back where i belong

Yesterday, I started volunteering again, and it was fabulous. I absolutely love it. It almost feels like I never left. Well, except for all the new faces since I left last Christmas. But the act itself, it's enough of a reward for me. It's a great way to keep busy, and use my time constructively. It gets me out of the house, and it's helping out people who need it, even if I did manual labour and filing. I think that if they can, the unemployed should have to volunteer a certain number of hours. It would certainly help reduce the visible lack of volunteers and the accompanying reduction of free services in the community.

The day got even better after a visit to a friend's to see her new haircut turned into an intense discussion on voting (that old debate of ideology vs. the real situation), what with the local election happening tomorrow. This led to discussions of the duties of a citizen in general (re: voting and giving up that right (which is a terrible thing to do)), and into conversations about the changing political landscape of Canada (seven provincial elections in nine months, I think), and even back to Saskatchewan politics, which everyone from Saskatchewan knows about, and how a previous leader in social programs and just in general for how the government works (you wouldn't think it, it's kinda backwards sometimes) could change drastically for the worse, depending on the next election result, said election being called any day now. Needless to say, a ten minute planned stop turned into an impromptu two and a half hour intense visit and learning session.

Now, go and make this noodle salad. It's delicious.

And that's all I have to say about that.

our future is in their hands. oh boy...

Sage Youth is an organization that provides literacy training to children aged 5-18, an age group woefully neglected for literacy training. It's existed for 11 years now, creating programs, materials, and educating upwards of 3600 students in all that time.

A bit of history. Two years ago this month, the Ontario school board (OSB from here in) decided to introduce the Ontario High School Literacy Test, a test to examine reading and writing in schools. It was instated in order to say with confidence that its high school grads were literate (what a concept, eh?). In the first year, 40% of the students writing the test failed it. Inside of Ottawa 3 high schools had 100% failure rates - not one student passed. This year, the failure rate had only decreased to 31% (or 25%, depending on how you take the numbers). Now here's the funny part: the OSB came to Sage Youth and asked them to help teach youth literacy in the schools. Funding? Ha! We don't got no stinkin' funding! We're school boards! So in addition to providing the materials, expertise, and knowledge base for these programs, the centre was also responsible for fundraising. Anyway, they did it, and in one of those schools last year, every student in the Sage Youth-created program passed the test.

Now that we're in the happy zone, there's all sorts of bad things to balance it out. Poverty is obviously a big factor. Many of these kids get tossed into special ed programs because they can't speak english, or are declared learning disabled, even if they are not, labelling them for life, limiting their futures. Sage Youth aims to change all this.

As a bit of a related aside, this, like most problems in the education system today, can be said to have been caused by cuts to education, pure and simple. A giant merged school board? Sure, sounds like a good idea to me! Make a profession that you REALLY have to love to do these days even more undesirable by taking away their only method of protesting a terrible situation? Why not! Institute a test that potentially stops kids from graduating, then not provide any way to help them pass? Of course!

Now to bring it up to the future. The Ontario provincial election was yesterday. The day before, I received an ad that, to me, told me NOT to vote for the (now ex-)governing PCs:

Allowing seniors who don't have kids to stop paying into education? Fighting gay marriage, even when the courts said you had to allow it? Add in their fight against teachers striking (when they're already treated like shit), and they've taken away any reason for me to vote for them. I mean, it was obvious that they weren't looking for it in the first place, that they are, and always have been, pandering more to those of my parents' generation. With voter turnout rates for those my age at an all-time low, however, it's not really surprising. Before the election, I was afraid of a result like in BC a year and a half ago, creating, IMHO, a situation that was even worse than I was seeing here.

Now my concern is simply that it'll be different faces, no real change, as is wont with politics. I mean, the Liberals have made some crazy promises, such as making "reading, writing and math mandatory in each teaching day" (isn't it already? Have our schools gotten that bad?), 'character education' to build good citizens*, and a whack of health care, economic, and other promises they may or may not do anything with. Well, with my vote, I have given a new government the power to do what I want them to do. Things need to change, not the least of which is education. Now it continues to be my job to keep them on that track, even if the new leader is a pointy-headed, reptilian kitten-eater from another planet.

I'll just have to make sure all kittens are properly protected first.

