Passion before Perfection

Losing paramedics before they even start training

2009-08-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

I love paramedics.

Paramedics help people; they go into unpredictable situations and must deal with some nasty stuff; and they are generally very well-natured.

I've never seen an angry 'medic — even through this seemingly-endless standstill with the BC government.

According to the Ambulance Paramedics of British Columbia, CUPE Local 873, the "strike" they are currently involved in (although they can't technically picket or walk out because they are considered an essential service) is not just over wages, it is a culmination of factors: community paramedic shortages; working conditions; recruitment and retainment; and compensation parity.

The issue that average Joes have heard about most is the $2 on-call wage. From what I understand, in general, paramedics must work part-time at this rate for years before nabbing a full-time position.

Before I heard this, I was seriously considering the career for myself. As a volunteer member of 100 Mile House Fire-Rescue, I've found the "helping people" part of the job the most enjoyable.

Because I'm a tad on the small side — not very tall, not all that buff — I sometimes feel limited in my duties at the hall. Becoming a paramedic seemed like a seriously good path for me to follow and I would be fine with part-time to continue my other full-time career with the news.

I've been fortunate and have not needed ambulance services in an emergency; but I have had experience with their assistance on fire scenes: after so long with a breathing apparatus on (mask and air tank), firefighters must go to "re-hab" where their vitals are checked, their bodies re-hydrated and then vitals re-checked by the ambulance crew.

The paramedics I have dealt with in these situations have been great, supportive and professional.

Situations such as fire scenes have inspired me to look into becoming a paramedic; but the current situation with the government is, obviously, a big turn off.

I am not going to pretend I understand the situation fully but, judging from the website www.saveourparamedics.com, a big issue for the union is wage parity.

"Side by side, paramedics respond to emergencies with our colleagues from the police and fire departments in all corners of the province. We are on the frontline 24 hours a day, seven days a week, putting our lives on the line.

"BC Ambulance Paramedics have suffered the same drastic increases in call volumes, work load, retirement attrition and costs of living as other BC emergency services, yet have been allowed to fall far behind in compensations."

The union says on the website that they are looking for wage parity not only with other provinces but with BC police and firefighters.

Yes, paramedics should be in line with other provinces; but should they be earning the same compensation as police and fire?

From what I understand, paramedics have a list of limitations that hinder them from performing the duties police and fire are paid to do. Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but, in most situations, ambulance attendants must hang back while fire crews extract patients from vehicles, bring them up from embankments or lift them onto gurneys.

In no way am I suggesting paramedics are any less valuable than other emergency services; yes, the dedicated workers risk their lives — and lose them, as often sadly evidenced in the news — but if they are not allowed to do as much as other emergency workers there is a justified pay difference.

It's the pager call-out rate and wage parity with other provinces that I think the union should focus on. If wages are corrected, the recruitment and retainment problem will, most likely, solve itself.

However, the longer this drags on, the more likely people (like me, who has a real interest in becoming a paramedic) will be scared away.

"The Thompson-Okanagan-Cariboo are hard hit by the shortages of both ambulance resources and trained paramedics," states the union on www.saveourparamedics.com.

"Rural and remote stations are increasingly unable to staff their ambulances as it has become very difficult to attract new employees, partially due to the high cost of paramedic training in BC. It is also difficult to retain staff in rural and remote areas as the $2 an hour pager pay is not competitive compensation in today’s economy."

It is hard to justify spending over $5,000 to become a primary care paramedic when I'd be on a pager call-out wage of $2 for up to five years following.

As I am on the outside of this issue looking in, I would welcome feedback to clarify the facts.

But, from what I can see, the BC government needs to stop wasting money fighting the union in court and focus on fixing the BC paramedic situation before car crash victims have to hitchhike to the hospital and patients die in their homes while waiting for help.

Breast Gate example of 'entitlement' society

2009-08-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last week, Kristen George was visiting Science World in Vancouver with her two young children when her eight-week-old baby got fussy.

To lull the babe's cries, she stuck a boob in his mouth; this, it seems, offended a teenaged volunteer for Science World, who approached the mother and suggested she use the nursing room available for patrons.

When George said she was fine where she was, the volunteer insisted she use the room, calling her natural act "immoral."

According to the Vancouver Sun article "Nursing mother 'humiliated' by Science World volunteer's comment," the volunteer continued to harass her by reprimanding her loud enough so others could hear; she was "laughed" at, she said, by people "from a culture that values being covered up" — whatever that means.

George was further offended by Science World's reaction, which was — according to the article — minimalist, offering her a three-month extension on her membership.

When contacted by the Sun, the president of Telus World of Science promised an apology was also on its way and said they have added breastfeeding guidelines to their orientation packages.

Why this is even a story is beyond me; this was obviously one young volunteer's opinion, someone who probably isn't even there anymore. Science World has revised its policy to include handling nursing mothers and they also have rooms previously available for moms.

The fact this woman came forward to cause this stir suggests she either has something against Science World or is trying to "milk" the situation for attention.

Granted, I may not be a mother; but if I was breastfeeding a baby in a populated area, (which I don't believe is wrong but not sure if I would do), and someone accosted me like that I may complain to management — but go to the press?

This "Breast Gate" just causes unnecessary attention for Science World, a family-oriented organization, and its other workers. That George thinks she is entitled to more than what she has received is greedy on her behalf.

Unrealistic ideals expected from women

2009-08-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to have lines under my eyes; no one is — and I don't even mean wrinkles. But everywhere I look, even in the mirror, it seems the natural look of a face has subtle scoops, bags or lines.
I'm not supposed to get shiny, so I carry powder foundation wherever I go in case — God forbid — I perspire. My skin should also be flawless, pores unnoticeable, without moles or freckles and definitely sans acne or other hideous imperfections.
I know my hair should be silky, shiny and without fly-aways, so I hang my head in shame when my naturally ringletty hair gets a bit poofy.
I am aware that I can never lose enough weight. I should never have a "muffin-top" (access skin hanging over my pants) and should work hard to stay at society's ideal size of 0, including excessive dieting and exercise beginning at the age of 12. I should also be toned and my arms should never jiggle when I wave at someone, no matter what how vigorous my greeting.
And, above all else, I know I am not supposed to age; I should cover, dye and hide any signs that show I am not 19 years old.
I learned these unofficial rules of beauty from magazines and other print ads so prevalent in our world; they are ideals I will never live up to because they are not realistic.
So what has caused me and millions of other women to become so shallow, to care so much about our appearances that we primp, cut and change our bodies to live up to standards decided by someone else?
Well, situations like the following don't help: on Aug. 13, Dove's Self-Esteem Fund released a statement.
"This month, Kelly Clarkson joins a long line of celebrities — including Kate Winslet and Mariah Carey — who have seen their images altered to meet the media's unrealistic standards of beauty, as a heavily Photoshopped Self magazine cover featuring Clarkson hit newsstands.
"While the magazine's editor-in-chief Lucy Danziger admits 'Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best,' the magazine made dramatic changes to Clarkson's physical appearance."
Kelly Clarkson is a pop singer who made it big after winning the first season of American Idol. She's probably below average weight but, it seems, magazines don't agree with her rounder figure and constantly change her appearance.
This is the latest in retouching "scandals" that made news, joining Katie Couric's slimmer figure for CBS and Faith Hill's even thinner look for Redbook.
Digital photo retouching is commonplace in the graphics industry, but how far artists can change a photographed subject remains up for debate; come call it "beauty" retouching or digital surgery and others call it destructive manipulation.
Sometimes they take an already skinny model and make her even skinnier. Or erase Beyoncé's tummy. Or smooth Kim Kardashian's cellulite.
Humans seem to gravitate toward perfection, maybe because it's something no one could ever attain for themselves; but when society begins to see perfection as the norm, there's trouble.
Unrealistic ideals can attribute to eating disorders, unnecessary plastic surgeries and low self-esteem.
Those with physical imperfections, even minor ones, are looked down upon by others and are considered weak. When you see photos non-famous Myspace chicks have taken and retouched of themselves, they adjust the contrast so that it lightens their faces to hide any imperfections — sometimes even flooding out their noses.
If you think I'm overreacting, just watch one episode of America's Top Model; the artists who deal with the photos after the shoots blatantly manipulate the girls' features, without shame — it's just an accepted part of the industry.
So what does that mean for us regular gals who don't have a team of makeup artists and photographic retouchers at our disposal?
We gotta toughen up, accept what we have and not give any excuses to the contrary.

Check out these sites for examples of celebrity retouching. (True or not, they're interesting to view):

http://iwanexstudio.com/
http://www.flzine.com/photo-retouch-for-magazine-like-beauty/

Everything I like is bad for me

2009-07-31T13:24:00.000-07:00

This past week has been a bit depressing. Reports have come out about iced coffee drinks, sun tanning booths and talking on cell phones while driving.

I kinda like doing those things, and now I feel like a bad person. Or a yuppie ditz.

I'm addicted to iced coffee drinks.

There isn't a Starbucks in my town (can you believe it?) and I don't particularly like coffee (I've never had a cup of the black goo in my life), but chocolate and coffee create a perfect, harmonious union of yummy in my mouth.

A guy named Tim is the dealer of such delicacies in 100 Mile, and I'm both grateful and bitter toward his shop.

At first it was Iced Capps, a delicious blend of cream, coffee and heaven; and now, thinking it might be a more calorie-conscious approach, I'm on to the Iced Lattés.

Not having cable in my modest basement suite, I didn't realize the evening news did a report on how horrible these drinks really are for you.

Innocently grabbing my treat from the local TimmyHo, I arrived at work yesterday to a chorus of "Do you now how bad those are?"

So I looked it up: according to the Tim Hortons website, one medium Iced Capp made with chocolate milk has 230 calories and one gram of fat, with 52 grams of sugar. (At least I had never opted for a brownie supreme capp, from which I would ingest 330 calories and 16 grams of fat — from a small.)

