Leap In The Dark

Maybe it's a Canadian thing, all that snow and ice, but I've always liked the Winter Olympics better than the Summer variety. Until recently, Canada hasn't done any better in the Winter than in the Summer games, so it can't even be put down to chauvinism.

I suppose part of it is that so many of the sports are ones that are much easier to identify with from a North American mind set. Skiing, and combinations there of, skating, tobogganing, (if you can call strapping yourself to a piece of plastic, lying on your back and going down a sheet of ice feet first tobogganing) and snowboarding are all things that anybody at home can do.

Unlike the sprinters, high jumpers, hurdlers, gymnasts, and pole-vaulters, who compete during the Summer Olympics, I have a much easier time identifying with the people who compete in the Winter games. Of course I'm not going to try ski jumping in my back yard or a triple toe loop on skates, but at least I've strapped on a pair of skis in my life and been skating.

How many of you have ever decided to go for a casual pole vault on the weekend? Or maybe chuck around the discus with some friends? It's far more likely that you've gotten together for a ski weekend at some time in your life than sticking what looks like a cannon ball under your chin, and trying to chuck it sixty or seventy yards.

It's not like the Winter Olympics are any less corrupt or commercial than the Summer games; just look at the whole fiasco that surrounded the Salt Lake City games from the organizing committee to the figure skating judging. Or any time a skier is interviewed in the winner's circle and they automatically flip their skis so the brand is facing the cameras; Nike or Fisher, equipment suppliers are the real winners in all these games no matter what the season.

Drugs and means of cheating are just a prevalent, and perhaps even more so. Blood packing before cross-country skiing races (transfusions of fresh blood that supposedly gives you an advantage somehow) seems to have been a favourite for a long time and virtually undetectable until recently. I wouldn't be surprised by anything anymore when it came to devising new and ingenious ways of cheating by athletes and their coaches to give themselves any extra edge possible.

But, even knowing all that, it still seems that there is something far less tainted about the Winter games. Perhaps it is the sheer insanity of some of the sports. Downhill ski racing may look glamorous to watch, but skiing down the side of a mountain at speeds up to 100mph and over is a really good way to get yourself killed I've always thought.

There has been many a time I've tobogganed down a steep hill, that's covered in ice, but I've never done it lying on my back, steering by pointing my toes, and not being able to really see where I'm going. That's just insanely dangerous.

In the Winter Olympics there is far more of an element of risk involved than most sports in Summer Olympics. Okay if you go out for javelin catching you might run the occasional risk, but nothing compared to what happens if you lose it completely throwing yourself into the air off a 90-metre ski jump. They not only expect you to survive, but you're judged on style points and how neat and tidy a landing you can pull off. (Wind milling your arms in a desperate attempt to maintain balance counts against you.)

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to watch much of these Olympics this year except for a couple of periods of men's hockey. In the past fifteen years the only times I'll usually watch hockey at all anymore is during international events; the stuff that's played in the National Hockey League (N.H.L), and North America in general is just to boring to endure for long.

But put the game on a decent sized ice surface, where there is room to skate and make passes and it becomes something enjoyable again. It also dispels the myth that Canadians are the best hockey country in the world. At this Olympics Canada will be lucky to finish 6th after not even making it out of the quarterfinals, losing 2-0 to Russia.

What bothers me is how much media attention Canadian Olympic Hockey team has gotten. We have a speed skater who has four medals already at these Olympics; Canadian women are making huge breakthroughs in cross country skiing, winning a silver in the relay and gold in the 15 kilometre sprint; we won gold and silver in the men's skeleton, and have already exceeded out best results for medal totals at a games.

But the majority of attention is fixated on the hockey teams failure to score goals and medal. What I find especially ironic about all of this is that in the three Olympics that professional hockey players have been allowed to compete, Canada has only won a medal once.

The one medal, Gold at Salt Lake, only came about because Sweden lost in a fluke to Belarus, Russia was in disarray, and the Slovaks didn't have adequate time to put a team together. They ended up squeaking out a win against the American's who play the same style of hockey, but not even as good as the Canadians.

Hockey isn't even Canada's official national sport that, honour lies in the hands of lacrosse, yet it seems to be such a national blind spot. Any attempt to criticize the way in which Canadians play or are taught hockey is treated as treason akin to burning the flag in the United States.

All the euphemisms that are used to describe the way Canadians play hockey; willing to get their hands dirty, playing with heart, tough, and so on make it sound like skill and talent are irrelevant. Even the term for everyone's favourite type of player, power forward, implies muscle over talent. But what type of player does this end up producing?

Well, what we saw at these Olympics were big, hulking guys who had circles skated around them by faster, more talented European players. In their last three games of the tournament, Canada scored only three goals, all of them in one period against the Czech Republic, on a goalie who was having a bad game. Once he was replaced at the start of the second period the Canadians couldn't score again. If it hadn't been for the Canadian goaltender, making some pretty spectacular saves, Canada would have lost the game.

To be fair, that type of player is what's needed in the confines of the ridiculously small N.H.L. rinks where there is very little room to manoeuvre. Brute strength and the ability to run people over are much more important than being able to skate fast and pass the puck with any type of ability.

Even then, with the game built and designed for behemoths in mind, last years leading scorer was the 5'7" Martin St. Louis of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. While people talk about how the players have gotten bigger and faster in the modern era, their speed has all the subtlety and skill of a run away car. They go straight up and down the ice, continually picking up speed, and running over all objects in its path, but can do little else.

There were eight teams in the quarterfinals for the men's Olympic hockey medal round. Canada's final standing will depend on who the losers are in this round and the next. If the teams eliminated have a better record than Canada did in the preliminary round they will finish ahead of them in the standings. I don't think it's possible for them to finish eighth, but sixth, and even seventh are very likely where they will end up.

The headlines across Canada, and front pages of newspapers, have all carried pictures of the dejected hockey players sitting on the bench as they watch the seconds count down in their loss. On the same day Canadian athletes had won four medals, two gold, a silver and a bronze, yet all it seems we're supposed to care about is one team's fortunes.

On a day we should have been celebrating wonderful victories all that was deemed worthy of reporting was a bunch of professional athletes losing a game. How do you think that makes the people who survive on spare change and usually train at their own expense feel? These guys, who make more money in a month than most Olympic athletes, who are put on pedestals by the press and subsequently the public, get more publicity by losing than others do by winning a Gold medal.

I'd be pushing for a ban on professionals in the Olympic games again. Send the dream teams home, be they basketball, hockey, or tennis. These games should be the hour when the people who strive for years to obtain the pinnacle of achievement in their sport are allowed their moment in the spotlight.

The media and the public barely recognise their existence except for these two-week periods every four years, and now even that is being taken away from them by the arrival of professionals in basketball, hockey, and a lesser degree tennis. The Olympics have fallen a long way from their original idealism, if it actually ever existed, but some essence of that still remains in the efforts of the athletes who compete and win through genuine effort, and skill.

There has been a concentrated effort to reform the Olympics. Corruption among officials is being rooted out, drug cheaters are being hunted down, (a little overzealously by Richard Pound is his desire for the spotlight) and they're even trying to make the arcane rules governing the judging of skating events understandable.

But as far as I'm concerned, if they want to keep the light on the people who matter, the athletes, they need to turn back the clock to the days before they allowed the professionals to participate. Be they the hockey players from the N.H.L. or the Basketball players from the National Basketball Association, they are a distraction from the rest of the athletes who strive and compete for their countries.

Give the games back to the people who spend their lives preparing for them, not the people for whom they are only an afterthought and something to do if they feel so inclined. I'd rather see a bunch of amateurs try their best and lose, than so ?called professionals achieve the same results and steal the spotlight.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:31 AM | Permalink

Toronto, 1978, and the venerable Horseshoe Tavern at Queen St. W. and Spadina Ave. is packed to the gills. Old timers wouldn't recognise it as the place where Stomping Tom Connors shot his movie a few years back. Oh there might be a few ducktails still around, and there is definitely a lot of black leather, but the patrons aren't here to hear Hank Snow, or any of the other Country and Western favourites who have graced the old stage.

Nope, tonight they're all here to check out the latest hot band to come up from New York City via the Mudd Clubb and C.B.G.B. A change of management had meant a change of format, and the Horseshoe has become a Mecca for punk and new wave bands from both Toronto and afar.

After a warm up set from a local group that's left the audience's ears bleeding from the noise, anticipation is high, and so when three rather normal looking guys and a girl walk out onto stage, nobody pays them much mind until they pick up their instruments and approach the microphones. When the first words out of the lead singer's mouth are: "Can we get the volume turned down" they know they're in for something different than the usual three chord punk assault on the senses.

That was the Talking Heads; different from the word go. From gawky, geeky looking David Byrne on lead vocals and guitar, normal looking Jerry Harrison on guitar and keyboards, Chris Franz on drums, and a rarity in the rock world a woman, Tina Weymouth on bass, they hardly looked like a rock band, let alone the writers of songs like "Psycho Killer" and "Life During War Time"

Throughout their life as a band, the Talking Heads continually defied expectations. Whether in the stripped down, minimalist four piece band of the earliest incarnations, or in the nine piece funk band from mid-career, they were always a couple of steps ahead of both their audience and the music industry. You knew it was only a matter of time that the creative energy that fuelled that innovation would become constrained by popular music and need to move on.

But technology is a wonderful thing, and Rhino records have done the world a great service by re-releasing some of their best albums on dual disc CD/DVDs. One side features the original CD plus some bonus tracks, and the other side is the music remixed in 5.1 surround sound for audio DVD players. Each DVD also includes copies of the original music videos that were released with the albums.

I don't know if this is accurate or not, but the CD that somehow struck me as being their most popular in terms of airplay was Speaking In Tongues. Recorded with the full nine piece funk line up, and featuring a special guest vocal by Nona Hendryx on "Slippery People", and Bernie Worrell of Funkadelic playing synthesiser on "Girlfriend is Better", this disc makes you move whether you want to or not.

Filtering through the dance beats, sliding into your brain without you really noticing, David Byrne's stream of conscience, oddball, but emotionally evocative lyrics, work their magic on your corpuscles. I haven't heard these songs in over ten years but I knew the lyrics like I had just heard them yesterday. Most amazing, is that I don't actually remember ever sitting down and listening to the record once.

On first listen this sounds like a simple funk disc; grooves and beats pulsating up the spine and loosening up the whitest of asses, but listen again and you'll notice there's more to this disc than dance tunes. Layers of sound are built on the foundation of the beat. From the swirls of synthesisers to the background vocals, everything has been skilfully engineered and produced to create an energy specific to a song.

From the frenetic drive of "Burning Down The House", with its almost tribal rhythms that come pounding out of the opening synthesiser, to the sentiment of "This Must Be The Place (Naﶥ Melody)" every tone, every sound, is fitted exactly into place. Listen to what could be a throw away vocal at the end of the later song; a simple "Ooh" sung by Byrne; it's precisely timed to fit into the finishing swirl of the rest of the instruments.

True Stories was a solo David Byrne project, a movie he made about the strangeness of super market tabloids and life across America. In the movie, the actors sang all the material. The album True Stories was released after the fact, and featured the Talking Heads performing the songs from the movie. Confusing matters even more, Sire Records released a soundtrack from the movie that featured the original cast performing the same material that was on the Talking Heads album.

Although released in 1986, which meant that it wasn't there last album, True Stories has always felt like a parting of the ways to me. The band felt like an afterthought to a David Byrne project, and although musically it sounds fine, there has always felt, to my ears, that something was missing.

After the fun of Little Creatures, their previous release, there is almost a sterility to this disc, which when it was released made it one of my least favourite Talking Heads' albums. Certainly, songs like "Wild, Wild Life" and "Love For Sale" sound like Talking Heads' songs, but there is a formulaic quality to them that prevented me from ever really getting excited about them.

Listening to it again ten years down the line, what strikes me the most is how it seems not to have the same level of thought and commitment that had been the trademarks of the band until that point. In a very round about and polite way, I guess I'm saying it was boring.

Thankfully two years latter they redeemed themselves in my ears with the release of Naked. According to bassist Tina Weymouth, they decided to record in Paris to take advantage of the large 魩gr頁frican musician population that lived there. They wanted to capture a very specific sound for this album, one they knew couldn't be reproduced by the musicians at hand in the United States, so they went to where they could find the people they needed.

The Talking Heads were never what you would call an overtly political band. Although there was a large element of social commentary to David Byrne's lyrics, they weren?t ones for the anthem type standards of The Clash, or other members of the Punk generation. But on Naked they made some of their strongest political statements of their career.

It sounds strange to say this but Naked always felt like a more international album than any of their previous releases. I don't mean musically, because obviously they had utilized a great number of sounds from all over the world before, but thematically it seems they looked beyond the borders of New York City for the first time.

I remember listening to "The Democratic Circus" when the album was first released, and literally a half-mile away from where I was sitting the G-8 leaders were meeting in Toronto. The eight leaders of the biggest economies in the "Free World" had rolled into town to talk about whatever it is they talk about at these meetings, and it was just like a three-ringed circus.

It was like being in Paris had given Byrne a perspective on how North America was seen, and saw, the world at that time. To this day, the song, "Mr. Jones" feels like an updating of Bob Dylan's song about Mr. Jones not knowing what's happening. He still doesn't know, but now it's not just at home; he's deaf and blind to the whole world.

Musically speaking Naked also recaptured some of the adventurous atmosphere that had been missing on True Stories. Not only was it more musically diverse, but the production values and arrangements created thematic foundations for Byrne's lyrics.

Naked was the last Talking Heads album I ever bought, and fittingly it was a reminder for me of why I had liked them in the first place. Intelligent lyrics and interesting music that combined to elevate pop music beyond its usual mundane expressions of sex, drugs, and rock & roll.

They were a band that was never afraid to take risks, and disavowed complacency. The concert film Stop Making Sense released in the early 1980's gives a good indication of just how far the band had travelled up to that point in time. From their raw energy as a quartet, to the nine-piece funk band and various stops on the way the Talking Heads were a unique musical experience that happens far to infrequently in pop music.

Intelligent, and ever evolving they distinguished themselves from their contemporaries with each album they put out, and concert they gave. How many other bands do you know that have asked to have their sound system turned down?

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:49 AM | Permalink

What genre am I? No, that's not the latest pickup line in singles bars, like what's your sign used to be, it's the question authors have to ask themselves when they are preparing a manuscript to send off to either a publisher of agent. It sounds like a simple question doesn't it? One that any author should be able to answer about their own work.

Well either I'm really so simple that even simple questions defeat me, or this is a whole lot trickier a proposition than I thought it would be. I had just assumed because I had elements of magic and mysticism in the novel I've written that it would fit into the Fantasy category.

Sure, it's based on a reality that actually happened, but I've taken huge liberties with historical fact, in that I've just made it up as I went along with no reference to what actually happened. To me that's Fantasy; according to the publishing world however, it's not.

It seems a Fantasy novel has to be right out there; in a reality that has no discernible relation to ours. No matter how fantastical elements of my story might be, it's still set on earth in a context that is familiar to most people. All along I thought I was writing a Fantasy novel and I was writing something else.

What that something else is remains a bit of a mystery to me now. I guess you could call it historical fiction because it's based on an actual event that happened in our world's past, but doesn't that usually involve real places and accurate recreations of happenings? It's also probably not normal for historical fiction to incorporate magic, astral projection, and divination into the story line.

How many genres and sub genres now exist in the world of fiction writing anyway? Off the top of my head I come up with the following list: Mystery, murder mystery, suspense, thriller, horror, espionage, science fiction, fantasy, sword & sorcery, historical fiction, romantic historical fiction, romance, hard science - science fiction, and we haven't even begun serious cross pollination yet. I'm sure you could have something called a romantic sword & sorcery historical fiction novel without even trying that hard.

