Keep It Off My Wave

I hope I'm applying the meaning of the old Soundgarden song properly by using it as the heading for this entry. In any case, you'll get one interpretation of that meaning (mine) if you keep reading.

A few recent events have left me puzzled as to why people with certain strong political or social beliefs automatically assume that, because one might share their ethnic or class background, geographical location or even last name, one agrees with those beliefs. It's not the beliefs themselves that I'm talking about here - although in the cases I'm about to cite they are deplorable - but the assumption that I would be complicit with them.

One of the recent instances involved someone with whom I had a connection, however tenuous, due to genetic circumstance. After having not been in contact with this person for several years, I had occasion to get in touch. Soon afterward, this person saw fit to forward on an email that viciously maligned people of Arab descent. Leaving aside the matter of this person's prejudice, I wondered why he would presume that I would agree.

The other instance occurred during the pickup of a piece of furniture from a stranger's house (side note: screenwriters and authors in search of inspiration for rich characters are hereby advised to go on a Kijiji or Craigslist buying binge). Immediately upon introduction, this person began moaning about her health (imagine the odds of having not one, but TWO rare spinal diseases) and lamenting that she was "the only white person in this apartment building." The racial comment was not merely an observation of fact, believe me. And again, I was left to wonder why she presumed, because of the colour of my skin, that I would nod in agreement.

Of course, bigots aren't the only ones guilty of this. I was reminded of the two real-life instances while watching Year of the Dog, a decent-but-uneven movie about an animal-lover's mental collapse. In it, Molly Shannon's lead character goes to ever-greater lengths to fight for animal rights, including browbeating her family and coworkers into joining the cause. Because she believed in the nobility of her cause, she also believed everyone around her shared that passion.

Whether motivated by hate or love, people need to get out of their own heads and understand that others might not feel that way. Keep it off my wave, unless you know it's the kind I like to surf.

arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

Afghanistan: Dumbing It Down, Surging It Up

I've never been one to buy into the notion that Stephen Harper's Conservatives are the Canadian equivalent of the George W. Bush Republicans. For one thing, the Bush brand of religious moralism, thankfully, hasn't been viable as a foundation for electoral success in Canada for quite some time. For another, Bush's failings, if nothing else, revealed in painful fashion his undeniable humanity, while Harper rarely shows evidence of being carbon-based.

But there is certainly something Bush-like in the way the Harper Conservatives have dragged political discourse in Canada down to its most reptilian level. The most recent case in point was this week's head-slappingly stupid back-and-forth between Defence Minister Peter McKay and members of the opposition about allegations that the Canadian military ignored evidence that detainees in Afghanistan had been tortured after being handed over to Afghan authorities.

To review: these allegations were brought by diplomat Richard Colvin, and - this is crucial - do not include accusations that Canadian soldiers themselves had tortured anyone. The issues Colvin has raised relate to the military's process and policies regarding detainees, not the behaviour of individual soldiers.

This should be pretty clear to any thinking person. But the Tories seem to be betting, or hoping, that Canadians aren't interested in thinking. Thus, they've trotted out the familiar rhetoric about how those who would dare follow up on Colvin's claims are guilty of failing to support our men and women in uniform. "Casting aspersions," to use McKay's words.

That's a clear case of Bush-speak - spouting the idea that anyone who even questions the way the war in Afganistan is being prosecuted is an unpatriotic jerk.

Conservatives have also argued that Colvin is alone in his concerns. But today, news broke that, in fact, the Red Cross had raised the same issues, to the extent that international law enables them. One wonders whether the Conservatives are now prepared to cast aspersions on the behaviour and credibility of that most dastardly of organizations, the International Red Cross.

The point is, the Conservatives have tried to dodge some serious allegations by using numbingly simplistic arguments that could only reasonably convince a population that was either amazingly apathetic or, yes, even dumb. It's up to Canadians to prove otherwise.

Meanwhile, another figure, one far more popular than Harper, has also gone in for a little bit of Bush-iness. President Barack Obama, ever the "on the one hand, on the other hand" thinker, has announced both an increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan - a 30,000-soldier deployment reminiscent of Bush's "surge" in Iraq - and a date for said soldiers to start coming home.

The additional troops may be enough to appease hawkish types who believes more boots and bullets are the keys to victory, while the July, 2011 pullout date is a sop to Obama's lefty supporters who want the Afghan adventure over with. As Fred Kaplan of Slate explains here, neither side is likely to be happy with this apparently muddled compromise. In Kaplan's view, the additional troops won't matter unless they're put to proper use - and figuring out just what that is is a quandary that's plagued the mission since the Taliban was overthrown. And he notes that the 2011 "deadline" is actually quite artificial and unlikely to be enforced unless things change dramatically.

But the point Kaplan makes at the beginning of his article is the one I want to echo here - that Obama, with this announcement, can no longer be seen as the hamstrung inheritor of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unavoidable or not, he's now waded into the fray, and history will accord him a share of the responsibility for the results.

Bush may still bear the bulk of that responsibility. But he must find it nice to have company.

arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

On Masculinity

Okay, now for something a little more serious.

In today's Toronto Star, sports reporter Damien Cox interviews Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke about the latter's 20-year-old son, who happens to be gay. That fact has been known to the Burke family for almost two years, but it's just now coming out, as it were, in the media.

In the article, the elder Burke quite understandably wishes for the day when items like this won't be considered newsworthy. And some of the readers commenting on the article protest that the day is already here, arguing that the story isn't relevant to hockey fans. That may be true. But the fact is that the article is fully deserving of its column inches for the effect it hopefully will have on a sports culture that lags well behind the times in terms of accepting differences.

Brian Burke isn't just any old professional sports executive. He's a proverbial man's man, an opinionated and tough-minded guy who believes bare-knuckled fighting belongs in hockey and has placed a premium on qualities such as "truculence" and "testosterone" in his so-far unsuccessful attempt to rebuild his team. He's old-school - a beat 'em in the alley type who'd just as soon win a physical war of attrition as a test of skill.

In other words, he's the type of guy you might expect to deny or bury reports about his son's homosexuality. Instead, he's acknowledged it in public with honesty and without squirming equivocation. He doesn't claim, like many in his position would, to love his son in spite of his sexuality, but rather professes more admiration for the young man because of the courage it's taken to come out while still working within a hockey environment (the younger Burke analyzes statistics and video for a U.S. college team).

Moreover, Burke senior shows that he's not afraid to use his famously salty language or his celebrity to defend his son against bigots. Cox's article relates Burke's cussing out of anti-gay marriage protesters in California and his openness to marching in Toronto's gay pride parade next year.

That the coarse, aggressive Brian Burke has taken this stand is meaningful in a sports world where "don't ask, don't tell" would actually be considered an upgrade in terms of the acceptance of gay people. He may be a prototypical man's man, but Burke's uncompromising support for his son is his most admirable display of masculinity.

Masculinity, of course, is a notion under siege these days - and not from the people that some men would complain about. Sure, feminists have for years (rightly) questioned some of the more unsavoury aspects of stereotypical maleness, but as this article from a couple of weeks back by Eye Weekly's Edward Keenan shows, it's actually men who could render manliness extinct. Men like the writer-turned-filmmaker Tucker Max, whose movie I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell opened a couple of weeks ago.

Max - who I hadn't even heard of since the Eye piece - has apparently made a name for himself by evangelizing for what Keenan calls "dude culture," a lifestyle predicated on binge drinking, sexual promiscuity and general obnoxiousness. Keenan makes an excellent argument that this form of "manliness" can be defined more accurately as childishness - the refusal to assume and perform the responsibilities that, in previous generations, would have been central to common notions of masculinity. You don't have to spend much time in a downtown bar, a mall or a movie theatre without encountering this kind of misbegotten idea of what makes a man.

The definition of masculinity will continue to evolve and be debated. With any luck, men will pass up Tucker Max's infantile version for the one exemplified by Brian Burke and his son.

arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

Riddle Me This, Nova Scotia

The first thing I did was go to Tim Hortons.

After an early-morning flight from Toronto to our new home in Atlantic Canada, I was eager to start this new chapter with a cup of the old, familiar sugar-water. Being that the nearest location is within two downhill blocks of the new place (I believe there is a bylaw in Dartmouth requiring that there be a Timmy's within spitting distance of each resident), this should have taken only a couple of minutes.

But as those minutes passed, I found myself progressing no further than a nearby stoplight, where I stared, mystified, at a flashing orange hand that never seemed to give way to the white glow of the "walk" signal no matter what the colour of the streetlights. If I wasn't supposed to walk on green, red or yellow lights, when was I supposed to walk? Was the Timmy's, its sign visible above a row of houses, permanently out of my reach despite its palpable proximity? And what were these curious buttons with arrows above them on the pole beside me?