OK, so what about those lattés I've been drinking religiously, thinking I've been saving calories?

It looks like I was right, with a medium holding only 160 calories, but what about fat?

Well I've been taking in six more grams of fat than an Iced Capp, but with less sugar. Now I can't figure out what's better (or worse) for me.

Now, to tanning beds, something I've only occasionally dabbled in but used nonetheless.

International cancer experts moved tanning beds from a possible carcinogen to the top risk category, up there with smoking and mustard gas.

I think that's a bit of an embarrassment for all those orange-skinned bleached blondes out there, but what if I only go once in a while, like in the dead of a -30 C winter where the only warmth get is from those lamps?

100 Mile House has at least three tanning shops, strange because less than 2,000 people live here.

So if and when I stop by one of these establishments to darken my skin's hue, will I be frowned upon by people on the sidewalk? Will there be a sticker on the bed that warns of UV light exposure, complete with grotesque photos of light-deformed skin and eyes like on cigarette packages?

Perhaps I will have to stop by back alley, unlicenced establishments in a trench coat and glasses to get my light fix.

Besides killing myself with sweets and artificial sunlight, I'm also trying to murder others — not intentionally, though.

I live four minutes from my office. (Now, before you ask why I don't just walk, that is four minutes of highway driving time on a road with no sidewalk. )

During my drive home after a long day, I sometimes call my out-of-town family to check up on things because, once I get home, there are a host of chores, etc., to do and it's sometimes the only way to fit a quick call into the day.

Reports are non-stop this week that the BC Medical Association, along with top cop brass and a supposed nine-out-of-10 British Columbians, support a ban on cell phone use while driving.

This is something I don't 100 per cent agree with. Say I was on a traffic jam, late for work and not going anywhere: must I really pull over to say "I'm late"? (Not that I ever am, mind you.)

Here's another scenario: A drunk driver cuts into my lane and turns left at an intersection. I follow — but must I stop and lose the driver to make a 9-1-1 call?

As a female who is regularly driving long stretches of highway alone, do I want to pull onto the shoulder to use the phone at night? Perhaps, if instituted, the ban could begin a rash of car thefts and assaults on the legions of drivers forced to pull off the road for the phone.

Now I think I know how a smoker in the 1960s felt; all these things I enjoyed were obviously wrong but, without having an agency telling me so, I enjoyed them, guilt-free. Ignorance truly is bliss.

Jackson memorial reflected lifestyle

2009-07-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson is 2009's global warming. Everywhere you look, he's all you see: "Billie Jean" has replaced public service announcements on climate change; we may yet see the price at the pumps go up for a provincial "Jackson Tax" to increase on an annual babsis for every year that he stays dead (you know fans are hoping he comes back a la "Thriller"-style).
In the past few weeks he has eclipsed Canadian soldiers' deaths, the hostilities in Iran and the G8 summit. Hour-long network coverage of his memorial service was offered on television stations while play-by-play blog and Twitter feeds told cyber fans what was going down.
I did not follow the circus in real time, but from what I can tell from the zillions of articles, TV specials and photos that followed, it looked more like a gathering of celebrities trying to one-up each other than a time to reflect and mourn the single-gloved singer.
Still photos show performers, wide-mouthed and gazing to the heavens, belting out tunes in their Academy Award-worthy outfits. Reality TV stars saw the event as a chance to be seen, the Kardashians sitting together in matching black dresses, sending sultry smiles to the cameras and showing more collective leg than a bus load of giraffes.
The Jackson family was there, of course, but so were some you wouldn't expect if you didn't follow MJ's crazy saga: I had no idea Brooke Shields and Michael were so close; and Queen Latifa? She has friends?
Eighties child star Corey Feldman DRESSED as the iconic character during the ceremony; now THAT is weird.
On a strange tangent, Feldman was once "very close" with Michael as a teen. — but I'm not going to go there.
The event seemed more like a chance for B-List stars to take a desperate grab for the spotlight than a memorial, but that's just par for the course for Jackson — he received a sendoff that mirrored his life: weird.

Gay penguins could teach Alberta a lesson

2009-06-05T14:36:00.001-07:00

Just as Alberta passes Bill 44, there are two downy homos out there trying to boost same sex couples into a more positive light.
Bill 44 was added to the western province's Human Rights Act, giving parents the right to pull their children from classrooms in which teachers discuss sexual orientation, sexuality or religion.
As backwards as it sounds, the bill seems to fit Alberta's tough exterior.
Alberta, at first glance, is rough and rugged. But, like the cowboys in that famous movie filmed there a few years ago, Alberta is secretly gay.
Have you not heard of the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association? What about Alberta's thriving gay tourism industry?
The wild rose province has a gay/straight alliance, a pride centre in Edmonton and some gay clubs in Calgary.
So why is the government denying the queer side of the province and staying in the dark ages?
Alberta needs to step out of its cave and adopt a better mindset, showing the world it's OK to be gay — much like the male penguin couple did in Germany, recently adopted an egg from a heterosexual pair and successfully raising it thus far.
Alberta needs to embrace its pink official flower and adopt some penguin pride, because this latest move from the province makes them look like ignorant dodos.

Otters holding guns

2009-06-05T14:34:00.002-07:00

How quickly people forget the past — and their favourite YouTube videos.
Remember "Otters holding hands," the video that caught the Internet by furry storm in 2007? The otters in the one-minute, 40-second clip drift about their watery pen at the Vancouver Aquarium holding hands until they seemingly doze off and separate, floating on their backs with paws in the air like cute teddy bears praying to the sun.
Once they float near one another again the younger otter grabs the other's paw and, once again, drift together. The video could even seem like a metaphor for a relationship: you're happy, you're together, and then you're apart. But, sometimes, the waves push you just close enough that you can forgive and rejoin — and all the world's right again.
Weird metaphors aside, no matter how you related to the video, people fawned over the clip — mainly because of the adorable, floating oversized hamsters.
Meanwhile, just across the Georgia Strait from where that video was taken, a Vancouver Island First Nations group thought the otters in that video looked better as hats.
Members of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council have reached a tentative deal with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to hunt roughly one per cent of the sea otter population in their territory, reports the CBC, working out to about 20 animals a year.
In the May 20 article "Sea otter hunt planned by Vancouver Island First Nations" posted on the CBC website, Cliff Atleo, president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, said "For us, it's not about the numbers. It's about reconnecting with the pelts worn by our chiefs, the heads of our governments."
Atleo is also concerned about booming sea otters populations decimating sea urchins and shellfish.
"Right now the sea otters are taking more than they actually need," Atleo is quoted as saying in the story. "There's hundreds of sea otters down here that are multiplying year by year."
What are the otters doing?! Can wild animals really afford to be wasteful?
Can't say I've ever seen a sea otter take a bite of some urchin and throw it back in the water, wasting it so he could go catch and waste more... Well, not that I've seen a lot of them, but still...
How does he know this?
Sea otters were once hunted to extinction in the same area the tribal council is proposing the hunt's resurrection and had to be reintroduced from Alaska. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.
If an animal is listed as "at risk," then it should not be hunted by anyone.
This deal could open a can of endangered worms and have hunters all over the country asking why they, too, can't shoot a mountain caribou or a whooping crane.
If only those otters were holding guns instead of holding hands — then I might be on board with making them into ceremonial hats.

http://www.bcdailybuzz.com/profile_blogs/LauraK/&action=view&id=47

Peggy, the starving horse

2009-06-05T14:34:00.001-07:00

I was pretty confused when I saw her, we all were.
What’s on her head, covering her eyes?
Reporter Joan Silver had just got back from the Canim Lake Band Reserve where she had photographed a herd of horses, after we received a tip from a local regarding the state of the animals.
The editorial crew and I were scrolling through the photos, checking out the emaciated animals. Dead horses, dying horses, barely standing horses. Most, as was well-described by one interviewee, looked like bags of bones wrapped in a thin layer of skin.
As we scrolled, we paused on a white horse whose ribs and hip bones were clearly visible; obviously that was distressing to me, but what I was interested in was whatever was piled on the pony’s head — it looked like a bird’s nest or a swarm of bees covering her eyes.
“It’s dreaded mane,” said one co-worker.
“It’s dirt and ice,” said another.
Whatever it was, this horse couldn’t see a thing and that mass on her head sure looked painful; I’ve had gum in my hair and this was probably 100 times worse.
The image stuck in my mind as we looked through the other photos. But none seemed as worse off as she looked.
A horse owner came in later on in the day with some blurry photos of the horses she’d taken that day and, in the midst of them, alone and almost blending in with a dirty snow bank, was that same white horse.
“Hey, there’s Peggy again,” a co-worker said, using the nickname we had given the horse — probably not a good thing to do considering the horse could either die or get put down any second.
We asked this equine-inclined gal about her unusual ‘do.
“It’s brambles,” she replied. “The horses are so hungry they are eating things they wouldn’t normally, like thistles, and the pointy plants are sticky to their hair and skin.”
This sounded even more painful than a bit of tangling.
So, now Peggy, a horse we’ve never met, has trotted into the hearts of the editorial staff of the 100 Mile Free Press and we wonder what’s going on with her.
We know she wasn’t one of the horses moved to Kamloops, as we saw photos of those horses.
Now we wonder, how can we help?
We’ve helped by getting the word out, I guess, but, personally, as someone who doesn’t have land to offer only some funds for hay, how can I help that one horse?
If someone would offer a place for her to stay I’d gladly donate money; do I just go looking on my own, round ‘er up and lead her behind my car?
I doubt she’d make it too far.
So, all we can do right now, is wait to catch another sighting of the bony, messy-maned horse and hope she’s doing all right.

