflect good "core" principles in the vague sense of the word, is he a result of a choice made by his party to be a historical first (first black presidential candidate) rather than whether or not he has clearly defined policy positions. By all appearances, Obama demonstrates a fresh and new alternative to the status quo yet his candiacy is just as much about the American public's thirst to extend the heroic narrative in an age of such social and economic turbulence -- to make and then destroy another superstar. The winsome, youthful magnetism of Obama alone captures a tattered public imagination and it resonates on a primal level, far more than detailed, definable positions or salient character traits. This is not to deny the great attributes of Obama nor is it to negate his,no doubt, sincere intentions, it is however, meant to stand back from allure of his image and examine it with more scrutiny . The dismaying choice of Sarah Palin for the McCain ticket, illustrates this point even further.
In Canada we have an incumbent Conservative prime minister - Stephen Harper - who is considered cold-blooded and dictatorial yet decisive, while Stephane Dion, his Liberal Party adversary, appears on the nation's T.V. sets as a fragile, earnest, bookish type with a rudimentary command of English (French being his mother tongue.) Yet, if anyone had the patience or the rigour to listen to the substance of Monsieur Dion's ideas, they might discover that he is possibly quite a bit more capable of running a country than reassuring people with manly confidence. It is a sad indictment of our times that we as a society have become so shallow that we don't elect our leaders based so much on their credentials, experience or ideas but rather on how well they're able to play to a celebrity-driven media.

A Thousand Words

2008-08-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I got up and performed at a local open mic here in called "Thundering Word Heard." It's always exhilarating and nerve-wracking to get up in front of an audience and perform, but the thrill is in conquering one's stage fright to override the natural trepidation involved in standing in front of a group of strangers who have given you their undivided attention while you regale them with songs or poetry.
I prefer to hide behind my music when I'm on stage though because speaking or reciting words is a bit like performing naked. It leaves you much more exposed and vulnerable to the audience's scrutiny. Luckily, the audience was pretty encouraging and appreciative as it tends to be at events like this. However, I couldn't help but notice the line-drawn in the sand between the separate cliques of the spoken word poets and the musicians and I sense there is a bit of a snobbery by those who call themselves spoken word artists towards musicians or singer/songwriters. As if their form -- undistilled language itself -- is so much more pure, authentic and "important" than music.
I've always felt this sense of inferiority for my visual art and musical skills and have been made to feel that these talents aren't "enough" in this culture that gives primacy to the word yet ironically, is much more immersed in visual imagery.
I think the word snobs perceive themselves as being the vigilant upholders of a dying linguistic form and of vitalizing language against the audacity of other forms such as visual art or music to demand equal respect. We are a very word-centered culture and I often feel that in order to be taken seriously, one must have an ability to communicate using articulate language no matter what discipline one practices. How often have we witnessed the painter or photographer relying on his/her "artist's statement" to promote his/her work? The text is given precedence over the created image or sound in some cases so much so that a forgettable exhibit of paintings or photographs is made indelible by the grandiose terminology surrounding it. It's as if non-text based media cannot be relied upon to be standalone without the help of text. The precedence that written or spoken language is given over other media comes as no surprise in a culture such as ours that is dominated by the impenetrable codes of legalese or the weighty circumlocutions of academics and politicians. A certain dignity -- a gravitas is awarded to writers that is never quite awarded to visual artists or musicians. Rarely does a piece of music or a painting or photograph require the same length of examination and critical consideration that a novel does. I am not rejecting the novel here, I believe the world would be in a sorry state without the existence of novels, but I am remarking on the prejudice that is shown to other disciplines, albeit it's fair to say that nowadays, that if one describes oneself as a "writer" they will find themselves in the company of other castoffs from other disciplines. Nobody in any creative discipline gets half the respect they might have been allotted a century ago. We are all, truly in it together.
It's always been a struggle for me to accept my "art." I was raised in a family that was very vocal and strongly favoured eloquence and sharp debating skills over more reflective and non-verbal forms of self-expression. I developed a skill in language as a self-defense. My brother on the other hand, went silent as a way of protesting the competitive verbal barrages that characterized our family's dinner environments. My mother valued proper diction and articulation so much so that she would become visibly irritated with anyone who mumbled or even paused during their speech. This often created a frustrating, adversarial environment in which respectful discussion gave way to emotional shouting matches very quickly.
It would be nice to be free of this need to feel validated through language - to have that sense of being respected for my non-verbal forms of expression, but as long as the people in power are the ones with the slickest grasp of how to use and, indeed, manipulate others to satisfy their own ends (with the exception of George Bush), then language will always prove to be the tool for real power and those with the words will be given the social status and attention that those without words can only dream of.
This is why I believe in the potential of the comix medium to use both text and images to work in tandem with each other to convey a story. The image resumes where the text leaves off and vice-versa.