That's not even beginning to consider all the different sub categories for Non-fiction, which is a different kettle of fish all together. (That would be under cookbooks, fish stews) The thing is you have to be able to answer that question if you want anyone to even consider taking your manuscript seriously.

It's all about marketing the product. Which bookshelf will it end up on in the bookstore, where will it blend in the best with the rest of the product? I know it sounds naﶥ to complain about things like this, but it feels like the blood, sweat and tears that have been shed by authors into making their work unique is a waste of time.

You don't want to be so unique that you can't fit into a nice safe category now do you. Try and stay within the parameters we've set like a good little author and we might even try and promote your work.

Just like everywhere else in the world now, nobody likes it if you deviate too far from expected norms. But what does that say about the creative process. If all of a sudden, you're writing along and you have to start worrying about whether or not you fit into one of the ready to wear categories?

To me it says that your freedom to create is being co-opted by the necessity of having to make a piece fit. Maybe there are some authors who can sit down and say I'm going to write a hard science ? science fiction novel. But what about those who have an idea for a story and just want to write it?

Why should it matter so much which bookshelf it's going to end up on? Shouldn't what matters be the quality of the story? I would think that publishers would be more concerned about characters, plot and style than genre. If it's a good piece of writing can't they market it even if there is an ambiguity about its genre?

It's all fiction after all. It's all telling a story about something no matter if you have a secret agent hurrying to prevent an atomic bomb from blowing New York off the face of the earth, or werewolves discussing dinner plans.

Here I was thinking, foolish me that what would matter most to a publisher or an agent was the quality of the work they were being sent. But certain agents only deal with certain genres, and if your peg doesn't fit into their slot, then you're out of luck.

Thankfully, publishers have a little more latitude than agents initially, and with the exception of a few imprints will accept almost any genre. But even than you need to be able to tell them in your query letter which category you fit into.

Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of this than it deserves, but it just came as such a shock to me to discover that definitions were so important and so exact. More and more, I'm beginning to realize that writing the books is the easy part of being a novelist. It's what comes after you're finished that's difficult.

It's like a friend said to me the other day in an email, enjoy this time (the writing and editing) for all it's worth, because it will never be this good again.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:57 AM | Permalink

I think I've finally clued into why I didn't like "lists". It had nothing to do with the content, top ten songs written by a left handed lead bassist, or even the arguments that develop over them. It was lists themselves I hated.

Let me backtrack a little here so you can understand where I'm coming from, or at least realize that I think there is a rational explanation for this. Over the weekend I started compiling a list of potential agents, and the occasional publisher, who I could send letters telling them about the wonderful novel I've written and what a great writer I am.

It was with a sizeable jolt that I realized that this was the second time I had done something like this in my life where the emotional investment was a great deal higher than if these were simple job applications. Twenty-five years ago, I was sending out 8" x 10" headshots and resumes to agents who were going to make me a star.

Hell, I was twenty years old; fresh out of theatre school, and thought I was God's gift to the acting world. Me, and who knows how many other millions of people around North America. Of course, I was a proper little snob and only wanted to do serious theatre, no commercials or television for me, thank you very much.

So there I was, with a heap of padded Manila envelopes, a pile of glossies, a stack of resumes, a roll of stamps, and The List. I had laid it out carefully into columns: Agent's Name, Address, phone #, and room for follow up comments. Remember this was in the days before everybody had a personal computer, so I had done this all by hand.

After a couple years of harsh reality, including the obligatory stints in restaurants, where nothing was panning out, I latched on to a small theatre company where I was able to carve out a niche for myself as production/general manager. My life became lists: lists of grants to apply for, lists of press releases sent out and to whom, lists of things that needed to be done or needed to be bought for a play to open on schedule, and most important of all, lists of creditors to phone to keep the wolves from the door.

There were lists that ran backwards from opening night to six weeks earlier, lists that read like a Soviet Union Five Year Plan, and lists that made no sense what's so ever because they had been made at 3 in the morning. For five years, my life was writing lists and crossing things off lists. I even had lists of lists that I had given other people to work on.

Of course, their lists were listed on my lists so that I could cross off the jobs they were assigned from my lists as they completed their lists. After five years, I had had enough. I decided to go back to freelance acting again. At least this way it was only one list that I had to keep track of.

But my heart really wasn't in to it any more. After a couple of years of getting the odd job here and there, I was ready to go back to the life of a mega list maker. So, fifteen years ago I packed myself up, moved to Kingston Ontario, and opened a small theatre company with a business partner.

It was, in some ways, one of the worst decisions I've made in my life. In the long run things have turned out as well as I could hope for I guess, but in terms of career choices, it was not very bright. The lists and I had lost any compatibility that we may have had at one time. More and more, I began to run away from reality in ways that are not recommended by anyone.

After the dust settled, nearly six years latter, I made the decision to try and avoid lists and all they stood for. Just the thought of them could make me turn to a quivering pile of jelly. When my health started taking a turn for the worst, and people would suggest things like; you should make a list of where, what, when, and how. I'm sure I would get a look in my eye that was suggestive of deer in the headlights, because invariably the suggestion would never be repeated.

It's now February of 2006, I'm about to turn forty-five, and I'm sitting here making a list. Once again I have a list of agents I've been compiling, who I'm counting on to, well hoping that maybe, they will at least read my book and like it enough to find me a publisher.

What's interesting is I didn't even notice I was doing it. Even though I've spent the weekend at it I didn't once think, I'm compiling a list. Maybe that's because of the Internet. Every time I would go on line over the weekend I would go to a site that lists agents and check out a couple of them.

If I went to their web site and thought they looked promising, I would simply add them to my favourites in a folder called agents. I never spent more than fifteen minutes at a time doing it, and any time I'd start thinking ahead to actually contacting them, I would stop myself by saying: "Wait until you've at least finished a second draft".

It was only last night as I was turning the computer off that I realized I was making a list. The first good sign was that I didn't immediately break out into a cold sweat and delete the file from my favourites folder. I was okay with this list because there was no sense of urgency to it. It was research and preparing for the next step in the process.

I'm not going to do what I did when I was younger and send out something to every person listed, it seems so pointless. I'm trying to get a feel for individuals and agencies based on the way they present themselves. The list I'm creating will serve a purpose other than simply telling me I have to do something or be a meaningless series of names.

The people on it will be of my choosing, and will be those I think most willing and able to help me achieve my goal of becoming published. It's my personal top, whatever number it turns out to be, of those who will be the best for me.

Just like someone's top ten lists of their favourite guitar players or vocalists, it will be highly personal and hinge on my own preferences. Instead of being something that will intimidate me it will help me define, what I want and like in an agent or agency.

I have a lot more understanding of what it is that compels people to make those lists of their favourite things now then I did before. A list doesn't have to define your life; it can help you lend definition to a part of your life and give you clarity of thought. Some lessons take longer to learn then others, but I think I've finally understood the meaning of lists.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:17 AM | Permalink

It is obvious that something has to be done. Things have been going from bad to worse, Loss of habitat and increasing over population has been putting a strain on the species' ability to maintain sustainable healthy levels.

Behaviour patterns that could initially be overlooked have now become so predominant that the tranquility and harmony necessary for continued existence has been threatened. Overcrowding, inbreeding, and pockets of isolationist behaviour, have combined to cause all sorts of anti-social tendencies to manifest themselves.

Incest, violence between mates, offspring being abused, abandoned and left to fend for themselves, show that breeding patterns have been adversely affected by these trends. But it doesn't stop there. Interrelationships outside of that dynamic have become untenable as well.

Simple interactions between male of the species, and even females, have become fraught with tension. Foraging behaviours have become more aggressive as more are competing for less. Instead of the previously seen willingness towards compassion, the elderly, lame, and others unable to fend for themselves, are being left to the mercy of predators and the elements.

Worse yet, is an increase of clashes that are not based on survival. There appears to be a continual struggle to assert dominance over each other at a personal and species level. Dominant males have become far more belligerent, utilizing their strength not just to secure better forage and favour among females, but to impose their will on lesser elements within the species.

This in turn has given rise to resentment among those less developed, and has caused an increase in bellicose behaviour. Respect for standards of social norms, regarding the resolution of disagreements, have fallen by the wayside. Instead of direct confrontations between individuals to solve disputes, there has been a steady increase in attacks on secondary individuals.

Another disturbing trend that has been noticed due to the alarming increase in population, is the continual degradation of the species' natural habitat. Not only have normal sources of food become depleted from the effects of over foraging, but also their supply of fresh water has rapidly diminished.

The major culprit for this is that with increased numbers comes an increased amount of refuse. Not only does that foul surface water supplies, but it also contaminates the water table. As fresh water becomes scarcer, the chance of disease spreading increases, and the overall hopes of species survival diminishes.

As they are forced to co-habit less and less territory, the incidence of disease increases dramatically. Aside from the fear of water borne, waste generated, bacterial illnesses that can debilitate thousands, (and increase the waste disposal situation substantially) a sizeable increase in viral type infections and ailments has been noted.

Given the chance of continual incubation due to overcrowding, these viruses mutate too rapidly for immune systems to develop defences. Individuals may be able to resist an initial strain, but a second or even third generation mutation could easily overcome their defences.

Obviously, the situation is fast approaching a critical stage for the species. Unless some type of drastic action is taken in the near future, there is the very real possibility that they could face extinction. While on the one hand this may be seen as a desirable result by some, that takes a rather shortsighted view of the situation.

All species, even ones like this that seem to have no redeeming qualities in terms of what they give back to the planet, have a roll to play. They would not have developed and evolved otherwise. No matter how tempting it might be to let Humanity die out because of their own stupidity, we owe it to the world to attempt to keep them alive.

It's obvious that the normal means of keeping their population in check, mortality and susceptibility to death from injury and illness, have not been sufficient. It has become necessary for us to intervene before it becomes too late. The obvious solution is to begin a cull.

But this cannot be just a cull of the sick and the lame, because that won't solve any of the problems. No, we must have a systematic cull that eliminates individuals from all strata of what they call society. Only then will be there a chance of them finding a balance in the future.

Leaving just the avaricious and powerful alive would only allow similar conditions, that caused the problem in the first place, to be reproduced. We will also have to reduce their numbers significantly enough to allow their habitat to recover, and disease to die out.

Therefore it is this council's recommendation that seventy-five per cent of the existing human population be eliminated post haste. We see it as their best chance of survival.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:36 AM | Permalink

Occasionally something happens, or you come across something, that snaps your head back and makes you just say "Wow". That happened a few months back for me when I came across the site put together by the The Fire This Time.

Now anyone who has read anything I've written on a consistent basis will know that I'm pretty hard line when it comes to the issue of Native and Indigenous Peoples rights. For me benefit of doubt is always ceded to the Native people. But if I thought Canada was bad; compared to how Indigenous Peoples are treated the rest of the world over, we're damn saintly.

We don't burn them alive in the streets for fun anymore, we've stopped appropriating their land, and have actually even started giving back some of what we stole. You can't give back the sense of pride in self and people that was stolen, but at least we can give back the means to hopefully develop a new pride in themselves. If the new government in Canada honours the commitments of the previous one, agreements reached in the last year with the provinces and First Nation leadership will go a long way to redressing that balance.

But from Fiji to Brazil, and Chile to Indonesia, there has been little or nothing done to redress the imbalances of the last 500 years, or more, of oppression. Homelands are still being given away or stolen with government complicity. Peoples are living lives of such poverty and desperation, it has earned them the honour of their own designation: Fourth World.

Aside from their living conditions, the biggest obstacle facing these people is the complete indifference of the world to their fate. Aside from the occasional celebrity using them as colourful backdrops for soon to be forgotten photo shoots and press conferences, and the occasional "Indian Uprising" like the Zapata in Mexico, they pretty much fall into the category of out of sight out of mind.

The Fire This Time (TFTT) is seeking to change this. Using music, video, visual arts, and direct involvement with the affected communities and peoples they are working to give the silenced a voice. IR2 (Indigenous Revolution) is the music project they have developed as a step in that direction.

It was a link from one of the participants in the IR2 project, the group Asian Dub Foundation, that led me to the TFTT site in the first place. Along with members of Asian Dub, some of the leaders of the Dub music scene from around the world have pooled their talents to create music and lyrics for this album.

Individuals like Adrian Sherwood, Chuck D, and members of groups like Underground Resistance, 3 Generations Walking, Soma Mestizo, and a host of others have offered up their services to either provide production skills, lyrics or music. But where this differentiates from the usual "celebrity" benefit album is how individual songs are constructed.

Take for example track #3, "Indigenous and Sacred" which features the words and music of elders, musicians, and singers from the Solomon Islands and Sosiakamu, plus Soy Sos of 3Generations Walking and Christiane D. of Soma Mestizo. The musicians are based on three separate continents, which made it hard for them to work in the same studio together.

All the tracks had to be emailed back and forth between three locations around the world. The music and words from the Solomon Islands and Sosiakamu formed the core of the song. Soy Sos and Christiane D. had the job of incorporating their music into a mix that allowed the original music to feature.

Dubbing techniques of repeating samples to emphasise certain phrases musically and lyrically are utilized to keep bringing our focus back on to what is important. The language barrier disintegrates as the voices of elders chanting for calm and tolerance are repeated. Sounds elicit an emotional response as readily, if not more so, as actual words, a fact borne out by the impact of this track.

All of the songs on this disc are of a similar construction. Whether it's music underpinning a spoken word essay on the murder of Brazilian Indian Galdino, burnt alive by four wealthy teenagers for a joke, or the lyrics of indigenous Fijian women and music from Brazil on the track "Revoluta". These songs are all true collaborations involving countless emails, remixing and changes as each party strive to strike the right tone to best reflect who they are working with.

The songs and lyrics on this disc are unabashedly revolutionary. They see injustice in the world and demand change for the oppressed. But unlike the hypocrisy of hearing these words come from the lips of a multi million dollar grossing recording star, they come from the people directly involved in the struggle to survive.

Unlike the new age, "Native" discs of peace and tranquility you can find in your supermarket, these are songs of unrest and disquiet. Your not going to receive any spiritual guidance from this music, but if you are willing to listen, you will get an education and a sobering reminder that people are dying everyday just because they are indigenous.

The music on this disc is superlative, there's more reason to listen to it than just the content. Some of the best Dub performers have contributed their talents and technological expertise to make this great musically. It's one of those rare occurrences where the music hasn't suffered to get the message out.

Unfortunately, this disc is not available to be purchased. No label has yet to express willingness to release it. They have no problems selling music that advocates misogyny, violence, and drug use in the ghettos of North America, but seemingly balk at a little truth telling.

But, you can download various versions of some of the songs in MP3 format. Even more uniquely, TFTT has made available for download the individual tracks that have gone into making up some of these songs. There are chants, acappela vocal tracks, and music tracks in MP3 format that can be downloaded for utilization in making your own music.

This is part of how they are trying to give people a means of expression that has been too long denied them. For all those who complain about how the Internet is misused, to me this is an example of it living up to its potential as a means of sharing information and helping other people.

The Fire This Time is a fascinating project, and collaborative effort between peoples of all continents trying to improve the conditions that far too many people are forced to live in. I hope to make this the first in a series of pieces about the site and the people behind it.

Please, take the time to check it out carefully and listen to the songs they have for download. The music is great and the message even better.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:41 AM | Permalink

Well its done. Yesterday afternoon I finished the first draft of Volume one. Yes, that's right volume one. I had come to the realization about three weeks ago that I wasn't going to be able to fit the whole story into one volume. So, I had to start readjusting my thinking.

I hadn't even reached what I was considering the halfway point of the story and it was already over the number of words that was a suggested length for a first novel. I've been writing single spaced pages the whole time, and saving each chapter as a separate file, so didn't have any concept of the sucker's actual size.

I saved it all into a plain text file to make one long document and converted it to the standard manuscript format requested by publishers and agents alike: double spaced, inch around margins, and twelve point type. Sat back to let my poor little laptop make the changes, and presto: I had 325 pages of something or other.