http://www.bcdailybuzz.com/profile_blogs/LauraK/&action=view&id=30

The Fire Virgin

2009-06-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

I had been at work in the office for half an hour when I heard the chatter over the scanner.
The 108 Volunteer Fire Department was paged to respond to a fire at the 108 Resort.
I wondered if it was big enough for 100 Mile Fire-Rescue, something I'm a member of, to be called out to as well.
That's when my pager went off.
"100 Mile Fire Department: Group page," said the familiar man's voice.
I jumped up.
Should I go? Could I go, just leave work and battle a blaze that may take two minutes to 20 hours?
I consulted my co-workers and, when we heard the urgency in the voices over the radio, I left to the fire hall.
I made it in time to jump on Engine 11.
Then the big, yellow vehicle drove from the hall, sirens wailing and horns honking through every intersection.
Upon arrival on scene, I saw various trucks already there, gathering around the front of the hotel. Flames leaped 15 feet into the hazy sky.
Nervous excitement invaded the engine's cab of five firefighters and we were driven around to the back, where we could see the full extent of the damage.
Although the front of the building looked intact, the back, by that time, was not faring as well and the interiors of the rooms were fully exposed and engulfed.
Our driver painstakingly backed the hulking vehicle down a golf cart lane and parked; we jumped out, in full gear, and started readying hundreds of metres of hoses.
No hydrants were close by; hoses shot off in all directions and I joined two men trying to pry open a small shed where a closer hydrant hid.
As one member pulled the door, I wedged a shovel between the gap and jarred the door just enough so I could fit in.
The hydrant within was old, rusted and impossible for me to work by myself.
Possibly thinking me a wuss, another member squeezed in and tried, only breaking his tools on the stuck valves.
I didn't feel so bad then.
When we did get it open I went back to the incident commander for reassignment. I was placed on a two-and-a-half inch hose, where I sat, spraying the building, for at least two hours.
After being order to rehab, I trudged through the snow to the front of the building where an ambulance waited for firefighters, to take their blood pressure and heart rate. This was no easy task, as my equipment weighs more than I do and, combined with the knee-deep snow, likely made watching me get around the scene very comical.
In the ambulance for 10 minutes, I went back to my post to take charge of a slightly smaller hose; this allowed me to be more mobile and spray vaster areas, with ease.
Although the temperature was a balmy -2 C, my soaked hands still froze in my gloves, prompting a trip to rehab again a few hours later.
Time flew by as crews steadily worked to get the fire under control and, around 3:30 p.m., officials were confident we had stopped the blaze at a breezeway between the sections of rooms. About one-third of the building was lost; but, on the bright side, that meant two-thirds of the building was saved.
It was time to clean up — no easy task.
Hose had to be collected, rolled and loaded; ladders needed to be collapsed and carried; and hot spots still needed to be tended to, something the 108 department stayed behind to look after.
Back at the hall, trucks, hoses, gear and tools needed to be organized and cleaned, something that took hours.
When it was all done, most of the crew took a few minutes to discuss the day; the chief seemed please with our performances and now the investigation into the cause of the blaze would begin.
I enjoyed the day but, I have to admit, I was a bit sore the next day; but I’ll do it all again should need be — I’d never wish for a fire but I hope to be there, ready, when it happens.
The experience gave me even greater respect for those who do the job day in and out — they must have really strong hands because I couldn’t even turn my bedroom door handle the next morning.

http://www.bcdailybuzz.com/profile_blogs/LauraK/&action=view&id=29

Rocky roads in the Cariboo

2009-06-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

I was driving to work, 7:15 a.m. on a Monday, when I glanced down and saw the small crack in my windshield. It went from the corner, diagonally across toward the centre, about seven inches.
That’s a small crack in the Cariboo.
I’d forgotten about it.
The first chip on my glass was distressing; driving back from Vancouver in my brand-spanking new Mazda 3 only to reach the hill sloping into 100 Mile House and have a large rock fly at my face.
I remember the conflicting advice locals offered:
“If you put clear nail polish on a crack, it’ll stop it from spreading.”
“That’s only good if it’s a small chip.”
“Get them fixed as fast as possible.”
“Don’t bother fixing them; everyone has to replace their front window when you drive up here.”
My next one wasn’t as worrisome; I actually didn’t even notice it until it was two inches long, when it started to spread out of the left corner of my windshield.
As long as it doesn’t obscure my view of the road, I thought, it should be all right. And that’s the thought that again ran through my mind on Monday morning.
Then, like an invisible pen drawing a straight line across my window, the crack spread.
I tried putting my finger along its path of destruction to quell it’s speedy travel but it was no use — a streak was permanently etched across my windshield.
Looking at my car, one might think me a gangster; the front end is riddled with dents, making it look like I drove head on into machine gun fire.
For my Jan. 7 column, I spoke with representatives from the District of 100 Mile House, Interior Roads and the Ministry of Transportation.
All of them pretty much told me there was no way to get around the large “boulders” sneaking out of the “sanding” trucks, as the mixture is regulation size.
The ministry spokesperson even told me there were larger rocks in the mix to prevent it from blowing off the road.
This confused me, as the finer sand I’ve seen on snowy roads seems to stick it out quite well.
As a newcomer, I thought I was being a bit whiny about the road conditions, but, as it turns out, 99 per cent of South Cariboo residents, long-time, new or otherwise, also hate the roads. I gathered this as I receive complaint letters to the editor from drivers every week.
One woman sent me a photo of her vehicle after a rock flew up from a passing truck and shattered her rear side window — where her children usually sat.
For financial, safety and esthetic reasons, something must be done about these rocky Cariboo roads.

http://www.bcdailybuzz.com/profile_blogs/LauraK/&action=view&id=27

One year, Cornish still missing

2009-03-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

Feb. 22 marked one year since Dennis Cornish went missing, when he was last seen purchasing fuel for his light brown/tan 1995 GMC pick-up truck at Race Trac gas at the 108.

Cornish lived in the 108 Mile area for two years before planning to return to his home-province of Alberta in the beginning of 2008.

Despite pleas from family and friends, there is still little known about what happened to Cornish.

His parents, Janette and Dennis, made the trip from Calgary to 100 Mile House back in June, handing out flyers, checking in with the RCMP and speaking with the Free Press.

Since his disappearance, 629 members have joined the Facebook group, showing high interest in the case.

Cpl. Lorne Wood is heading the Cornish case, which he says is progressing. He reminds those with information to contact the North District RCMP Major Crimes Unit or Crime Stoppers.

In response to this somber anniversary, his parents released the following statement last week:

It is now a year since our son, Dennis went missing. We know he is no longer with us. That is the focus of the RCMP investigation. Our family does not know how and why he died. The most important thing for us is finding his body. Not a day goes by that we don’t think of him. We can’t find peace and move on until we have his remains and give him a proper burial.

We are open to all suggestions as to where Dennis might be. If you have any leads contact our family friend Ken at kenmont@telusplanet.net or the RCMP.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6006484&id=512050525#/group.php?gid=21628662726&ref=ts

News is the operative word

2009-02-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

News - n. information about important or interesting recent events.
Reporter - n. a person employed to report news, etc. for newspapers or broadcasts.
When news happens in 100 Mile House and its surrounding area, residents expect their paper to cover it; the editor expects her reporters uncover the story; and those involved should expect to talk about it.
Some people forget that, not only are there those out there who make their living off of writing news articles, but the community relies on the paper to tell them what is going on and what to watch out for.
And when sources withhold information, they are being unfair to the paper and the public.
Small towns may not have the hard-hitting, intrusive sort of reporters larger cities have, but it doesn't mean rural community news matters any less.
So when something does happen, the involved parties in the news event are taken aback when they are approached by a reporter looking for answers.
Reporters represent the public and they will fight for their right to ask questions; granted, a person doesn't have to answer, but he or she can't silence the querying voice of the people.
Because sometimes "no comment" can speak louder than any words.
A town, its paper and authorities can work like a well-oiled information machine - it happens all the time.

Sympathy for the devil

2009-02-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

"In the House" column from http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/.

Like most fields, the world of journalism is a very competitive place.

The time it takes to break a story can be the difference between making or breaking a reporter. Even for a weekly, such as the Free Press, the pressure is still there since cyber stories are expected to be updated constantly.

But just because there is pressure on journalists does not mean they should throw their morals to the wind when writing a story — the photographers snapping up shots of Britney Spears in intimate moments like they are gold are not journalists.

People can’t paint all in the media with the same brush; just as politicians are not all lawyers, not all journalists are paparazzi.

The job of a reporter, in my eyes, is to inform the public and dispel rumours that may swirl around an incident.

I’m not nosy by nature, but I’m curious; nosy refers to being too interested in other people’s affairs; being curious means someone’s eager to know or learn something.

I do not feed off of the suffering of others; I do not live for a tragedy.

I, in no way, enjoy contacting someone who has just suffered a loss, but sometimes it’s the only way to understand and describe the whole story.

True reporting involves not just covering the news, but uncovering it. Uncovering a story does not

necessarily mean badgering people or digging up “dirt”; it may just mean describing an event from a different angle, talking about not just what happened, but why and how.

I’m not into eavesdropping or snooping around other peoples’ belongings or property; if I show up to a scene of a crime, it’s because I need to know — it’s not only my job as the editor of the paper, but there are more benefits than disadvantages in keeping the public informed.

When I show up to an event — crime, sports or otherwise — I’m not there to make trouble.

Especially in a small town, when people see a big fuss happening on their street, they start to talk; it’s human nature to wonder what’s going on.

It’s understandable when a matter is before courts, under investigation or involving an extremely sensitive issue, but when officials withhold all information and disclose nothing, it paves the way for rumour and speculation.

But a newspaper is not necessarily a public service; it is run by a company and needs to make its own independent funds. Unless it is a paid ad, a newspaper has no obligation to run or cover an event, story, etc.

My favourite part of a paper is the letters to the editor; whether a big city or small one-horse settlement, I read a paper’s top stories in the front then skip to the letters because nothing describes a town’s main issues better than its readers.

But, just like stories, not every letter makes it into print; depending on time frame and space constraints, some letters may have to wait or some will be cut all together. I do my best to get every letter in because, as I said, they’re important.

