The Scene and Herd

Six years ago I visited Cluj, Romania with a group of friends. Our first evening there we were shown around the city by a student that we met at the seminary where we were to spend the night. His name was Lauri. He was a skinny kid who wore a cell phone around his neck like jewelry, shy, friendly and well spoken. While we were wandering around Unirii Square in the centre of the city, an older gentleman recognized us as foreigners and came over to make conversation, introduced himself as Otto. He was a big, dignified man, Romanian by birth but smuggled out of the country while still a child and raised in Toronto. In middle age, he’d reacquainted himself with the motherland and visited frequently. Otto initially paid Lauri no heed, but at some point in the conversation, turned to him. “Young man,” he said, “you look as though you come from a poor country.” Lauri appeared humiliated off the bat, but his face changed quickly into an expression of annoyance. “I do,” he said, and the two of them stared at each other, tensely.

I think often of Otto and Lauri, although I can still only speculate as to why I’ve always considered their exchange so significant. I recall Unirii Square whenever I read about the state of Canada’s immigration and refugee system, like this new study that concludes (somewhat obviously) that the economic well being of newcomers continues to deteriorate. When I read about Abdelrazik, Suaad Hagi Mohamud, and the Mexican visa debacle among others, I can still hear Otto’s voice in my head. “You look like you are from a poor country.” And I can still see our friend Lauri, pissed off in his cell phone necklace.

Running around my old haunts last night, I saw a sign up outside Boo Radley’s that said “Welcome Back All!” Since it’s just after Labour Day, I figured they were talking to all the students moving back to the city and starting things up again. But there are no colleges or universities around Boo Radley’s and it’s definitely not a student hang out, not by a long shot (undesirable area, completely out of the way). Still, I think they thought they should say something about school starting, because the city changes in September. You feel different, optimistic and such. It’s a remnant of twenty years of Septembers when you were beginning something new.

I haven’t been able to begin much lately. I’ve kind of a writer’s block, I guess, and my days feel unproductive. I know what the problem is: I’m stuck on a style that’s starting to bore me. This has happened before. I know I have to wait for a new approach to strike, and then I can write like crazy. But until then, I’m going to feel sluggish. Yesterday I spent hours at the library and couldn’t write a thing. I walked home with Johnnie around dinnertime and the elementary kids were all coming home from school, tired and sweaty in new clothes, looking like they wake up with purpose each day, the little ragamuffins. I was jealous of them, sort of wishing that September meant something new for me too.

Perhaps Jack Layton shares my nostalgia. I noticed he chose to use a back-to-school metaphor to describe the likelihood of an election. “Mr. Harper has already decided that he’s gung-ho about going out into the schoolyard and having a rumble with Mr. Ignatieff,” he said, perhaps trying to illustrate the immaturity of the two men. I think that those guys over at parliament are suffering from a block (and a bloc? I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…) of their own. They’re stuck on this election business as a means of persuasion, communication. It’s become their default style and you can tell they’re bored stiff of the business (not to mention their readers), but a new approach just hasn’t struck.

Layton might be aiming to make Harper and Ignatieff look childish with his metaphor, but at least those kids rumbling in the schoolyard go back to their desks when the bell rings. We’d be so lucky if the government would sit quietly for a few hours every day, do some math or something. I’m willing to bet Harper and Ignatieff are as jealous as I am of the students around here, the ones getting up in the morning to get things done, the little ragamuffins.

What about Bob is a really great movie.

The Blockbuster across the street doesn’t carry it (which is probably why Blockbuster is going out of business) so I haven’t seen it all that recently, but I’ve always remembered when Richard Dreyfuss tells Bill Murray to take a vacation from his problems. Every vacation should be, in essence, a vacation from your problems, right? And yet, to have it put that way is somehow appealing because it makes a vacation seem so accessible, a personal decision that no one can interfere with. All you have to do is declare that you are taking a vacation from your problems and then you’re on vacation.

I love vacations. I know everyone loves vacations but I love them more. I think about vacations fifty percent of the time and I don’t even have a job. When I was a kid I would get hella depressed to the point of tears on the last night of Christmas vacation. After two weeks of family togetherness I didn’t want to splinter back into the real world and go back to school. I wanted to stay home with my brothers. During summer vacation, before I was even in kindergarten, I would ask my parents every single day if my brother, Adam, had to go back to school tomorrow or the day after or the day after. Whenever it was that his summer vacation was going to end, I was going to need a lot of notice to prepare accordingly.

Now, a strike is a tricky business. A strike allows participants to avoid going to work, and it is certainly a change from the everyday, so it is kind of like a vacation. But it leads to disorder. A strike is a vacation of problems, which is why this summer’s municipal workers’ strike has got me all messed up in the head.