*I know for a fact that these DO NOT work. As was said at the orientation for me yesterday, "I've never seen a happy brat." These kids need attention, love, and confidence. I never once had any 'character education' (doesn't that sound vaguely Orwellian or Huxley-ian to you? "Oh, yeah, I've got character education, then newspeak after lunch."), and I turned out fine. Truth be told, it was the kids I knew in separate (Christian) school taking ethics that were the worst. They were bad. All that Christian anger repression, methinks.

jailbait

Me: Hi, I'm Ryan. Would you like to dance?
Very Cute Girl At Wedding: Um, sure. I'm VCGAW.
Me: So, what brought you here?
VCGAW: Oh, my mom knows the bride.
Me: Ah......So, what do you do - are you in school?
VCGAW: Yes.
Me: Oh, what are you taking?
VCGAW: Um, I'm in grade ten.
Me: .........
Me: Well, you look older than that.....
VCGAW: .....Thanks.
Ryan's brain: hahahahahahahaha loser.

At least I didn't offer to buy her a drink...

there's indie rock, then there's good indie rock

Tonight was concert night.

I saw: a guy getting a girls' number (go guy!), a self-described scenester (which made me laugh and think of this song, which is how I always think of scenesters) friend who works in the office where I volunteer (who described the rash of pregnancies in said office as a 'plague', and rightly so...), her new boyfriend, a so-so band, more sideburns and horn-rimmed glasses than I could shake a stick at (and I can shake a stick at a lot of them, even though I did not contribute at all to the no-sideburns camp), and two - TWO - no, three, no, four famer (or trucker, as they are colloquially known now) caps (one guy had some ugly-as-fuck orange one, then went and bought one with the band's name on it), a really amazing band, a bunch of Yo La Tengo shirts (as they had just been through Ottawa yesterday), a dearth of people younger than I, and a tonne of scenesters.

Now, the thing about indie rock (whatever that is these days), is that there is no moving. As the friend said, "They're just too cool for school." And they are. Admittedly, maybe there isn't as much energy in the room, but so what? It bothered me. I have never wanted a smidgen of hard rock or punk/ska or even some electronica as much as I did after that show, despite the fact that I enjoyed it.

All that said, I found The Frames to be good. Not great, they were an OK opening band, the use of the fiddle in all their songs gave them a calming, centering effect for me.

However, Calexico was the reason I was there, and the reason basically everyone else was there, and they did not disappoint. They gave a commanding, intense performance, but the music itself just flowed. The guitars were just as smooth as their recordings, and despite my basic love for any music with horns in it, the trumpets added a lot to the sound. A standing bass is another addition to any group that makes my heartstrings quiver. The time passed quite quickly during their set, someone asked me the time 3/4 through the performance, and I disbelieved the clock on my phone as much as she did.

I've been telling people that Calexico is unlike anything they've heard before, kind of a soft latin rock with awesome guitar work is the best way to describe, and that it's just good shit and they should listen to it. This experience has increased my desire to spread their great sound. Calexico's had their first stop in Ottawa ever tonight, and I sincerely hope they return. I'll be there with bells on.

[this is me]

(taken from the York University student paper when I was there a couple weeks ago)

can i ask just one more question?

Someone hedging their bet in last week's election.

I saw American Splendor and Wings of Desire tonight. I won't remark on American Splendor because everyone else has (except to say that I found it quite exceptional, and the presentation to be unique, the second movie I've seen in two weeks to deliver that feeling to me. The other being Capturing the Friedmans, of course.) However, no one else has seen Wings of Desire. First off, because it's sixteen years old.

If I was tied up and poked in the tummy until I relented and told the first film I thought was a German art film, I would say Wings of Desire. You want it, it had it - weird, discordant string music, pictures of eyes and wings, Blair-Witch-esque crazy camera handling, purposeless close-ups, black and white AND colour parts (which, admittedly, made more sense in the end), one naked boob, at least three different languages (German, French, and English, with the possibility of some Slavic language and maybe a bit of an Oriental language, I couldn't really tell), and a monologue near the end that keeps going and going and makes you want to show JUST SHUT UP AND KISS ALREADY NO ONE REALLY CARES ABOUT ALL THIS SHIT. The concept was kinda cool - a couple of angels watching people, listening to their thoughts, trying to provide peace, one wants to experience being human, and does. In the end, it was OK, the kind of OK that if someone else rents it and there's nothing else, it's OK, but not $5.50 OK. Actually, on second thought, it had Peter Falk as himself (Spoiler: he's an ex-angel!) who actually gets identified as Lt. Columbo twice. So that evens things out, I guess. I love that guy.