This traumatic experience made it clear that adjusting to Dartmouth after a lifetime encased in the friendly concrete of Toronto was going to be difficult. The entire Halifax Regional Municipality area, it turns out, is a land of riddles seemingly designed to confuse innocent, vulnerable Torontonians.

The ever-present, admonishing traffic hand is just one of these. After nearly two weeks on the East Coast, I have made several similar observations, which I shall list here:

1) Garbage, recycling and composting here is complicated. Apparently, the residents of HRM are clever enough to understand and execute instructions that call for organic materials, solid waste and two different kinds of recyclable materials to be dropped in entirely separate bins. I noticed while at the mall that most people were able to do this without crying, even though tears were welling up in my own eyes as I stood helplessly in front of all those options, wondering whether my crumpled-up napkins belonged in the paper recyling or organics bin.

2) In Toronto, one can be reasonably certain that climbing aboard a streetcar marked "Queen Street" will result in a steady progression in the same direction down said street. Not so in HRM. The buses here dip and dive down streets with no regard for their passengers' equilibrium, making sudden, unpredictable cuts and switches as if they're following an especially complex offensive scheme designed by an NBA coach. Yet the locals register little to no alarm as all this goes on, their knowledge of the bus' number and eventual destination inexplicably filling them with confidence.

3) The people here have a habit of speaking to you. Even those who have never met you or friended you on Facebook tend to say hello without warning. Despite their clear violation of my personal-space bubble, they respond to my aggrieved grunts as though I'm the one who's committed the social faux-pas.

There are, and will be, more such revelations as life here proceeds. Reporting them may be the only thing that keeps me sane in this insane town.

arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

All Apologies

But who am I apologizing to? Myself?

That's probably right. But in any case, I was surprised to see that I'd split nary an arrow in the entire month of October. And a high percentage of my irregular posts since July have been apologies for posting so irregularly accompanied by resolutions to get back in the blogging groove. Empty promises, as it turns out.

Here's the thing. It's been rather busy. Travel, marriage, a cross-country move impending. Said move will put me in a position where I will likely have to blog to save my own sanity, so while I might remain quiet for a couple more weeks, after that I'll hardly be able to shut up.

I mean it this time.

Organizing the Race Cards

Stanford University law professor Richard Thompson Ford makes an invaluable contribution to societal discourse about racism with his Slate article today. Spurred to action by a world in which leftists blame every challenge faced by minorities on overt and despicable racism and righties torture logic with claims of "reverse racism," Ford defines several different sub-genres of bigotry, how these sub-genres manifest in society and their legitimacy as examples of true racism.


One might disagree with some of Ford's conclusions - I know quite a few people, for example, who would resolutely insist that "bad people acting with racial animus" led to the pitiful government response to Hurricane Katrina - but that's beside the point. The more essential lesson is that discussion of racial issues is fundamentally undermined by the inflammatory and egregious use of the term "racism," and that we need to take an honest look at what true racism is and where, how and when it still poisons our culture.


It's a convenient thing - and in the heat of a very emotional moment, it may even seem to be an insightful and wise thing - to say that "George Bush does not care about black people," as Kanye West so famously claimed in the wake of Katrina. But while the R-word is useful in identifying heroes and villains, real life is rarely about such clear-cut distinctions. Ford's article is a reminder that the other forces at play, from unconscious biases to poor urban planning to the lingering after-effects of centuries of undeniable racism, are probably more relevant at this point in history than overt hatred. Understanding how these forces work, rather than cavalierly tossing the term "racist" around, is the key to overcoming racial inequality.

arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

The Infamous Date Rape

That's the title of an old Tribe Called Quest song, but it could also apply to the case of the five Hoftstra University students who were accused of gang-raping a female student in a campus bathroom earlier this month. The men spent two days in jail and were identified in numerous media accounts, but were freed when the alleged victim recanted her story. The case is similar to the Duke lacrosse team scandal of a few years back, but the Hofstra situation included an oddly of-the-times twist - the woman's admission that she had consented to the group grope came after she saw the cell-phone video of the encounter recorded by one of the alleged assailants. While it may be disrespectful, exploitative and just plain gross, filming one's sexual adventures evidently makes some legal sense.


That last point is cribbed from a column by Slate legal writer Emily Bazelon in the female-focused blog Double X. It's just a small note in a piece that goes on to discuss whether the accuser's name, like those of the accused, should be released to the public. Bazelon agonizes over this question and ultimately decides that the false accuser should remain anonymous, although in a later blog post she also acknowledges that perhaps the same courtesy should be extended to those accused of a crime. In doing so, she also acknowledges that the question itself brings into conflict her views on gender solidarity, the imperatives of journalism and the law.


All this, and I'm still dancing around the essential point of the piece and the (non?) lessons of the Hofstra case. Bazelon is wading into the contentious territory of "grey rape," a phrase coined to describe sexual encounters wherein consent is difficult to determine and even the "victim" isn't quite sure whether they've been violated or just feel a particularly stomach-churning remorse about a choice or series of choices. Not surprisingly, the "grey rape" term has been derided in some feminist circles as blame-the-victim terminology and by some men for further muddying the already opaque waters of sexual transactions, particularly those involving alcohol.


The extreme viewpoints are well-represented in the comments section underneath the article, as are more moderate views. But what cuts to the bone for me is an essential question: are women fully equal to men and thus responsible for their own decisions, or are they fundamentally vulnerable and thus dependent on the law to protect them from those decisions.


Let me be clear - on the issue of any sex that results from the application of force or drink-spiking or any other physically assaultive action, I see no grey area. But when it comes to other factors, such as straight-up alcohol consumption, it's a lot murkier. The notion, expressed by some of the commenters, that women are essentially powerless against "manipulative" men who "get them" drunk in order to sleep with them seems to strip women of any kind of power. Coming from women who identify as feminist, I find this to be a bizarre proposition. Of course, sex with an unconscious person is unconscionable, and I'm quite comfortable with the idea that any man who takes advantage of a woman so drunk that she's in blackout, or even unintelligible mode, has committed rape. But what if - as I suspect is the case in a lot of college-campus cases - the man is also drunk out of his mind? Should the law require that he take full responsibility for his actions and the woman none? Again, that seems to violate fundamental feminist principles, at least as I understand them.


I don't for a second believe there's an epidemic of false rape allegations, but cases like these do point to some uncomfortable problems with the way we treat sex and gender equality under the law. Rape cases so often come down to the competing accounts of the accuser and the accused, with only their respective words to guide a judge or jury. It's a legal arena that has always screamed out for more clarity, but I'm not sure that tipping the scales in a way that presumes men to be conscious predators and women to be helpless prey brings any more justice to the justice system or any more gender equality to society.


We want so badly for these things to be black and whites, but the grey remains. Maybe the solution is to videotape everything.


arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

Travelogue

So let's see. On day one, we arrived at the airport in Istanbul and got in a taxi. It was warm outside...

Okay, I'll go easy on the blow-by-blow. But suffice to say that 10 days in Turkey (and one unexpected bonus night in Frankfurt) is a pretty good tonic for the malaise brought on by the daily grind. As is marriage, a state of bliss that, I have been assured, at no point devolves into anything deserving of the words "daily grind."

But enough of the personal. Some observations about Turkey:

First off, the people there are tremendous. Witty, playful and friendly, always willing to go to extend themselves in order to help out strangers. Even the "aggression" of the carpet-shop salesmen and the ware-hawkers at the Grand Bazaar is for the most part benign and conducted with a self-aware wink. We depended greatly on the kindness of strangers and found it in strong supply at nearly every turn.

Secondly, the food is incredible, and far more varied than menus offered up by many better-known culinary nations. Sure, there are a million different variations on eggplant and the country is well-stocked with kebabs, but the Turks have a long list of multi-flavour recipes. It also doesn't hurt that the fruit and vegetables are fresh and tasty in a way that this particular Ontarian didn't believe was possible.

So much else to say. The weather was mostly great (dodged the deadly floods that hit the Istanbul suburbs), the Mediterranean Sea was eminently swimmable at 22 degrees Celsius and the landscapes - from the mountainous regions to the arid desert in the middle of the country to the mosque-dominated cityscape of Istanbul - were stunning. The only downside was that many areas of the Mediterranean coast were overrun with British and German tourists, such that the only Turks visible were those in service positions.

In other words, Turkey comes highly recommended from this source. 