As for editorialized pieces, like what you’re reading right now, readers have to remember they are opinion; I know you may never agree with what I am writing, and might doodle horns on my head shot at times, and that’s fine.

If you don’t like what I’m saying then I welcome your letters.

Trying taekwondo

2008-11-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

It takes some getting used to; bowing to others can feel pretty submissive.
And it makes it all the more awkward when you are at least 10 years older than everyone else in your class and your fellow students’ parents are watching diligently from the sidelines.
Those were my initial feelings during the start of my first taekwondo class at Whispering Pines in 100 Mile House.
I was told to just wear comfy workout clothes, but I felt out of place in my stretch pants while everyone else was in their white jammies.
I lined up with the
rest of the participants and waited to be called to the front, where I bowed and listened to my classmates recite “The Spirit of Taekwondo.”
Then, we were told to bow again – “kyung
nae” – in Korean. But the way instructor Lois
Gray said the command,
it sounded like a guinea pig or Pikachu the Pokemon singing out for love.
Our first task was to perform 20 number one front kicks. Initially confused, I wondered what my number one appendage was, but got into the swing of things quickly as Gray (who we had to call “Ma’am”) demonstrated the moves.
After 20 reps, we switched sides.
Following punches and more kicks, the belt groups separated to act out their forms.
I had absolutely no idea what this meant.
Ian Levic, a 15-year-old black belt, stood in front of the white belts (and wannabes, like me) and slowly took us through the appropriate form.
“Chamber, high block. Chamber, punch...”
This “chamber” business sure didn’t make sense but, not wanting to look dumb in front of the little ones, I kept my mouth shut.
I thought my kicks were high enough, but it seems my fists were a little floppy.
“It’s more like you’re doing spaghetti-style form than taekwondo,” laughed one student.
Once we had gone through the forms a few times, we were partnered up; I was placed with the kid who looked the youngest out of them all. We lined up, facing each other in a “ready” stance.
My first thought was “This would look bad if I beat up this kid,” immediately followed by a more embarrassing thought: “And it will look worse if he beats me up!”
What I thought would be sparring turned out to be another kind of form, called a one-step. My partner came at me with a punch, which I blocked and retaliated with a pre-determined block-punch combination.
The time flew by fast and, before I knew it, it was time to wrap up an hour of working out, while having fun and learning how to defend ourselves.
We lined up again, said another taekwondo blurb and bowed, then had to face our superior classmate and bow to him or her.
Although the kids were silly sometimes, when it was time to get down to it, they showed respect to their instructor and to each other, and it was a good healthy dose of discipline for young and old alike.
I guess sometimes leaders have to be
followers in order to be better leaders.

Set the standard

2008-11-21T13:11:00.001-08:00

Three pedals. I just didn’t understand why there are three pedals.
Who needs a clutch?
I sure never have — I’ve been an automatic driver up until now.
My car is ill; for the past few weeks I’ve been searching for a something else.
Trucks seem to be the vehicle of choice here in the Cariboo. But there’s a problem: most trucks are standard transmission.
Stick shifts do look fun to drive, and there are four-by-fours galore for sale in the classifieds and on roadsides.
Yet it’s hard to test drive a truck when you can’t actually drive it; I found that out when I looked at a great 1988 Toyota 4Runner last week and had to watch the seller drive it around the block for me.
When friends offered to sacrifice the transmission of their old Chevy S10 for the sake of my better stick handling, I was grateful.
But my appreciation mounted to frustration once I was in the driver’s seat.
“OK,” said my friend-turned-driving-instructor. “Put in the clutch, all the way, and start the car. Now, slowly bring you foot off the pedal while giving it gas.”
Stall.
“That’s OK. Try again.”
We sat there for 20 minutes until the truck lurched forward and down the grassy hill of the yard.
“Now put the clutch in,” coaxed my ever-patient instructor, “and switch to second gear.”
I go to the end of the yard — into a sloped ditch — and slammed in the brake.
Stall.
“Put it into reverse, bring out the clutch and hit the gas.”
Stall.
I rolled down the window to get some air and cool my building aggravation toward the stupid truck. I thought about putting the stick in neutral and just rocking back in forth in my seat until it left the ditch by force.
Eventually I rolled it back enough to drive forward, and back up the hill.
I thought about how hard it would be to air drum or eat a sandwich while driving a standard, and started to think maybe it really wasn’t right for me.
“You know, your footwear isn’t exactly suitable for this.”
I looked down at my red thong-sandal heels slipping across the clutch, brake and gas.
There are three kinds of people in the world: automatic, manual/standard and chauffeured.
I want to be a standard, making my own way in life, not just cruising through on autopilot.
… But I can do that in other areas of my life; it doesn’t have to be in my car.

Photo

2008-09-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Golfing for the first time

2008-09-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

I had lived in 100 Mile House for four months and managed to avoid picking up a single golf club.
I had never golfed before, well, besides mini golf and beer at Castle Fun Park in Abbotsford; but I was told that didn’t count.
100 Mile is a golf town; succumbing to pressure, I decided to give it a try — and the Crime Stoppers tourney at the 108 on Sept. 14 seemed the perfect opportunity. All I needed was the most patient person in the world to volunteer his or her golf expertise and time to my cause; I found that person in Val Nickless.
Val was nice enough to not only volunteer her time, but also her clubs.
As an avid golfer, I understood what a possible sacrifice this was for Val and I vowed to treat her clubs as the precious pieces they were; but what I was really excited about was driving the cart.
When I helped Val lug her golf bag onto the cart, I was slightly intimidated with the amount of clubs sticking out of the top.
“I only brought half of my clubs,” said Val.
I got into the driver’s seat of the cart and pressed the gas pedal. Its lawnmower-like engine whirred to life and we took off to the number 10 hole, where I would be starting.
At the 10, Val handed me a ball and a handful of tees. She told me to grab the number five club and showed me how to hold and swing the thing.
The stance I took felt awkward; my first practice swing left much to be desired. But when the club made contact with the ball and sent it flying straight out onto the fairway, I couldn’t help but feel a small sense of satisfaction.
I also realized how one could twist his or her body up while playing; and here I had been laughing at Tiger Woods for giving up last season to injury.
As much as I loved driving the cart, I found myself running after the ball more times than riding and was beginning to work up an appetite — by the second green.
My shots weren’t all that bad, commented Val. And, lucky for me, she kept me from making golf faux pas, like using a nine club when I needed a putter, shoving my club in the ball washer or running over other players with the cart.
But, a few greens later, my famine faded to fatigue under the low September sun and my shots started to go astray.
Somehow, though, I managed to stay on the fairway the entire round and ended with a nine-hole score of 76, owed all to my caddie and coach.

Almost There

2008-09-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

Her mind was a thoroughly erased blackboard, one
without even a smattering of chalk dust
around its edges. Waves of sleep were beginning
to cascade through her and her face relaxed,
her body reverting to its resting position
without thought.
If a black can become blacker, her mind was creating the shade;
her brain was devoid of thought and feeling. Sleep
would finally allow her through
its elite gates. She had waited so long…
That’s when she felt it: A nudge on her left shoulder.
Her arm twitched, and her brain flickered,
but the rest of her did little
to react to the movement. And that’s when
she felt it again, the hard edges of the spine scraping
across her shoulder, up to her neck. Suddenly
her mind was letting in thoughts,
allowing them to scrawl themselves across
her imagination. She clenched her eyes shut, determined.
Her face became taut.
“Not again,” she whispered
into her increasingly uncomfortable pillow.
And then a page dragged across her face,
leaving a stinging line of blood in its wake.
“But I’m so close!” she yelled, her words
filling her crowding brain
as they echoed in the empty room.
Her bed may have well become a cutlery drawer,
and she shifted and turned
on the now unbearable mattress.
“All right!” she said at last,
reaching for the small light switch above the bed nightstand.
“Just one more chapter!”

The book had won again.

I am

2008-09-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

If I could cease the picking of my canvas scabs
with my paintbrush,
then I wouldn’t be an artist.

If I could stop scratching the itch of scrawl and script,
then I would not be a writer.

If my hunger for flesh
was ever satisfied,
then I would not be a lover.

And if I could snuff the fury
that burns acres of anger within me,
then I would not be a warrior.

Climate change may not mean warming

2008-09-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Published in the Sept. 21 issue of the 100 Mile Free Press:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/

Once people got past the initial alarming hoopla surround climate change,
some British Columbians tried to see a silver lining.
With all the blame focused on global warming for problems like the spread of the pine beetle and the potential drowning of the city of Richmond, some thought, “Well, at least there will be more sunny days.”
But with unseasonably cool temperatures, residents are starting to wonder whether the tropical paradise they thought climate change would bring is actually a potential arctic nightmare.
But maybe that’s what people need to wake up to the problem; if the threat of heat didn’t cause them to make personal, environmentally-friendly changes than perhaps the prospect of being banished into an eternal ice prison will.
Driving an older, unkempt car is frowned upon now because of its heavy carbon output; but those same people who object to gas-guzzling vehicles drive gas-powered mowers around their lawns and leave their vehicles running while they run into convenience stores. Essentially, they make up for it.
Political leaders don’t offer the best example of green living, either; the amount of travelling they do just for photo ops could be halted and the resulting energy saved could probably bring down the price of gas by 10 cents.
And now, with election campaigning, office helpfuls and hopefuls will be offering more carbon into the atmosphere than their speeches do in office.
But stopping the spread of Yukon-like weather is only half the incentive.
Usually things good for the environment go hand-in-hand with things good for a person’s health: cycling, using push mowers and avoiding fast-food drive-thrus.
Hopefully, with all the ominous problems climate change threatens us with, there will be positive change for people as a whole.
Perhaps obesity levels will go down with the increase in forced physical activity; maybe air quality will improve and asthma incidents will decrease.
For those inland, more frequent frost may be a better motivator than fun-in-the-sun.
Of course, the opposite might be true for those on the coast — especially for those who can’t swim.