The best part of my day, however, was sitting down to supper at a great Chinese and Szechuan restaurant, putting the provided knife and fork to the side, and having the waitress come by and remark, "You no need fork?" "Nope." "Hm. Good," and remove said fork and knife.

P.S. I can't believe Izzy Asper is dead. That was bigger news for me than Schwar...Swartz..Shwa...the new governor of California (whoop dee doo). This was the Canadian equivalent of Ted Turner dying. Regardless of the fact he had retired at the beginning of the year, it's still stunning. I always thought he'd go bionic or something.

P.P.S. I really, really want to see Camp now.

I knaw its only wokkened roll - buddha lack it

All my life I have loved humour. I'll crack a joke any time - I believe it's much better to go through life smiling than not, and a good joke will always make me laugh. Sometimes I like really obscure or obtuse jokes (the most obtuse of which is the joke about the elephant and the rabbit, which I've had all of three people laugh at) (the best being Unfortunately, this means that I always need to find new jokes, as the best way to make a good joke into a bad one is to hear it over and over (and I've been guilty of souring jokes like this, due to the combination of a love of jokes and a lack of memory of whom I've told them to). That said, I've got a confession. This secret (which really isn't) doesn't guilt me, but it makes others feel bad sometimes.

I love puns. LOVE THEM.

Just ask anyone who knows me. (Really. They know.) I know the classic, easy ones, and a couple of the more obtuse ones. I really enjoy Spoonerisms the most - long, story-type jokes that end up with a switch of words or letters of words at the end. In a fit of unemployed enthusiasm, I decided last night that I'd search for the joke that ends, "Don't hatchet your counts before they chicken", as I'd heard the line before, but never the joke. In my travels, I found a lot of humour newsletters, a few good listings of punchlines, a couple pun-a-day sites, but none managed to approach the goliath that is Tarzan's Tripes Forever, and Other Feghoots: The Web's First Shaggy Dog Story Archive. Over 1300 puns, with many researched to discover sources, and variations on classics.

I'm in heaven. I now have dozens (maybe even hundreds by the time I'm done) that no one has heard before. No one I know, anyway. Mwa ha ha ha. I only take ones that I find funny, cause if I don't laugh at a joke, it is not funny. That's the golden rule.

One thing I've found is that some of these puns are actually quite highbrow and require a bit of research to understand, at least for me. There are a few that I don't get at all (if you get these ones, leave a comment, please?). There's been references to prose ("The koala tea of Mercy is not strained", from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice), poetry ("They also swerve who only tanned and ate" from John Milton's On His Blindness), and common sayings, "I really enjoyed those days of casting swirls before pine, switching around the logical statement of "Casting pearls before swine." Of course, there's always the simple wordplay too.

I believe that puns are the most underrated and over-abused form of humour. A good pun will always elicit groans, of course, but told properly, they are extremely entertaining, as people are trying to figure out what the punchline is and listening to details, as they can provide hints and give context.

Oh, and if you actually know me to see me, you may not want to for the next little while.

:)

SNAFU

The comments are broken - I just realized this today, and figured out why (bad permissions on the comments cgi file). Does anyone have any idea how to get at a file that has its permissions set to 000? I can't access shit here, don't ask me how it got that way. If you have an idea, please drop me a line.

Also, if you are trying to view this in Mozilla and getting a big load of crap (as I am), I'm working on it. I don't think that there's any one party to blame here, as IE and Opera (Opera, for fuck's sake!) show it OK.

for the guys

(8) Aura Drop (8): Thats immature, in my opinion. Janice disagrees, but shes a girl, and they are all crazy
RB: I love that. "She's a girl, and they are all crazy."
(8) Aura Drop (8): they are all crazy. its gender related, i swear
(8) Aura Drop (8): thats why we love them

In a related story, I happen to think that guys tend to be wackos.

*sniff*

I used to get picked last in elementary school.

(I just thought the caption for the graphic was hilarious. Admittedly, they do name that specific, um, problem (?) later in the article.)

the only thing missing was fisherman's friends

...as a cold was ravishing my throat all weekend. Of course, as soon as I returned to Ontario, where I could find these magic pellets, said affliction was gone. Poo.

Visits to Montreal, for some inexplicable (oh wait, it's actually perfectly explicable) reason, always seem to be equated with excess, sin, and a lack of proper rest. Oh, and tonnes of fun - did I mention the tonnes of fun?