The Monsters Among (within) us...

2008-08-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

Fall is already nudging summer along here. I woke up to a rained-out Saturday with with damp, cool fall air after a week of going to work under solid blue skies
and high-temperatures. I was planning a camping excursion with some friends but of course, those plans had to be shelved. It's been a strange and shocking week as far as greater events are concerned. I'm specifically referring to the tragic and brutal stabbing and beheading incident aboard a Greyhound bus in Manitoba over a week ago. I haven't been so haunted or scared by a news story in a long time. The suddenness and random nature of it and the gruesome graphic accounts have really cast a pall of shock and disbelief both nationally and internationally. This is one of those incidents that is so senseless and so extreme that it has temporarily bypassed our jaded collective consciousness
and assaulted our comfortable sense of remove from isolated incidents of unleashed psychosis. The unnerving nature of this event reminds us of the underlying primitive, violent impulse that each of us possesses but few act upon. We, especially as Canadians, have always prided ourselves on our moderate and peaceful nature and then an episode of such unexplainable horror happens and contradicts this almost smug self-image that I think I've mentioned in previous blogs, is a rapidly becoming an outmoded delusion in the Canadian psyche. We've finally entered the big, dangerous world and in a sense, we've experienced a further fraying at the edges of our naivete. It's inevitable that an event like the beheading, has traumatized not only on the witnesses but by extension the entire populace here. There is a palpable psychic resonance from this event that has lingered in the last week. A public grief and shock that is almost the nail in the coffin to our innocence as a nation. Perhaps I've consumed too much media lately and I should disengage and find joy in the simpler moments of life but this doesn't preclude or erase the tremendous potential for evil and harm that exist in this world and more and more in the west where anti-social trends are marketed and sold to a spiritually-bankrupt demographic. We are awash in what some with a dubious grasp of reality and a literal grasp of biblical exhortation would describe as apocalyptic times, yet to convey this is to attract the suspicion of those in the intelligentsia who are skeptical of catch-all labels. It feels like there's this overhang of rage in our society right now and that it will express itself in more and more mentally-unbalanced individuals acting out in extreme ways. I think the threat of Islamic terrorism is one shade of many fanatical and angry groups or individuals. To illustrate my point, two radical groups tried to capitalize on the funeral of the victim of this Greyhound bus beheading. One was a U.S. based group of right-wing, fundamentalist lunatics who wanted to cross the border to picket the funeral insisting that the murder was God's retribution to Canada for it's liberal policies vis-a-vis gay marriage and abortion. This logic is so irrational and offensive that a hate group like this so-called "Church" are morally equivalent to the perpetrator of this dastardly crime. Another radical fringe group PETA exploited this event as an opportunity to compare the stabbing, beheading and defiling of the victim as similar to the butchering of animals for food. It's ironic how an organization like this could show such tasteless, callous inhumanity in protesting the inhumanity shown towards animals. Who are these vile and detestable groups? They have been allowed to flower in our culture of permission and tolerance. We can always compare our system to China and feel good about it, yet there's always a dividend.
But to return to the point. A horrible event like this always offers up proof that civilization is merely a varnish for our much darker and violent impulses.