But in the last two weeks, I ran into a bizarre block. I couldn't bring myself to finish. The closer I got to the end of volume one the more I wanted to put it off. On top of that, I couldn't figure out the best way or place to end it. Eventually I realized what the problem was, I didn't want to finish.

I had two pretty good reasons for not wanting to finish. The first was that I'd have to start re-reading the sucker and making corrections and edits to the best of my limited abilities. The second, and I know it sounds a lot like the first but it is different, was that I'd have to actually read what I'd written.

Reading for editing is one thing, it's dispassionate and purposeful. Your looking for typos, mistakes in grammar, and listening to the words to see if they're saying what you wanted them to say. I find the best way to do that is not read for content; in fact, when I'm proofing something I usually start at the end and work back to the beginning just to avoid that trap in the initial scan. That way typos and stand out.

Even on the second read, I'm still just checking it sentence-by-sentence, and paragraph-by-paragraph. Does each sentence sound right, and does each paragraph express the idea I was trying to put across. On the third read through, I check to make sure that there is a proper flow to what I've written, a beginning, middle, and an end.

Does my opening paragraphs introduce the subject matter, does the body of my piece cover the right territory, and does it all lead to a conclusion? For a short article like a blog piece, if it does all that, I'm reasonably content. All I want from this type of piece is for people to have an opinion about what I'm saying. Whether they agree with it or disagree with it doesn't matter so much, as long as it's interesting enough for them to have an opinion.

But a novel or a story is a different kettle of moose meat. I want people to be captivated; not able to put the book down at night because they need to see how things turn out. In order for that to work a book has to have the tonal quality, the right pitch. When I was writing I had an idea in my head of how I wanted my book to sound. People talk about seeing is believing, for me, with a story, hearing is believing.

It's hard to describe, but when I'm writing fiction, I've an objective in mind above and beyond the writing of the story and transmitting the information about plot and character. I'm searching to capture a certain quality that shows my love of language and respect for the power of words.

As much as I enjoy a good story, I enjoy the employment of words as building blocks for creating art. Does that sound pretentious? I hope not because I don't mean it to be. It's just that I want to take advantage of the gifts the English language offers a writer that enables him or her to go beyond the prosaic.

The trouble is, that more often than not, it feels like my ambition exceeds my reach. I feel like I don't have the skill set yet to balance the two needs I see inherent in a novel; the story and the manner in which it is told. Sometimes, I'm sure I get carried away with trying to be too fancy with words and end up digressing miles off course.

Faced with the prospect of the first read through of the story once I finished my first draft, I became more and more nervous? What happens if it's just a whole pile of self-indulgent crap and I've ignored the story? How about the opposite, if its just another boring adventure novel?

Part of me is very proud of myself for having completed this task, but another part of me is terrified that its all been a waste of time and that I'll have to start over again from scratch. People can talk all they want about the experience being good for me, but that just doesn't feel like it will cut it. I'm not even talking about it getting it published, although that would be lovely. I just want to have written something that I'd enjoy reading.

Sure we are our own harshest critics, and we will always be able to find things that could have been done better, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to enjoy reading our own work if its any good. I mean, if I don't like reading how can I expect anyone else to.

"Here, I wrote this novel which I think is a piece of crap, you want to read it." I can see that going over really well in terms of publicity and even just getting a friend to read it.

Anyway, all these types of insecurities have been floating around in the back of my head for the last two weeks as I've tried to finish the book off. Finally, I just said the hell with it. There's nothing I can do about it now, so I may as well finish and see what I have. Lower my expectations somewhat and be prepared for masses of rewrites now and forever until it is published. (Or not)

When I first started out on this project back in November, I figured my biggest obstacle to overcome regarding finishing the book, was my willingness to actually exert the effort required. This feeling was intensified when I went a good three weeks without so much as writing a single word of the story. But that was more due to exhaustion born out of writing close to 70,000 words in the space of a month. I simply needed a break.

Once I was able to recover and start heading towards finishing volume one, I found I was able to pick up where I left off. But when it became evident that I was going to be able to finish, that's when I began to question its quality. As is so often the case in these incidences, I discovered new ways of becoming my own worst enemy.

Yet, in spite of that, I've been able to finish, and I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment. Last night I took a quick glance through the opening of chapter one, and discovered, to my delight it wasn't half bad. I'm hoping that's a sign of things to come.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:36 AM | Permalink

The problem with expectations is that they inevitably lead to disappointment. While that's probably true with most of life, I find it especially true when dealing with either a book by a favoured author or a new CD by a familiar performer.

Over the years, you have set the bar, fairly or unfairly, higher and higher for that artist. Expecting them to always surpass their previous efforts to entertain and enthral you. When they produce a novel or CD that is, in your estimation, something that anybody could have done, you are disappointed.

It might be a perfectly good work, but because you expect more from them than you would from just any old artist, you are disappointed. If that doesn't sound like a particularly objective way of reviewing or critiquing a work, it's the truth of the matter. No matter how much anyone might pretend to be objective as a critic, it's impossible not to have expectations about work.

What else are we to compare an artist's output to if not their previous efforts? How else would you be able to tell if they've made progress, changed their style, or attempted some radical shift? True, you can always compare them to others in their field who are working in a similar style, but that becomes more of a case of competitive comparison than actual critiquing. Saying someone is better than someone else doesn't give much indication of whether an individual is utilizing their talents to the fullest.

That has got to be the longest introduction to a review I've ever written but in the case of the latest CD from Sarah Harmer, I'm A Mountain, I thought some explanation was required. I've been in the fortunate position of living in Kingston Ontario almost since Sarah first started performing in local bars. Any of the times that I have seen her play she has blown me away. (The version of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" she did with an early incarnation of Weeping Tile is still the best I've ever heard or seen)

Some years back she put out an album called For Clem. It was a collection of older standards and traditional country tunes she and a couple of friends recorded on the back porch of her house. If you listen carefully, on some tracks you can here crickets singing along with them.

Perhaps because she recorded these songs as a heartfelt message of thanks to her father, or maybe it was just a matter of catching lighting in a bottle, but there was something about that album that allowed it to break down the normal barrier that's between performer and audience.

You could picture yourself pulling up a chair on that porch and being welcome to sit and tap your foot along to the music. They had woven a spell of intimacy that was as wonderful as it is rare to find in today's popular music.

Her albums have always had a level of intimacy that I have found lacking with other performers. There is always the feeling that she is singing specifically for you. Perhaps it's the simplicity of production or the honesty of her lyrics that creates that feeling, I'm not sure, until now I've never stopped to analyse it carefully.

The problem I have with I'm A Mountain is that it sounds like any one of the oh so serious, woman singer songwriters out there now could have written it: Sarah, Jewel, Tori, and whoever. They come from a long tradition of soulless, sentimental pabulum producers like Janis Ian, Pheobe Snow, and Carly Simon.

There's always been a fine line in acoustic, singer songwriter style music, separating genuine emotion and self-indulgent naval gazing. In the past few years, a new breed of woman songwriter has appeared who talks about serious issues. Perhaps because I'm not a twenty-year-old middle class white woman the songs have no meaning to me, but all their music sounds alike musically and intellectually.

Sarah Harmer's music has never fallen into that category by any stretch of the imagination. It's too real and too diverse in its take on life. Even her weakest efforts to date have shown far too much willingness to experiment with style and form for her to be classed in that category.

The problem for me with I'm A Mountain is that it skirts around the edges of that territory. While songs like "Luther's Got The Blues" and "I Am Aglow" have a freshness to them both musically and lyrically that held my attention, none of the other songs were really that captivating.

Technically her voice is as wonderful as ever and the songs are all well crafted, but they are lacking something in the heart-felt category that bridges the gap between performer and listener. I felt no reason to be interested in what she was singing about.

Sarah Harmer is still one of my favourite singer ? songwriters out there, and I will continue to look forward to her new albums. Hopefully I 'm A Mountain will just be an aberration in the otherwise wonderful catalogue of music she has produced. From another performer this might have been an acceptable album, but she is better than this, so I was disappointed.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:26 AM | Permalink

I've long been an advocate of what I call complimentary medicine. That is using techniques not normally utilized by your family physician to compliment the work they are doing. I refuse to use the word "alternative" to refer to things like acupuncture, herbal remedies, or massage therapy because that creates a connotation both unsafe and untrue.

The word alternative implies that these treatments can be used instead of, or isolated from, the ways in which our medical system does things. While it's true I might make a cough medicine out of a couple of plant leaves that I know will help as much as any over the counter stuff, I'm still going to go see an orthopaedic surgeon when I break my leg.

Somehow or other the word alternative has come to be equated with harmless when it is used in regards to medicinal practice. People have gotten mighty confused over the meanings of the words natural and organic. Just because it wasn't made in a lab it means it won't hurt you. Tell that to Socrates and the bowl of Hemlock Tea he had to drink.

Herbals are not some new fangled remedy. They were used long before we had pharmaceuticals, and have gone in and out of style with genteel society over the generations. Victorian era society women would have a tisane to help calm their nerves and men would take tonics to restore their "vigour".

It wasn't really until after World War one that people began experimenting with ways of synthesising remedies in a lab. Synthetic versions were thought to have the advantages of being easier to mass-produce, and the standardization of doses.

Herbals do have the disadvantage that from plant to plant a variety of factors can affect their potency. Soil conditions, rainfall, and exposure to sun can all come into play. The other advantage to man-made medicines was the insurance of a constant supply.

All plants have a very specific growing season and harvesting schedule. Some plants, like Dandelion, to have medicinal use can only be picked before June, while others in the fall. The other consideration is that in some instances the root of the plant is called for, and not only could it take years for the root to develop in size, once used the plant has been destroyed.

So, while some people may still have been using herbals, during the post World War two years the use of pharmaceuticals took off. They were convenient to take, and had quick results. Two things that were of major importance in our new faster paced world. People wanted not to be bothered by being sick and needed to get back to work fast. They couldn't afford to take the time it took to heal using herbals.

It wasn't until it became apparent that there were problems with some of the prescription drugs in terms of side effects that people began to rethink that attitude. When women who had been taking the anti nausea drug Thalidomide for morning sickness during pregnancy started to give birth to children with birth defects, it was the first sign that these drugs might not be as safe as was previously thought.

As more and more cracks started to develop in the corporate drug world, and as the sixties progressed, people began to "discover" other methods of dealing with illnesses. Unfortunately, too many people had come to expect the quick fix provided by the synthetic drugs as the standard for treatment, and demanded similar results from herbals.

This has resulted in a willingness to overlook the potential for abuse that exists in herbals as much as it does with any drug. One of the best examples is the way in which Echinacea angustifolia has been misused. The root of this flower had long been known for it's anti microbial properties, and works well to fight off low level infections such as fevers brought on by colds and flu.

But it is a remedy not a preventative. Somehow or other people started to believe it was some sort of miracle drug that they could take to prevent themselves from getting colds or the flu. Would you take an anti-biotic before you got sick? No because it would be dangerous to your health.

But that's exactly what people are doing when they take Echinacea and they have nothing wrong with them. What's even worse is that the demand for the root of this flower has been so high that it has now become an endangered species in the wild. It takes four or five years for an Echinacea plant to become fully developed and it was not given sufficient time to replenish.

Open any decent Herbal Book and not only will it tell you all the properties of the plants: what ailments it should be used to treat, what part of the plant is used, when to pick it, and how to best utilize it (tea, tincture, or compress); it will also tell you it's contradictions. What medical conditions make what herbs unsafe, if you have high blood pressure don't use any liquorice root in a tea for instance, and they always say consult your doctor to see what long-term affects this medicine could have upon any other medications you are taking.

It's been a number of years now since herbals have caught the public's attention again, and have zoomed in popularity. So much so, that you can buy them everywhere now. But even after the idiocy of using an asthma drug in diet pills (ephedra) caused people to have strokes, people don't seem to be learning the lesson that these are potentially dangerous.

It depresses me to see that Health Canada still feels the need to hold conferences on the dangers of mixing herbal remedies and prescription drugs. That they still have to spell out for people that natural does not mean it can't be harmful after all these years of them being on the markets is a sign that the people who are prescribing herbals, and the companies manufacturing them are failing the people they are supposed to be serving.

It's because of the abuse and misuse of herbal remedies and medicinal plants in general that we've already seen some of the more effective treatments become harder and harder to obtain. When it was shown that ephedra and it's derivatives were causing strokes when used in diet pills, it became a proscribed drug.

In every Herbal book, that I've ever made use of, it explicitly states that people with high blood pressure should never use it, and it?s sole purpose is for the opening of bronchial tubes to help relieve asthma attacks. Why companies started to put in into diet products is beyond me.

Herbal remedies have been used for centuries as medicines. Until they were saddled with the label alternative they were treated like we would treat any drug prescribed to us from a doctor. But now, all of a sudden, they have become safe as compared to what our doctor's offer us.

If those of us who make use of these medicines aren't able to change that perception soon, we are gong to find governments moving in to ban the sale of loose herbs, and only allow pre-packaged pills and doses to be sold. That would be a shame, because part of the pleasure of working with herbs is having the ability to circumvent buying a product and making your own remedies.

In a world where we have so little control over so many things, being able to have a say in the medicine I take, even if only in a small way, is a privilege. I would hate to have to give that up.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:05 AM | Permalink

Most of us have listened to some sort of Blues music at some time or another in our lives. You can't have listened to popular music in the last seventy to eighty years in North America without hearing something, that's got at least a hint of that sound to it.

From Heavy Metal through to the standards of Frank Sinatra, the Blues have been the foundation that most pop music has built upon. Try and imagine what our world would sound like today if the Blues hadn't existed, and I think you'd hear the ringing sounds of silence.

Even the traditional Irish and Scott's ballads that were the backbone of the earliest country music wouldn't have made it out of the Appalachians without a generous dollop of blues music. It was that cross-pollination that gave us the earliest Country-Blues, which in turn led to Sun Records and a guy named Elvis.

The saddest part of the story of the blues has always been that the men and women, who were the writers and singers of this most influential music, toiled in obscurity and without recognition for most of their lifetimes. They'd see their songs and music being performed by young white musicians and never once received a dime for their work.

One of the sad truths of racial segregation and discrimination was that it denied a huge segment of the world the opportunity to hear some of the finest music and musicians perform. Even now early recordings of so many of these people are only in the hands of collectors or museums.

A new triple disc set by Document Records is a tiny step forward in changing that situation. Broadcasting The Blues: Black Blues in the Segregation Era is a wordy title for the set, but an apt one. Paul Oliver, the man who edited and compiled this disc, has been writing and broadcasting on the radio about blues since 1952. If you've never heard of him or his shows it's not surprising, they were on the B.B.C.

I've often wondered how people like Mick Jagger and John Lennon ever heard the blues over in England. They always talked about how much this style of music influenced them, but where on earth did they ever hear it for the first time. Well this must be part of the answer, Paul Oliver's radio shows.

A first quick glance through the nearly ninety songs listed on the back cover and certain names just jump out at you: Ma Rainey, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, and on and on. It's like a who's who of the greats of the past eighty years of the blues.

The material on these CDs is a compliment to a book Mr. Oliver has published called Broadcasting The Blues. These songs, and interviews, are all taken from the scripts of the radio shows that Mr. Oliver has done over the years for the B.B.C. Some of them were specific documentaries on the Blues, and others were just his radio shows; where his play lists were made up of material dating back as far as the 1920's.

Close to four hours of music crammed onto three discs can be a little overwhelming if there is no cohesion. In an attempt to supply some order to the proceedings, Mr. Oliver has arranged the discs historically: Volume One: "Before the Blues" deals with the roots of the music; Volume Two: "Blues How Do You Do" is an examination of the inspiration for the blues; and Volume Three: "Meaning In The Blues" explores the variety of subject matter sung about in the blues.