This Thanksgiving weekend was no exception. With good food, good friends, and cute little pets, (not to mention the booze. Oh God, the booze. Oh, wait, one good thing discovered was a fabulous get-drunk-without-realizing-it drink - the Cherry Driver. Make a screwdriver, add cherry brandy. Tastes like orange punch. Oh yeah, baby.) it was hard not to have a good friend. Add in beautiful weather (and a good lungful of pollution), and you get one of the best Thanksgiving weekends in at least a year.

And even a job opportunity. Go networking.

And, of course, the, err, 'funny' friends, with their 'funny' sense of humour:

"Oh, yeah, Ryan's my man hag."

"So who fixed the shower - the manly men or the girly men?"

Me: Oh, sure, lock the straight guy out. I see what's going on here.
Tal: Honey, we've been trying to lock the straights out for years now.

Indeed.

just feel the love...

After 10 months of separation, only the occasional email, and no visiting, they still know my cookies.

"Are those Ryan cookies? They look like Ryan cookies.....mmm, oh yeah, those are Ryan cookies."

Cookies of Mass Tastiness - even Bush can find them.....delicious!

because it was on again and i thought it was great

From The Daily Show, repeated tonight from, uh, a previous night. You can actually see it on the site right now - it's called Recall Tales. Here's a clip.

Stephen Colbert: Jon, not only was this recall huge for democracy, it's not over. I already have 30,000 signatures to recall govenor Schwarzenegger. It is time for him to go!
Jon Stewart: Stephen, he won't even take office for another month now. Voting to recall him now is just gonna create more chaos.
SC: Not chaos, Jon, progress. This is just the next logical stage in the evolution of democracy. If voting is good, and I hope that you agree that it is...
JS: I have no problems with that.
SC: ...then voting more often is just more good, only oftener. If the California recall has taught us anything, it's that we don't have to wait every four years to vote. We can vote every four months, or every four minutes! I forsee a day when office holders will have electrodes implanted in their chests, and every morning, if a majority of registered voters fail to press the large green 'live' button on the dashboard of their cars, that official's heart will explode. That'll show those crumb-bums in Washington.

This was made all the funnier by the headline on The Onion this week:

Isn't politics grand?

Merger a Result of Caffeine, Procrastination

Canadian Press

OTTAWA (CP) -- Representatives for the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties today announced that they had "worked out all the major details" in a last-minute all-nighter session. Officials for both parties confirmed that they had been told by the leaders to get it done before, but that other things kept getting in the way. "Yeah, Steven told us that he seriously wanted this done by Thanksgiving back in May," commented Alliance organizer Karen Neufeld. "But that was so far away, and there was so much to do this summer, what with the Liberal convention and Iraq and gay marriage, we just kept putting it off. Plus, I mean the weather was so nice, so we just kinda blew it off."

Tory sources reported a sense of consternation as the mid-October deadline approached. Around Labour Day weekend, party representatives realized "how much stuff we had to do." With the party convention in May, party members were "super busy. When [newly-elected leader Peter] MacKay got on our ass about the merger, we just nodded and went back to American Idol 2. Then there was Canadian Idol. When that finished, though, we totally started freaking out, cause we didn't think we'd get done in time," said Conservative representative Peter Karbatoff. Karbatoff continued, "The only way we figured that we could get it done was to grab a bunch of Red Bull and Jolt and put in some heavy weekends and long nights."

Though a few days late, this last all-nighter seemed to have worked. At last report, lawyers were going over the final details while the deal-brokers took some time to relax at the local pub. "I can't believe we did it," exclaimed Karbatoff, the epitome of celebratory glee with a pitcher of beer in each hand and a lit cigar on the nearby table. "I mean, sure, it's a couple days late, but the bosses won't really care all that much. We totally rocked this merger. Whoo! I think that deserves a little celebration, don't you Karen?!"

Neufeld added, "Pete, you're such a jerk when you're drunk. I'm leaving."

camp not camp

If, in high school, you were part of the drama crowd, or part of the arts crowd, or you love musical numbers, or were gay, then Camp is definitely for you. (sorry, no IMDB link right now, my internet is wacko like jacko)

It's the story of a drama camp and the outcast teenagers who attend it each summer. They all know each other, and they've got all the stereotypes covered - the diva, her handmaiden, the flamboyant actor, the quiet crossdresser ("Have you ever thought about experimenting with heterosexuality?" "What, like sex with a straight man?"), the chubby girls. Throw in a new straight boy, and stir for some good times.