This year's race begins

2008-09-12T15:47:00.001-07:00

Published in the Sept. 12 issue of the 100 Mile Free Press:

We have a federal government who can’t see west of Ontario and north of Sudbury; we have a provincial government who isn’t even sitting this fall to avoid questions over a wage scandal.
Canadians have a federal election hanging over their heads, with municipal races also revving up. And before we know it, British Columbians will be at the provincial polls as well.
But besides the scattering of civic-candidates’ signs and flyers, it’s always been federal elections’ bombardment on voters in every available media that can’t be ignored.
The Conservatives are not very good at keeping a secret; on the contrary, they are horrible. Long before the election was even called, citizens were receiving propaganda by way of electronic and paper mail — also known as spam and birdcage liner — touting the greatness of the Tories and the idiocy of Stéphane Dion’s Green Shift; they caused a big stir when they wanted to put an attack ad on Ontario gas station service screens, trying to sway customers with an over-used photo of Dion holding out in his upturned palms in an act of submissive shruggery.
Daily, in my email inbox, I receive transmissions from all parties blaming each other for everything from global warming to offending Canadians with pooping puffins; imagine if they worked as hard at the welfare of the country as they do at attacking each other?
The Conservatives say Dion is “a weak leader who doesn’t know where he stands and doesn’t know where he’s going.” The Liberals say, “Mr. Harper has proven that he’s entirely incapable of providing real leadership.”
They might as well be calling each other “buttface” in an elementary schoolyard.
The most unsurprising event in this race thus far is that David Emerson will not be seeking re-election.
Safe to say, his writing was on the wall — in block letters; the only way he’d have a hope in heck of regaining his seat is if he moved constituencies — perhaps to Zambia.
But, should the Tories be back in office, the close colleague of Harper is sure to find some sort of cushy employment in Ottawa.
The Conservatives, on their website, claim Canadians have a choice between two leaders, two visions and two records. “The choice is clear.”
Where is Jack Layton in all this? Is he really so off the map?
As far as leaders go, when you review the competition – the control freak and the flip-flopper – Layton, as an individual, looks great; too bad his party doesn’t look as appealing.
So who do we choose: the Dictator, the Muppet or the Mustache?
Harper wants you to know he is “a leader who has put the aspirations of families — and the pressures they face — at the heart of national decision-making.”
(Unless you’re gay or faced with an unexpected pregnancy.)
On the net, I think Dion said he wants to reconcile the people and the environment.
(But at what cost?)
Layton says “It’s time for a decent minimum wage, it’s time for a break on ATM fees, on affordable education, child care and prescription drugs.”
(But let’s go soft on criminals.)
But hey — there's still the Green Party (who aren't even allowed in the televised leaders' debate).

Let's get visual

2008-08-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Badger counting

2008-07-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

When I first noticed the Badger Crossing sign on the north border of 100 Mile, I thought it was a joke.
On the way to Seymour Mountain in North Vancouver, motorists are entertained by various joke animal-crossing signs, like camel. I didn't realize badgers resided in BC.
When I think of badgers, Wind in the Willows seems to come to mind. What I didn't realize was Mr. Badger wouldn't have gotten along with Mole and the other inhabitants of the Wild Wood - he would have eaten them.
Then again, as student and researcher Richard Klafki told me, English badgers are not as tough as their North American counterparts.
I went along with Klafki on a badger count, part of the Cariboo Badger Project. Klafki and others from the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Transportation and Thompson Rivers University are using radio telemetry to track members of the dwindling badger population in the province.
Badgers have few natural predators; the steel monsters driven by humans are what really picks them off.
Roger Packham, biologist with the Ministry of Environment, set me up with Klafki, a Master's student doing his thesis on badgers.
We set out on a Sunday morning, driving along Horse Lake Road toward our Bridge Lake area destination.
Along the way, Klafki tried to enlighten me on the ways of the badgers.
He laughed when I asked if I could pet one, and told me we'd be lucky if we even saw one from afar during our trek.
He said, contrary to popular belief, badgers are not rodents - they are part of the weasel family - and they are not interested in eating household pets.
Also contrary to a popular Internet fad video (available at www.badgerbadgerbadger.com) - in which multiple badgers dance about while singing "Badger, badger, badger, badger; mushroom, mushroom! Oh no, snake!" - badgers are not afraid of snakes - they'll eat those, too.
Once we reached a known badger's territory, Klafki turned on the equipment in his truck and I could hear a faint beep.
"That's a female who has two kits,' he said.
He explained 10 badgers - five male, five female - had been trapped and implanted with transmitters.
"Badgers don't really have necks, so it's hard to fit them with a radio collar."
Occasionally Klafki would exit the vehicle and hold out a long antenna to figure out the location of the badger.
Soon we were out of the vehicle, trudging across a vast field, Klafki holding the antenna above his head. The beeping was growing stronger and more frequent, and he pointed to a field and said the badger was in a particular mound of grass.
And that's when we saw a tiny, striped head poke out of the ground.
Mother badger was inspecting us; she was only a few feet away. She slowly dragged her pudgy body from her temporary den and sat on a mound of dirt, lazily scratching her side.
She didn't seem exactly comfortable with our presence, but she wasn't bursting out of the hole like the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail, either.
After a while, two more striped faces could be seen emerging from the ground, and mother shepherded her kits a few feet away from the strange visitors.
Klafki and I backed away, leaving the family and allowing mom to hunt the plentiful ground squirrels that whistled warnings around us.

Quick fix

2008-07-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

Recent columns

2008-07-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/25489479.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/24258429.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/25489484.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/24258544.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/22821359.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/20818344.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/100milefreepress/opinion/22821349.html

Monitoring a budworm spray

2008-07-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

It was early - 3:20 a.m. early - when my alarm woke me. I dressed cozily and drove to the 108 Airport where Ministry of Forests and Range entomologist Leo Rankin was waiting for me.
He introduced me to air coordinator Don Wright and helicopter pilot Jay Camille; they were there, in these wee hours, to combat an invisible enemy: the spruce budworm.
"We'll be flying in the helicopter over the Air Tractors (planes) as they spray the forest," Rankin told me. "They'll be spraying BTK all around the South Cariboo today."
Then Camille shared his mandatory safety-spiel with me, which my sleep drenched brain didn't seem to absorb.
"So, in case of engine failure, it's imperative that you..." I just nodded, trying to keep my eyes open.
"All right, we're ready to take off," said Camille after showing me how to do up my seatbelt.
I climbed into the back of the helicopter, sitting next to Rankin. He helped me with the belt and talked about bugs while passing me my headset.
I learned the spruce budworm was more interested in Douglas firs than spruce around the local forests, eating the buds and needles of the coniferous foliage until they resembled something Charlie Brown would pick out for his Christmas tree.
"The budworm doesn't kill the trees immediately," said Rankin. "It weakens them so other pests, like the Douglas fir beetle, can take advantage."
By this time the rotor was in full spin, and my stomach lurched as we lifted off the ground. I took out my video camera and filmed our ascent into the still-dark sky.
We flew over the 108, and then over miles and miles of red trees. I thought the pine problem looked bad from the ground; it looked ten-fold worse from the air.
The pine beetle epidemic is over, said Rankin. "Virtually all of our mature pine is dead. That's why we have to protect what trees we have left."
We spotted one of the Air Tractors streaking BTK (the bacteria used to kill the budworm) over the woods near Alberta Lake.
Rankin said they must spray early as the product needs specific climate conditions to be affective.
We circled the plane so I could get good photos and footage of the spray; but the circling was starting to coax my breakfast back out.
"Do you have a good shot?" I heard Camille say in my headphones.
"Yes, thank you," I replied. The truth was I had no idea, but the helicopter had to steady or else my fellow passengers were going to see Cheerios all over the cabin.
I must have looked how I felt, because Rankin asked me if I was OK. Camille brought the copter down in a middle-of-nowhere forest, where ground coordinator Joan Westfall and her dog were waiting.
Westfall's job was to monitor the spray from the ground, checking weather readings every few minutes; she broke open some fir buds and showed me the munching menace this whole operation was about: a very tiny black worm.
The mosquitoes were horrendous, though. My face was so covered with bugs I felt like a bee-beard fellow I once saw on TV.
I didn't know what was worse: twirling about in a warm, cramped helicopter or being eaten alive by blood suckers.
But all too soon we were back in the air, heading back to the 108 to watch the planes reload and refuel.
"Now we'll be heading out for another round of spraying. You up for it?" Rankin asked me.
I made some excuse that I had enough information for my article and thanked the team for bringing me along.
I would have stayed but my stomach and my skin just couldn't take another trip.

Move to the Cariboo

2008-07-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

Until I moved here two months ago, I had never ventured north of North Vancouver for an extended amount of time. Lower Mainland temperatures rarely sneak below minus five, so, consequently, I had never experienced anything colder.
I didn't contact extreme cold until last February, while at a conference in Ontario. Stepping outside the hotel in Ottawa felt like a million needles stabbing my face with a horde of gremlins chewing off my ears.
As the frosty wind cut into my eyes, I swore I would live in Coquitlam forever.
Fast forward a few months: I'm offered jobs from around the province, but I am skeptical of the weather. Potential employers try to reassure me with comforting words:
"The thing about (insert Northern community here) is there are four distinct seasons."
"It's a dry cold here, not like the wet of the coast that you can feel in your bones. Minus 25 here feels like minus five down there."
"Snow? Barely."
"Rain? Never"
"Winters are always sunny, the skies are so clear. No one gets Seasonal Affective Disorder here!"
"The mosquitoes aren't so bad."
Convinced the Cariboo was some sort of year-round paradise, I moved up here and again heard the repetitive weather-related rhetoric. But some of the stories changed:
"Well, we had a bit of snow this year; but nothing major."
"There was snow, but the roads are always quickly cleared, and easy to drive on because of the pebbles Interior Roads puts on them."
"The mosquitoes are only bad because of the wet spring."
Now, as I become more settled and comfortable in the community, people seem to be a bit more honest:
"The huge rocks dumped onto the roads during the winter will destroy your windshield, over and over."
"It gets darn freezing here; you need a block heater for your car."
Regardless of the weather or the fictitious tales, I'm glad I moved.
But my tune might change come winter.