The Wild West

2008-07-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling quite tired now as I sit here on an uncomfortable chair trying to distill the effects of encroaching insanity that the western world has descended into. Today, I found myself nodding in agreement when I came across the hi-lights of a speech given by the British Tory leader about the decline of "core values in Britain" and the resultant culture of moral "neutralism," blame and entitlement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/08/davidcameron.glasgoweast
The success of Conservatives in exploiting this "achilles heel" of the left is because the left refuses to modify its position and to concede that there is some kernel of truth in the right's charge that maybe a good portion of the time individuals are responsible for their choices.
Obviously, the instinctive reaction by Cameron's critics would be to dismiss this as the usual, garden-variety, pandering politician rhetoric that is most of the time a well-deserved criticism. But, there are some rare moments when political leaders - from whatever end of the spectrum - reveal a little backbone with the knowledge that they might offend a segment of potential voters with an uncomfortable truth -- no matter how much it seems a calculated sound-bite lacking in rigourous academic substance. These comments, at least "appear" to be refreshingly honest for a political leader in a western liberal democracy. Anyone who is willing to brave the censorious wrath of the politically correct dogmatists deserves some respect.

There was a time when I would have been loathe to even remotely align myself with what might be considered more conservative views, so I have to wonder if this has snuck up on me and caught me unawares? Or is it a willingness to be more objective in my perspective and less rigidly fixed to one position?
I would hesitate to classify myself as drifting towards the right when it's more like I'm experiencing the effects of political relativity. I don't think I've changed by degrees, but on some issues I find myself landing firmly on either one side of the fence or the other. Hence my sudden realization that I have grown distant from some of my more previously quixotic notions as I've accumulated life experience. I think the west is sprouting fissures under the weight of too much moral relativism and the extremes of behaviour and mass psychosis that are accepted as the daily societal norm nowadays. I think this is as much a product of our society's rejection of moderation and both the cultural left and right are equally as guilty of contributing to this. A good friend of mine who is a student of the times, believes our descent into social anarchy stems from the "spoiled ethos of the baby boomer generation" and it's "religion of relativism" that no longer hold any beliefs to be in inherently valid or (invalid) any more than any others and thus, not surprisingly, a disconnected, spectating public indulges in blase narcissism. The tagline for this age could be the "it's all good age." Pass the bong or the pill or the remote control and disengage because after all, there is no set of beliefs to commit to anymore.

Of course, if you are foolish enough to be raw and exposed to all of this, you'll quickly realize that it "isn't all good" and this kind of facile, dismissive mentality is dangerous not just for its ignorance but for it's incapability to discern, evaluate or recognize consequences. With our disconnect from moral outcomes, we are permitting the continuous erosion of standards and with this, the inevitable sinking into barbarism. I still believe that western society has a foundation of liberalism and the rule of law that is the envy of the world and I know that this sentiment would not endear me to those who've been indoctrinated in cultural studies degrees who can only see through the revisionist lens - one that condemns the west as the exclusive perpetrator of colonial oppression and that this somehow negates the liberal, enlightenment traditions without which, we wouldn't have progressed enough to have this debate in the first place.

Ironically, this is a case of the snake eating its tail. We have evolved our institutions to the point where we are self-destructing. Some would cheer on our hasty demise, but I feel much more cautionary about this. Label me a reactionary, but I think this is a lazy, short-cut for people who don't want to examine their own issues and ideological positions for fear of conceding that the other side, just might have a point.

Canada Day (or Dark Night)

2008-07-03T15:46:00.000-07:00

Amid the benign feel good cheer of Canada Day (July 1) here in Vancouver, a "police incident" snarled bridge traffic for six hours, preventing people from getting to their Canada Day destinations. I spent my Canada Day stuck on a sweaty, overcrowded bus for almost two hours while it slowly inched along in traffic to cross over the other main bridge where traffic was diverted. The inconvenience of being caught up in the sweltering gridlock on a holiday no less, aroused the ire and indignation of many -- and I belonged to those ranks.

I usually make a weekly pilgrimage across the water to visit my father who is in a care home with the late stages of Parkinson's and dementia. My objective was to get over to see him in time to feed him his dinner - knowing how special this day was to him in better times. What occurred to me after the fact was how selfish and apathetic we are as a nation. Although the reasons that would compel a person to hurl themselves over a bridge are manifold, and my heart goes out to someone who is in so much pain that they would attempt this, the distraught "would be suicide" victim inadvertently made a resoundingly selfish statement by choosing such a day to threaten to end it all. Maybe that was the point -- to piss off as many strangers as possible in order to defiantly tell the world to "screw itself." I don't think that it was that calculated though. As much as I surprised myself at feeling more anger than sympathy, I think that my reserves of compassion weren't as tapped out as those of others judging from the blogsopheres I visited afterwards.