I'm going to avoid the term 'feel-good movie' altogether, because I really detest that phrase.* I really enjoyed this movie, though. The musical numbers really did it for me, as anyone who knows me I am a fan of the musical theatre (there's even tap in the movie! Tap!). There's a few twists and turns, a couple surprise disappointments, but everyone basically ends up happy in the end.

I knew a few kids like this in high school, but I luckily never suffered as much for my art as they did. One friend (not one that I went to high school with) told me that they believed that suffering was part of the experience of being an artist - that ups and downs created creativity, and that a steady existence led to an artistic drying-out. I agree to a point. Maybe that's why I'm not an artist.

Anyway, good movie. Highly recommended by me. Four and a half straight guys (out of five).

I'd write something better (well, at least put more effort into it), but I have to get up in four hours to catch my flight for a wedding I've been looking forward to for many, many months. Catch you when I get back. Maybe pictures for real this time, if I can find a good gallery-generating tool, as I am way to lazy to create them myself. And some book reviews.

I've got three pairs of shoes for three days, including a day and a half of travel. I'm such a girl sometimes.

*I realise the hypocrisy of using this statement when I own (and love) Men With Brooms, whose only review on the back calls it 'A feel-good picture!' Screw you, Gayle MacDonald of the Globe and Mail.

due to one little word

What a good time. There's nothing like friends, family, food, and drink. And a couple more drinks. See, when I get drunk (and boy, did I get drunk), I tend to be loud, chatty, sociable, goofy, fun, and/or generally nuts. Thanks to a friend in warmer climes, I have a gallery tool which will make its debut on this site (well, it's debut for this site) later this week.

The goofiness, funny enough, began way before the drinking in the Calgary airport, at the National Geographic store there. I mean, if you saw life-sized stuffed animals (aren't they supposed to stop people from doing that?), wouldn't you pose with them?

That night, however, loud, chatty Ryan put in an appearance. There were no pictures of me on my camera, but who needed those when I could take pictures of my friends acting like monkeys?

I haven't experienced many fall weddings in my life (just one, actually, two weeks ago), but I imagine that the day I experienced was the quintessential fall wedding day. Pictures of that were taken with the real camera, but I caught the bride and groom being all nasty on the dance floor for everyone. ;) Oh, and that's when performance Ryan came out. I solo'd four songs, dueted another, trio'd another, and had a small table chorus do a full performance of Skinnamarinky dinky dink, all to get those precious kisses. If you have a wedding and you think that you can avoid kissing by instituting singing, you'd better not invite me. I even got the first kiss, before the groom. Mwa ha ha.

My favourite picture, however, was actually arriving back in Ottawa after a long day of travel (to a huge new terminal, the thing is just oozing money, it's crazy).

And, of course, my witty acquaintances did not fail me this weekend:

Styler: So, see the girl with the red stripe in her hair? Yeah, she's 16. Stay away from her.
Me: Jerk.

Sleepy: Hey, I thought you were Christian!
Jert: Uh, no. Why?
Sleepy: Well, you know, just cause your mom kept popping out all those kids.
Me: Wow, you're just all class today! And in a church, no less!

Standing around, a flash goes off behind me
Stormy: Oh, I think someone just took a picture of your ass.
Me: (turning around, finding a five year old girl with a camera standing there) Hello. Took a picture of my bum, did you? (nothing but a blank stare) Well, you'll treasure that one for years to come.
Stormy: (laughs, causing girl to run off) Oops, I laughed and scared the child off.

(Stormy's laugh announces her presence like Zeus and thunder and lightening. It's very....unique.)

So this week, look forward to pictures and FOUR book reviews (just cause they're all quite good), amidst other dojiggies, paraphernalia, and various accoutrements.

a fitting celebration

This being entry #100, something momentus needs to be here. It was going to be a book review - no, TWO book reviews, because I love you all so much - but I've got something much better now.

It's interesting how good begets good (and, likewise, bad begets horrible pain). After such a spectacular wedding, seeing all those close to me, I realized that I have a pretty swell bunch of friends. So, I told them. Sent out an email last night to start everyone's week off with a bit of a boost. I've been contacted by four people I haven't talked to in months and have made plans to chat with three of them soon (ie this week), despite the fact that one is on the other side of the country and another is in another country. I'm told I've made a couple peoples' day. And, best of all, the good news just keeps getting better:

• promotions/new jobs (no surprise to me, they all deserves them)



• an engagement for someone (add another wedding to the list next summer)



• a friend might get published (published!) - the second published friend I'll know



• births



• birthdays, celebrated in accordingly excellent fashions



• anniversaries, boyfriends, girlfriends (or the rejection of any)
  
  
• the weddings, of course



• people are happy with their jobs



• people are happy with their lives


All this has made me even more joyous than when I sent out the email, a very difficult achievement.