Now if that sounds dry as dust, don't worry, because it's all done musically. They are just frameworks to hang the music on. Volume one is the only disc where historical sequence has any real pertinence, as after a couple of pieces of introductory blues, it takes us back to the beginnings. Starting with a Ring Dance as performed by Mamprusi Tribesmen in Africa we cross over to the Southern States to listen to "Holler" or work songs.

Along the way, we taste the music that was played for the "Doctors" and their medicine shows, ballads, and what were known as "Coon" songs. These were mainly satirical songs that helped to deflect some to the sneers of prejudice. Some of the songs on this disc seem to have little to do with what we would call blues music. But it was from these tunes that singing styles and content were developed.

It's on discs two and three that we enter territory we are more familiar with. But what makes these two discs special is the sheer diversity of the material. The voices and music of long dead men and women who sang for the release and the joy of singing echo down the years. Ghosts from a time when sometimes the only way you could escape your hardships were to sing about it.

"It gives you relief?" says Henry Townsend in an interview talking about the blues. Relief from the feelings of being a second-class citizen, of grinding poverty, and of being looked down upon. Just as the spirituals helped slaves find escape from the misery of working in the fields; their latter day cousin the blues helped the children and grand children of slaves escape their soul-destroying reality.

Regretting the past doesn't get you very far, but it's hard not to listen to these discs and regret that the men and women singing on them didn't get the recognition they deserved during their lifetime. The best we can do for them now is to honour their contributions to our culture and our lives by learning their names now, and not letting them be forgotten.

Paul Oliver has put together an incredible collection of music and interviews on Broadcasting The Blues: Black Blues In The Segregation Era. It is discs like these that, are not only a pleasure to listen to, will keep those people alive forever. What's even more exciting is that he's only just begun working through close to fifty years of radio shows. There's plenty more where this came from.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:56 AM | Permalink

One of the major differences between the American political system and Canadian is the ability that American voters have to hold their elected officials accountable during their term in office. In Canada, our only recourse is to await the next election to express our displeasure with an incumbent, but in the U. S., you are able to not only impeach, but also have recalls, which force a politician to run again.

I have only heard of one instance when someone tried a recall in Canada, and that was for a government not a specific politician. That occasion was so fraught with difficulties, (I think it included making sure that you had twenty five left handed albino pipe fitters sign the petition) that I doubt anybody will try the process again.

Of course, as everybody on the receiving end of a recall petition or impeachment proceedings will tell you, the process can be highly partisan. But than again, it's not very likely that anybody from within one's own political party is going to initiate impeachment proceedings against them. For that to happen you'd have to be caught in bed with either a dead person or a live animal, and in some States even that might not be enough.

Now what you do with wildlife in the privacy of your own home is nobody's business but you own, but if you're going to run for public office, there are certain rules of conduct that the people you voted for expect you to adhere to. One of the things most voters expect from you is an iota of partisanship. They voted for you because you claimed to represent a certain party and you believed in that party's platform.

Now in some elections one could safely say that there isn't much to choose from when it comes to the two major political parties in Canada. In times past, on the federal level anyway, the Conservative and Liberal parties were pretty much interchangeable. While it's true that the Liberals have moved slightly to the right of the political spectrum economically, they have stilled stayed socially progressive.

The Conservative Party of Canada has metamorphosed into something new in Canadian politics. They have distinguished themselves from the rest of the field by being socially conservative and seemingly intent on rolling back social ? political changes of the last twenty years.

(A quick background note. In Canadian politics the federal party, has little or nothing to do with the provincial party of the same name. The nature of the provincial parties is such that their policies and platforms change from province to province. Probably only the N.D.P. has some sort of cohesion between the federal and provincial levels. In the last federal election, the Conservative Party in Ontario was remarkably quiet and never, to my knowledge, endorsed their federal counterparts.)

For some voters this meant the recent election was about preventing those changes from occurring. Politicians aware of those feelings played upon their fears in order to assure their re-election. Some Liberal party candidates even wooed potential New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) voters by claiming they were the best chance of stopping the Conservative candidate in that riding.

Now I'm sure some of you have picked up on where I'm heading with all of this, but for those who (the majority of the world) don't pay attention to Canadian politics I'll fill you in. In the Federal election of January 23rd/06, the Conservative party won the most seats in our House of Commons. Although they did not win an out right majority, they still won sufficient seats to form the government.

As the new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's, leader of the Conservative party, first task was to select members of his caucus to become government Ministers. These would be the people who would take responsibility for implementing the party's agenda within the various departments of the government.

Naturally, he was going to want people who were in agreement with the philosophies espoused by his party during the last election. You'd think the last person he'd want would be someone who had campaigned so vigorously against him that he actively solicited N.D.P. voters to vote for him to help stop the Conservatives.

You'd also think that a person who stood up and gave an acceptance speech talking about how he looked forward to thwarting the Conservatives at every step along the way while serving in opposition, would be a bad choice for as a Cabinet Minister. Well the world of politics is a funny old thing that way, because Mr. Harper selected someone fitting just that description for his cabinet.

David Emerson was elected in the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway as a member of the Liberal Party. He had served as Minister of Industry and Trade in the previous Liberal government and had campaigned as a loyal party member and a staunch supporter of previous Prime Minister Paul Martin.

As the Liberal candidate in his riding, he received 44% of the vote, the N.D.P. candidate came second with 33%, and the Conservative trailed badly with 18%. This was a riding that was strongly against the message the Conservative party was selling. Even if some of Mr. Emerson's support came from people who were voting for him as the man, and not for the party he represented, the fact that 82% of the eligible voters in the riding, who cast a ballot, voted for someone other than the Conservatives lends credibility to the belief they did not support the Conservatives.

Two weeks after standing up and declaring that he would be "Stephen Harper's worst nightmare" David Emerson accepted the same position in the Conservative Cabinet that he had held under Paul Martin. He claimed that after having had lunch with Mr. Harper, he realized he wasn't such a bad guy after all. It wouldn't have anything to do with the increase in salary and perks that go along with being a Cabinet Minister would it?

I think the most surprising thing about this whole situation is the fact that nobody on the Conservative side of things seems to have been prepared for the firestorm of protest that this has caused. What's even worse is the rather blas頭anner in which they seem to be taking to the reactions of the constituents in the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway.

Instead of taking a conciliatory tone in their statements, they appear to be going out of their way to antagonize the voters. Saying things like, you should be grateful that you've got a Cabinet Minister out of the deal, doesn't do much to ease the feelings of betrayal that have been generated by this manoeuvre.

Saturday afternoon hundreds of people gathered in a Vancouver high school to demand that Mr. Emerson resign his seat. They want Mr. Harper to call a by-election and have Mr. Emerson run again, but this time as a Conservative candidate.

With no recall legislation on the books the people of Vancouver-Kingsway have no means of forcing the government to take action. The N.D.P. have formally asked the federal ethics commissioner to investigate Mr. Emerson's defection. They think that Mr. Harper could be in violation of Parliaments conflict of interest guidelines, which prohibits members from acting to advance their own or other Member of Parliaments' (M.P.) personal interests.

I can't see there being much hope in that one, since both Mr. Emerson and Mr. Harper have already covered that one by claiming it was in the best interests of the country to have continuity in such a key portfolio. Anyway, when hasn't a M.P. acted in their own best interest? You investigate one for that; you're going to have to put the lot of them under a microscope.

So, what it comes down to is whether the people of Vancouver-Kingsway can shame the government into actually doing something. As it stands now, the chances of that happening look slim to non-existent.

While a couple of Conservative M.P.s are saying that they are going to propose legislation that would prohibit members from switching parties in mid stream, I've noticed that there has been a conspicuous lack of talk about recall legislation. It seems that although everyone is willing to protest loudly about Mr. Emerson crossing the floor and what a betrayal that act is, nobody is willing to open that particular can of worms.

None of them seem to be too interested in handing voters the power to chuck them out of office before their terms are up. I can't say that surprises me, but it does disappoint me. I'm sure that most of them would reply if asked, that what they most fear would be the ease in which partisan attacks could be formulated by such legislation.

Take the case of a riding where the final margin of victory was decided by a recount. If the loser decides he doesn't like it, he could organize a recall petition in the hopes of getting a new election, and this time making sure all the people who were supposed to vote for him do so.

Out of necessity, any legislation regarding recalls would have to be written in such a manner that abuses could not happen. All that means is that it would take some thought to prepare a bill that would ensure things like what Mr. Emerson did are covered, while partisanship is curtailed as much as possible.

Simply making those behind the recall legislation supply sufficient proof of misdeeds, like they would in a civil case, ought to provide enough of a deterrent to prevent abuse of the legislation. Create a list of behaviours that would be considered unacceptable, and than leave it to the accusers to prove that the person or party are guilty of such misdeeds prior to them being able to begin the process of petitioning for removal and I don't think anyone could complain about the process being partisan.

It is high time that Canada ensures its elected representatives are held accountable for their actions beyond just risking re-election. Why should voters be stuck with someone who has betrayed their confidence in the manner that David Emerson has betrayed the people of Vancouver-Kingsway?

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:46 AM | Permalink

Here's the scenario. You're an opposition party in the federal House of Commons in Canada right now, where, as everyone knows, there's a Conservative Party of Canada minority government. The Conservatives are going to introduce a whole bunch of legislation that nobody in opposition is going to like when the house reconvenes in April

Now you have enough votes that you could defeat them in the house on any vote you so desire, but that could also be seen as Non-confidence vote. The last thing anybody wants to do right away is have another election. Being the one who pulled the plug on the government would cause a big backlash against your party in the next vote.

So if you don't want to have an election, but at the same time you don't want to support what the government is doing, what do you do? Well the New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) has come up with a solution. Olivia Chow, wife of party leader Jack Layton, has announced her intention to introduce national childcare legislation that would confirm the original deal that the Liberal government had worked out with the provinces

Mr. Harper's Conservative Party had rejected that deal and made plans for their own legislation that has no support outside of his own party. Ms. Chow's proposal would receive the support of all the opposition parties ensuring its passage into law.

The Conservative's will be faced with either scrapping their proposal or having to pay for two childcare legislations. Since the later choice would make them look ridiculous they will be forced to swallow pride and enact the more widely supported act that the previous government had negotiated with the provinces.

Now I'm sure there will be much bleating from the right wing about the opposition subverting the democratically elected government. But they don't have a majority government and have already made it clear that they will try and force through any legislation they can.

The Conservative Party of Canada was willing to cynically take advantage of the opposition's unwillingness to call an early election by defeating them in the house. They have not shown themselves to be willing to work with the opposition, and work out compromises that would make their legislation more palatable to the opposition.

The previous Liberal government, who the Conservatives accused of arrogance, were able to hold onto power by showing a willingness to work with other parties to garner enough votes to be able to enact the legislation they wanted. In a minority government situation if you want to be able to govern you have to be willing to bend.

It's the Conservative Party's own intransigence that has caused the opposition to start proposing their own legislation. By refusing to compromise, and even give the appearance of willingness to work with the opposition, the Conservative Party has left the opposition very few choices. The fact that they are willing to offer alternative solutions to issues, instead of just rejecting them and voting them down, should be seen as something positive.

The opposition is giving the Conservatives the chance to prove that they can govern and work with the other parties by offering a counter proposal. It is now up to them to make the next move. If they continue to refuse to work within the confines of a minority government they face the very real possibility of becoming redundant to the actual governance of Canada.

There is nothing stopping the other three parties from forming a loose, unofficial coalition. The N.D.P., the Bloc Quebecois, and the Liberals have more in common with each other than either have with the Conservative Party. If they work things correctly they will be able to ensure that it is their agenda that is carried out and not that of the Conservatives.

This is a situation without precedent in Canadian politics. While there have been minority governments before, the circumstances that have caused this dynamic to develop are new. For the first time ever we have four viable political parties with significant support in the house. The other factor is the governing party has no one in the opposition whom they can turn to for support.

The Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois are the only parties with sufficient seats to guarantee Conservative legislation passing in the house. The chances of the Liberals endorsing any part of the Conservative platform enough to come to an agreement on governing are slim to say the least. ( Of course if David Emerson is anything to go by Steven Harper may just have to offer enough them Cabinet positions and he could have a majority government)

While the Bloc Quebecois may support the Conservatives on issues of provincial rights, they are miles apart on social issues. The Conservatives didn't do anything to endear themselves with the Bloc anyway by appointing a non-French speaking Anglophone as minister in charge of French Language rights. The chances of The Bloc forming any sort of permanent alliance with the Conservatives is slim at best.

Of course that alliance would be problematic for the Conservatives anyway, seeing how they had spent a good part of the campaign condemning any perceived alliance with the Bloc by other parties as a betrayal of Canada. Than again, judging by their actions in the last week they seem perfectly content to say one thing and do another, so that may not be such a problem for them after all.

Ideally what will come from the opposition forcing the government's hand by introducing legislation is we will get a situation where all four parties work together to best represent all of Canada. This will require the Conservative Party of Canada, and it's leader Stephen Harper, to realise they will not be able to cram their legislation down the throats of parliament.

On the other hand if Mr. Harper is not careful he may well become the first Prime Minister of Canada whose a lame duck before he even starts his first term of office.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:45 AM | Permalink

You know I'm sure people are sick and tired of hearing how things were better in the old days. If you're under twenty you've got to be especially sick of old farts like me, over forty, who keep telling you about "when we were young rap music meant something". Well if any of the above applies to you, you might as well stop reading now.

Nothing that I've heard to date has yet to match the power and the poetry of Afrika Bambaataa. I first started hearing about him and hearing him occasionally in the 1980s when he was leading the charge in bringing rap/hip hop music out of the ghetto into mainstream acceptance. He of course had been around a long time prior to that, starting out in the 1970s while still in high school.

It was a time when DJ's would compete to see who could create the best mix of music to entice audiences to dance. An early fore runner of what we now know as sampling, DJ's would inter cut varieties of music from their turn tables to create dance music. They would take their "coffins" (boxes with turntables set into them) to parties, parks and community events and face off against each other.

Bambaataa (which means benevolent leader) evolved from this format into utilizing musicians and b-boys (break dancers) to create his sound. Influenced by the funk sounds of performers like James Brown he kept that hard edge to his music while integrating samples of other music.

He had a far more political focus than the "home boys" of today and his lyrics and actions were reflective of that attitude. He worked on the anti apartheid album Sun City with Steven Van Zandt, Lou Reed, and others in what was Rock's first overt political act in years.

But it was his willingness to cross musical boundaries that really set him apart from other musicians of the time, and still does today. Before RunDmc and Areosmith recorded their version of "Walk This Way" he had been working with Rock musicians. In 1984 he developed two groups, Shango and Time Zone. One of the key members of Time Zone was one time Sex Pistol and PIL luminary, John Lydon (Johnny Rotten to his friends)

He's recorded with acts as diverse as Boy George, UB40, James Brown, and Nona Hendryx. He's done albums dedicated to exploring the sounds of the German minimalist electronic band Kraftwerk, and worked with George Clinton of funk fame. Building from his funk core he crafted unique sounds and pushed hip-hop into the electronic era.

Listening to one album of his music is to listen to one moment in time in his career. Something else has come before, and you know he will be onto something new before you've finished listening to the disc in your player. The disc Zulu Groove is a reissue of a 1999 disc that combined extended play albums that he put out with Shango and Time Zone in1984. It contains the entire Shango album Funk Theology as well as mixes from Time Zone's World Destruction and Wild Style extended plays.

Musically this is a funk collection. All hard lines and driving bass and guitar that you just can't sit and listen to with wanting to get up and dance. Except that you also want to listen to the lyrics. Unlike the majority of today's dance/rap/hip-hop with it's predominantly superficial concerns Bambaataa was well aware of the real world.