I read alot of threads about the bridge closure incident and most of the people who posted their two-cents worth proudly indulged in the most callous and mean-spirited remarks about the "jumper." While I initially found myself drifting towards the consensus, I soon after realized that I had become an eager, sadistic participant in this spectacle of the jeering, resentful mob.

The anger at the delay was legitimate, but the comments on various blogs after the fact revealed a sick and cruel public mentality that has unfortunately become the norm here in Canada. It revealed the increasingly hostile and ugly interior that hides beneath the celebratory exterior of our national holiday.

The spate of tasteless and offensive comments about the would-be suicide jumper is yet another wearying testament to the brute insensitivity that is pervading our public discourse (if we can even call it "discourse"). It seems the web technology is the modern day bathroom stall --- where anyone can anonymously scrawl the most hateful garbage and get away with it. I realize I have a tendency to avoid the rose coloured glasses syndrome, but I sincerely sense that Canadians are not the enlightened, pleasant, tolerant people that we brag about being. We are in fact, becoming crass, short-sighted, amoral and self-centered. Another perfect example of this mass psychosis is the public's outrage at having to pay the carbon tax here. Some SUV-driving, smug-asshole feels violated by having to pay a bit extra at the pumps in order to offset the CO2 that his guzzling hulk emits and he gets all up in arms and cries foul. We don't want to sacrifice anything in order to do what's necessary for the long term. We are a nation of spoiled, impatient, self-interested whiners with an arrogant sense of entitlement and an addiction to the quick-fix.

It is no surprise that the people who were legitimately celebrating Canada Day --- who really embodied the meaning and tradition of this country -- were the new Canadians who were out in full force, proudly waving their flags, humble and hopeful.

Intersection: Or Permanent Transience

2008-06-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

I'm seated here in front of the cafe window looking out onto the intersection in one of those semi-gentrified character neighbourhoods that is common to any urban setting in North America.

I just bought a laptop and was anxious to try it out at a wireless cafe. I thought that it would free me up from the sense of isolation I feel when I do my online business at home but it's not that dramatic a change from sitting in my room confined to the gaze of the monitor. The difference is that this feels much more "public" and "performative." In fact, I feel alot more self-conscious and a lot less low key than I had hoped. There's a bit of a fashionable "show" aspect to all of this that makes me a bit uncomfortable. On the other hand, it's about as close as I can get to being openly engaged in my surround. I'm plugged in without being hidden away in a room, I can be totally immersed in some online activity and then look up and immediately observe -- almost partake in -- the flux and energy of the street. There are two young women next to me -- one is giving the other a tutorial on downloading music. They are very involved in this, so much so that setting and place seem incidental to their concentrated discussion about using Limewire. They are as connected as they are disconnected it would seem.

I observe the pure physics of the intersection in front of me -- cyclists veering around S.U.V.'s, the young and defiant striding across on a red to show their disdain for rules, the shifting, gliding confluence of traffic and pedestrians all in a constant motion. Every few minutes the Skytrain rumbles past above it all as if in a timed interval to this orchestration of humans and cars.

Attractive collegiate women are escorted by their swaggering, primally-charismatic, male companions. Here in this intersection of reality, the rules never change. A predictable set of relationships steadily evolved over millennia plays itself once more in a permanent transience, entirely faithful to the laws of physics and attraction. The world of the internet allows for a much more gravity-defying identity, where the internet "geek" enjoys the power and confidence that eludes him in the tangible limitations of physical reality.

Man Overboard.