I feel very guilty when I think about how it is that we live in such a small world now, where you can call someone who lives thousands of kilometres away for pennies a minute, or email a complete stranger or a best friend halfway across the world in seconds, but we're less in touch now than before we had these things.

So, I'll finish by simply saying: if you care for someone, tell them. Don't put a cutesy tagline in your email telling others to do it, do it yourself. You'll regret it the exact moment you can't. I do.

what's that smell?

Did you know you can set fire to your socks when trying to dry them out in the microwave?

Neither did I.

REVIEW: bush at war, what liberal media?

These books tangentially touch each other (hey, that sounds dirty. Fantastic!) to the point that the second actually references the first, but they are both good books that, though they may have their biases, are still worth the read.

Bush At War is, well, just that. It's a telling of the actions of the Bush administration and their conversations, feelings, and actions in first 100 days after the grave events of September 11th, 2001 (plus a little more for wrap-up). It's written by Bob Woodward, whom, as you may recall, wrote All The President's Men, later turned into a movie. Now, we all know that Woodward is a staunch conservative (or we do now, at least), and the book does read with a conservative leaning to it. I'll admit I thought at first it was going to be a clean reading, but, alas, like so much literature these days, even in just reporting facts, the words betrayed intention. Woodward had many interviews with various members of the administration, as well with CIA operatives and diplomats the world over involved in the early days. He also had access to many, many declassified documents (so many, that at one point, when Woodward asked Rumsfeld if he thought that they should address Iraq in addition to bin Laden, Rumsfeld responded, "What the hell did they do, give you every goddamn classif-…take that off the…"), giving him a unique view into the thoughts behind the actions.

My impressions? Cheney and Rumsfeld are war-mongering, suggesting hitting Iraq six days after 9/11, despite a glaring lack of evidence (which is still quite glaring). Bush is thoughtful (I didn't believe this at all. It felt like the most fake part of the book). Rice is an organizational filter for the president (which holds with the president's fairly recent admission). And Powell is the cool head, the one who sits down with the president and explains why war with Iraq would be bad (not that they listened). Why does he speak the company line, then? According to author, it's because of his military upbringing. I buy it. I have more respect for that man that I do for the rest of the Cabinet, anyway.

So anyway, good book. Good writing, and I learned something. Not like some things I've read. 3 years of inflammatory government out of 5 (well, that's for the book review. 3/4 for real life time)

Aaaaand I'll tack on What Liberal Media here too.

Conservative critics of the SCLM often neglect not only the power of owners and advertisers, but also the profit motive to determine the content of the news. Any remotely attentive consumer of news has noticed, in recent years, a turn away from what journalists like to term "spinach", or the kind of news that citizens require to carry out their duties as intelligent, informed members of a political democracy, toward pudding - the sweet, nutritionally vacant fare that is the stock in trade of news outlets. The sense of a news division acting as a "public trust," the characterization of the major networks throughout the Cold War - has given way to one that views them strictly as profit centers, which must carry the weight of shareholder demands the same way a TV sitcom or children's theme park must.
The net result has been the viral growth of a form of "news" that owes more to sitcoms and theme parks than to old-fahsioned ideas of public and civic life. Instead of John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev as the iconic images of the world of "news," we are presented the comings and goings of Madonna, O. J. Simpson, Princess Diana, Gary Condit, and Chandra Levy.

By journalist Eric Alterman, a self-admitted liberal, this book is somewhat of a rebuttal to Bernie Goldberg's, ahem, 'book'. Alterman discusses bias in the media too, freely admitting that there is bias, but that conservative bias actually dominates. He has tonnes of footnotes, as if to say, "See? I've done my homework." Works for me. He makes some excellent points about pundits (and the lack of journalistic integrity, if there is such a thing anymore, in this 'profession'). He puts forth that the conservatives have repeated their mantra of a liberal media so much that everyone simply believes it now. The first chapter is titled 'You're Only As Liberal As The One Who Owns You' and contains this little list of ownership, which surprised even me (and I know how big AOL/Time-Warner is):