But this source is not the Lonely Planet, so I'm moved to share another observation. Turkey, of course, has been vying for many years to gain entrance into the European Union. Some people I spoke with there said they'd never be let in for "political reasons." I'm not sure, but the dismissive way they said this led me to believe that the locals don't think these reasons are particularly valid. However, Turkey's EU troubles have to do with its denial of the Armenian genocide and the squabble with Greece over Cyprus - serious business to be sure. I don't know enough about either to come down on one side or the other, but it's a reminder that international politics look very different in the eyes of beholders from different nations. 

This should be obvious, but it's pretty easy, I realized, to wrap oneself in a myopic, North America-centred cocoon. Something to endeavour to avoid as this blog, hopefully, becomes a more regular occurrence again.

http://arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

Turkish Delight

It's been awful quiet around here the last couple of months, and it's going to continue to be that way for another couple of weeks. But I'm not sad about it, because I'm off for vacation in Turkey.

I may come back with all kinds of insights about the history of Western civilization, life on the border of Europe and Asia, the inner workings of a secular democracy where 98% of the people self-identify as observant Muslims and the melting of decades of diplomatic ice. But I may not. The plan is to make the mind a blank slate and see what fills it up. 

And if all that gets written on that slate is 11 days of warm sun and crazy sights and sounds, so be it.

Sticks and Stones

It wasn't by design. It wasn't the result of a summer vacation spent in far-off exotic countries (that's still to come). I wasn't in a coma. I was just insanely busy doing actual work and kind of lost the plot on the whole blog thing. But hey, no biggie, right? It's the summer and nothing happens. Nobody dies. People go away on boring trips. They putter uneventfully around their own houses. Cultural and political discourse slows to a heat-induced crawl. 

Truth be told, I'm now a bit rusty when it comes to the whole arrow-splitting business. But I'm happy to say that one of the contributing causes was an unusually juicy story I got to work on in an official, non-blog capacity. The story, which you can read here, concerned accusations of ethical misbehaviour by an ad agency and car company in a recent contest.

In following the aftermath of the story, I've come to realize how its central point - that companies have to be wary of how social media tools allow for a frenzy of negative opinion about brands to brew up quickly and powerfully - applies to me and my profession. In years past, a journalist might expect even his most controversial work to yield a few impassioned letters to the editor and not much more. Not the case any more. As I've recently discovered, the social media age means that I'll probably encounter statements like this one, which I found on the comments section of a blog operated by one of the upset contestants from the car contest, more often:

"Semansky, like so many writers in recent years, is masterful at appearing to be a journalist whilst at the same time infusing articles with subtle sheep-factor propaganda."

Ouch. On one hand, it should be easy to dismiss this kind of thing. On the other hand, I have to admit that reading this comment activated a strong self-defence instinct. Not that I responded, or should have responded. But the whole situation was humbling because it brought into sharp relief the fact that, as my career moves on, I'll have to be more cognizant of the "two-way conversations" that accompany my stories. 

Which is good. If the media's job is, in part, to call bullshit and speak truth to power, it's only fair that everyone else can call bullshit, if they see fit, on the media.

http://arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

Penguins Set Back March of Gay Rights

Homophobes often try to frame homosexuality as an immoral choice that flouts the laws of nature, while most gays respond that, surely as nature made them, nature made them gay. To bolster the latter argument, homosexuals and gay rights activists have sometimes pointed to the same-sex action that takes place elsewhere in the animal kingdom.


But now, the gay rights movement has a new and potentially dangerous enemy: penguins. And what hurts most of all is that this enemy is a traitor to the cause.


The evidence is here, in a story about two male penguins from the San Francisco Zoo whose six-year relationship recently ended when one of them decided to jump into the nest of a widowed female. Defenders of "traditional family values" might suggest that Harry philandered because he realized that, six years ago, he'd made a bad choice that steered him away from his "natural" heterosexuality. No doubt they'd also blame that choice on an evil "homosexual agenda," the goal of which is presumably to turn everyone gay, animals included. At least in San Francisco.


Either way, the anti-gay army now has a new poster-penguin. Me, I think the whole affair demonstrates that sexuality can be a fluid thing, no matter what species is involved. As for poor cuckolded Pepper, I just hope he recovers from the shock. It's okay, Pepper. You're worth more than cheatin' Harry and homewrecker Linda combined.


http://arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

'Til Death

Fascinating case emanating from Europe in the past couple of days about an elderly and eminent British couple who chose to commit simultaneous suicide with the help of a Swiss clinic. Conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died hand-in-hand last week after knocking back a lethal drug cocktail, a move that's as sure to make ethicists wring their hands as it is to make romantics swoon.

Assisted suicide is one of those issues that's much easier to argue about in the abstract than in the specific. It's understandable that many people would defend this decision by two apparently rational adults, a decision that was supported by their children. After all, what benefit would there be to charging the children, already grieving, with a criminal offense for helping the Downeses meet their chosen fate? 

Yet it's also easy to understand why the couple's death would make people squirm. Joan Downes was reportedly in the final stages of terminal cancer, but aside from being described by his kids as "blind and nearly deaf," Edward Downes was only on his deathbed because he chose to be. Thus, the usual slippery-slope arguments are activated. What, for example, is the standard a person must meet in order to receive assistance in ending one's own life? Should people have access to assisted suicide because they're afraid to grieve for a loved one? Is this option available only for the elderly? If the option was available, how many people would use it to escape what might be temporary physical and mental pain.

I can't fault the Downeses for what they did. But I'm not sure I'm comfortable with assisted suicide if the rationale behind it is to achieve some romantic ideal or avoid grief. Coming to terms with death is a sad but necessary part of life. Even at 85, Edward Downes might very well have gained wisdom and character from the process of mourning his wife. Or it may have tortured him. 

That's the thing about death. Once it happens, all those questions go forever unanswered. My take is that public policy concerning assisted suicide should err on the side of exploring the possibilities and answering those questions.

http://arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

The Problem With Intervention

Yesterday I wrote about how it's difficult to know if, when and how to respond to situations where someone says something inappropriate in public. I raised two cases from the past week in which I was an eye and ear witness to shocking verbal encounters, one of them involving a profane mother (whom I didn't respond to or report to any authority) and one involving - or so I thought - a profane and racist bus driver (whom I did report to the Toronto Transit Commission). I talked about how I had some misgivings about both my passive and active responses in these two situations.

Well, it turns out that whatever small feeling of nobility I had about reporting the case of the racist bus driver was short-lived. My girlfriend, who was with me on the bus, later explained that it was a passenger, not the driver, who made the nasty comments to an elderly Asian lady sitting across from him. Just now I called the TTC back and explained the error, but still, having mistakenly blown the whistle on the innocent driver, I now feel at least as sick as I did yesterday while the incident was actually happening. I can only hope he hasn't already been contacted about it.

So is it better to hear and see no evil, allowing hateful comments in public spaces to go unchallenged? After this whole affair, I know it's going to be more difficult for me personally to stand up, for fear that I'm somehow mistaken. But I hope that's not the case. 

http://arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

What's My Business, and How Should I Mind It?

It's been said before, by more articulate and authoritative voices than I, that the spread of evil owes less to the extremist zealotry of the few than it does to the listless apathy of the many. For example, this theory would suggest that the rise of the Nazis in Germany wasn't so much a result of Hitler's charisma or strong-arm tactics as it was the result of a general population that shrugged its collective shoulders as he consolidated power. The intimate personal lesson we're supposed to draw is that, when we ignore or dismiss hate and violence, we're not much better than those who commit it.

But two recent situations from my own life have illustrated, to me at least, why this moral rule that makes perfect sense in the abstract is extraordinarily difficult to abide by in specific, real-life cases. In one of these instances, I decided to respond in some fashion. In the other, I didn't. But was I right in either case?

Case #1: 

Last week while doing laundry, I witnessed a parenting display that twisted my stomach into knots. While doing her laundry, a relatively young mother was occasionally interrupted by one or both of her young children (both aged five or under, I'd guess), who were understandably bored but were quite well-behaved considering their dull surroundings. Not well-behaved enough for this mom, though. After crabbily urging her kids to leave her alone a few times, the woman snapped, berating one of the little ones with the words, "For fuck's sake, why don't you go sit down."

Swearing in the presence of children is a pet peeve of mine. I hate when people do it, in part because I feel bad for the parents who are put in the uncomfortable situation of having to either pretend it didn't happen, raise an embarrassing scene or explain to their kids what the bad words mean. But in this case it was the mother who made me feel uncomfortable. It occurred to me that if this was how she treated her children when they were all in public, she may well be even more abusive, or even violent, in the privacy of their home. I wondered if I should say something to her, report her to some authority (Children's Aid? The cops?) or simply shake my head and ignore her. I chose the last. But my stomach is still in knots about it. 