Time Zone's "World Destruction" that opens the disc is a searing commentary on the neglect of Black issues under the Regan government. With a continual refrain of "he don't like us" repeated over the driving funk beat, the anger and frustration felt by African Americans during his tenure as President is made clear. Like fellow rapper Gil Scott-Herron, Bambaataa was not afraid to stand up and speak out against perceived injustices.

In both "World Destruction" and "World Destruction (Melt Down Mix)" John Lydon's vocals jar one out of the seductive rhythms of the funk beat and force you to listen to what's being said. That familiar angry sneer cuts through like a knife through butter and proves that contrasts in art are just as effective as seamless blends.

Sandwiched between the opening and closing "World Destruction" bookends are some of the best funk music I've heard in a long time. Afrika Bambaataa proves that he can create fantastic straight-ahead funk with the best of them. For all his innovations and crossing over into other genres, it's obvious where his true home is from the music that he created with Shango and Time Zone.

From the Latin tinged "Soca Fever" to the driving funk of "Zulu Groove" this disc reminds you what great funk can be. For so many years we've been fed funk's watered down palatable versions on main stream radio, that when you actually hear how it's supposed to be played it's like listening to a whole different genre of music.

Zulu Groove is a good introduction to Afrika for those who haven't heard him before. It gives you a taste of his willingness to ignore the so-called boundaries between the genres of pop music, and some of the juiciest funk licks this side of a Parliament/Funkadelic concert.

If you think you know what rap and hip-hop music are supposed to sound like and you've never heard anything by Afrika Bambaataa than you've been living a delusion. Do yourself a favour, buy this album, or anything by him for that matter, and listen to a master at work.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:43 AM | Permalink

When most people think of the banjo, they think of bluegrass music or other "Country" like styles. Few today remember that the banjo came to North America with the Africans brought over as slaves in the 1700's. These early versions of the instrument were simply fretless sticks attached to an animal hide covered gourd, strung with three or four strings.

Interestingly enough the manner in which they were played still exists today in the style known as "claw hammer". The player doesn't strum the instrument but plucks on the strings, literally clawing and hammering out the tune. It's this percussive style that most of us are used to seeing utilized in today's modern folk and bluegrass bands.

It's difficult for us to think of the banjo as an instrument used to play the blues; that's something we normally associate with guitars, harmonicas, and bass. But from the turn of the twentieth century up to the 1930's and 40's the banjo featured heavily in the blues that was being played in the Border States like the Carolinas.

What we today would call country blues has its roots in this music. Unlike the fierce assault on the senses of the twelve bar blues that came up out of the Mississippi Delta, these blues were blended with the sounds of the Tennessee hill country. A meeting of the traditional Irish and Scotch ballads that were brought over by the European settlers and the music of the African slaves.

Where this music flourished the most were in the mix blood families that appeared to have the freedom to mingle with both the races and absorb and learn both styles of music. Sisters Etta Baker and Cora Phillips came from just such a family. According to family history, and the United State Census of 1850, they were a mix of Black, Native, and European bloodlines. Indeed, looking at a picture of the two sisters, one wouldn't know they were from the same race let alone blood kin.

The Music Maker Relief Foundation has released Carolina Breakdown, a CD of songs that were recorded between 1988 and 1990 in the homes of the two sisters. On occasion the tape has been left to run so you can hear them chatting before the songs. You get the feeling that you've stepped back in time to the days of house parties where neighbours would walk for miles to come sit in on a jam session that could go all night.

Cora was well into her 80's when these recordings were made, so her technique probably wasn't quite what it used to be, but her banjo and guitar playing are still smooth as silk. Listening to the sounds of the guitar and the banjo, or the two guitars, interweave is like listening to silk being spun.

Fine, intricate and satiny is the best way to describe this music. Instead of the usual mad dash that I'm accustomed to hearing on songs like "John Henry", licks are lovingly caressed and played for texture not speed. As musical styles go it's as different as night and day from the work of the blues musicians of today.

Carolina Breakdown is like a missing link in the development of America popular music. It captures in time one of the ways that the European and African roots of our culture first began to blend to form something unique to this continent. It's also more than just a historical document.

It's testimony to the fact that music is the province of the people. Originally it came out of memories of the music from whatever your country of origin. Music was the sole means of entertainment for some these communities in the Carolinas and it was the common ground between the different folks who settled in the area: it was a means of communicating

There were no record executives or producers to tell them how they should combine the seemingly disparate modes of expression, so it just happened over the course of the all night jam sessions. If the players liked the way something sounded they kept it and somehow or other it became part of the collective understanding of what made up music.

Etta Baker and Cora Phillips are masters of this musical style. Their playing on Carolina Breakdown is a joy to listen to. There is something mellowing and relaxing about this music that make you tap your toes and sway your body to the beat and rhythm. This was music that was going to be played all night long, so it wasn't in any hurry; it had all the time in the world.

Listen to this music and be transported briefly back to simpler times. Listen to this album and appreciate the amazing talent that's been hidden away from the public for years. I wasn't sure what to expect when I put this disc in the machine to give it a listen the first time and I was blown away right off the top with their version of the standard "John Henry". From then on they had me.

If you have a love of traditional blues and old time country music you will probably love this album. But there's another good reason for buying this album aside from the great music: The Music Make Relief Foundation.

These folks have produced this and countless other albums of musicians who might otherwise have been forgotten. The money made from the sale of these discs, and other ventures, is used to help support some of these people who have ended up with nothing.

If you follow the link above you'll find more information about programming and the artists who appear on their label. How often is it that we get a chance to listen to somebody's music and know that by buying their CD we are making a real difference in the quality of their life?

If all the music they produce and sell is even half as good as Etta Baker & Cora Phillips' Carolina Breakdown then they should have no problem in making good on their ambition to help keep these people going.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:09 AM | Permalink

It always seems that whenever a celebrity dies it's only a matter of time before the vultures start circling to try and pick whatever meat they can off the bones of that person's fame. Sometimes though, it amazes me how quickly they can rush something on to the market in order to cash in on the publicity surrounding a death.

Richard Pryor has only been dead since December 10th 2005 and already Universal Studios, through their Franchise Collection series, have rushed out a re-release of an old DVD The Richard Pryor - 4 ? Movie Collection. Crammed onto one disc are four movies that either star, or in one case, feature Mr. Pryor: Which Way Is Up, Brewster's Millions, Car Wash, and Bustin' Loose.

Back in December when Mr. Pryor died I wrote in an obituary the following: "Hopefully when people remember Richard Pryor it will be for his honesty and integrity, not for the mediocre movies he made that failed to make use of his talents." Like so many other comics whose gifts ran towards social satire his talent did not translate to the big screen easily.

His stand up comedy dragged America, willingly or not, into the real world of Black America. Unlike the sanitized versions that had been presented on television, Good Times and The Jeffersons, he didn't make any concessions to the mainstream audience about the manner in which White people were viewed by the African American community.

It was his work that paved the way for people like Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Chris Rock, and others. Richard Pryor proved that a black comedian could have a successful career creating material for a black audience. Unfortunately this never seemed to be understood by those making movies featuring Mr. Pryor.

The four movies included on this disc only serve to exemplify the misuse of his talents in film. Too often the humour comes across as almost stereotypical black buffoonery: simple poor black guy who somehow manages to come out on top over evil well educated white guys. It's either that or some slick con-artist like his cameo roll in Car Wash as a sleazy preacher.

Even in Bustin' Loose, which Mr. Pryor produced, falls into the trap of him playing a small time crook who gets the chance to redeem himself. Although he manages to work in a couple of good scenes where he pokes fun of liberal white guilt it doesn't serve to salvage the whole. Even the presence of the esteemed Cicely Tyson can't give this turkey wings to fly with.

The material isn'r worthy of the talents that we know lie in Richard Pryor. Which Way Is Up is a lame tale of poor farm worker who accidentally becomes involved in the struggle to unionize the labourers. The secondary plot of his character having to balance the needs of a wife and a girlfriend who he's had a child with, comes dangerously close to perpetuating the stereotype of the irresponsible black male father figure and trying to make it seem funny.

Brewster's Millions is a simple formulae film where the man (Richard Pryor) has to choose between the woman he loves and a small fortune. The simplistic plot revolves around him having to spend $30 million dollars in a month's time so that he can receive a massive inheritance. Of course the catch is that he's not allowed to tell anybody.

So the woman of his dreams thinks he's an irresponsible jerk, because he's spending money like it's going out of style. Of course there are also the nefarious white lawyers who are trying to ensure that he doesn't succeed in his task, so that the money can be funnelled into their coffers.

These movies are poor indications of the genius of Richard Pryor, and this re-issue is simply a shameful attempt to cash in on the man's name shortly after his death. If they had wanted to properly honour his work it would have been more fitting to either release one of his concert films. Live On The Sunset Strip would be a good start.

For a package that is supposed to commemorate the talents of an artist there is nothing included that gives the purchaser any information or background on Mr. Pryor. There's no mention of his struggles with Multiple Sclerosis and cocaine addiction. The later he beat, while the former eventually indirectly claimed his life.

This package of movies communicates none of the honesty and integrity that characterized his work as a stand-up comedian or actor. It would sadden me to think that people could be making judgements on the man's career based on these four films. Do yourself a favour and seek out something else as a memento or an introduction to Richard Pryor's career.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:41 AM | Permalink

According to the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration a person seeking either asylum or refugee status in Canada qualifies under one of two provisions.

The first, A Convention refugee (refers to the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.) is someone seeking to enter Canada: "who is outside of their country of nationality or habitual residence and who is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, political opinion, nationality or membership in a particular social group"

The second, Person In Need Of Protection, is a person: "in Canada whose removal to their country of nationality or former habitual residence would subject them to the possibility of torture, risk to life, or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."

It is up to the applicant in both instances to offer sufficient proof to the refugee board that any of the above conditions would apply to them if they had to return to their country of origin. There are of course provisos to these clauses to prevent their abuse. Canada, much to the surprise of certain American talk show hosts, doesn't want to find itself a haven for terrorists fleeing "persecution", will not grant such status to those "determined to be inadmissible on grounds of security, human rights violations, serious criminality or organized criminality"

Unfortunately there are a lot of grey areas in this whole situation. Obviously some of the above definitions, especially security and criminality, will depend on the claimant's country of origin. If the country is one that denies its citizens basic liberties, and the person applying for shelter is in opposition, any records obtained from their home country would show them as a criminal and security threat.

Would Canada allow in someone who had actively participated in violent acts against that government? Or would we only allow those who through no fault of their own, or who through peaceful activity found themselves if peril. In most cases it would be no to the first instance and yes to the second.

Obviously there are mitigating circumstances in both instances. A person who can prove that their acts of violence were in self-defence would probably be admitted. On the other hand a person who hasn't committed a violent act, but is proven to have financially or otherwise provided substantial support to acts of terror may not be allowed in the country.

During the Viet Nam war Canada became a safe haven for American youth seeking to elude the draft. Quite a few of them ended up becoming permanent citizens. I'm not actually certain on how that whole process worked, but I think a great many of them simply immigrated and didn't apply for refugee status. In those days it was far easier to just immigrate if you had someone to sponsor your application. (If anyone knows otherwise I would be very interested in finding out, a quick search of the web didn't reveal much of use)

None of these individuals were actually members of the American armed forces at the time of their coming to Canada. They were fleeing the prospect of becoming soldiers so they could legitimately claim to be conscientious objectors, which may have been sufficient grounds to apply for refugee status.

This is one of the major differences in the case that is currently being heard by the Federal Court of Canada in the matter of Jeremy Hinzman's appeal of the Refugee Board's decision to refuse his application for refugee status. Mr. Hinzman had been enlisted in the 82nd Airborne Division when he left the U.S. to come to Canada to avoid serving in the Iraq War.

He is not just a draft dodger, but a deserter from the American army. He has requested asylum in Canada because he fears he will face persecution in the United States for his refusal to take part in the Iraqi war. He claims that he would have considered himself to be committing a crime if he had killed anyone during the course of the war, because the war itself is illegal.

During his initial application the Refugee Board refused to allow arguments to be entered on the legality of the war. They claimed all that mattered was the circumstances Mr. Hinzman would face if he were returned to the United States. They also questioned the veracity of his claim to be a conscientious objector because he had enlisted in the armed forces.

But the biggest question of all is what constitutes persecution. According to the Refugee Board because the United States is a democracy with a justice system. That any prosecution brought against Mr. Hinzman could not be equated with persecution.

There have been two arguments raised in an effort to rebut that statement. Amnesty International claims that because Mr. Hinzman took reasonable steps to obtain exemption from combat duty on the grounds of conscientious objection, that the potential prison term he faces is unjust.

Mr. Hinzman's lawyer, who is also representing another man in the same circumstances, argued that placing his client in the hands of the American justice system would be like asking to be "thrown into the fire". In other words he is questioning the potential of his client(s) to obtain a fair trial.

While the argument presented by Amnesty International stumbles against the "why was he in the military in first place if he was a conscientious objector" question, and thus loses some validity, his lawyer's objection is worth considering. Although the mood in the United States is decidedly less pro-war then earlier, there is still sufficient sentiment in its favour that would make a fair trial a difficult proposition.

Although desertion during wartime is no longer a capital offence in the United States, the underlying emotions behind that sentence are still prevalent in the American psyche. It is taken as a betrayal of the worse kind; a rejection of your patriotic duty. Accusations of cowardliness and treachery are sure to be directed at Mr. Hinzman and any of the other young men who are now seeking asylum in Canada on these grounds.

While he can no longer be sentenced to death, the maximum sentence is five years for Mr. Hinzman, consider what his life would be like after he is released from prison. What kind of social stigma would be attached to him for the rest of his life? He will be forever known as a deserter, a traitor, and unpatriotic.

What kind of quality of life can he expect to live under those conditions? Persecution does not just come in the form of what a government can do to you directly; it can also come from the attitudes created by that government. The Bush administration has created an us or them mentality in the Untied States.

If you support the war in Iraq you are a good American, if you don't you are unpatriotic and working against the well being of your fellow citizens. What would that attitude make of a person who was in the army, but refused to go fight in this war? Especially if he says this war is illegal.

The government of the United States wouldn't need to persecute Mr. Hinzman or any of the other deserters hiding in Canada. The atmosphere they have created, aided and abetted by huge portions of the media, would accomplish it without them. They can sit back and pretend their hands are clean while Mr. Hinzman is ripped to pieces.

One of the grounds for applying for refugee status in Canada is a well-grounded fear of persecution for reasons of political opinion. Well I think it's safe to say that Mr. Hinzman will be heavily persecuted on many fronts for his political opinions. While he may not come to any physical harm, the psychological trauma to him and his family would undoubtedly be severe.

If for no other reason than that, Mr. Hinzman, and any other deserters should be given refugee status in Canada. They are not going to be welcomed back with open arms into their country of origin by any stretch of the imagination, so we should offer them a chance for a new life.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:15 AM | Permalink

I wonder if there were actually people who believed Stephen Harper when he said he was going to be different from other politicians. "We're not like those other guys, the Liberals" he implied through out his whole campaign, and in the days leading up to the election. "We are open and above board and don't stoop to political chicanery to get things done."

Usually it takes a politician at least a few months in office to succumb to the temptations of power. They make some sort of effort to live up to their promises of accountability and clean living. The Conservative Party of Canada must have set some kind of record for acting like hypocrites.

They hadn't even been given the keys to government washrooms and they've done two things for which they condemned the Liberals in the past. In fact both instances show how quickly they've learnt the lesson of political expediency taking precedence over promises and supposedly entrenched party policy.

Ever since the Conservative Party of Canada was in their first incarnation as the Reform Party, one of their major complaints has been with the Canadian Senate. The governing party appoints Senators in Canada, usually as a reward for service to the party. Our Senate has very little actual power, they might be able to delay the passing of a law, but they can't prevent anything.