..The Media Monopoly, which was first published in 1983 when the number of companies that controlled the information flow to the rest of us - the potential employment pool for journalists - was fifty. Today we are down to six.
Consider the following: When AOL took over TimeWarner, it also took over: Warner Brothers Pictures, Morgan Creek, New Regency, Warner Brothers Animation, a partial stake in Savoy Pictures, Little Brown & Co. Bullfinch, Back Bay, Time-Life Books, Oxmoor House, Sunset Books, Warner Books, the Book-of-the-Month Club, Warner/Chappell Music, Atlantic Records, Warner Audio Books, Elektra, Warner Brothers Records, Time-Life Music, Columbia House, a 40 percent stage in Seattle's Sub-Pop records, Time magazine, Fortue, Life, Sports Illustrated, Vibe, People, Entertainment Weekly, Money,In Style, Martha Stewart Living, Sunset, Asia Week, Parenting, Weight Watchers, Cooking Light, DC Comics, 49 percent of the Six Flags theme parks, Movie World and Warner Brothres parks, HBO, Cinemax, Warner Brothers Television, partial ownership of Comedy Central, E!, Black Entertainment Television, Court TV, the Sega Channel, the Home Shopping Network, Turner Broadcasting, the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, New Line Cinema, Fine Line Cinema, Turner Classic Movies, Turner Pictures, Castle Rock productions, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN International, CNN/SI, CNN Airport Network, CNNfi, CNN radio, TNT, WTBS, and the Cartoon Network. The situation is not substantially different at Disney, Viacom, GE, The News Corporation, or Bertelsmann.

Which is a little scary.

The book does go overboard at times, describing conservative media personalities as screaming, foaming, crazed maniacs at times, which was a real put-off sometimes, as it would happen right in the middle of a good point, thereby detracting from the entire thought.

All in all, however, there's a lot of well-researched points made about the media of today (and a few chapters on its relation to the government, both past and present), and even it's extensions (one chapter is extensively on the power of publishing and reviews of the products - my favourite quote in the entire book was the admission that "It is a painfully ironic fact that in a society as culturally debased as our, books can have a significant political and ideological impact precisely because they are rarely read." Ouch.) 4.25 media moguls out of 5

to quote Bill McNeil from newsradio

The last one was sent to me named, appropriately enough, Go White Boy Go White Boy Go.jpg.

last review for a while

And it won't be like the last one. I looked at it afterwards and am dearly sorry for what I subjected you, my twos of readers, to. But this is really important (ie one of the top this year.)

I recently finished Eric Schlosser's newest book (or really, collection of essays), Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. What a book. It's a reflection of three foci of the black market of the past, continuing into today - marijuana, immigrant workers, and pornography. He often refers to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', the guiding force of the market, and shows how it (often detrimentally) affects those who care the least about it. Schlosser's books are well researched (well, OK, he's only written two, but they were well researched, so I'm technically correct. Phbbt to you.) - in fact, that's the one thing about his books that bother me. His footnotes are not referenced in the body of the book at all, but rather, in the back, referring to page numbers. He also has good footnotes, not just references - notes that contribute to the understanding of the issue.

Even though there is obviously a bunch of previously-researched material pulled together for a book here, Schlosser does an excellent job of doing just though, making excellent points and backing them up. His discussion of marijuana almost made me want to go and start smoking marijuana, and his discussion of Reuben Sturman (who? you ask - only the biggest distributor of porn in the world for a full quarter century. You not knowing him was exactly the way he liked it.) fits perfectly with his observation at the end of that chapter: "The critics of porn may not like what they see, but must confront an awkward, underlying truth: sometimes the price of freedom is what freedom brings."

In light of my recent views on bias, this was one of the few books I've read this year without any real bias. Schlosser does rally against big business, writes for the Atlantic Monthly, and I'm sure is a liberal person, but he reports the truth. A bit of his politics seeps through at the end of the chapters, but it's really more truth than politics. I highly recommend reading Reefer Madness, in addition to Fast Food Nation (if you haven't already).

The book finishes nicely, with a short essay pulling all of the facts together and re-introducing the 'invisible hand', showing that though it may guide the market, it does so without compassion.

Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when our public morality is consistent with our private one. The underground is a good measure of the progress and the health of nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden.

to the man who so kindly pointed out that i was going through a stop sign on my bike

I fully realized at the time that I was breaking the law by not halting at the stop sign. However, in approaching the intersection, I had looked down the connecting road and seen that you and I were the only moving vehicles in sight, and that we were driving parallel to each other.