Case #2

This case, which happened this morning, was even more alarming. As my bus was about to leave from the stop where I boarded, an elderly Asian woman shuffled up to the door and started banging on it, hoping the bus driver would stop. He did, but not before bellowing "Fuck off. Get the next one." The woman was still outside when he said this, so she couldn't hear it, but a busload of bystanders certainly did. And then it got worse. When the woman came aboard, the driver turned around and quite loudly asked her if she was in a rush because she was "on her way to a big rice sale or something." My girlfriend and I were both on the bus at the time, and our jaws hit the floor so hard they nearly activated the doors-open system.

In this case, however, I called the Toronto Transit Commission and registered a complaint about the driver, explaining exactly what had happened. Of course, I don't know whether anything will end up happening to him. And I'm not sure what exactly I would want to happen to him. Should he be fired (as he certainly would be from pretty much any other job for that kind of conduct), or should he simply be scolded? Will his own racial identity - he was a young black man - have any bearing in terms of how his behaviour is judged and punished? Did it have any impact on my own reaction?

In one case, I chose silence. In the other, I chose action. Quite honestly, I can't say that either was terribly satisfying. I still don't know how to respond in situations where strangers say hateful things to other strangers. I still don't know when and to what degree I have a moral obligation to intervene - and when I should mind my own business. I'm still skeptical about whether I can make a difference.

I do know that it's depressing to hear such hatefulness expressed so openly. I do know that it makes me and most bystanders incredibly uncomfortable. But if it's true that apathy is the ally of evil, then we have a duty to respond. And if we can't do it when the hate is out in the open, what hope do we have of extinguishing the hate that burbles, unspoken and bitter, under the floorboards of society?

www.arrowsplitter.blogspot.com

Wrongs and Rights

I've finally gotten around to reading Ezra Levant's book Shakedown, which aims to expose Canada's federal and provincial Human Rights Commissions as bloated, self-interested bureaucracies that have drifted a long way from their noble beginnings. I'm only halfway through, but so far Levant's done a good job illuminating both the problems themselves - most notably the idea that the HRCs have a vested interest in sowing societal disharmony - and the reasons why Canadians should be upset about them. I expect the rest of the book to further raise my hackles, if for no other reason than, as I've written before, finding oneself in agreement with Ezra Levant on anything is disconcerting.

I'm already guilty of bestowing too much verbiage on him, but I can't help wondering what Levant makes of the case of Frank Ricci, a firefighter in New Haven, Connecticut who claimed reverse-discrimination when he was passed over for a departmental promotion. On the surface, Ricci made for a sympathetic plaintiff - despite suffering from dyslexia, he studied hard for a written test that was supposed to carry the most weight in the evaluations for promotions and achieved one of the top scores. However, almost no visible-minority candidates scored high enough on the test to receive a promotion, a fact that resulted in the New Haven government, nervous about a politically-correct backlash, changing the promotion criteria after the fact. Ricci was denied his promotion and learned first-hand the terrible injustices that one faces when one is white and male in North American society. 

I kid, of course, but it's true that Ricci was a sympathetic figure. It did in fact seem that his whiteness cost him a promotion that he'd earned, and what's more, the achievement was actually snatched away from him after he'd achieved it. His story was the kind that would make even the most ardent (white) affirmative-action supporter pause. It certainly made an impression on the U.S. Supreme Court (seven white males, one white female, one black male), which ruled in Ricci's favour a couple of weeks ago in a decision that may have grave implications on civil rights law in America.

In Shakedown, Levant makes a convincing case that Canada's HRCs have created an industry wherein both Commission employees and thin-skinned or disingenuous citizens make their living through serial complaining. Most of these complaints, he argues, have little to do with what most people would think of as human rights. In this environment, Ricci would be right at home - it turns out that this blue-collar everyman has no problem suing his way up the employment ladder. What once seemed sympathetic now seems opportunistic. Would Levant champion Ricci as a man of the people who dared to challenge politically correct orthodoxy? Or would he denounce him as a cynical manipulator of a skittish legal system? 

The same question applies to lefties, considering how Ricci and some of the HRC complainants in Canada have ju-jitsued well-intentioned discrimination laws for their own selfish ends. This is all part of a larger debate, one that Levant flicks at in his book when he paints Canada as a country where intolerance is largely a thing of the past. I don't think that's true. But it's possible that affirmative action and HRCs, as they're currently constituted, could be outdated and in need of reform. Otherwise, the future of human rights belongs to professional complainers like Ricci. 

Don't You Forget About John Hughes

Journalistic ethics pretty much preclude shilling for friends, and that's as it should be. But while I try to observe a journalistic code of conduct on this blog, the fact is that it's a blog. My blog. And dammit, when my friends do something cool and legitimately shill-worthy, I'm gonna shill for it.

Which is why I'm urging anyone who comes across this post to visit this blog, recently started by the producers of Don't You Forget About Me, a documentary about director John Hughes, the influence of his teen films and his reclusive life since dropping out of Hollywood almost two decades ago. I'm fortunate enough to know Kari Hollend, one of the producers of the movie and a name I look forward to dropping for years to come as her career builds.

I've seen the movie and it's a blast. Structured around the producers' road trip to Hughes' house in an attempt to get the writer-director to participate, DYFAM includes interviews of cast and crew from classic 80s teen films like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. From these sources, the viewer gets funny and fascinating insight into the making of these movies and the mind of Hughes. Meanwhile, interviews of subjects like film critic Roger Ebert, director Kevin Smith and current-day high school students prove one of the filmmakers' main points - that Hughes managed to capture some fundamental essence of teenagerdom that allowed his movies to transcend their dated 80s window-dressing.

Just as DYFAM is a window into the John Hughes universe, the filmmakers' blog is a window into the process of making the documentary. On that level, it's an interesting site to visit even if you're not a Hughes junkie. And if you are, the filmmakers reward you with extra interview footage that didn't make the final cut of the movie. That final cut will soon be available for purchase through the blog website, but you should go there now to get a little taste. 

As for me, I'm not as much of a Hughes acolyte as my friend and her fellow documentarians - I haven't even seen Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink, and for my money nothing in the teen flick genre ever topped Fast Times at Ridgemont High - but Ferris and Breakfast Club alone constitute a Hall-of-Fame resume.

Bruno and the Perils of Interpretation

The impending release of Sacha Baron Cohen's film Bruno, which follows in the semi-scripted, quasi-documentary footsteps of the wildly successful Borat, re-ignites an old debate about activism and popular culture. Like his goofy, lovable and - oh yeah - scathingly anti-Semitic Borat character, Cohen's Bruno is designed to dredge up the worst bigoted feelings from the average Joes and Jills he encounters and play them for laughs. In Bruno's case, the title character is a homosexual fashion expert from Austria whose cartoonish flamboyance unearths the vile undercurrent of homophobia in certain segments of society. 

To expose and then ridicule prejudice is a noble goal, and one could argue that there's almost no better way to eradicate it. Laws are important, obviously, but laws alone don't change minds. And although the legalization of gay marriage is sure to result, over time, in greater acceptance for homosexuals, releasing a Hollywood blockbuster that makes fun of the haters is a more immediately satisfying way to advance the cause.

Of course, one could also argue that Bruno doesn't so much make fun of homophobes as provide them with another target, a character who embodies all they think they know and love to hate about gays. I haven't seen the movie yet, but from what I've read it could very well be possible to see Bruno and come away not with the notion that hatred of homosexuals is stupid, but rather that homosexuals are indeed worthy objects of derision. Will people laugh with Cohen, or at Bruno? These two reviews, one positive and one somewhat negative, outline the parameters of the debate.

The reality is probably that people will probably laugh both with and at Bruno. Which is unfortunate, in the sense that a film with a very pointed message will be viewed by millions of people who will take away the exact opposite of that message. But that's the deal with pop culture. Kurt Cobain, for example, changed the entire music scene with music and public statements denigrating bigoted meatheads, but no doubt a huge portion of the audience that made him rich were bigoted meatheads of the highest order, responding to the volume of Cobain's screams but ignoring their content. 

As an artist, one ceases to own something the moment they put it out to the public. So in the end, it matters very little what Cohen's intent is with the Bruno character (it says here that, since he's a comedian and not an activist, he's probably happy to have it both ways - to play shamelessly and comically into gay stereotypes while at the same time making fun of those who hate and stereotype). It only matters what the audience does with it. 

Moreover, Cohen can't be held responsible for those who misinterpret the film. To force artists to censor themselves based on the potential reactions of society's most ignorant members would mean the end of any truly provocative art. And we deserve better than to be held hostage by stupidity.

Newsunworthy

It's hardly news that the news media can be quite pitiful in terms of story selection, foregrounding titillating non-news ahead of actual, important developments. Any written complaint about this deserves to be filed in the "tell me something I don't know" bin. Still, some days are more ridiculous than others.