Ride for the first time

2008-07-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

As soon as I walked up to the barn, I knew TJ was for me. He seemed a gentle spirit, not as intimidating as the other horses.
But the guide laughed at me.
"I think TJ's part donkey," said Bryce Stewart, employee at the Hills Health Ranch and horseback trail ride expert.
I ignored him.
TJ was saddled and ready to go - somewhat. He seemed a bit hungrier and sleepier than the other larger, more regal-looking horses, but I empathized - it was 35 C outside and now he had to exercise with someone on his back.
After a brief safety instruction, I mounted my steed in one swift jump. Proud of myself, I patiently waited while the other ride participants were assigned horses according to size and experience and used the time to braid TJ's stiff mane.
By the time we were ready to go, TJ was the only horse in the line with a mohawk.
The initial steps on to the trail were easy. I wondered how anyone could fall off a horse.
But that all changed when TJ burst into a trot to catch up to his stable mates.
And it got more intense when, halfway through the hour-long journey, the group was split into two.
"The fast group comes with me," fearless leader Bryce announced. "We'll be trotting and cantering; so I recommend the slow group if you're a beginner."
I felt confident in TJ's sure-feet and opted for the fast group, but it seems my own feet weren't as sturdy in their stirrups.
I bounced to-and-fro in the saddle, and held on for dear life positive I would be flying off the cream-coloured creature at any moment.
The bouncing wasn't the only surprise; I was unaware how much faltering the horses did. I watched them occasionally stumble and wondered how they didn't fall on their faces more often.
But between contracting shaken-person syndrome and fearing for my skull, I annoyed the group with squeals of glee as we travelled through the brush.
And just like that the ride was over, and I was standing next to TJ back at the barn. I expected him to nudge me good-bye, but he ignored me once I dismounted, resuming the search for hay I had so rudely interrupted by riding him.

When life's a bit slower...

2008-06-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

... You should fill the time with a laugh.

A few views on the news

2008-06-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

Protester should pay up
In October, 2005, a protestor that couldn't let go of the plight of teachers picketed the Burnaby Bus Centre and halted bus service.
I had rushed that morning to get ready for one of my two jobs, waiting to catch a bus from Hastings and Boundary that would then drop me off at Commercial so I could reach my final destination of Princess and Hastings. A silly system, but one I had to live with.
I ran down my apartment-complex steps to stand in the October shitty weather to wait for a bus that never showed.
When I realized the bus was not going to show, I ran to my car and braved the morning rush hour. Upon arrival at work - late - there were very few spaces left to park.
I must have worked too close to an intersection. When I went outside after work to retrieve my car, it was gone - towed.
Donna Peterson, the protester, probably didn't realize how much she was disrupting commuters' lives that day. She probably didn't think about the domino effect that could result. Or maybe she just didn't care about the consequences of he actions.
Coast Mountain Bus Co. is considering legal action against her. Good.

Dicks and dogs
Was Jeremy Pete, the guy (hesitation in calling him a "man") who put his week-old daughter up for sale on Craigslist just joking around? Who cares. Pete, who was involved in the death of Vancouver Police dog Nitro (in New Westminster), really does sound like a "dick," for lack of a harsher word. Dogs and babies alike may be safer if he were behind bars.

View should include the trees
Queen Elizabeth Park's tree management are considering the cutting of 70 trees that are blocking the view.
Life in BC means living with trees. They should be celebrated, especially in parks. Aren't we as proud of our trees as we are of our metropolis?
I'd welcome trees blocking my view of an ugly city, anytime.

A little girl who loved horses
The vehicular homicide of 4-year-old Alexa Renee Middelaer in Delta on May 17 will probably go down as one of the saddest stories of 2008. Not only was a beautiful little girl's life stolen away, but the fact charges against the drunk, speeding driver have still not been laid makes the murder even more devastating and frustrating. Condolences go out to the family.

Killing time

2008-06-09T18:14:00.001-07:00

New home

2008-06-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

East side newsletter

2008-06-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm in there a bit:

http://carnegie.vcn.bc.ca/index.pl/may_108_Page01#top

Braggin'

2008-05-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

An editorial I wrote for the 100 Mile Free Press was picked up in William's Lake, as well:

http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals-code/monitor.cgi?paper=37&id=1223477

Not a huge deal... But worth notin'.

Update:

Also published in Kelowna:

http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals-code/monitor.cgi?paper=113&id=1230003

And Langley:

http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals-code/monitor.cgi?paper=47&id=1224971

And Chilliwack:

http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals-code/monitor.cgi?paper=39&id=1230082

In the country

2008-05-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

The eyes have it

2008-05-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

Phantasmagoria

2008-05-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a song I wrote many years ago in response to a poem someone wrote me. I recently collaborated with a friend and put it to guitar and added a dash of piano.

It's a tad cheesey, a tad sad...enjoy it, hate it--I really don't care.

Earth

2008-05-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

Please vote for this song at http://www.25000.ca/.

Thank you!

Bide-on empty shores

Remain-on fading land

Watching-for sign of you

What crumbles needs to ground

But what suffers wants to drown

A grad's lament

2008-05-10T11:12:00.001-07:00

When I first walked into the New West Campus while taking part-time classes three years ago, I have to admit I found the vast concrete concourse intimidating; it wasn’t as welcoming as its newer-built Coquitlam counterpart, with its couch-seating Atrium and lower ceilings. But that didn’t keep me away—I ended up becoming a full-time student at New West. With this semester’s end comes the conclusion of my Douglas College stay, and now, without the comfort of employment ready after grad, I wonder if I could have done more.
Perhaps I didn’t study enough, didn’t focus enough during class. Maybe I should have been listening harder that day I was tired during a lecture and I let my fatigue guide me to a www.perezhilton.com digression.
Supposedly these feelings are normal, and my apprehension and guilt are justified. More experienced learners try to coax the worry from me with lines like, “Everyone feels that way,” or “You’ll have a job in no time,” but I wonder why I let Facebook distract me when I was paying so much money to be taught.
I realize I am a child—and subsequent casualty—of technology: impatient with a short attention span and more receptive to watching and listening rather than studying textbooks. Perhaps teaching plans have not evolved enough to suit the ever-changing needs of students. Or maybe that’s just an excuse for my own inattentiveness. But it’s tough to sit in front of a computer and not give in to the YouTube God; worship involves taking a break from rational thought and viewing quick clips of random hilarity—it gets addictive.
Faithful followers of YouTube and its apostles, Perez and Facebook, number in the millions, and students are the main chunk of those devoted to the daily website pilgrimage. It’s nice to take a break from a busy brain but it also contributes to a growing Procrasti-Nation, a world where people are too distracted to get anything done. I’m not saying I didn’t accomplish anything while at Douglas; on the contrary, I learned a lot from instructors and fellow students, and did well in my classes. But I can’t shake the guilt eroding at my graduation pride: could I have done better if I hadn’t given in to cyber-distraction?
It took me a long time to ignore the television deity but I eventually lost my faith as I realized its sedentary and redundant worship caused me to pay penance in the form of a fatter butt. Yet even the threat of a bigger behind doesn’t calm the siren-like call of the Internet.
So now, as I receive my diploma and scout for work…
… Sorry, but the “Two-legged horse” on YouTube is so damn funny. What was I writing about?

Goodbye

2008-05-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

I do my best

to miss you

in silence.

"Walking Eagle"

2008-04-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

"Premier Gordon Campbell of B.C. was invited to address a major gathering of the Indian Nation last weekend in Kitimat, B.C. He spoke for almost an hour on his future plans for increasing every First Nation's present standard of living. He referred to his career as Mayor of Vancouver, how he had signed "YES" for every Indian issue that came to his desk for approval. At the end of his speech, the Tribe gave the Premier a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name: Walking Eagle. The proud Campbell then departed in his motorcade, waving to all.

A news reporter later asked the group of chiefs how they come to select the new name given to Campbell. They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly."

Quoted from the Carnegie Newsletter, April 15, 2008.
http://carnnews.org/
(Cute story but probably not true. No author or source cited.)

Beautiful Danger

2008-04-21T16:55:00.001-07:00

Vote and help!

2008-04-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hey,
I need your vote!
Please go to http://www.25000.ca/
Just throw your email addy in and vote for "Laura K" (that's me). I could win $20, 000 worth of recording time and $5, 000 cash, as well.

The site will send you an initial confirmation email that may go into your junk mail, but you MUST confirm your email in order for the vote to count.

Vote with every email address you have, every day you can!!

Thanks so much!!

Rosa said...

2008-04-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

"See how the night shines. But it's not real, you know. There's a void beoynd the glory and that's what I have to paint."
"To Dream of White Horses," June Considine

Wow!