The Reform Party, and now The Conservative Party of Canada, has demanded all along that Senators, if not elected by the public, at least chosen by provincial legislators, with each province being guaranteed a certain number of Senators. This, would prevent governing parties from appointing Senators willy-nilly to suit their own nefarious purposes.

One of the things they were most set against was the appointment of people to the Senate in order to offer them a position in a government's Cabinet. Many governments have done this in the past when they do not have a member elected in a province, or a region, so that they can at least have the appearance of representing that part of the country.

After nigh on twenty years of complaining about this practice, the first thing this first time governing party does is (This party had never formed a government in Canada, no matter what newspapers say about the first Conservative government in thirteen years. This is not the same political party that was elected under Brian Mulroney. That party was known as the Progressive Conservative party) that very thing.

They appoint some party hack, Michale Fortier from Quebec to the Senate so they can put him in the Cabinet. This is a guy who is quoted as saying that he didn't want to run in the election, because the time wasn't right to be involved with politics. What could have changed in less then a month?

Maybe being offered a Cabinet post without having to go to all that trouble of being elected, or actually risking getting people's approval had something to do with it. Considering that the Conservative's didn't win a single seat in Montreal and that is where M. Fortier is from, could it have been decided in advance?

Okay it looks like we're not going to get any seats in Montreal, so will you make the sacrifice of taking a Senate seat, and a place in Cabinet? You'll have to run in the next election, but by than it will be fine, everyone will have forgotten how you got in power.

Last spring the Conservative party made quite the stink when one of their members crossed the floor to join the Liberals. Belinda Stronach had lost the leadership race to Stephen Harper, and was considered very liberal on social issues. She supported same-sex marriage and was pro-choice. She had tried to work within her party and it wasn't working.

She was offered a cabinet post in the Liberal government, and more room for advancement. The timing of course was seen by the Conservatives as being the biggest betrayal, because it was the one vote that allowed the Liberals to stay in power last spring. But in some ways that makes the most sense; if you no longer support the party your with, you don't want to go into an election as a member of their caucus.

Naturally at the time, Mr. Harper condemned this behaviour as underhanded and a betrayal of the democratic principles behind elections; she had been elected a Conservative, and was now a Liberal, what would the people of her riding think. She gave the voters in her riding a chance to decide on her in this past election, and she actually increased her margin of victory as a Liberal, over what it had been as a Conservative.

So imagine everyone's surprise that David Emerson who was elected as a Liberal, in a riding where the Conservatives finished dead last, showed up at the Governor General's mansion on Monday to be sworn in as a member of the Conservative party's new Cabinet.

This was a man who during the election was calling Conservatives a party with a hidden agenda that discriminated against immigrants, (his riding is heavily immigrant) and encouraged New Democratic Party voters to vote for him in an attempt to stop the Conservatives. In his victory speech after winning his riding he promised to be vigilant in fighting the Conservatives in any infringements of civil liberties and social issues.

Now he's a Minster in their Cabinet committed to ensuring their survival as a government. Even when it comes to such issues as same ? sex marriage, which he voted for the last time, and tighter immigration laws that he threatened his constituents with if they voted Conservative.

Mr. Harper, of course, sees nothing untoward about a member of another party switching sides to come and work for him. That's totally different than someone going the other way. I just wonder why it doesn't constitute a betrayal of the people who voted for Mr. Emerson as a Liberal, nearly three to one over the Conservative candidate, and a betrayal of the democratic principles behind elections?

The Reform Party used to see themselves as some sort of anti-politician political party. We won't conduct business as usual in that corrupt Ottawa way. But now that they have finally obtained power under the name of The Conservative Party of Canada, they've set a land speed record for political hypocrisy.

They haven't even opened their first session of parliament and they already look like the opportunistic liars and cheats they used to accuse the Liberals of being. They said it was because the Liberals were venal and corrupt from long years in power with no one to challenge them. This Conservative Party has never been in power and has already proven them selves to be as arrogant and cynical as the Liberals ever were.

That doesn't really inspire much trust in anything they say does it? I think we would be wise not to give them too much time in power, for their own good. They wouldn't want to become just another political party now would they?

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:37 AM | Permalink

It's only been three months plus a week since I started work on the "novel". It just feels like an eternity, but I've finally reached the point where I can say with confidence that the end is nigh: of volume one.

I had taken some time off from the writing of the thing for a chunk of December and January. Oh I didn't ignore it totally or anything, just kept it on the backburner stewing away while I wrote blog after blog. After churning out the first 70,000 words during the frenetic frenzy of National Novel Writing Month 2005 last November I needed to distance myself from the process to see if I still cared enough to finish.

I've had many initial impulses in my life for novels and stories that have just petered out from either lack of interest on my part, or because they obviously weren't going anywhere. It took me a long time to learn that a storyline for the characters to follow was not just conventional, but extremely helpful from an author's standpoint.

Having goal in mind does give you something to focus on in the long run; a place for your characters that you've forced marched since the first page to end their journey. If nothing else it's only common courtesy. Otherwise they could find themselves wandering around in circles and never going anywhere. At least this way if they're wandering around in circles they have a destination that you're working them towards.

Anyway, having left everyone stranded in Chapter twenty-five for a while, only checking in periodically to write a hundred words or so to see how they were doing. I decided I needed to make some decisions. First I had to figure out where the hell in the story I was and how much longer I figured it was going to take them to get to "the end".

I was standing at 89,000 words and not even half way through. My choices were to compress the rest of the book to fit into another 50,000 words, or make it two volumes. If I chose to do one volume it would involve a radical change in the style I had developed to that point in order to speed the pace up.

It would also mean leaving out some interesting character development and sub plots that I still wanted to play with. I like the relationship that was starting to develop between two of my characters and it would have to be ruthlessly cut from the story if I went the one volume route.

There's no two volume DVD author's version when it comes to novels. What doesn't stay in the hard drive is never recovered for purchase by a few extra dollars next year at Christmas. If I were going to make this a one-volume affair I would have to go back to the beginning and ruthlessly cut out things I had loved writing in the first place.

In the end there really wasn't that much of decision to be made. It was going to be a two-volume set. Once I had reached that conclusion everything started to flow again. Three chapters were banged out in a matter of a week, and what looks to be the final chapter of this book has been started, so the end is most definitely nigh.
Of course the temptation exists to just keep writing. It's a far nicer prospect than the one I'm actually facing in the coming weeks of having to now go back and proof read this sucker and edit it into some sort of shape to send off to a publisher.

I've barely looked at any of the stuff I've written since it went down on paper in November so have no idea what shape it is in. I'm not suffering from any illusions though, so I'm sure that I've a good chunk of rewriting to do before I would even consider letting a publisher glance at page one.

It's been one thing to offer people the chance to read the first draft online (that offer still stands for those interested, just let me know and I'll e-mail you the link) if they so desire; they know that it's only a first draft full of all sorts of weird spellings and inconsistencies. (At one point I had called one character by three separate names and had renamed one of the races of people without noticing) But it is another thing altogether to send something off to a publisher.

I'd be lying if I said that I would be disappointed if I couldn't at least get someone to read the whole manuscript, I'd also be lying if I didn't admit that I write for the purposes of publication. I want to see my work between the covers of a book on the shelves of a bookstore.

Sure I write because I love to and have not much choice in the matter. Any day when I can't write anything is a disaster and I feel less than complete. It's a compulsion and an obsession as far as I am concerned so I'm going to write no matter what.

This does not mean I wouldn't mind making some money off it. It's damn hard work for me sometimes and it would be great if I got some return on that labour. Of course in my writer's pride I also think it's better than "most of the crap out there" so if they can get published there's no reason in the world my book can't.

I know very little about the publishing industry except for all the negative stuff that everybody hears all the time: inbred, conservative, and so on. But that doesn't seem to put a dent in my optimism (or naivety take your pick) that one-way or another this sucker will get published.

I don't mean self published either. I have nothing against the idea of self-publishing, I already make use of Lulu.com for a bunch of materials, but I want this book to stand on bookshelves in bookstores, rubbing shoulders with the authors I've reviewed. She deserves to be happy and get a little piece of the spotlight.

Once I have her all nicely edited and prepared for submission I'll start sending out the query letters requesting an audience for her with powers that be at a variety of publishing houses. I'd rather not play the game of trying to get an agent at first, because to me that's just another person who will try and figure out if they can make money from me. One of those is enough for now.

Perhaps it sounds a little like I'm cheating turning the book into two volumes, and believe me I'm wondering that myself. But you know what I'm finding out, is that those thoughts haven't done anything to diminish my sense of accomplishment. I've started and finished the first draft of a book.

So what if it doesn't mean I'm done with the story, now that I know I can finish one I know I can finish the second part without a problem. Maybe they will never get published except through my own means, that won't take anything away from the face that I created a world, populated it with people I like, and told a part of the story of their lives.

That makes me feel pretty damn good about myself.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:16 AM | Permalink

That's it. I've fuckin' had it; enough's enough. I suppose everybody has a saturation point and I think I've just about reached mine. What am I on about now you ask? Well just about everything if you really want to know.

It can be pretty much whittled down to what's been in the papers lately. War, war, and just for an alternative how about some talk about a new war. Of course if you want a change in diet from war there's always religion, which usually leads to war so you might as well just see above.

There are the daily reports from Iraq, or if you're really unlucky, about Iraq from the folk safely back home not getting shot at behind their podiums. We can win the war in Viet Nam; oh I'm sorry that would be Iraq. We will only bring the troops home when the job is done not a moment earlier.

How do you know when that happens? Anyone figured that out yet? Does the body count have to fall below a certain level first, or is it when the number of troops that you've got left on the ground has dropped too far. How many lives were budgeted to be lost in advance? " Well if we want to take on Iran afterwards we can only lose so many"?

Iran is the new war by the way. "Can't rule out the military option" is every one's favourite phrase this weekend. It will be easy; just change all those q's to n's and were set.

Nobody pays attention to the names, as long as they sound Arabic nobody will notice that it's the same speech you gave about Iraq two and half years ago. Nuclear weapons ? weapons of mass destruction; what's the difference? Not much really, or at least, not so anybody's going to notice.

Anyway think of how easy it will be. Right next door to Iraq, all we have to do is just cross over the border and we're there. The navy and the air force are getting bored; they haven't had the chance to blow anything up from the sky in a while. The sailor types are just itching to launch more of those tomahawk cruise missiles and I'm sure the air force is looking at having to spend some of its budget if it wants to buy more toys next year.

Give them some new targets for goodness sakes!

Oh and hey, remember Afghanistan? Yeah that was the place the war on terror started, our first victory. Except we still haven't won that one because people are still getting killed over there pretty frequently by those guys we defeated.

The Taliban are still out there in the mountains. They come out of their caves periodically to kill a bunch of people and remind them that if the NATO troops ever leave they'll be running the country again in less than two months. But we won that war didn't we? Didn't we?

If that's not bad enough reading about all of that every single day, there's the ongoing war on terror in North America to curl your toes. The President of the United States has no problem authorizing illegal wiretaps on anyone who might be a security threat. I want to know who makes the list and what constitutes a security threat?

Twenty years ago I was considered too much of a security risk to work at the G-8 conference in Toronto Ontario. There was a pretty picture taken of me in front of the American consulate in the early 1980's protesting the testing of cruise missiles in Canada. I guess that made me too dangerous to hand out press releases to journalists.

I'd guess you wouldn't want to phone Cindy Sheehan up right about now and make any jokes about where she wants the dynamite delivered. Is their list of "Dangerous Subversives" going to be along the lines of Nixon's "Enemy List"? (If so, there's going to be a lot of competition to get on it. What kind of leftist are you if you couldn't get on Bush's "Subversive List). You know the one that had people like Bill Cosby and Warren Beatty on it; threats to America each and everyone of them. (Well maybe they are, but for different reasons than Nixon's people thought)

Of course nobody's going to have to worry about an invasion from Canada now. The border is going to be patrolled by Blackhawk Helicopters and fighter jets. That's good, so now when they see a possible terrorist crossing the Peace Bridge they can just blow him and any fellow travelers away with a rocket attack.

That there's the whole anti-Muslim thing going on that's starting to stick in my craw. Okay some of them are damned scary, and nobody, and I mean nobody, has the right to randomly blow up innocent civilians no matter how justified they think they are. Just because it's being done by bombs from the sky doesn't legitimize it any more then if it's dynamite strapped to some yahoo's body.

The thing is though that the rest of the world has pissed on the Muslims since their inception. It started with the Crusaders and has been going on ever since. "Death To the Infidels" was something that was shouted from as many Christian mouths as Saracen.

They tried to be nice, they let Christians and Jews live under their rule and practice their beliefs. They used to be a damn site more tolerant of Jews than the Christians were, just check out Muslim Spain if you want verification of that little fact.

But you keep pushing people too far and you're going to create the situation we find ourselves in today. It's sort of been lost in the shuffle that the Scandinavian countries have been recently contemplating passing laws prohibiting parts of the Muslim dress code, or enacting legislation limiting Islamic immigration.

Muslim people have been treated like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe by our erstwhile allies in Europe since the end of World War Two. For some reason there was a serious shortage of able bodied man power at the end of that little set too, so most of Western Europe was more than willing to open their borders to "guest workers".

Some of these guests have been there for two generations but will never be allowed to become citizens or allowed to vote in the country where they born. If it hadn't been for these folk I'd like to see how well off the European Union would be now. In Germany they have an affectionate name for Turkish guests: cockroaches.

Like I said I'm not excusing the behaviour of any of the bomb-toting cowards who won't at least stand up and fight for what they believe in. I've more respect for a soldier who fights his enemy face to face, even if I don't believe in what they are fighting for, than any of these "martyrs". (Although martyrs have always pissed me off: "Oh it's okay I can do it myself, I'm used to it" becomes "Oh look at me I've just blown myself up to kill some women and kids, aren't I special?" real fast in my opinion. And vice versa.)

But, I hate to say it, what really has made me so tired of it all, to the point of having to write this post or cry for a week, is the predictability of it all. Something happens in the world and you know before anyone says anything what everybody is going to say.

Right, left, centre, whatever or whoever can always be counted on to say the same things over and over again. So very few people sound like they thing anymore. My opinion is decided by my politics not what I feel personally.

I can never agree with George Bush even if he's correct because he's a Republican and a Christian. Or I can never agree with Al Gore because he's a godless Democrat. I know those are pretty simplistic examples but you know what I mean.

Hell I'm supposed to be left of centre I suppose, but that's only because I believe if we're going to have governments the least they could do is look after the people who elected them. I don't mean their corporate sponsors either, I mean the people who live in their country and are just trying to make do the best they can.

I've never understood what's so wrong with making sure everybody has a decent education, a place to live, and enough food to eat. Governments don't seem to be good for anything else, so the least they could do are those few things. If that makes me a socialist or worse in some people's eyes, so be it.

But good lord the crap that comes out of people's mouths who I'm supposed to be politically allied with is just as much a conditioned reflex as the stuff that comes out of a conservative Christian's mouth. It's like everybody has a switch they flip which shuts off their brain and ears so they can talk without being interrupted.

Okay, I'm done. I think the pressure gauges have stopped red lining now, and I can go back to being sort of calm and rational for a while. This world is a pretty spectacular place and part of its charm is the diversity of thought, opinion, and belief. We all need to take more time to appreciate it, including me.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:52 AM | Permalink

Everybody knows what an oxy-moron is right? The deliberate formation of one word out of two contradictory words for effect: bittersweet or something similar along those lines. Than there are those oxy morons that we'd have to call accidentally ironic: Military Intelligence is an old favourite.

Those words aren't normally polar opposites, but through their associations, or through our experiences of them, they have come to gain a meaning that is unintentionally sarcastic. In most cases their commentary is tinged with bitterness and have a certain amount of cynicism invested in them.

One of my new favourites in that category has to be the phrase affordable housing. There's such promise in those two words; the implications being that there is a house or place of residence out there that's within everyone's means. I know for myself the first time I heard that phrase I had high hopes that it meant housing units within my price range.