Today, for example. There are of course the numerous recaps of Michael Jackson's funeral, which news organizations broadcast live yesterday as though Jackson was a head-of-state. And on the domestic front, all three newspapers have seen fit to weigh in on the "controversy" about whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper ate the communion wafer he was offered at the funeral of former Governor-General Romeo Leblanc or pocketed it (Harper's a Protestant but Leblanc, the funeral and the communion ceremony are all Catholic - gives new meaning to the notion of being damned if you do, damned if you don't).

The Toronto Star's Wafergate headline seems like it was ripped from the web pages of The Onion. Thankfully, on slow news days we can look to The Onion itself for amusement. This is one of their best of all time, I dare say. 

Who needs news when you can read about things you wish were news.

A Paler Palin

Only a year ago, hardly anyone outside of Alaska had even heard the name Sarah Palin. After her surprise resignation as Alaska's governor a few days ago, it's possible (although not probable) that a year from now we'll have almost forgotten her. But if Palin does end up receding from public life - and doesn't, as has been speculated, shift her focus full-time to national politics and a possible 2012 presidential run - at least we'll be able to cherish our memories of one of the brightest, if shortest-lived shooting stars in political history. Oh, those wacky, alternately hilarious, terrifying and vicariously painful memories.

Palin's exited the political stage much the same way as she entered it, with a jumble of incoherent, often plainly contradictory statements. Certainly, only the most gifted politician could declare her contempt for quitters in the midst of a resignation speech, and it's only slightly less impressive a trick to condemn the media that made you into a star for daring to look beneath your corona of neo-con pancake makeup.

But what does this all mean, aside from Tina Fey perhaps having fewer distractions from 30 Rock? Some in the dastardly media have busied themselves by guessing Palin's next move, while others have speculated on her mental state. In a piece that predated (and who knows, maybe played a role in) her resignation, Vanity Fair contributor Todd Purdum introduces readers to Palin acquaintances who wonder if her zaniness is due to narcissistic personality disorder or postpartum depression. But in this post for DoubleX.com, a shrink rightly dismisses these pop-psych diagnoses. Palin may have delusions of grandeur, but they're not medically debilitating - they're just childish and immature. 

What it means for society may be more promising. As Purdum notes, Palin seems to suffer above all from a chronic disinterest in policy and the actual affairs of the world, traits she shares with a certain president just recently put out to the speaking-tour pasture. If she is indeed leaving politics for good, she will hopefully take with her the disturbing trend of politicians using their own ignorance, xenophobia and lack of curiosity as the building blocks of successful campaigns and careers. 

George W. Bush appealed to a segment of the American population that, like the cool kids in middle school, saw great virtue in not knowing stuff. Palin took that same cult of personality to its most absurd extremes, and may have stretched it beyond the point of viability. 

Or maybe not. In which case, we'll see her in 2012.

The Off-Ramp

Got back a couple of nights ago from a five-day camping trip that represented an unusually thorough detachment from the daily process of keeping up with the news. Without internet access - or even access to other people for much of the time - the entire world was pretty much off my radar between last Friday night and this past Wednesday. Can't remember the last time I went so dark for so long (I know, it wasn't really that long), and as I drift slowly back into the real world, I have a couple of observations to share about what it's like to take the off-ramp from the information superhighway.

First, I'm amazed at how easy it was. Being a journalist, information is kind of my thing, and my normal day involves an obsessive amount of reading about everything from current events to entertainment to sports. I don't generally like feeling that I don't know what's going on. And yet it didn't take me long to forget about pretty much everything. I had no inclination to read more about Michael Jackson's death. I seemed to resolve that the situation in Iran would either resolve itself or not without my reading or hearing about it. And though I remained a bit curious about the National Hockey League draft, I completely forgot about the opening of the league's free agent season. I'm usually slavishly devoted to reading up on this stuff - especially the hockey stuff - but while I missed it, I didn't miss it. 

Secondly, I'm amazed at how overwhelming it can be to come back from such a break. So much to catch up to, so many stories that have come and gone, so many others for which it's hard to pick up an accurate, contextually-appropriate trail. I'm a bit of an OCD completist, so it's hard for me to scan the headlines and just focus on the most recent stuff. I want to know the whole conversation. But in the digital age, missing a few days' worth of conversation means climbing a mountain of words, much of which has already become irrelevant.

I guess this is just another "digital age" post. Not really breaking new ground here. But after taking a few days off, I realize just how accustomed I'd become to the constant flow of information. The good news is that it's possible to take a step back and realize that, just because it's possible to find out about anything, anytime, anywhere, one isn't obligate to do that. Information can be an addiction, but it's pretty easy to get on the wagon. Information, like the furniture, will be there when you get back.

R.I.P.s in Threes

Any celebrity on his or her deathbed at the moment would do well to hang on for a few more days. It's already been quite a week for famous fatalities and there isn't much ink left to spare on the subject of fallen stars.

A few days ago it was Ed McMahon, the jovial, gruff-voiced Johnny Carson sidekick whose passing was sad, but not exactly tragic given that he was 86 years old.

Then came yesterday's double-whammy. Actress Farrah Fawcett died of cancer at age 62 earlier in the day, but only a few hours later Michael Jackson ruined her closeup by having a fatal heart attack (or so it seems) at the age of 50.

McMahon was old and Fawcett had battled cancer for years, so neither of their deaths were particularly shocking. Jackson, however, is another story. He became famous before he hit puberty, moved on to become the world's biggest - and biggest-selling - pop star in part by cranking out videos filled with youthful fantasy images and spent the last few years of life raising his own children and fending off accusations of molesting other kids. 50 is awfully young to die, but it seems even younger in Jackson's case because his public persona was that of a man whose emotional and intellectual maturing process had halted somewhere in his tween years. He was always and forever a child.

Jackson had been rehearsing for a comeback tour in the past few months, but his early death may actually be the best thing that could happen to his musical legacy, which his strangeness had come to overshadow. He is, after all, the creator of dozens of massive hits, the man who carried music television on his back during its first few uncertain years and the artist who definitively shattered racial divisions in pop music. He influenced just about every mainstream artist that came after him on some level or another with his showmanship, iconography and, of course, his tunes.

He'll never again have to defend himself against accusations of pedophilia, he'll never have another plastic surgery and he'll never dangle another baby out of a window, and as time goes by, those incidents will gradually fade from public memory. At some point then, Jackson will be judged on his merits as an artist. And while I'm not a major fan, I can acknowledge that he stands among the best on any objective level.

We Are All Neda...

...but are we all also sordid voyeurs?

The video of the young Iranian woman who died of a gunshot wound on the streets of Tehran last week has made the YouTube rounds for several days. I don't link to it here because for one thing, it's likely you've already seen it and for another, it's easy enough to find. I'm also not sure I want to become another link in a chain in a phenomenon that straddles an uncomfortable line between righteous, principled protest and outright exploitation.

That said, I have seen the video, in which the woman, allegedly named Neda, crumples to the ground and dies a few seconds later while several protesters try in vain to revive her (and others document her passing with their camera phones). In fact, I clicked on several versions and watched more than once. So I'm not claiming any kind of moral high ground. And there's no doubt that there's a moral argument for posting and sharing the video, as it brings visceral immediacy to the outrageous alleged crimes of a far-off regime and stirs support around the world.

I say "alleged" because one thing the video doesn't show is the murderer, and thus we can't be certain whether Neda was killed in cold blood by an Iranian officer, felled by a stray bullet aimed elsewhere or the victim of some other perpetrator. As Hanna Rosin of the DoubleX blog points out in a wide-ranging discussion about the Neda video, what is being reported as fact by the citizens of cyberspace and even mainstream media outlets may, in fact, be mythology. 

That conversation is worth reading in its entirety because it touches on so many issues raised by video. For example,  Meghan O'Rourke's interpretation of why we watch such gruesome images - she suggests it's because we're fascinated and curious by witnessing the exact moment when someone goes from being alive to being dead (a moment the Neda video captures in intimate detail) - seems spot-on to me, while Dana Stevens wonders if Neda's elevation to symbolic martyr status hasn't diminished her humanity.

The bottom line is that the video is out there, for activists and voyeurs alike. I'm guessing that most of us who've watched it have elements of both within us. On balance, I think it's existence and dissemination is a good thing, because it makes the dire situation in Iran harder to ignore. But, like Neda's death, figuring out the moral implications of the video is messy business.

A Puff of Common Sense

Earlier this week, President Obama (a smoker) signed off on a new bill that essentially forces cigarette shills into a competition to make their products less harmful and addictive. A strange group of partners - which includes a president who smokes and a major tobacco company that helped U.S. lawmakers craft the bill - thus created a surprisingly sensible piece of legislation.

