It was curious to see Toronto Star reporter Rosie DiManno arguing in a column yesterday that the sexual assault case involving former Saskatchewan Roughriders general manager Eric Tillman was "patronizing to women." Tillman, who resigned his position last week, received an absolute discharge last week - escaping even the stigma of a criminal record in the process - after admitting he was guilty of fondling a 16-year babysitter.
DiManno reports the agreed statement of facts in the case as follows: Tillman, apparently made woozy by medication, sidled up behind the young woman, grabbed her by the hips and pulled her back end up against his front end. Dimanno then, despite admitting she couldn't quite buy Tillman's claim that he didn't remember these events, nevertheless dismisses the encounter as a trivial lapse in judgement that couldn't possibly have been damaging to the victim.
I share her skepticism about Tillman's memory loss - and about the notion that sleeping pills and pain relievers combine to create a Viagra-like arousal response - but the rest of her argument doesn't hold water. DiManno laments that a justice system based on zero-tolerance when it comes to sex offences condescends to women by placing even sufferers of relatively mild offences into aggrieved victim status. "Where's the sex or the assault in the sexual assault charge to which Eric Tillman pleaded guilty," DiManno wonders. Later, she suggests that calling Tillman's offence sexual assault diminishes the trauma felt by victims of more severe crimes such as rape.
DiManno might have a point that the law should do a better job of distiniguishing between different grades of sexual assault. She might even be right that victims of "minor" sex offences are often not be as traumatized as some believe - although I'll leave that one to the psychiatric experts.
But if she can't see that Tillman's actions were clearly of a sexual nature and could very reasonably have been upsetting to a young woman who, it bears repeating, was working for him at the time, I'm not sure what definition of sexual assault she would accept short of the stereotypical "rapist jumping out of the bushes" scenario.
Tillman's actions constituted a crime and his clean-slate escape from the legal system is a farce. DiManno, always eager to uphold her tough-as-nails image, may believe that prosecuting offences like Tillman's is patronizing to women, but columns like hers do a far greater disservice.
http://www.arrowsplitter.blogspot.com
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
The Pro Rogue
It's a new year and here's the first of what should be 71 posts in 2010, according to the statistical average of the first two years. Anyone care to play the over-under?
Anyone care at all?
This last query isn't really a dig at myself or the blog. It's more of an open question in the wake of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's successful move last week to prorogue Parliament for the second straight year. Late in 2008, Harper sent Canadians to their political dictionaries to look up "prorogue" after he created a furor by trying to cut off public funding for political parties. The request, granted by Governor-General Michaelle Jean, bought the Conservatives enough time to avoid a non-confidence vote that could have thrown them out of power.
Harper clearly prizes effectiveness over originality when it comes to political strategy. No wonder, then, that he went back to the prorogue well when the heat got turned up about the Canadian military and the possibility that they'd handed over prisoners in Afghanistan to local authorities with a thing for torture. Opposition leaders demanded answers and Parliament as a whole agreed that the Prime Minister needed to supply them. So Harper did the logical thing - he put Parliament to sleep until early March.
An article in today's Vancouver Sun enumerates some of the advantages and disadvantages of this move by the Conservatives. Author Barbara Yaffe points out that, by the time Parliament sits again, Conservatives will have had the chance to look all official and important at Olympic photo-ops and will also be able to set the agenda with the Throne Speech. She also speculates that the Conservatives are betting Canadians will be more engrossed with the fate of the Canadian Olympic hockey team than Afghan detainees over the next couple of months.
She could be right. Andrew Coyne at Maclean's certainly seems to think so. Coyne suspects Harper will absorb less political punishment from this latest prorogation because Canadians will be more desensitized to it and distracted from it. Jaffe cites a poll showing that 43% of Canadians oppose this prorogation, but Coyne believes we're just not likely to notice the death of our democracy if the murder is carried out by numerous paper cuts.
I'm inclined to agree with Coyne. Harper's willingness to render Parliament irrelevant by ignoring and then silencing it - twice - suggests he's perfectly capable of this kind of slow democra-cide. If citizens don't show resistance, we'll be accomplices. And it's going to take more than a Facebook group.
Anyone care at all?
This last query isn't really a dig at myself or the blog. It's more of an open question in the wake of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's successful move last week to prorogue Parliament for the second straight year. Late in 2008, Harper sent Canadians to their political dictionaries to look up "prorogue" after he created a furor by trying to cut off public funding for political parties. The request, granted by Governor-General Michaelle Jean, bought the Conservatives enough time to avoid a non-confidence vote that could have thrown them out of power.
Harper clearly prizes effectiveness over originality when it comes to political strategy. No wonder, then, that he went back to the prorogue well when the heat got turned up about the Canadian military and the possibility that they'd handed over prisoners in Afghanistan to local authorities with a thing for torture. Opposition leaders demanded answers and Parliament as a whole agreed that the Prime Minister needed to supply them. So Harper did the logical thing - he put Parliament to sleep until early March.
An article in today's Vancouver Sun enumerates some of the advantages and disadvantages of this move by the Conservatives. Author Barbara Yaffe points out that, by the time Parliament sits again, Conservatives will have had the chance to look all official and important at Olympic photo-ops and will also be able to set the agenda with the Throne Speech. She also speculates that the Conservatives are betting Canadians will be more engrossed with the fate of the Canadian Olympic hockey team than Afghan detainees over the next couple of months.
She could be right. Andrew Coyne at Maclean's certainly seems to think so. Coyne suspects Harper will absorb less political punishment from this latest prorogation because Canadians will be more desensitized to it and distracted from it. Jaffe cites a poll showing that 43% of Canadians oppose this prorogation, but Coyne believes we're just not likely to notice the death of our democracy if the murder is carried out by numerous paper cuts.
I'm inclined to agree with Coyne. Harper's willingness to render Parliament irrelevant by ignoring and then silencing it - twice - suggests he's perfectly capable of this kind of slow democra-cide. If citizens don't show resistance, we'll be accomplices. And it's going to take more than a Facebook group.
Friday, December 4, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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
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
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
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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.
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