Last Wednesday night, Dupont Street dutifully lugged six weeks worth of trash, recycling and compost to the curbside. It sat there, expectantly, for two days before the garbage truck chugged along overnight and collected everything but the recycling, which is still sitting out there three days later. It appears the whole street has collectively decided to not risk pulling the recycling back in off the curb, just in case the truck makes an unscheduled return. Furthermore, everything smells bad because the compost leaked onto the sidewalks and the streets.

In the past six weeks, I haven’t been taking the recycling out that often because there’s no space outside. Since the bottles are piling up in the kitchen, I stopped doing the dishes unless I really have to. We have a fruit fly problem. The compost is full so my fridge is a disaster because I’d rather old food pile up in a cold refrigerator than sit in the sun beside the porch. I also stopped cleaning my room, going for a morning run and writing any blog entries. These last three have nothing to do with trash collection, but when the city is a mess and the kitchen is a mess, I really can’t feel responsible for anything. In short, I’ve neglected all my regular duties because I’m on a vacation of problems. The whole city is on a vacation of problems and it feels very familial. I’ve a real solidarity with my neighbours in these chaotic last days of this grimy situation. It’s almost enough to make me wish the strike would go on just a little while longer. I don’t want us to go back to school tomorrow, you know?

Working for BlogTo has been tons of fun. I get to go out to eat cake at least once a week. Plus, I get to take Alyssa with me. We have a good time. There’s just this one problem with the whole BlogTo experience – the comment section. People can be so mean. It’s demoralizing. Rather, it used to be demoralizing. I’ve become desensitized to stupid comments and this is of concern, because it makes it difficult for me to discern which comments are legitimate. Some of them are completely worth my while to read. In short, a few shifty comments are making it difficult for real comments to be heard.

Word on the street is Jason Kenney has the same problem with Canada’s refugee system. Apparently there are so few restrictions on who can claim refugee status, that a number of Mexicans have been taking advantage of it and making illegitimate claims. Then they get to hang out in Canada while their case is sorted out. The system is so overwhelmed by the fake refugees that the real refugees can’t get their case heard in a timely manner.

So Kenney has decided to slap Visa restrictions on Mexico and the Czech Republic. I disagree with this move, to say the least. It’s already hard enough for those guys to get out of Mexico alive. But the system is broken and Kenney is trying to fix it. Aside from making the system more of a priority (i.e. hire more people), I can’t offer any solid ideas.

Thankfully, most news reports have wide-open comment sections, where regular people can offer their own solutions to the refugee problem. “Let’s expand the visa requirement to anyone seeking refugee or immigrant status and refuse entry to anyone with improper documents,” suggests one lofty individual, who obviously doesn’t even really understand what a refugee is. Someone else proposes we put them “on the next plane home if they don’t pass even basic muster.”

I appreciate this last guy’s optimism. I have no idea who he is is, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and call his idea well thought out. In fact, I think we should apply his solution to all comment sections. Before someone may leave a comment, they have thirty seconds to explain why they deserve to leave a comment. If they have too much to say or get nervous or can’t articulate or have just had a really bad day and can’t think straight then tough luck. They don’t get to make a comment. They get to bring their cursor to the upper left hand corner of their browser window and click “back” to the page they came from.

The truly unfortunate thing about Raitt-gate is, I’m not skipping over stories about the isotope shortage anymore.

Ironically, the sexy scandal and subsequent resignation-demanding hysteria has brought more attention and urgency to the issue than a scandal-free parliament ever could. I suddenly find myself concerned about medical isotopes. And this is new. To top things off, Raitt’s emotional apology and revelation that her father and brother died (young) from cancer is enough to clinch any casual observer’s attention for the long haul. The family history is really awful and sad, but this whole thing is totally bizarre. I feel like I’m watching a well- structured Hollywood film.

I suppose one should call the drama around this politicized issue regrettable, but I imagine it’s going to result in action. Since it involves secret tapes and name calling, everyone’s watching and concerned. Somebody’s got to do something and it’s probably going to be Lisa Raitt. This is not the time to accept her resignation! I imagine she’s feeling quite motivated these days.

Say what you will about political drama being childish, but it can make a critical mass when you need one. 

I’m no serial killer, but I think that Dexter and I want a lot of the same things: lots of meat, a really clean house, quality coffee and a fantastic body. Most of all, we both want a great breakfast, every single morning.

There is a lot of breakfast in Dexter. It’s practically a show about breakfast. Dexter is constantly buying boxes of donuts for his colleagues. Rita’s kids ask for pancakes twice an episode. Power dynamics between Rita and Paul and Dexter centre around who is making breakfast for the children. Coffee is always present and talked about. And obviously, there is the opening credits: Dexter-preparing breakfast to an offbeat. I never get sick of it because I never get sick of breakfast.