In an article filed under what has to be one of the best headlines of all time, William Saletan of Slate explains why the bill is so sensible. The short version is that, rather than banning tobacco companies from the marketplace outright, the law uses the principles of free marketplace to achieve its harm-reduction goals.

The broader implication of this bill, as Saletan notes, is that if it works for tobacco, its principles could just as easily be applied to other drugs currently prohibited by law. There will always be a marketplace for narcotics of all kinds, but governments can limit the harm that drugs cause by enacting laws similar to the one just created for the tobacco industry.

Seems like wishful thinking, though. The politics of the drug war are deeply entrenched, and this kind of solution is so simple to grasp and so likely to be effective that it stands almost no chance of being adopted.

Unionomics

It's been a long time, but I've written before about my ambivalence about unions, first questioning the left's automatic support of them in times of labour strife and then acknowledging a commenter's point that the hard-line mentality of labour organizations is at least in part a response to hard-line stands by employers and governments (if you're going to dig your heels in, I'll dig mine in deeper - that sort of thing).

Now, with my home city of Toronto into the second day of a strike by city employees, including sanitation and community centre workers, and the province of Ontario facing a strike by LCBO staffers, the union issue is top of mind again. But I find myself no clearer on the subject than I was more than a year ago.

Part of that is selfishness, of course. Having these workers off the job is a (pretty minor) inconvenience, so on a personal level it's difficult to summon any rah-rah feelings for either the picketers or the government officials whose unsuccessful negotiating is equally responsible for the strike. Another reason for my indecision is ignorance. I simply don't have a deep enough understanding of the issues in play, other than knowing they involve usual suspects such as job security and benefits, to pick a good guy and a bad guy in these confrontations.

I'm going to give Graham F. Scott, editor of This Magazine, the benefit of the doubt and assume that he does have a better understanding of the issues. I certainly hope that this post in support of the striking city workers isn't just the knee-jerk reaction of a dutiful liberal foot soldier. Now (full disclosure), I know Graham a little bit and I have every reason to believe his opinion is more considered than that. And I certainly agree with his statement that the union movement has been an overwhelming success in improving the rights of all workers, even those that don't belong to a union.

However, when he writes that the city workers' union shouldn't just "roll over and die every time management has a cashflow problem" and that the union "exists to preserve existing benefits, negotiate for new ones and stand up for their members' job rights," he loses me just a little. Not because they're incorrect or controversial in and of themselves, but because they paint a grim picture of what a union stands for, one that I have a hard time rallying behind.

Here's why. In the documentary The Corporation, the filmmakers argued that corporate entities, with their utter disregard for anything beyond their own narrow self-interest, fit the clinical definition of a psychopath. Fair enough. But when I read Graham's description of what a union exists for, it's just far too easy to substitute the word "corporation" for "union" and words like "revenues" and "profits" for "benefits" and "rights" and come up with the same conclusion. Employers and union employees may be adversaries at the bargaining table, but both seemed to be governed by the same principle of more, more, more - regardless of who gets harmed in the process or of mitigating circumstances that might make their objectives unreasonable.

The current economic situation calls for compromise at both ends. As I've said, I don't have a good enough sense of what's holding up negotiations for city or Liquor Control Board workers to know who is and isn't bargaining in good faith. But if there's a psychopath at the table, I can't blindly assume he or she is sitting on the employer's side.

Um...Sorry?

The U.S. Senate has delivered an official apology for slavery and the Jim Crow laws that kept African-Americans in a state of quasi-freedom for decades after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The bill, passed unanimously (and wouldn't it have been interesting if there had been a dissenter), is surprisingly honest and robust in its language, condemning slavery not merely as an execrable-but-ancient practice but also for the legacy of humiliation, lost culture, fractured families and general inequality that its victims, and the country as a whole, struggles with to this day. Maybe my bullshit detector is wonky, but the apology seems as sincere as these politically orchestrated things ever get, and not just a false reckoning engaged in with the hope of forever consigning slavery to dusty history books where it can be comfortably ignored. 

But it's hard to feel too celebratory about this apology, however genuine it may be. I suspect that, for an awful lot of people, particularly young people, any urge to applaud was quickly muted by a question nagging at them from the inside. A question that goes something like, "It's taken them how long?" Anyone who hadn't looked into it might have assumed that this had been done decades ago, as, of course, it should have been. After passing the bill, many senators talked about how it constituted a step toward "healing old wounds," but I wonder how many wounds have actually been torn open, or at least picked at, by this reminder of how slow the U.S. has been to acknowledge its most grievous crime. 

Still, it had to happen sometime, and certainly 146 years isn't quite as bad as 147, 148 and so on. And maybe the majority of African-Americans will follow the lead of Terence Samuel, deputy editor of the online publication The Root, who eloquently accepted the apology in this column. 

For African-Americans like Samuel to take the high road is astonishingly gracious, more so than the U.S. government can possibly expect. But it's probably what the nation needs.

Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution

Well, you know, we all want to change the world. And for the past week, courageous Iranian citizens have been trying to change their little pocket of it, having rightfully rejected the results of an election that returned president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. All indications leading up to the vote last Friday suggested that it would be a photo finish between the bombastic, conservative Ahmadinejad and the reformer - a relative term, to be sure - Mir Hussein Moussavi, but the incumbent was announced as the winner by a landslide, an outcome that leaves little doubt that the election was rigged.

The thousands of Iranian demonstrators who have taken to the streets since then are proof that it isn't just an adversarial West that suspects this "election" has earned its scare-quotes. After 30 years of rule by an Islamic theocracy that holds the true power in the country (Ahmadinejad's a puppet figure, as is Moussavi, to a lesser degree, because no one can run for office without the mullahs' approval), Iran's overwhelmingly young, educated and urban population seems to have had enough. They're protesting the sham election, and they're risking imprisonment and death at the hands of their rulers to do it. 

In any repressive regime, there are bound to be political dissidents, but without widespread support, they can't bring down the existing powers. So the outpouring of grassroots support for change in Iran is encouraging - on the surface, it seems like the numbers are there for a new, democratic revolution. Sadly, in this case the usual equation - determined individuals lacking broad support and resources - has been flipped upside down. In Iran, as noted here in Slate, the broad support is there, but the people lack a rallying figure or party. Moussavi might not be as bad as Ahmadinejad, but the difference is more shades-of-grey than black and white.

Still, revolutions have to begin somewhere. 30 years ago, a revolution in Iran created the current regime. No matter how viciously they crack down on the current uprising, Iran's leaders, from the puppets to their masters, have been forced to face the fact that a new revolution is coming, even if it takes decades.

Sniff

Lately I appear to have turned into a blubbering pile of mush. I bawled repeatedly through Up, in theory an animated children's flick but in practice a tearjerker the likes of which I have not experienced since Away From Her. As dozens of little kids shrieked and giggled and picked their nose, I fought off sobs and wiped tears off my face. 

Today, I read a journalist's tribute to her husband's first wife, whose death of cancer indirectly paved the way for the life the writer now enjoyed. Heartfelt, generous, insightful and free from jealousy, it almost sent me to Up territory in terms of waterworks. 

Am I really this brittle? If this keeps up, I won't be able to step on a bug without experiencing a total emotional collapse. 

I hope this is not symptom of aging.

Cut 'N Rummy

He may have been gruff, arrogant, stubborn and evasive. He may have been an advocate for the original Iraq invasion and guilty of dreadfully mismanaging the subsequent conflict. But the folks who've spent the past six years calling for an end to the U.S. military presence in Iraq might be surprised to know that former secretary of defense and the man whose face adorned many a liberal dart board spent the latter part of his term trying to do exactly that. In the months before his November 2006 dismissal, his sin wasn't that he refused to pull troops out, but rather that he wanted to do so too quickly. 

That's one of many interesting tidbits in Bradley Graham's Washington Post story, which came out today in advance of his Rummy biography. It's a long read, but worthwhile. And food for thought for anyone who thinks this colossal mistake can be undone by simply withdrawing armed Western forces from Iraq.

Where's The Safety On This Thing?

A little less than a year ago, I had the pleasure of taking a road trip through the Southern U.S., a region that many of us left-leaning folks from cooler climes tend to imagine as a kind of Dante's Inferno of handguns and hatred. For the most part, though, the Inferno was literal - the people were friendly, but it was too damn hot.

Which is not to say that there weren't some disturbing conversations and images. The racial tension was palpable, and the guns seemed as easy to purchase as a pack of gum. I remember walking into a gun store and seeing everything from small handguns to military-style assault weapons, ranging in price from a couple hundred bucks for the former to a couple thousand for the latter. Frighteningly affordable, I thought, but I tried to console myself with the idea that, hey, at least one had to pass a background check.

