Canada’s Debate

In case you didn’t notice, I now have a “Green hosting” icon on my left sidebar. I mention this not to gloat or congratulate myself, but out of a nagging suspicion that it’s utter bullshit. I have no reason do disbelieve Dreamhost’s claims, but I don’t see how a giant building that’s full of nothing but computers and wires can be carbon neutral. Now, I am too busy (looking for a job and an apartment) to investigate myself in any substantial way, but I am more than willing to offer yet another congratulatory beverage purchase to whomever brings me proof that these claims are true (or false.)

During a long discussion with Trouble last night about the SPP, my thoughts turned to Patriotism in Canada. My thoughts have been turning towards NIMBY-ism a lot lately and the two kind of collided. I described patriotism in Canada as being “sewing a flag on your backpack when you’re on the road, selling everything short of your name to the highest bidder at home, and proclaiming that you’re a proud Canadian all the time.

I have always said that I am a proud Canadian, but I can no longer make that claim. I am not proud to be a Canadian, if for no other reason that most of my compatriots are profound disappointments. We as a people have become so narrow in our focus that the only thing that distinguishes us from any other secular english-speaking nation is our constant insistence that we are in fact unique. When I look at the “Common Sense Revolution”, Canada’s uneven central bank policy, spp talks, Alberta politics, this incredible backlash against Toronto which seems to get louder and closer every year, the incredibly underreported infrastructure deficit I see one common trend: the complete abandonment of liberal (not the party) economics and politics in favour of me-first shortsightedness. It’s as if we collectively said “ok, all that society was stuff was cool I guess, but I really want that new SUV” and gave up any hint of a social conscience.

Lets be honest… in a country where more parents would rather have their son play one game in the NHL than grow up to be Prime Minister, our values are fucked into a cocked hat, and self-aggrandizement and selfishness have become the new defining characteristics of Canada.

The debate over the environment (Global Warming, smog, preservation and conservation, etc.) is a large and complicated one, with a new banner issue almost yearly. Trying to condense the “struggle” that is modern environmentalism into easy-to-digest information is tricky… Then again, this story does it perfectly. In fact, it summarizes the state of environmentalism so succinctly that I just had to share it.

Tired of paying as much as $340 per month for gas and electricity at the Cape Cod home here where he has lived for 18 months, Michael Mercurio erected a 35-foot windmill in his backyard last fall that helped reduce his bill to about $114 — a year…

Some of his neighbors say it is also annoying. They say it is too big. They say it is too noisy. And some residents in this middle-class borough on Long Beach Island have gone to court to try to make him take it down, while the township has stilled it since winter.

It is a collision between the ideals of alternative energy and the suburban reality of New Jersey’s notorious not-in-my-backyard culture, casting Mr. Mercurio in the role of a latter-day environmental knight errant and his neighbor and principal adversary as the ecological equivalent of Cruella De Vil.

Normally I find the pap of a journalistic flourish irritating, but this closing is perfect…

“People always say, ‘Not in my backyard, not in my backyard,’ ” he said. “I want to flip it around. It should start in my backyard.”

Afghanistan and Iraq have been in the news a great deal recently (and not without good reason), both in Canada and the U.S., but in every nation where troops are involved in either morass. The word quagmire gets tossed about quite a bit, and in this instance with good cause, and everyone is wringing their hands. Regardless of nationality, the discussion always seems to break down into a discourse of Should I stay or should I go? Equally universal is the response that this discourse generates: conservative types are generally in support of staying, and liberal-minded people are generally in support of going (or at least trying to figure out when to announce last-call.)

The more I watch this debate the more I am compelled to think that this is the real clash of civilizations (to borrow from Huntington, who borrowed from Lewis.) The “West” has always been an amalgam of left- and right-wing influences; dramatically pulling on each other and causing the whole show lurching back and forth, with the momentum carrying everyone forward (for the most part.) People may talk of the culture wars, and it’s not just happening in the States (they’re just losing more visibly) but the real battleground is not gay marriage, nor “reasonable accommodations” or even plain nationalism… (Continue reading…)

I was reading this op-ed piece this morning and several thoughts occurred. First, for a former diplomat Mr. Sterling displays a startling naivety (more on that later.) What really caught my eye though was this idea that repudiating democracy is hyprocrisy and unbecoming of “free” states.

Ironically, the same President Bush who says he wants to promote democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere has declined to hold some of Washington’s closest allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to the same high standard.

In the final analysis, it appears that while democracy and free elections are viewed as laudable goals in principle, they shouldn’t get in the way of anyone’s vested interests.

As a diplomat surely Mr. Sterling understands that all foreign policy is a blend of altruistic and self-serving behaviour; so I pretty much ignore any suggestions to the contrary. What does seem galling is this suggestion that “Hamas” (the grist if not the grind of the article) is a democratically elected government, and then should be treated (by the West) as any other… with the implication being that Hamas is not because of a stance which is anti-Israel. (Continue reading…)

Can someone explain to me what the journalistic raison d’etre is for this story, currently splashed across the front of the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail web pages? I don’t have a long post planned, because the ridiculousness of it all speaks for itself; just a few thoughts…

First, what does a reader learn from it? That radiation is bad… already knew that. That certain devices which 99.99% of readers don’t know or have never seen/used could be used for a dirty bomb? Again, I’ve always assumed that radioactive devices could be used to build radiation bombs. That fallout is dangerous and expensive to cleanup? No revelation there… That governments are planning for the worst? That’s what governments do. Now, I suppose if I were to ask a journalist what the point is of making this front page news, they would go on about “the people have the right to know,” yadda yadda yadda. This logic has always irked me. The public has the right to know; but that does not translate into “we have an obligation to regularly vomit out-of-context information.”

I guess the “insight” here is supposed to be that dirty bombs could cause panic… but I’ve got a trick knee that gets sore whenever I encounter irony, and it is aching severely at the moment.