This morning I spend my breakfast/coffee time poring over political news, namely Raittgate part two: Cancer is sexy. This is the kind of story that makes me glad to be me. I am so happy I am not Lisa Raitt right now that it’s practically a new lease on life. One of the worst days in my memory is the morning after I made a risky joke and it did not go well. I kept wishing I were somebody else. Being the victim of your own poorly chosen words or actions is the worst thing ever.

People are always getting out of bad situations and then saying, “the best part about this being over is waking up in the morning and making myself a cup of coffee.” This is an especially popular sentiment when people have just been released from prison. Breakfast is a major theme in Dexter, because Dexter is constantly getting out of prison, in the sense that’s he’s constantly avoiding it. The entire series culminates at the end of season two when he narrowly avoids getting caught and imprisoned, wakes up the next morning, makes breakfast (in a sequence of shots almost identical to the opening) and says, “this is way better than prison… I can make some French press.”

Do I like Dexter because I like breakfast? Or do I like breakfast because I like Dexter, and everything he represents? This show makes me enjoy my own breakfast just a bit more than I usually do. I am so glad I am not an imprisoned serial killer. And years after my bad joke, I still wake up in the morning thankful that I haven’t said any thing distasteful recently. E.g. Cancer is sexy.

I’ve heard it said that question period is useless because no one ever answers the damn question. I’ve also heard people speak to the troubling lack of decorum (which they blame for, among other things, the apparent female aversion to the political arena). These are legitimate concerns raised by intelligent, respectable people, but I just can’t share them.

I love question period, truly. Mere mention of it makes me giddy, which is embarrassing. I have to stifle myself whenever people around me begin to talk about QP (which doesn’t happen nearly enough). Someone will speak to the childishness of our politicians and I have to decide, quickly, if I know that person well enough to tell them I actually enjoy the spectacle of QP. I don’t want acquaintances going around thinking I’ve got a problem with decorum.

On Friday, Paul Wells wrote an article called Stop the Madness, in which he outlined the problems with question period and made some suggestions about how to fix it. He suggests MPs be allowed to speak for ten seconds longer so they’re less panicky about making their point. He also suggests holding QP at 10am instead of 2pm so that everyone’s not distracted all day thinking about it. His ideas strike me as mighty fine. QP isn’t perfect and I’m sure it can be improved. But as I read his reasons for why QP is bad, I began to feel a confusing patriotism.

“They bray like jackasses,” he writes.

“It is meticulously planned and rehearsed by hundreds of politicians and their staffers across the parliamentary precinct. They rise before dawn to pore over the headlines and plot the day’s stratagems. Opposition members start bidding at breakfast for a part in the show. Government members meet over lunch to rehearse their evasions and their outrage.”

Seriously, they rise before dawn to pore over headlines and strategize? Good Lord! That is awesome!

If anything can offer insight into how I can love question period while others blame it for political ill, it is this here paragraph. How can anything that gets politicians up and reading before dawn be a bad thing? Some dedicated countrymen right there! Can’t we leave QP the way it is and just tack on a second one? We’ll have one QP with decorum, and one QP with enthusiasm and early morning stratagem.

In the Post today, Lorne Gunter writes on “the Liberal way with hypocrisy.” For years the Liberals have been calling the Conservatives un-Canadian, he says. But now that Harper’s Cons are calling Ignatieff un-Canadian, “the Grits are sputtering with indignation.”

To drive the point home, he assumes the voice of one (crazy!) Liberal talking about policy and patriotism.
“Not a fan of government monopoly health care? You’re un-Canadian. Not big on easy unemployment benefits, official bilingualism, dismantling our military, beggaring our economy in the name of environmentalism, coddling criminals, huge public debts, activist judges, multiculturalism, foreign investment reviews, national energy policies and so on? Shame on you for being so un-Canadian.”
First of all, I want to point out that he put official bilingualism, multiculturalism, and coddling criminals on the same list. (Are people seriously “against” multiculturalism? I mean, do they admit to that kind of thing?)

But besides that, the sarcasm is interesting. It looks like he’s using sarcasm to emphasize the fallacy of determining someone’s patriotism by comparing ideologies. The problem is, the Liberals aren’t doing that right now – the Conservatives are.

Is he trying to shame the Liberals for the poor logic they used in the past? Or is he trying to shame the Conservatives for using the same poor logic that the Liberals used in the past?

I was really hoping this was, indeed, going to be an article about Liberal hypocrisy. I feel much more comfortable in a world where there are Liberals or Conservatives (and a few adorable Idealists and Separatists on the side). I can argue best in this environment. But it looks like this is an article about poor logic all around. It’s so depressing.