Headlines from the past couple of weeks have stirred up memories of those casually hateful conversations and that spooky gun store visit. Just days after abortion doctor George Tiller was murdered in Kansas, an elderly white supremacist walked into a Holocaust memorial museum in Maryland and gunned down a security guard before the guard's colleagues brought him down with their own bullets. It's fair to say that James von Brunn's targets weren't the uniformed security, and only some good luck and bravery prevented a more massive tragedy. 

Kansas and Maryland might not belong to "The South" in the strictest sense (maybe Maryland?), or at least aren't lumped in with the states, such as Mississippi and Alabama, that I visited last year. But my intention was never to pick on the South. What these headlines illustrate is the continued existence of violent, hateful people and the ease with which they can act on their rage pretty much anywhere in the U.S. 

In America, finances aren't much of an obstacle to getting a firearm. Or two. Or an entire weapons cache. Nor do the background checks seem to present a significant hurdle. If von Brunn, a very public and avowed anti-Semite and racist with a long history of convictions for violent offences, can legally own a gun, who can't? What exactly does one have to do to get red-flagged? Now, I'm assuming that von Brunn, as well as Tiller's accused murderer Scott Roeder, legally owned their guns. Perhaps not. But someone did, and the killers somehow got their hands on them, and that to me suggests that guns are altogether too accessible.  

History shows that it's difficult to defend the 1st Amendment and call for the abolishment of the 2nd, which is why guns seem destined to be forever part of the American cultural fabric. But perhaps one day people there will get tired of reading headlines like these and recognize that not all constitutionally enshrined values remain useful in perpetuity. The British left America a long time ago, and they're not coming back, except as tourists.

I know that guns don't kill people, people do. But guns sure do help people kill people, and killing people shouldn't be easy.

Thou Doth Protest Too Much

I keep looking for my cheque for blogging services rendered, but just can't seem to find it. It must be in the mail, right? Sigh. Until it gets here, actual work that I get paid for sometimes pulls me away for longer periods than I'd like, hence the sluggish start to June. Not to worry, though - I've found some timely and some out-of-date news to comment on, so here goes.

I can understand why Cindy Sheehan continues to mount protests against ex-president George W. Bush. She did, after all, lose a son in a the Iraq war, a military initiative that a majority of people feel was either misguided from the beginning, managed with woeful negligence, or some combination of the two. And I'm hardly going to begrudge a grieving mother for venting her anger at the people she feels are responsible - although I'm skeptical that her efforts will produce any satisfying result, and I do wonder if her obsessive focus on Dubya could be unhealthily prolonging and intensifying her grief.

As for the (fairly meagre) band of protesters who gathered in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back to voice their displeasure at a joint speaking event co-starring Bush and fellow ex-prez Bill Clinton, I don't wonder at all. I'm quite certain that their Bush obsession (no giggling) is unhealthy and counterproductive. 

I'll grant the point that, if you're a Canadian who believes president No. 43 is a war criminal, you probably believe Canada should refuse him entry into the country. But Bush hasn't been arrested on any such charge, and at any rate I doubt that most of the folks who showed up care much about the legal distinction. As one young anti-Bushie told the CBC in the article linked above, "I'm here to protest everything Bush has done. He's a symbol of everything that has gone wrong in the world." I have this funny feeling that this sign-carrier might be a little foggy on the specific details of Bush's misdeeds, but hey, who cares about the details when you can blame one man for "everything" that's gone wrong?

Without question, Bush's presidency was filled with enough arrogance, secrecy, lies, mistakes, stupidity and moral failure (masked as moral superiority) to warrant his piss-poor reputation. But the fact is that he is no longer president and no longer makes the decisions that affect his country and the world. Rather than continue to spit venom at him, it would be much more productive to encourage Obama and other world leaders to find the best solutions to the problems Bush created. 

For eight years, Dubya indeed made for a fine symbol, but that symbol has outlived its usefulness. Dubya is yesterday's news. I wish we could say the same about obsessive Bush-bashing.

A Time to Kill?

The man who walked into a Kansas church this past Sunday and gunned down George Tiller apparently thought so. Tiller was an abortion provider, with a specialty in late-term procedures that few doctors were willing to practice, and that made him a valid target for his assassin - alleged to be a man named Scott Roeder. 

It wasn't the first time Tiller had been the victim of violence. His clinic had been bombed and he'd been shot before, in both arms, by those who believed that he was a murderer. Roeder, or whomever fired the fatal bullet, merely took the life-for-a-life concept to its extreme conclusion. Rest assured that the assassin will likely never feel much guilt about murdering someone who was himself, from the pro-life perspective, a mass murderer. 

Yet the most prominent pro-life organizations are hardly cheering, at least not publicly. The condemnation of Tiller's murder has been almost total, ranging from Planned Parenthood to Americans United for Life. Those opposed to abortion point out that since they believe the procedure involves the taking of a life, they can hardly condone murder - even if it's the murder of an abortionist.

But the absence of support for Tiller's killer opens a window into the mindset of the pro-life movement, as Slate's William Saletan writes in one of the most piercing examinations of the abortion debate I've ever read. Saletan compares Tiller and the man who killed him to soldiers, pointing out that both were willing to back up their beliefs with actions. 

Most pro-choicers, Saletan argues, get to conveniently sidestep the gory details of abortion procedures, whereas Tiller literally got his hands dirty. Supporting choice is one thing, but providing it is enough to make most people squeamish.

Similarly, most pro-lifers say they equate abortion with murder, but very few would be willing to commit murder, even if it meant stopping a "mass murderer" like Tiller. Their beliefs make them feel righteous, but the idea of backing these beliefs up the way Tiller's assassin did makes them squeamish.

Eventually, Saletan comes to the conclusion that the pro-life side doesn't actually believe abortion and murder are the same thing, no matter how often they might say they do. As further proof, he notes that even pro-life organizations pushing for legal sanctions against abortion providers don't think women who have abortions should be prosecuted. Saletan figures that all this, combined with the fact that almost nobody, even pro-choicers, are really pro-abortion in the "Congratulations on your abortion!" sense, means the two sides in the debate might actually find common ground in seeking to reduce the number of abortions through realistic, humane means such as birth control education.

That might be a pipe dream, given the religious underpinnings of the pro-life movement. But Saletan has managed to poke a hole in the moral absolutism of both the pro-life and pro-choice crowd. Whatever side of the debate you're on, this article will challenge the way you think about the issue.

Addicted to Disease Theory

It's a week old now, but I just caught up to a pretty fascinating piece in Maclean's - one of those stories that I like because it challenges accepted conventional wisdom. It's a Q&A with Harvard researcher Gene Heyman, who's come to the conclusion that addiction to drugs and alcohol isn't a disease, it's a matter of choice.

I expect it'll generate a ton of excited response, both from people who agree and disagree with Heyman's viewpoint. The comments section underneath the web version of the story frames the kind of reaction that will likely continue to reverberate. Some will see this as validation of the idea that addicts are simply irresponsible fuck-ups who deserve whatever misery their substance abuse brings upon them, while others will angrily defend the notion of dependency as a medical issue. 

Much of the reaction on both sides will be based on the headline alone, I imagine, which is a shame because Heyman actually takes a very nuanced view on the subject. He doesn't condemn drug addicts, but concludes that addiction is the result of several small, individual choices that are in many cases influenced by underlying issues ranging from clinical depression to poverty. His data tells him that when people eliminate these underlying conditions, they are in most cases able to end their addictive cycle of their own free will. That undermines the disease model, he says, because if addiction was truly an illness, changes to these underlying factors wouldn't make any difference. He shows great empathy for addicts and an understanding of why people make self-destructive choices - he just thinks that they are choices.

What's most valuable about this article is that it introduces a new, more intellectually evolved way to think about addiction. As Heyman notes, the disease theory of addiction has taken root because people tend to have only two conceptual buckets in which to place self-destructive choices - they're either evidence of evil or weakness, or they're evidence of illness. He's right about this, I think, and I don't imagine either option in this binary system portrays addiction or addicts with much accuracy. 

Nor does it serve addicts particularly well in terms of recovery. Being shunned and lectured by those who see substance abuse as purely an issue of free will isn't likely to steer an addict onto the recovery road, especially if mental health issues such as depression and low self-esteem are at the root of their dependency. And the medical model, while it has undeniably helped millions of addicts kick their habits, probably doesn't work the way folks think it does. Defining addiction as a disease frees a lot of people from the guilt they associate with their substance abuse, and when the guilt goes, self-esteem returns and the need to self-medicate goes away. 