I wasn't silly enough to believe that it referred to anything other than rental properties when it came to my financial situation. People on fixed incomes have to be realistic about their means and what is possible. It wasn't until I began perusing apartment for rent advertisements that alarm bells started to go off.

95% of the listings that I looked at were well beyond the amount that the government considers sufficient to cover the shelter costs of two disabled people. What were most galling were the display ads proclaiming Kingston's (Kingston Ontario, Canada where I live) best affordable housing. Checking the advertised rents showed that they were a minimum of around 100 dollars more a month than our shelter allowance.

In fact, I wondered who would actually consider some of those prices affordable. Not someone who is on minimum wage or even slightly higher is for certain. Was this title of affordable anything to do with what people could actually afford, or was it a means for a large company to prove they are deserving of building more rental units.

I decided to do some checking into what the definition of affordable housing is as used in this context, According to what I've been able to ascertain, in Ontario affordable housing refers to the average price of a unit within it's category. So if the average price of a one bedroom apartment in Kingston is $750.00 per month plus utilities, it is considered affordable

At one point in time Ontario was home to some of the better tenant protection legislation in Canada. Each year a fixed amount would be set, usually in line with any cost of living increase, that landlords were allowed to ask for as a rent increase. They weren't allowed to raise rents when an apartment came vacant, unless it was time for the annual increase.

If a landlord had done extensive renovations that upgraded the quality of the facility they could apply for an additional amount in the form of a one-time increase. Of course rent control only applied to units that were below a certain dollar amount per month, recognising the need to put a ceiling on rents for the poor, while letting the landlords still rent out luxury residences that cost an arm and a leg. There was probably some sort of allowable ratio between the two, to ensure that a landlord supplied both types of units.

But all of that became history in 1995 when a very right wing version of the Conservative party took power. Aside from gutting social services and programs they also scraped the whole rent control system, allowing landlords incredible carte blanche in the setting of rents.

While annual increase were still limited, any time a unit came available it was now possible to raise the rent as much as you felt like. When this new feature was combined with easier means for landlords to evict tenants; (including the excuse of needing to do any renovations that might require tenants to vacate), and easier access to over the limit rent increases, rents in Ontario cities quickly sky-rocketed.

According to the theory behind this loosening of regulations, landlords would be encouraged to build more rental units, and supply and demand would keep rents down to acceptable levels. The problem was that landlords decided to work the other side of the street of supply and demand. By not building more units they were able to charge high rents knowing people would be desperate enough for somewhere to live they would pay what was demanded.

In smaller cities like Kingston another scenario developed. One developer is able to decide the average cost of an apartment in the city by owning a huge chunk of the units available for rent. As the majority of the apartments they own have been built in the years since the gutting of our rent control system, they have been able charge what ever rent they want for new apartments.

Each time a vacancy came up in an older building the rent would be elevated to match that of an equivalent unit in a new building. The implications of this go far beyond just what rents people in Kingston are paying now. When levelsof government meet to talk about creating more housing units they look at the average price per unit, the affordable rent, and use that as the benchmark for new units.

Instead of finding out what people can really afford to pay in rent, and establishing a base in that manner; they are looking at what people are forced to pay in order to live with a semblance of dignity. It used to be a rule of thumb that one should never pay more than thirty percent of your wages on shelter; it would cost that other 70% to live properly.

Now people are fortunate if the balance has not shifted to the extent that they pay 70% of their income on shelter and are forced to scramble to try and feed themselves and have a semblance of a life. There is no such thing as affordable housing anymore; it is a myth perpetuated by governments more interested in appearances than actually doing anything.

Kingston Ontario has a population of 161,000 according to the welcome signs on the highway. We have the lowest vacancy rate of any city in Canada and the average price for a two bedroom apartment, the affordable cost, is somewhere over $800 a month plus utilities. Once you move to the larger cities, that's the price of a single roomed apartment with a bathroom and kitchen attached.

While recent headlines have trumpeted money being made available for building geared to income housing (housing where rents are not allowed to exceed 30% of the tenants income and whose occupancy is restricted to those below a certain level of earnings or on fixed incomes) nothing is made mention of the fact there is no budget to maintain the ones in existence.

At present the waiting list for a one bedroom geared to income apartment is five years in Kingston Ontario, and drops to one year for a two bedroom. The majority of this housing has been allowed to degenerate to slum due to insufficient funds to both maintain and secure the premises.

They also have fast become welfare ghettos where people without hope are piled one on top of each other and quickly stop caring about their existence. The majority of the units are placed in isolated, out of the way areas of town, further increasing the ghetto mentality and prevents occupants from having easy access to the rest of the city.

Even if you are eligible to live in one of these units you are somehow expected to survive in the open market for whatever period the waiting list demands, and than be forced to live in unsafe and unpleasant conditions. None of this is conducive to providing individuals with much hope that conditions are actually going to get any better when it comes to the issue of safe, accessible and affordable housing.

I'm sure that compared to conditions in other countries there's very little to complain about, and that there would be people in the world who would be grateful to have what little that's available here. The thing is we are supposedly one of the wealthiest nations in the world and this shouldn't be an issue at all.

I know there are plenty who would disagree with me, that's obvious because of the state of things, but I would think that a government's priorities should be focused on the health and well being of its citizens, not how they can save a few bucks at the expense of the least fortunate.

I suppose until that time comes we will have too live in a world where terms like affordable housing and military intelligence are the verbal equivalent of slipping on a banana peel: funny to watch but lousy to experience.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:26 AM | Permalink

My grandfather was born in 1900 on this date, which of course means if he were still alive he would be 106. Unfortunately for me he died in 1985, which still means he had a good run for his money. He was pretty much ready to go; he had blacked out one night getting out of bed and had fallen and broken his arm. He never came home from the hospital, dying a few days after being admitted.

People can say all they want about his blood pressure and strokes etc. but as far as I'm concerned he went because he'd had enough. His body was betraying him; my grandmother was in remission from Leukemia and I know he didn't want to be left alone; and he was tired.

Eighty-five years is a long time for anyone to hang around in this world, and it's even longer when you've spent a lot of your life struggling in poverty. Narciss (Arthur) Marcus was the son of Romanian Jewish immigrants and was born in Montreal. He grew up in the Jewish ghetto on St. Urbain St. like so many other more famous compatriots.

Supposedly his grandfather had been an ultra religious rabbi, but somewhere along the line the family seems to have stepped back from their faith. Even as a child it appears my grandfather spent very little time in the synagogue. The family's life in Europe seems to change according to what e version of the story the person your talking to knows.

But some of the more consistent facts are that my mother's grandfather spent time in Paris in the 1800s, which is where he learnt French. He had also been a lamp lighter in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, before coming to North America, and they had had to flee Europe because my he had stabbed a Cossack during a pogrom. (My mother claims that this story is questionable because she was never told it, but both my brother and I heard it, so that's good enough for us.)

However it happened, the Marcus family ended up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal was a common destination for Jews from Romania. They differed from a lot of the other Jewish immigrants in that they were usually more educated, urban instead of rural, and inclined to politics. Like so many other immigrant groups there was a hierarchy among Jews that was invisible to outsiders.

One of my grandfather's favourite stories, which he loved to repeat in front of my grandmother while holding her hand and beaming, was to recall what his family had said when he announced his intentions of marrying her: " Remember to hold your head high, you are a Romanian, they're just Pollacks" At which my grandmother would chime in and add: "The only thing lower than a Pollack was a Litvack." (Lithuanian Jew)

My grandfather had been thirty-one when he married Bertha Banks, which in those days was quite late in life, and had until that time led, judging by his descriptions, an eventful life. Supposedly it started when he was two years old, which was his age the day he wandered away from home to go to the fish market.

He stayed fairly close to home after that until he was sixteen and he tried to enlist in the army underage. He was actually in the army for one night, until his mother found out what had happened and went down and hauled him home. Although at the time he must have been disappointed and embarrassed, I'm fairly sure that in latter years he probably didn't regret missing out on the horrors of the trenches too much.

He always used to joke about helping the Bronfmans make their first million (Seagram's Whisky) during the twenties. He never gave out too many details, but from what he did tell us it was obvious that he and his brother Dave would fill the trunk of Dave's car with whisky and drive it through the Quebec backroads and over into Vermont during prohibition in the States.

I still remember him making comments about actually preferring the bathtub gin that people were making to the bottled whisky he was carrying down to sell to them. I don't think they were part of anything larger than just bootlegging the whisky out of their car's trunk, although he did have a couple of stories he used to tell us that were based out of Chicago. Just makes me wonder what he was doing there in the twenties.

When he married he immediately settled down in an effort to support his wife and the two girls who would be born in the first four years of their marriage. But this was the Depression of the 1930's and jobs were scarce. In 1933, when my mother was born, they were living in downtown Toronto, in one room with a bathroom down the hall.

During the thirties the family moved from Windsor to Montreal and back to Toronto again as my grandfather hunted for work. Like so many others they were saved by the war and the need for people to work in the factories who weren�t able to fight for one reason or another.

It was after the war that my grandfather started the career that would see him through to the end of his working days; working in men's clothing. He was never part of the shmutah (rag trade, or cheap clothing manufacture) business like so many of his brother's in law, nor made the money they did. He climbed the ladder from shop assistant to finally owning his own franchise. He must have owned the last Dunn's Tailor shop in Eastern Canada (Many years latter I remember being astounded to see a Dunn's tailor store in downtown Vancouver)

It was around the time that he was just taking over his franchise in the west end of Toronto that I entered the picture. Since I was born in Ottawa, and my grandfather worked six days a week I have no memories of him until my family moved to Toronto in 1966 when I was five.

It's funny how you associate certain people and certain stages of your life; with my grandfather the association is divided into childhood when he and my grandmother living in a two-bedroom apartment in the Jewish neighbourhood of Bathurst and Eglington in Toronto, and adolescence when they bought a condominium out in the far suburbs.

I'll always remember the smells from that first building; the combinations of a variety of things being cooked; as the smells of comfort. They were big solid apartments that I remember as being as fascinating. Whenever I read a story that takes place in an older apartment, it's this apartment that I visualize in my minds eye.

The el shaped hall way that led off the living room down to the bedroom and the bathroom; the square kitchen where the smells of baked chicken, kugel, chopped liver, and matzah ball soup always hung in the air; the living room/dining room which could feel vast when I was alone, but small and cramped on Sunday nights when we were crammed in their with my aunt an uncle for dinner.

I remember a conversation I had with my brother a number of years back. I had just told him about how really rotten my childhood had been. He had taken a couple of weeks to absorb it, but when he did, he phoned me back and we talked about things. One thing he brought up was that apartment.

He asked me if I remembered spending our summers there. I had replied of course, and he talked about how it always felt like such a relief to be there and to get away from our parents. Thinking back on it, I realize it was one of the few places I felt safe during my childhood.

I knew my grandparents loved me, you never doubted that with them. It wasn't anything they said, but the way they treated us. They didn't spoil us, nor did they let us get away with murder, but I was never afraid of my grandfather even when he'd get angry about something.

Perhaps that's what grandparents the world over do for their grandchildren, make them feel special, but for me what was neither of them scared me. I don't think I realized until recently how significantly my father had terrified me as a child.

Thinking about the times as a teenager when I would visit him after my parents had separated, and realizing that even as a young adult I was terrified of being alone with him. If it was that bad then, I must have spent my childhood in a permanent state of fear.

It's no wonder that staying with my grandparents was looked on with such relief. Of course there were other benefits as well; not the least being the wealth of expertise and experience my grandfather had in subjects not taught in schools.

We learned how to shoot craps, and notice if the dice were "loaded", weighted to fall in certain way; the variety of ways in which poker could be played and how cards could be marked; the intricacies of shooting pool (it's very embarrassing to be beaten by a man who can barely see to the end of his pool cue, but can get around a table through memory and feel)

But what sticks out most in mind were the family outings to the racetrack. My grandfather loved horses, not just the betting on them. He thought they were the most marvellous animals in the world. He loved to go down to the paddock before each race and look at the horses.

That's not to say he didn't know how to bet on them, because he did. He probably had just as good an eye for a winner as any professional trainer. That was the other reason for going to see the horses parade before being led out onto the track. I asked him once what he was looking for but he couldn't really say. It was just the eye of experience, and knowing what had gone into making a winner in the past that allowed him insight into what he was looking at.

Of course he didn't pick winners every time, no one does. There are so many variables that come into play; track conditions, will the horse get blocked by another, and a thousand other little details which the better has no control over. What he could do was see the horse with the best chance of winning based on the horses in that particular race on that particular day.

When he was no longer able to see the odds board in the infield he stopped going to the races. We should have known that was the beginning of the end. When he was eighty and his appendix ruptured he almost died, and even though he recovered he was never the same afterwards.

But what really destroyed him was when my grandmother got Leukemia. He would spend his nights at my mother's apartment downtown, and than go to sit in the hospital for the day, only leaving when visiting hours ended. When they filled her body with radiation in an attempt to kill the cancerous cells and almost killed her he turned into an old man in front of our eyes.

She survived to have a remission but he never recovered, and it was only a year latter that he died. By the time he died his hearing was almost gone, he could barely see in spite of the numerous lens implant surgeries he had, and his body wouldn't allow him to walk with comfort anymore.

If one were to measure his life in terms of finances and other material means, it was one just like millions of other people. I'm also certain that there are lots of people whose grandfather meant a lot of the same things to them that mine did to me. My grandfather would have been 106 today and has been dead for twenty-one years. I still miss him.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:06 AM | Permalink

The tradition of the solo troubadour dates back probably to pre renaissance Europe when performers armed with a lute and a song would woo their ladyloves with extravagant words praising their charms. Traveling musicians roaming the countryside have been the subject of many a story and song themselves, until the image has obtained a kind of inherent romanticism.

Balladeers have also served to disseminate information and tell the heroic stories of the realm. So it wasn't too great a leap for singers too make the jump to political activism in the early days of the fights to organize labour unions in North America. Men like Joe Hill penned many a song that was sung at union rallies to raise the spirits of the miners or factory workers who were trying to fight for living wages and safe working conditions.

That the mill owners and government officials found it necessary to have Joe Hill framed and killed on a murder charge shows just how much they meant to people. In the days of the Great Depression people like Wood Guthrie would travel the country singing songs to the people in the work camps, attempting to keep spirits up and to rally them to fight for a better life. .

Although as the years have passed the popularity of the solitary person on stage with a guitar has dwindled, with the hay day being the early 1960's, every so often a new one is thrown up that strikes a chord with audiences everywhere.
In the 1980's it was Billy Bragg. After spending three years in a band called Riff Raff and a three month stint in the British Army, Billy embarked on a solo career with just him and his guitar. Inspired by the punk ethos advocated by The Clash, and the emotional guitar work of old blues players, he became the quintessential troubadour of his times.

Eschewing the lavish rock star life style of big venues and big bucks, he embarked on tours of pubs, church halls, and mining pitheads. His songs didn't mince any words; re-working the old union organizing songs of the twenties and the thirties to reflect the realities of Margaret Thatcher's England. In the "us against them" world she created, songs like "Which Side Are You On" were as relevant to the times as they had been in the Depression.

An unabashed socialist, Billy advocated the rights of the workers and the downtrodden in an increasingly conservative world. Which made his commercial success all the more surprising. With no marketing specialists, and public relations consultants his 1983 EP Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy sold a 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom alone.

But what set, and continues to set him apart to this day, from other "political" musicians was the obvious sincerity behind his music and the lack of contradiction between what he said and how he lived. When your touring consists of climbing in the back of a beat up Volvo station wagon with your guitars, amplifier and manager, there's something a lot more genuine about you than the guys staying at the Hilton with their entourages.