2007-09-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 05/09/11

It’s 4 a.m. my sleeping schedule is out-of-alignment again. I just woke up from a nightmare in which I was aboard a large, passenger ferry and I witnessed a man attempt suicide by jumping off into the frigid waters below. As in so many dreams, I was more of a spectator than a participant, I felt like I was watching this incident unfold from a comfortable remove, as if it were film or television. Within moments the alarms sounded and the ferry came to a halt and a rescue vessel was sent out to retrieve the drowning man. When he was being helped aboard later, someone out of nowhere, approached him and said something to the effect of “you should have asked me to help you with the deed” and then produced a pistol and shot him dead. While the assailant stood there gloating in the immediate instant after shooting him, another person walked up to the first assailant and proceeded to shoot him. In the dream, I was the unwitting bystander, forced to observe the dramatic playing-out of a circle of vendettas. The dream continued and as if it cinematic cut, it was suddenly nightfall and presumably, this was the same journey. There was a group of passengers gathered in the seating area, it looked like they were watching a movie or some form of entertainment, they seemed quite transfixed by whatever it was. I was somewhere amongst them and I noticed through the windows surrounding separating the seating area from the outside deck, three ghostly apparitions looking in through the windows at the focus of entertainment inside. I assume that the three “ghosts” were the recently deceased. It was at that moment that I felt that racing, primal fear and then woke up.
I could interpret this nightmare on so many levels of my psyche. The usual themes of inescapable mortality and the nature of the spectacle mostly come to mind.
The suicidal passenger’s deathwish gets fulfilled, but quite unexpectedly. He decided to act on his intention only to be rebuffed by death and then moments later, the deed is finished. A heavy-dose of existential irony to be sure. Also a conceivably religious metaphor that underscores the brazen arrogance of us humans in the face of divine plan.
The second and perhaps just as fascinating issue I visited in this dream was the voyeuristic experience of violence and death. I recently read an article in the July issue of Harper’s about how we as a collective, are being subjected to what the author describes as “vio-porn” or the pornification of violence. What this loosely means is that we - in the role of spectators – are over-saturated with witnessing acts of violence through popular media so much so that through this de-sensitization process, we derive a perverse thrill at the tragic misfortune of others – simulated or real. This in turn hardens us to feelings of compassion or any kind of human ethic. I don’t think these charges are too strong, I think they are honest evaluations of the wider social alienation that’s engulfing us and threatening to undo our civilization.
Hollywood producers have latched onto a formula that works, it’s in their interests to fuel, to placate our increasing appetite to consume all forms of brutality and depravity that are manifestations of are darkest impulses. Courtesy my roommate and his DVD collection, I’ve recently been “catching” up on the television and movies I missed when I was away in Taiwan for four years. While most of what constitutes his DVD library doesn’t attract a mainstream audience, a good portion of is popular amongst a sizeable demographic and so it presumes that the audience has a high-tolerance threshold for graphic language, violence and nudity. What I’ve found surprising is how much more harsh and extreme even smart t.v. drama has become in order to stay alive in the ratings game. I think that this nightmare was a sort of filtering process for the amount of simulated violence I’ve seen recently, but it’s also a filtering process for the news media that I consume – the reportages of the body count in Iraq, wrought by natural disasters or in my part of the world where just yesterday a family shooting took place in what the news described as a “respectable” suburb. Why is it no surprise that all of this has a cumulative impact? Why are we shocked when we hear of incidents in which a shooting takes place and the perpetrator was only sixteen? The coarsening of attitudes and the de-sensitization to violence are combining to instill mass psychopathy in our collective behaviour. This form of psychopathy (which I’m loosely using and not to be understood in the clinical definition thereof) takes its form in small and apparently non-threatening ways – from the aggressive pan-handler who shoves an old man, to the corporate executive who embezzles money from his own company. These are all symptomatic behaviours of individuals who actively ignore the consequences of their actions or for how those actions might effect others. This aberration is more commonly recognizable in our youth, which has been made crass and anti-social as result of being sold a seductively cool form of street-cred fashion. I may sound like a fulminating old man here, but no matter how one might dismiss my concern as being generational, the rebellion of today’s youth is all form without substance and devoid of creativity and politically unconscious – a marketer’s dream.
Much of what I’ve written here is a given. We can all identify the usual culprits – mass media being the leading one. Therefore, how can one frame this debate in a more invigorating or novel way? Is it possible we’re becoming jaded to our own reality to such an extent that active engagement and meaningful response are futile in the face of the onslaught of excess in our culture? Are we too cynical – too busy – to register a passing notice?

2007-09-02T03:52:00.000-07:00

Electronic Soapbox

2007-09-01T23:59:00.000-07:00