2008-04-11T00:54:00.001-07:00

Tori's still got it

2008-04-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tori Amos has always had something to say, but it is usually hidden in cryptic prose and left up to the listener’s imagination to interpret. Now in her mid-40s, the outspoken American songwriter has been releasing albums for over 15 years and has never managed to break into standard radio play. It has almost been a year since her latest, American Doll Posse, was released and built on the success within her rabid underground following but didn’t further her mainstream popularity.
American Doll Posse comes off as an eccentric ploy for album sales to non-fans—and is a sure favourite for Amos-addicts. The retail album special package edition includes a number of perks to entice consumers to purchase rather than download. Along with the 23-song CD, bonus visual DVD and pack of Amos-image postcards, a 34-page booklet explains the five different roles Amos personifies throughout the album: Tori, Pip, Clyde, Isabel, and Santa. These characters share the vocal duties on the diversified tracks, and each personality has a unique appearance and form of expression (something similar to what she did for the 2001 covers album Strange Little Girls).
“Yo George” starts off the album, a blatant plea to President George W. Bush. Amos, in her blonde, rebellious Isabel incarnation, does nothing to mask her disdain for the president, singing that America is stuck with the “madness of King George…you have the whole nation on all fours.”
The first single from the album, “Big Wheel,” is a honky-tonk danceable number. Except for the midway breakdown, where Tori proclaims she is a “M-I-L-F, don’t you forget,” the clapping beat throughout the song makes it difficult for listeners not to tap their feet.
Clyde, Amos’s brunette manifestation, is the most artsy of the bunch, and it shows in the songs credited to her form. “Bouncing Off Clouds” is Amos at her dramatic best, reminiscent of her 1999 album To Venus and Back. It is easy to picture the singer floating through the sky while playing her piano during this upbeat tune. In the booklet, Clyde optimistically states, “All works of art start as potential. Similarly, all relationships start as potential.” It’s that thoughtful nature that shines through in Clyde’s other tunes, “Girl Disappearing,” “Roosterspur Bridge” and “Beauty of Speed”.
The darker and more guitar-driven tracks of the album, performed by the raven-wigged Pip, including “Teenage Hustling” and “Fat Slut,” continue Amos’s tradition of writing in girls and teens as the protagonists (or villains) in her usually abstract lyrics, apparent in the albums Little Earthquakes (1992) and Under the Pink (1994).
The sultry Santa, pictured in tight dresses and short blond tresses, performs the more fun ditties on the record (“You Can Bring Your Dog,” Programmable Soda”) until the last track. “Dragon” ends the album with more of a whimper than a bang, but still manages to round out the set well.
As has always been the case throughout her 11 albums, piano dominates the instrumental accompaniment. Along with the staple Bösendorfer, a few unconventional instruments find their way onto the record, like ukuleles and tap shoes.
Fans will greatly appreciate American Doll Posse, but those unfamiliar with her work might not even make it through the first song. The use of Amos’s alter egos is an interesting idea, but it seems rehashed since Strange Little Girls employed a similar concept.
Amos will undoubtedly continue to capitalize on her aging eccentricities until her fingers grow arthritic and unable to play her piano. She is an acquired taste—those who love her will keep listening until she is on her deathbed but those who don’t understand her now will be further alienated by her blunt behaviour and ever-maturing body and mind.

The Other Boleyn Girl looks better naked

2008-04-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Eric Bana, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johansson star in the period film The Other Boleyn Girl, a movie that has more ambition than Belinda Stronach. But despite the A-list cast, it ultimately comes across as a shoddily-edited bimbo of a flick—nice to look at but lacking any real content.
If viewers unaware of the Boleyn/Henry historical saga are looking to follow along with the movie, they might be completely dumbfounded; the editing is so poorly done that one minute Queen Catherine is on the throne and the next she disappears for good. (Historians, too, may get lost—Showtime’s drama The Tudors has far more accuracy than Boleyn Girl.)
Besides the editing, the camera work is also horrible. Perhaps the director was trying to add to the scandalous nature of the movie by filming from behind columns and through drapes, or perhaps he was just trying to be unconventional, but either way, the strange angles and obstacles in front of the camera just distract the audience.
The incredible costume design goes a long way toward redeeming the film—but even it is tarnished by the confusing editing. The Boleyn sisters sometimes wear the same outfit for days in a row, and they get to wear much fancier clothes than the other ladies-in-waiting. It all seems a bit random. One could argue that in Medieval Times women rarely washed and didn’t possess infinite wardrobes, but when the only amazing feature of a movie is glaringly inconsistent, it feels sloppy.
Bana plays a reluctant King Henry VIII, and halfway through the movie he seems to lose interest in his role completely, perhaps realizing the poor calibre of the film he is starring in. One glaring omission from the scenes is Bana without clothes. While there are short flashes of his hot, hairy man-chest, the glimpses are brief and unsatisfying; the other male cast members are definitely not gawk-worthy, so the lack of a nude king helps to sink the film.
Portman and Johansson, however, do a good job of bringing the pretty, but Johansson plays a flaky, spineless Mary Boleyn almost too well. Her performance is half-hearted, and at times it is embarrassing to watch her spit out her fake English accent. On the other hand Portman, as ambitious social climber Anne Boleyn, struts her refined acting chops as usual. But, it is interesting to watch her wear a corset and try to squish boobs out of her mammary inadequacies.
If viewers want to see a film with boring actors, frolicking children in fields of golden wheat, predictable dialogue, and a fully clothed Eric Bana, then The Other Boleyn Girl is not one to miss. Otherwise, would-be audiences can save their $11 and buy a sheet of glass to chew on––which they will probably enjoy more.

Maxim & Cosmo, featuring T.J. Dawe Surrey Arts Centre, March 14

2008-04-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

He loves giving chocolate, back rubs, and little notes—if he didn’t look like Danny Tanner from Full House then T.J. Dawe would be the perfect husband. But according to Dawe, looks aren’t as important to women as they are to men; and if that’s true, then he gets a lot of pussy.
Dawe is an actor/comedian/writer/director and quasi-women’s rights activist who has done over 700 solo performances in his life. He performed his current show, Maxim & Cosmo, on Friday, March 14, to a mostly female crowd in the sex capital of the world: Surrey.
Perched on a stool between sparse background props, Dawe began his animated dialogue by admitting he judges people by scanning the titles on their bookshelves: literally judging a book by its cover. But by doing this, he started noticing that women all owned the same books and one day he started reading chick lit—and he discovered his feminine side, which has helped him on and off the stage.
“Here’s the thing,” said Dawe in an interview with the Other Press, “the things I describe as “what women want” aren’t hard. Backrubs—I love giving backrubs. A seemingly selfless reason for a woman to take her shirt off? And let me touch her? Sign me up! Chocolate—I used to keep a chocolate bar hidden in the apartment at all times for my girlfriend. She’d get to craving chocolate, I’d disappear into anther room, bring it out—and voila! It was as if I presented her with a diamond.”
Although Dawe admits he doesn’t like sports, dogs, strippers, or guns, (and likes Rush and foreplay), he is still very much a man—a slob who loves sex with women. Nothing is left sacred in his routine, and he talks about why North American swear words are body and church based (holy shit, asshole, cock), society’s pressure on women to face up to an impossible standard (the Virgin Mother), and why there is no patron saint of sex (“Where is Samantha, patron saint of girls who like to fuck?”).
Dawe writes his own monologue, which is inspired by personal experience. “I stopped trying to be a regular actor because I wanted to say my own lines. It’s much more fun, much more satisfying to me to talk about what happens to me or to people I’ve talked to. The everyday lives of people are incredibly interesting to me. So the show’s an extension of me talking to a friend, or a group of friends.”
The hour-and-a-half-long act also has serious overtones, where Dawe shows as much empathy for women’s plights (rape, sexism, lack of orgasms) as only a man can. But his most humorous moments come when he imitates himself having sex, and when he acts as a freshly-laid Jesus and proclaims the “second-coming.” Hearing a man yell out to a hundred people that he has “struck cunt!” or wants someone to fill him with sperm is pretty amusing, too.
There may be “no flying kicks, no falling chandeliers, no dance sequences” and “no slipping on a banana peel,” but Dawes reminds those that may crave action that “there are dick jokes” in Maxim & Cosmo; and although sometimes predictable, the peals of laughter emitting from the crowd shows his spoken humour makes up for the lack of physical shtick and banana peels.
Dawe publishes all of his previous scripts, and they are available through his website, www.tjdawe.com. (If he publishes Maxim & Cosmo, it will be the perfect stocking stuffer for any woman’s boyfriend—it should actually be required reading for guys in high school.) He is also looking ahead. “I’m memorizing for my next show (which takes months of practice), I’ve got a summer tour booked for it, and I hit the road in May.” Let’s hope Dawe strikes cunt again with his next performance.