You can't argue with results, however they're achieved, but I'm guessing there's a whole population of drug addicts for whom disease theory makes their addiction seem inevitable or unbeatable, and thus hopeless. Furthermore, I imagine many addicts don't get to the underlying problems - the real illnesses - that led to their drug use once their addiction - more likely a symptom than a disease in itself - goes away.

Heyman's conclusions are sure to be controversial, but I hope they get some serious consideration. Treatment of addiction has been hampered by an either-or way of looking at a problem that more likely results from a mix of personal circumstance, general mental and physical health issues, genetics and, yes, personal choice. That the latter factor could be part of the equation shouldn't be dismissed out of hand by the medical community, nor should it be used as grounds for condemnation by self-appointed moral authorities. 

Gotcha!

Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and his boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, apparently took quite a grilling on Parliament Hill today following Flaherty's announcement yesterday that the federal deficit would be in the neighbourhood of $50 billion. That's $16 billion more than he predicted four months ago, and a full $50 billion more than his crystal ball told him back in November, when he insisted no deficits were coming. 

When a Finance Minister is that far off - as in, completely off - on his figures, he turns himself into a big, fat target for the Opposition. Sure enough, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has called for Flaherty's job, and he and other members of his party, as well as the New Democrats, have labeled Flaherty as incompetent.

All of this may be true - really, how could any Canadian economic leader stand up six months ago and say there would be no recession in this country - but these criticisms are more than a little dodgy. First off, Flaherty's inability to see into the financial future is an affliction that had been pretty contagious for most of the past few years, a blindness shared by politicians from most nationalities and political stripes. The fact that almost nobody saw it coming is the main reason the recession hit so hard and so quickly.

Secondly, it's a bit rich for the Liberals and New Democrats to paint Harper and Flaherty as incompetent, reckless money wasters when they themselves have lobbied so consistently, and in many cases effectively, for the very spending that's ratcheting the deficit up. The Opposition hasn't been urging the Conservatives to tighten their belts, they've been asking for more spending.

They know this, of course, but they're perfectly okay with the cognitive dissonance. That's what's so disheartening about the current state of political discourse - that the advocates of social spending become Scrooges and the champions of fiscal management turn into free-spenders based on the prevailing winds of political opportunism. Either side is willing to pull an ideological 180 if it they see a chance to serve up a gut punch to their opponents. 

Not that I feel an iota of sympathy for Flaherty and Harper or a Conservative party that has been littering the airwaves with cheap attack ads on Ignatieff. They deserve whatever beating they get. I just wish it was on more honest terms, rather than the result of the tired old political "gotcha" game.

Two Wheels Trump Four

It's been a slow couple of news days, what with North Korea doing another nuclear test, Barack Obama nominating the third woman and first Hispanic to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Globe and Mail replacing its editor, California upholding a ban on same-sex marriage and Canada's Governor-General eating a seal heart. Nope, nothing much happening at all.

I'll probably muster up something on one or all of the above-mentioned stories in the next few days, but today I'm fixed on Toronto City Council's decision to install bike lanes on one of the city's bigger downtown north-south streets, and in so doing eliminate one lane of car traffic.

It's quite entertaining to check out the reaction to this ruling, which seems to have pissed off people on all sides to some degree or another. Some of the more car-happy councillors - and citizen groups - are complaining about how this change will make driving in downtown Toronto an even slower, more soul-destroying slog than it already is. Meanwhile, the head of the Toronto Cyclists Union is more irritated with how long it took council to come to this conclusion than she is excited by the fact her side won the day.

As someone who only took up cycling a couple years ago, I can't claim to be a bike junkie. And I don't ride to work, meaning I'm not usually pedaling around during the rush hours. But I can appreciate the feeling of security a dedicated bike lane affords. And while I can also appreciate how cyclists can confuse, hinder and distract drivers, knowing that bikes have their own space actually makes it easier to negotiate the roads as a motorist. When I think back to occasions when cyclists rattled my nerves while I was behind the wheel, I can see that the problem would have been either reduced or eliminated by bike lanes.

I hope Jarvis St. is just the first of many more Toronto streets to get the bike lane upgrade. It's long overdue. And if drivers think this is a way to force them out of their cars and onto bikes, public transit or their own feet, that's fine with me. In fact, I hope they're right.

Obama v. Cheney: Like I Did, Only Way Better

A couple of days back, I wrote a post about the incredible shrinking industry of journalism, in which I stated my preference for deep, hard-boiled reporting by seasoned professionals versus well-intentioned, even well-written opinion pieces from citizen journalists and bloggers. Yesterday, I slapped together a few words about the national security speeches given by President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney, taking the latter to task for his evasiveness and intellectual dishonesty.

Turns out the second post has helped to prove the point made in my first. See, I am a reporter by trade, but I don't cover politics or world events for a living, so I freely admit that my Obama-Cheney post was based on distillations of the speeches in the National Post. Truth be told, I haven't had the time to view or read either speech in its entirety. So while I stand by what I wrote yesterday, I have to acknowledge that it's an incomplete work. In my full-time gig, I like to think I'm scrupulously thorough in my reporting. In this role as a citizen blogger, I have certain limitations and my reach often exceeds my grasp.

Not so for Slate's Fred Kaplan and John Dickerson, who fill in the many gaps in my blog post with their artfully written and supremely informed articles about the Obama-Cheney faceoff. Kaplan's authoritative Cheney takedown and Dickerson's clever analysis of the where each side's arguments succeed and fail are effective not because the writers are empirically correct or impossibly brilliant, but because they carry the weight of years of solid journalistic digging. 

By all means, read what the bloggers have to say, because there are quite a few out there - I obviously hope I'm one of them - who add something to the conversation. But in my view, the seasoned pros are still the ones who best frame that conversation.

Un-Cheneyed Melody

It's one thing to talk about reaching a higher moral ground, but another thing to get there. That's one thing Barack Obama has certainly learned since assuming the U.S. presidency. Case in point: he's encountered resistance to delivering on one of his most widely-supported promises, made almost immediately after taking office, to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. Resistance from the Democrat-controlled Senate, no less, which won't fund the closure until Obama's administration outlines a comprehensive plan detailing just what's going to be done with Guantanamo's 240 residents.

That kind of resistance is entirely fair. As much of an outrage as Guantanamo, indefinite detention and torturous interrogation has been, and as much as it's cost the U.S. and the entire Western world in credibility and goodwill, the fact is that there are almost certainly a few among the Guantanamo prisoners who would immediately set about planning an attack if they were ever to get free. Maybe more than a few. The administration does have an obligation to deliver a real plan that addresses how the terrorist true believers and those who stepped more innocently into the American military dragnet will be identified, separated and treated accordingly. It's a process that will require careful thinking and shouldn't be unduly hindered by a politically motivated deadline - although Obama's January 2010 goal does seem reasonable.

The kind of resistance that isn't so fair is the kind offered up by former vice president Dick Cheney, who today followed an Obama speech reiterating the call for Guantanamo's closure with an address to the right-wing think tank American Enterprise Institute chastising Obama for compromising U.S. security. It's clear that Cheney, who largely drove the Bush Administration's national security policy, isn't about to let his legacy die quietly. 

Nor is he going to be any more bound by the rules of logic in his criticism than he was by the rule of law in giving the go-ahead to torture. Taking a dig at those who say that the Bush Republicans abandoned American values in prosecuting the "war on terror," Cheney said, "...no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things."

Here are three reasons why this one sentence constitutes a remarkably brazen rhetorical dodge:

1. "Captured terrorist." One of the fundamental problems with the Bushies' detention and torture philosophy was that it flouted the presumption of innocence. Imagine denying everyday citizens the right to a fair trial because the very fact of their arrest makes them "captured criminals."

2. "Unpleasant things." Cute. Waterboarding is certainly unpleasant, so much so that it's been recognized for centuries as a form of torture. If Cheney really stands behind torture, he should have the guts to call it by its true name.

3. The whole construction of the sentence conjures an image of a public servant that allows innocents to die in order to prevent "unpleasant things" from happening to "captured terrorists." In reality, the proactive element has worked the other way - U.S. interrogators, supported by Cheney and his ilk, were the perpetrators of the "unpleasant things." Public servants certainly don't have an obligation to throw innocent civilians in front of a bus in order for the bus to swerve away from detainees, but they do have an obligation not to be the ones who use the bus as a weapon.

What makes Cheney's objections all the more laughable is that he's now said more in the few short months of Obama's presidency than he did in eight years as vice president. He built these detention and interrogation policies behind a veil of secrecy unlike almost any other in U.S. history, and after so much time spent refusing to be held publicly accountable, he's ill-deserving of his role as Obama's harshest public critic.