I was pretty dissatisfied by all accounts of the Liberal leadership convention. Media put it down as ill attended, underwhelming and unnecessary. Many seemed to take issue with Iggy’s allusioin to the 1968 convention at which Trudeau was elected. That convention spouted Trudeaumania, they argued. This one was just boring.

Thing is, I read an account in the Globe and Mail that claimed the convention was all about free beer and raucous political debate. “That sounds really awesome,” I thought to myself. I would totally be manic for Ignatieff in that environment, not bored at all.

In the Globe today, Lysiane Gagnon writes that Ignatieff wants to be the new Trudeau, but Canadians would “rather have competent, pragmatic leaders than a visionaries.” Sigh. That certainly does’t apply to me. Trudeaumania could “never be replicated,” she writes. Trudeau came at a “specific moment in history, at a time when the youth movement was shaking the world and people were thirsty for new, younger faces. Mr. Trudeau was an elegant, unconventional man of 46, a sharp contrast with the boring political figures of the time.”

That specific moment in time seems to bear a strong resemblance to this specific moment in time (ie. South of the border). I’m usually thirsty for new, young faces in politics. I’m also usually bored with the political figures of my time (against whom Michael Igantieff appears quite elegant). What the hell is going on here? Am I missing something?

Or am I just the same age now as all these disenchanted journalist were then, when Trudeau was on the scene?

I wonder what people would have written about the convention if Iggy had left 1968 out of things. He had to go and remind all those old politicos that they were once young and idealistic, but they’d since aged and nothing is very exciting anymore.

The article concludes with the claim that “’Iggymania’ exists mostly in the imagination of those who are waxing nostalgic about Pierre Elliott Trudeau.”

But I wonder if those waxing nostalgic about 1968 are having the harder time getting manic about anything, now that they’re old and hate free beer with raucous debate.

Canada’s sensitivity levels have shot way up and out of control, ever since Iggy came on the scene a few years ago. You’d think a self-assured political character like Ignatieff would be good for us, but instead our collective self-esteem is all threatened and out of whack. Iggy has ushered in an embarrassing era where money, really good schools, and international travel appear to be the bane of the Canadian psyche.

 This article in the Toronto Star today is exemplary of our nation’s weirdo but typically Canadian attitude towards Ignatieff. As of this morning, we can all add “knowledge” to the list of really awesome things that Canadians are now wary of because they feel threatened by Iggy.

 ”Michael Ignatieff’s embryonic election platform – “a knowledge society” – is safe, smart and stylish. It can be stretched to include everything from basic literacy to advanced scientific research.”

That sounds great. I’m so glad he brought it up.

“But as the former Harvard professor and his brain trust flesh out their policy manifesto, there are a few realities to consider.”

There’s that H-word again. I see where this piece is going. The realities that Carol Goar (the author) is talking about are immigrants who can’t get certified in Canada, recent grads that can’t get a job, and skilled workers that might feel slighted by a “knowledge society.”

“The Liberal leader and his strategists may find the phrase ‘smart is the new black’ appealing, but to millions of hard-working Canadians, it sounds elitist and suggests they’ll be second-class members of the knowledge society.”

This is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. It’s so childish I want to die. I seriously doubt that millions of hard working Canadians have such a fragile ego, and if they do, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with Michael Ignatieff’s election platform (and if it does… well then the nation is just doomed). Who are these millions anyways?

“Canada needs – and will continue to need – home care workers, tradespeople, cleaners, truck drivers, technicians, shopkeepers and labourers. Their jobs may not be glamorous, but they’re essential. Where do these people fit into Ignatieff’s vision?”

 I happen to know a cleaner and a shopkeeper and I think they would fit into a knowledge vision pretty comfortably. They don’t mind ideas and technology, and I think they might even understand the benefits of science.

 I suspect that Goar is projecting this “second class” mentality onto a particular demographic or two that she’s not even a part of. We’re all concerned about recent grads that can’t find a job, and immigrants that have been denied “the opportunity to use their skills.” These are definitely issues that need to be addressed and fixed, but all the immigrants and recent grads I know could really get behind the idea of a knowledge society…

Can’t we have a competent immigration system, a healthy job market and a knowledge society? (Personally, I think we should employ all recent grads in the poorly staffed immigration department. But nobody asked me.)

As we approach the inevitable election, finally with Ignatieff as Liberal leader, I look forward to fleshed out policies and ideas. So far, I like his optimism. I hope it doesn’t get sucked into the vortex that disappeared Canada’s tolerance for Harvard and … knowledge.

And I really wish we would let those hard working Canadians speak for themselves for once.