More importantly, the next time you roll down your window to point and yell at someone for going through a stop sign, do not be driving through said stop sign yourself at the same time. It puts just a wee black mark on your credibility.

Jerk.

Sincerely,

maybe he was hoping his rock 'n' roll dreams would come true

"..So I don't really know my neighbours at all, but I started late the other day, and I'm just getting ready to leave at 9:30, when my neighbour starts blasting music. And I'm like, 'OK, it's 9:30 am, he's allowed to do that. No problem."

"Sure, yeah. I've done that."

"Except it's Meatloaf."

"You're kidding."

"I only wish. Meatloaf rattling my walls."

"Well, he is a big guy."

life, captured and frozen

It's very late. However, I have finally fulfilled the promise I've been making on various journalling sites and such - there are photos up. Gatherings, sexually suggestive signs - I've got it all. More to come as I find them and get more time.

Super huge thanks to Heidi for recommending Gallery. It's easy to use and super easy to implement. May good stuff happen to you. Even more so.

Enjoy.

step forward, fall back on my ass

Like a friend recently admitted, this is the first time change that I haven't thought about the times that my TV shows are on will change.

See, I'm from Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan, in my opinion, avoids that evil, time-stealing, ancient tradition known as Daylight Saving Time with a rather simplistic approach: they don't do it. The only time you touch your clock is when a branch hits the transformer down by Uncle Wayne's and knocks the power out. It's a rather simple approach. Some people complain, I tell them to move. Pretty easy.

One of the consequences of having the rest of the world move around you, however, is that television show times change. I can watch Spongebob Squarepants all winter at 7 a.m., only to have it change to 6 a.m. come the end of April. And back at the end of October.

Having been in Ottawa for almost a year and a half now, I've grown used to this switching. I automatically set my clock before going to bed twice a year. I've stopped hoping for the long summer nights that I grew up with. I comment that it's nice that we'll have the extra hour of daylight.

However, there is still a little piece of me that's bitterly disappointed each time I turn the TV on to find the same shows are still on at the same time.

*UPDATE: I would just like to register my hatred that it's October 27th, and the sun set at around 4:00 this afternoon.

Hate.

liquid heart attack

So, it's been a while since I've been to a big, commercial movie theatre. And even longer since I've been to the big 24-screener on the edge of town. However, going to see Kill Bill tonight (which was extremely violent, but I found that I've been incredibly desensitized to it. Plus the writing was really good), I walked into the snack lobby and saw this horrible contraption:

A BUTTER MACHINE.

Yuck.

(Even though I ate popcorn with said butter on it. Still.)

**************

Completely unrelated (well, almost) is my concern that snow never, ever looks real in movies. Unless it actually is real. As one who grew up with the white shit around for seven or sometimes eight months of the year, trust me. If someone could do that, they'd have me. Screw heads flying off and kung fu. Give me real snow that I believe. I can suspend disbelief (or invite belief, whatever) for anything except what I have actually experienced.

she don't eat meat, but she sho' like the bone

Seven years ago, I didn't think I could date a vegetarian. I proclaimed that I loved eating meat too much, even though I had a crush on a fairly staunch vegetarian.

Four years ago, I met a girl who liked the same food I did. I wasn't on as much of a meat kick as three years before, I guess, eating a bit healthier, but I still enjoyed it, and so did she. And I was happy.

Two years ago, when she moved away to do grad school and started eating much less meat, teeter-tottering on the edge of vegetarianism. Expecting to join her in les than a year, I thought, "I can do that. And we don't have to eat the same thing always. I can still eat meat, and it wouldn't hurt to eat healthier, anyway."

One year ago, I lived with roommates who hunted, cooked big thick steaks, made their own sausages, and loved to fish. I enjoyed the fruits of their labours.

A month and a half ago, I remarked that Jack Astor's had surprisingly few vegetarian options.

Tonight, possibly due entirely to the touch of the flu going around that I'm suffering from, I felt slightly nauseous at the thought of having a sub with meat on it.

The times, they are a changin'.

everything sounds better

...with the word combat before it. (In honour of my friend Jared who is dressing up as a combat officer for Halloween).

I'm combat unemployed.

I like to play combat cribbage.

I'm in combat love.

I enjoy combat blogging.

I rode my combat bike through combat traffic to teach combat kids the necessities of combat English this evening.

Suddenly, I live in a much more exciting world.