What's more is Billy wrote adult love songs. As he put it in an interview he was looking to write songs that "talked about love without saying I love you, but showed the forms love can take". Songs like "Love Gets Dangerous", and "Love Lives Here" aren't designed to get you drooling over the performer, and have themes other than teen lust or boy meets girl, loses girl to other boy and whines about her.

In some ways his love songs are probably more subversive than his political material for that reason. He actually makes his audience think about relationships and the emotional interplay between people. Dangerous stuff that, elevating the subjects of a pop love song into real people and not just objects to be won or lost in a competition.

If Billy ever needed any official stamp of approval for his credentials as a singer of integrity; as if anybody could have doubted that after hearing him just once, it came in the 1990s. He was asked to front up a special project involving unfinished songs left behind by Woody Guthrie when he died.

Woody's daughter Nora approached Billy to write the music for some of the 2500 songs that Woody had only written lyrics to. Collaborating with the band Wilco, English fiddler Eliza Carthy, blues man Corey Harris, and singer Natalie Merchant, Billy recorded two albums of these never heard Guthrie tunes. Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998, and Mermaid Avenue Volume II in 2000.

It has been more then twenty years since the release of Billy's initial EP, so there are bound to be a lot of people out there who have missed out on the Billy Bragg experience. Yep Rock Records is doing the world a huge service by not only re releasing early titles like Brewing Up With Billy Bragg and Talking Poetry To The Taxman, but also putting together an elaborate box set entitled Billy BraggVolume 1

This set includes seven CDs of music, 2 DVDs of previously unavailable concert footage, and the usual biographical booklet. It's one of the most complete retrospectives of any artists early years that I have seen in ages. Since it showed up at my door I've spent the ensuing hours listening to songs that, for me anyway, recalls a time when it felt like music could make a real difference.

In Billy's voice I hear overtones of Joe Strummer and in his guitar the urgency and immediacy of punk. There's nothing decorous about Billy, he's right there in your face. He still has the power to force you to have an opinion on subjects. The material may not be as topical as it once was, but the attitude behind it remains as relevant today as it was yesterday.

Just as listening to old songs about the Depression years written by Woody Guthrie carry an emotional impact, Billy Bragg's songs about the conflicts between the miners and Margaret Thatcher transcend their topic. His songs about soldiers returning from the Falkland's Island war can just as easily be about soldiers dealing with coming home after serving their rotation in Iraq. War and its horrors don't change just because the venue and technology have shifted.

The DVD concert footage, while some of the sound quality isn't the best, are fascinating period pieces. Watching him perform behind the Iron Curtin in East Germany and Lithuania in the mid eighties singing about workers rights causes you to reflect on both what we know about the repressive natures of those regimes, what their reactions to genuine unions was like, and the events that we know will happen in about five years time.

I found myself looking at the audience members and wondering how many of them would be marching in the streets of Berlin in 1989 as part of the revolution that saw the collapse of the Soviet regimes. History is a funny thing sometimes and although I dearly love Billy's music and songs, some of the comments he made during one of his concerts in the DDR were so politically na�ve that they made me wince.

I couldn't help myself from thinking that if the people in his audiences tried to act upon any of the ideals or ideas expressed in his songs, they would find themselves in a jail cell. It doesn't detract from the truth and integrity of his music, and I hope that he to was aware of the situation and his words were chosen to accommodate his circumstances.

Not that he ever endorsed the policies of the regime, but something about it just made me feel uncomfortable. Of course I also wondered if the authorities had listened to the songs he was going to play in advance, because some of the things his music advocates would not have gone over well in with politburo members.

Those concerns are offset by the quality of his performances. I've never had the opportunity to see Billy live, and probably won't, and these concerts do a wonderful job of communicating the power and passion of a Billy Bragg performance. You get an idea of his integrity when listening to him, but it's only when you see him perform that you understand the depth of his commitment to what he's singing about.

Two of the highlights of the DVDs for me were a BBC interview/feature done on Billy in the mid eighties after he was somewhat established. It was well done and you gain a better perspective of the man and his ideals. I can't imagine anything similar being done on North American television at the time or even to today.

The other piece that held me, probably for personal reasons, was a short clip of him singing in Spanish in small hall in Nicaragua. This was in 1985, during the height of the American backed terrorist campaign in that country, and the small crowd was a mixture of people. A couple of soldiers, some farmers, and others gathered to hear some English guy whose songs they wouldn't have been able to understand.

I have no idea what song he was singing, but it was obviously one the audience knew because they were all singing along. Watching Billy on stage belting out this song, with a huge grin on his face, summed up all his finest qualities as an artist and a human being. He genuinely loves what he does and is able to communicate that felling and belief in spite of language barriers.

Billy Bragg Volume 1 will be in stores on February 21 2006. Billy himself will be landing in North America in March. His first gig will be March 11th in Toronto Canada, which means it won't be a wasted flight if he gets turned back at the border entering the States. Since he's booked to play at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin Texas let's hope that doesn't happen.

All things going to plan he'll be doing a two week tour of the United States to support the reissue of the four discs and this great box set. If you don't own anything by this singular recording artist, than I'd highly recommend Billy Bragg Volume 1 It's a remarkable tribute to a genuinely unique performer and individual.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:41 AM | Permalink

There's nothing like having your own ignorance brought to your attention to make you start thinking of the implications of that which caused your lack of knowledge. The first thing I do after being corrected or being informed is try and figure out why it was I didn't know that information.

Usually it something as trivial as not having been exposed to the knowledge; I can live with thay, because it is something that can be easily corrected. Other times it's because of prejudice on my part, where I've let my political beliefs colour my judgement. That pisses me off a lot, because I like to think that I don't let ideology cloud my thinking.

But as far as I'm concerned neither one of those are a big deal when compared to third reason. Either studying or giving other ideas closer consideration easily corrects those two problems. No the one that bothers me the most is when my ignorance is born of circumstances created by the forces of history and other events beyond my control.

I suppose I should cite an example in order to clarify what I'm talking about. The simplest thing to do would be to use the circumstances that made me think of this.

For the past few months I have been a member of a Yahoo group called Epic India. This is a group that was formed to discuss the works of the Indian author Ashok Banker. Mr. Banker has taken upon himself the mammoth task of creating modern English adaptations of all the great Epic stories of India.

He has finished work on his first effort, a six volume retelling of the three thousand year old Ramayana (all six volumes are in the hands of the publishers more or less, with volume five in the stores now and six to be released in the near future) His next project, which he has already begun work on, is to be a ten volume retelling of The Mahabharata.

In a recent e-mail to the group Ashok gave us a link to see a map of what he said was somewhere named Bharat during the time period of The Mahabharata. Being the observant fellow I am, I noticed the inclusion of the word Bharat within the title of the epic. Hmm I wondered, is there a connection, and if so what?

Bharat is the Indian word for India. India is a mispronunciation of Sindhu, which was the name of the great river that the British mispronounced �Indus� and later adopted as the country�s name, India �Maha means �great�. So the epic�s name literally means �Great Bharata�� Ashok Banker letter 2006

Hands up everybody who is not of Indian heritage who knew that the British had renamed the country by mispronouncing the name of a river? It's things like this that have inspired Mr. Banker's attempts to retell the stories of India from an Indian perspective instead of the one that dominates the history books of the world.

In an interview he gave in August 2005 he said: "Yes, of course, I wish to reclaim Indian history. Not only for Indians, but for all to read� I'm merely staking my claim to a right which has unjustly been denied me and other Indians ever since the East India Company banned the translation of Sanskrit and other edicts and scriptures into English two hundred years ago."

This of course got me thinking of all the people's throughout the world who have had the same thing happen. Whose name has been taken away from them either accidentally or as a deliberate policy. The most obvious example for North Americans is the people who were here before the Europeans showed up.

Those people, who we now lump together under the title of First Nations instead of the original misnomer of Indians, were never a single bloc of people as Hollywood and history books would have us believe. The various language groups and people's were as distinct from each other as Germans are from French and Italians from Russian.

How many countries around the world has the pattern been repeated. People living in a country that carries a name bearing little or no relationship to who and what they are. It's no coincidence that almost the first thing that most African nations did upon achieving independence from their colonial overseers was changing their names.

The inheritance of the arbitrary dissecting of Africa amongst the colonial powers has been the distribution of peoples outside their traditional tribal territories. This has led to some of the worst incidences of mass murder in recent years. How many of us can claim to know where these people's homelands were prior to them being displaced?

We live in a world composed of huge lies. We see everything through the filter of history that was written by the conquerors. Even though we are aware of this, as a society we make little attempt to adjust our attitudes and feelings of superiority.

"Why should we care about others when we are the best" is the attitude that trickles down to us from our leadership. Our God, our lifestyle, our way of choosing leaders, our everything is so much better than anything they could possibly have. Look at how many of them want to come here, to the "Land Of Opportunity".

Well of course there's been immigration. Those countries have been the scene of so much poverty caused by the exploitation of their resources and labour force during colonial periods that they are only now beginning to recover. Perhaps you need to start watching something besides CNN if you haven't noticed that countries like India have become economic powers in the last few years.

Why is it that so many of us cling to the misconceptions of the past? What is it that we are so afraid of that we must bluster on about being the best of everything? Or even worse, expect everyone to be like us. What does it really mean when our leaders say things like, our values can be an example to the world?

Why is it whenever I hear someone use the word values I have the feeling they want to impose their way of thinking on the rest of the world? They never say what those values are, but everyone assumes its what they personally believe in, so that's okay. The whole world should be just like me.

What is so wrong with people being different? Why can't we just accept that others believe in different things than us and stop trying to impose our way of life on them? Whether it's extremist Muslims, Christians, Hindi, Capitalists, Jews or Communists, none of them seem to understand that our diversity is what makes humans so unique.

Instead of trying to fit everybody into one mould, we should be celebrating what we can offer each other. Even within our own culture there is diversity of belief, and opinion that makes our lives more interesting. If all of us thought the same, this site would be damn boring.

When we continue on with the past traditions of being ignorant of other people's beliefs, and continue to espouse our superiority, we increase the chances for conflict. Colonial attitudes have proven unwieldy in the past and have caused nothing but trouble; don't you think it's time we tried something different?

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:33 AM | Permalink

Last Tuesday night, January 24th, a wealthy and exclusive residential neighbourhood in Toronto Canada was witness to an event that's growing in popularity among North American teens; street racing. Nobody might have paid any undue attention to the two Mercedes Benz cars travelling at 140 kmh (90 mph) in a 50 kmh (35 mph) zone save for the fact their actions resulted in the death of a local cab driver.

One of the two cars smashed into the taxicab with such force that it folded the vehicle around a utility poll. Adding to the poignancy of the case are the discrepancies in status between the teenaged defendants and the victim of the event. While the young men are the progeny of affluent families, the late cab driver had been working as a cabbie for the last six years in order to afford to bring his wife to Canada. He was due to be sworn in as a Canadian citizen on Friday February the 3rd and had been expecting his wife to able to join him shortly after.

The young men have been charged with criminal negligence causing death, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, and failing to stop after an accident causing death. They are currently out on bail of $50,000 a piece and living under numerous restrictions including being prohibited from driving.

A case like this doesn't need any distractions from the details of the actual events. It has already been complicated enough by the sentiments aroused concerning the circumstances of the deceased. But media outlets have begun to muddy the waters further by focusing on the fact that a certain video game was found in the front seat of one of the two cars being raced.

"Did Need For Speed Kill" was the headline the following day in the Toronto tabloid The Toronto Sun and was also the theme of many a talk radio call in show. In other words did the fact that these two young men had obviously played this game at some point have any bearing on the death of the cab driver?

In the article linked to above, Scott Colbourne of The Globe and Mail, author of the article linked to above, answers with a qualified yes. Mr. Colbourne writes a weekly column for the newspaper on matters relating to online and computer media and examines them within the context of our overall society and culture.

Here is my personal answer: Of course it did. Video games are now part of the wider culture, just like movies, books and car magazines, and our culture sends out some very contradictory messages about the use of vehicles as playthings�The idea that driving fast means something -- that there's a real need for speed -- is deeply ingrained in society. We have speed limits, but a car's monetary worth is partly based on how much it can surpass those limits, on how many horses it has under the hood�Scott Colbourne, The Globe and Mail Tuesday January 31/06

We are a society hooked on the power of a motor vehicle and the sexiness that goes with it. We are obsessed with their speed and the implied coolness of owning a high-powered, high performance, vehicle. Look at movies like The Fast and the Furious or anyone of hundreds that feature car chases through city streets. Street racing has been a staple in movies for ages, whether it was the showdowns on the drag strip in old fifties movies or infamous chase scenes in French Connection and Bullet.

Then there are car commercials that rhapsodies about their ability to go from 0-60 in minimal times; can take corners at speed and appeal to our fantasies of being behind the wheel a lean, mean street fighting machine. What kind of image is a car manufacturer selling when they have their latest model speeding around a racetrack? Do they really think that by flashing on the screen "Professional driver on closed course" they are offering sufficient counter point to their message of speed and more speed?

One only has to look at the customizations young men use to modify their vehicles to see how pervasive the need for speed has become. Scoops on the engines to increase air flow and efficiency; racing foils added to the rear of cars that increase speed, and special noise generators on the exhaust pipes that modify the car's sound to suggest more power.

What other purpose can any of these accoutrements serve aside from preparing these vehicles to race? No one
is going to put foils on a car so they can sedately drive the speed limit to take the car grocery shopping or go to the Laundromat. Yet we still act shocked and dismayed when we hear about incidents like the accident last week.

It's become easier and easier to blame the entertainment industry for anything that happens. It used to be violence on television that was the cause of societies ills, then it was popular music with it's salacious lyrics, and now the new kid on the block are the video games

Sure some of them are violent, and some of them involve high speed car driving, but so does almost every movie or television show in the theatres or on the air. But, the argument goes, in video games people are active participants and are encouraged in that behaviour. Why should playing a video game encourage behaviour of any kind, they're obviously not real.

A game isn't going to make you do anything that you were not inclined to do in the first place. Toronto Police Service Detective Paul Lobsinger was quoted in the Toronto Sun article, buried near the bottom of the piece, as saying: "There is a small percentage who have difficulty separating reality and simulation, fantasy. It's a very, very small percentage� This was not the game's fault. There are millions who play this game and don't go out and do this."

If these games truly did influence behaviour wouldn't there be much more wide spread behaviour of the kind depicted in them? In some ways games are probably the least likely to have the effect of pushing people into the streets to race their cars, as they do allow them to experience the thrill and the difficulty of driving a car at high speeds.

Any of the racing games I have had experience with have told me how hard it is to control a vehicle when driving at accelerated speeds. They have also made me realize I probably have no business being behind the wheel of any vehicle, but that's another story.

Of course there are going to be some people who can't differentiate between fantasy and reality, but they are not going to need video games to influence their decisions. Those are the types of people who cross over the line between what is socially acceptable and what isn't all on their own.

Blaming entertainment media for crime or behaviour is a cop-out. It's utilizing a scapegoat in order to ignore a serious societal problem. Blaming pornography for the objectification of women is attacking a symptom not the deep-rooted societal antipathy towards them that allows pornography to exist. If we did not already believe women to be less then men that form of objectification wouldn't happen.

The same applies to video games and whatever they are being blamed for this week. In the case of high-speed car races the culture of worshiping a motor vehicle has existed since they became a mass consumer item. They were marketed from the get go as being essential to defining ones masculinity. There's a reason for the jokes about male sexual prowess and cars; the car companies in their need to ensure sales created that atmosphere.

Passing the buck to movies or video games allows us to feel morally superior about an incident without having to accept any responsibility. The truth of the matter is that as a society we are all guilty in the death of that cab driver last week. If we did not continue to worship at the altar of the internal combustion engine, praying for heightened status through our devotion, street races like the one that took his life would never happen.

To paraphrase the National Rifle Association: Video games don't kill people; people kill people.

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Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:23 AM | Permalink