It's not easy being green at Douglas College

2008-04-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

Douglas College’s mission statement says, “At Douglas College, we respond to diverse community needs in a rapidly changing society.” And the college may have succeeded in some areas, like welcoming multiculturalism and providing a safe environment for students. But one thing left out of our college’s core values has been the natural environment. While the College has made a small visual effort to appear enviro-friendly (for example, by placing bottle recycle bins sporadically around the campuses) what happens behind the scenes challenges the green in the Douglas College logo.
On both the New West and David Lam Campuses, there are small changes each department can make to lessen the current dinosaur-sized carbon footprint Douglas College is leaving on the environment.
For example, expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) is used for take-out containers in the cafeteria. This material is generally bad for the environment: it takes a long time to decompose, it’s hard to recycle, and it’s actually banned as a packaging product in over 20 cities across North America—in 1990 polystyrene foam packaging was even banned at McDonald’s. Fernanda Santos, a manager of the Facilities Services Department, said although there are a number of cafeteria initiatives being looked at right now, there are no concrete plans for change—mostly due to cost.
Douglas has fallen behind when it comes to greener campuses. The University of Victoria has a system to use treated waste water in toilets, a compost program for leftover food, and a neon-green sticker on every light switch that reminds students to turn off the lights when leaving the room; Douglas College uses clean water in the toilets, has no compost program, and keeps lights on 24/7.
Recycling is important in all areas of a building, including water facilities, according to Peter Endisch, member of global warming awareness group Boiling Point Action Network (BPAN). “Water from kitchens, showers, etc, can be used for such things as flushing toilets,” he said. “The cost of the system should be easily recouped within a few years.”
“Compost—there’s no reason not to. Compost can be then used in the community gardens. Remember, there’s no such thing in nature as ‘waste’. Waste is a word invented by humans. Let’s try to at least put back into nature what we can, and avoid filling landfills with such nutrients-rich materials as compost. The GVRD is facing real issues because landfills are near capacity. It is only a question of time before institutions such as Douglas College are asked to start recycling aggressively and composting.”
Other ways Endisch suggested the College could ease its carbon output included introducing campus-wide zero-idling policies, installing energy efficient light bulbs, and expanding garden areas on the campuses.
Susan Witter, President of Douglas College, sent out an “Eco Challenge” email to all students on March 9. The email announced Witter would be chairing an Environmental Sustainability Task Force (ESTF) made up of students, staff, and administrators, who have “considered short-term priorities for raising awareness of the environmental initiatives already part of our culture, as well as expansions of these initiatives.”
Gerry Pinel, founder and president of BPAN, said a “Round Table Action Group” is the most effective way of creating changes from within. “The first task of the group should be to call for an environmental audit (carbon footprint) of the campus; a baseline is required to measure changes against. Then the real work would begin.” Some staff are already trying to turn their departments around. The Printshop recycles all of its paper trimmings and off cuts, and uses recycled paper for jobs whenever possible. It also encourages use of their online ordering system for print requests, instead of hard copy.
The Douglas Students’ Union has recently established an Environmental Action Team (EAT). EAT’s objectives are to implement change; gain knowledge via awareness campaigns and peers; collaborate with the College’s green teams, faculty, staff, and administration; and keep in contact with external coalition partners and multinational stakeholders.
“Our first Environmental Action Team meeting was held on Tuesday, March 4. All together, we now have 14 eager students that want to get involved and take initiative at Douglas,” said Ally MacGrotty, DSU and EAT spokesperson. “It was apparent that transportation, water, consumption, the earth, energy, and recycling systems were the top six topics of concern in which our team plans to address, work towards and actively gain awareness of sustainable initiatives that all students can take to fight climate change.”
But along with EAT, the DSU tries its best to lessen its impact. “We turn off our lights at all times necessary; we always recycle our pizza boxes from Pub Nights; we email rather than fax; we conserve paper by having our minutes, constitution and bylaws on the computer for students to request; we recycle our paper, pop cans and bottles; and, of course, encourage students to act with the same volition,” stated MacGrotty.
EAT has planned green events that all students are invited to attend, including a Water Taste Test and participation in the Commuter Challenge. “Our next endeavour after the Water Taste Test is to enter into the Commuter Challenge with other universities and colleges in June. Students will have the opportunity to record how many kilometres it takes for them to come to school,” said MacGrotty.
And, according to MacGrotty, change is possible. “We believe it is very feasible to implement a successful widespread green initiative at Douglas because these students are so engaged and enthusiastic.”

Of Swine and Men, Men and Swine

2008-03-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

Humanity is the cancer of nature. -Dave Foreman

The Carbon Tax is Full of Hot Air

2008-03-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

The BC Liberals are attempting to chase the poor and middle class out of the province and make British Columbia an elite centre for the rich. Living in the Lower Mainland, residents already feel the frustration of a ridiculously expensive housing market and pricey car insurance; filling up at the pump is bank-breaking as it is, but it's about to get a lot worse.
On July 1, 2008, drivers will begin paying a carbon tax on all fossil fuels; this will add 2.4 cents to already skyrocketing gas prices—and the tax will go up in the next few years. But to offset this new cash grab, Finance Minister Carole Taylor promises cuts in income tax and money credits for residents, including a $100 cheque mailed out to all British Columbians this June.
Fuel prices already include a lot of taxes and this additional tax may make driving completely unaffordable for many people. Included in the price of gasoline is an Excise Tax, in effect since 1995, and the ever-present GST, which are both charged almost country-wide and come to 14.8 cents a litre. Then there is the BC provincial tax of 14.5 cents. But on top of that, Vancouverites pay an extra 6 cents to cover a Transportation Tax that only two other cities in Canada charge. But even Montreal and Victoria pay less, at 1.5 and 2.5 cents respectively. The amount of money the government is already taking from its residents is substantial; if the BC Liberals want a cut of gas profit to go to the environment, then they can cut it out of the current provincial tax instead.
What the Liberals aren't addressing is the trickle-down effect of the carbon tax; when gas goes up, so do goods and services. By 2012, the carbon tax will bloat to around 7.2 cents a litre. If the current high price of lettuce is the proverbial canary in the coalmine, then not only driving but imported food will be unaffordable as well. Although this may encourage people to switch to transit and the 100 Mile Diet, it will also starve others out of the province.
Switching to transit wouldn’t be so bad if TransLink would improve their service to accommodate the Lower Mainland’s growing population, especially after the increase in fares this past January. Yet SkyTrain is still a claustrophobic’s nightmare during peak hours and does not accommodate late customers; bus riders in the suburbs must still wait 30–60 minutes for most routes.
But what about AirCare? Isn’t that inspection program supposed to be cutting back emissions? AirCare costs owners of older vehicles (1991 or later) $23 annually, while 1992 vehicles are tested every second year at a cost of $45 per session. The BC Liberals have to decide what they want: a tax of a test, because they can’t have both.
BC’s Green Party, who should be be pleased with this initiative, doesn’t even agree with the new tax. Leader of the Green Party, Jane Sterk, claimed the carbon tax “has failed our major industries because it provides no incentives to truly innovate and adapt” and it still lacks focus on reducing emissions.
The BC government wants to get its cake and eat it too, and on July 1 it will, when the carbon tax comes into effect. Meanwhile, Vancouver and the GVRD’s commuter woes are comparable to death from a thousand paper cuts; but the cuts are pennies and the death is bankruptcy.

Ovechkin vs Crosby?

2008-03-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

It's NO contest!

http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/66121/Ovechkin_qjpreviewth.jpg

http://www.highdollar.ca/images/crosby_gq.jpg

Blurb

2008-03-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

Low-quality for easy upload.

The Other News

2008-02-29T23:18:00.001-08:00

Police Say Smeltit Dealt It

VANCOUVER, BC—Police have caught a man suspected of causing an early morning explosion last Wednesday, February 13. The blast obliterated the Broadway Street Taco Del Mar, and caused major damage to surrounding businesses, including a Starbucks and an adjoining dollar store.
Initially thought to be an of terrorism, the police now say the explosion was the accidental result of a break-in gone wrong.
“The suspect broke in to raid the cash register,” said Det. Brock Coxalot. “But he made the mistake of lighting a match to see his way around inside, instead of using a flashlight.” Coxalot explained that years of dormant methane gas had built-up in the Mexican food establishment. “The guy didn’t have a chance,” he said.
The suspect, Denis Smeltit, 25, was made available for comment from his hospital bed at Vancouver General. He is being treated for second-degree burns to 40 per cent of his body.
“I blame the beans,” said Smeltit. “If I had just stuck to robbing burger joints instead of going spicy I wouldn’t be here right now. But no, I had to listen to my friends who kept making fun of me, calling me the ‘Burger-ler.’ Now look at me; I’m more toasted than a chicken quesadilla.”
The owner of Taco Del Mar, D. Sanchez, said the franchise will rebuild.
“‘Delicious’ may be our middle name, but so is ‘Diligence,’” said Sanchez. “We won’t let this hooligan stop us; we’ll show the world what our tacos are made of.”
Investigators believe there were more than 102 PPM of methane gas lingering in the Taco Del Mar. Although such gas is non-toxic to inhale, the smell of the built-up gas was covered up by the exceptionally fragrant food available at the restaurant.
“Sometimes our food smells like fart,” admitted Sanchez. “There are a lot of beans in our burritos.”
Experts agree that beans, although good for your heart, will cause excessive flatulence that, in severe cases, can become explosive around open-flame.
Smeltit claims that he can’t be solely responsible for the explosion since hundreds of patrons had also contributed to the toxic time bomb.
“There’s no way we could sort out whose toots are whose,” said Det. Coxalot. “I don’t think the technology is available yet. Besides, the offending gas was burned up in the fireball, taking our evidence with it.”

Upcoming show

2008-02-19T18:07:00.001-08:00

Command and Control

2008-02-13T13:57:00.001-08:00

Choice is Freedom

2008-02-13T13:45:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This was part of a new segment in the paper, "War of Words." I was challenged to defend the first hot topic, abortion, against a very conservative (Republican-supporting) guy. The situation is fictional and the name was one of a few common names I use in my writing and has nothing to do with anyone I know. But although it was a fictional situation in this case, it mirrors the lives of millions of women around the world. I'm not going feminist on everyone, just presenting an article. For more information, visit the following:

http://www.wavaw.ca/informed_stats.php

http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/statistics/index.html

Jennifer was 13 years old when she was raped and beaten—by her uncle. She was so ashamed of what had happened she couldn’t tell anyone. She hid from the world, crying and screaming into her pillow to hide her despair.
It was six weeks later when Jennifer found out, in the seclusion of her bathroom, that she was pregnant with her uncle’s baby; not only that, but Jennifer was only a baby herself: How could she raise a new life?
Sex is the simultaneous bane and blessing of human existence; it brings pleasure, and ultimate pain. Although children aren’t always planned and many people are conceived by lust alone, fear and harm should never be a part of reproduction.
Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) reports one in four Canadian women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, which is a lot of possibility for forced conception.
There are limits in Canada as to how far-along a fetus can be before an abortion can no longer be performed; abortions after 12 weeks are generally frowned upon, although some states in the U.S. allow them later in pregnancy. Abortions for medical reasons are a unclear: How old and what illness are the subject of harsh debate between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, and medical professionals. When does life really begin: Conception or birth? All heavy issues, but not the real concern.
If a woman aborts because of rape, health, or accidental pregnancy, it shouldn’t matter. Society risk their basic freedoms when people allow governments to have a say over their own bodies—that’s something even a conservative could agree with.
Conservative values are based on freedom. The 2004 U.S. Republican Party Platform even states the following:
“We choose strength.
We choose results.
We choose optimism.
We choose opportunity.
We choose freedom.”
Isn’t an individual’s body his or her ultimate personal sanctuary, therefore granting the freedom to make the choices necessary to ensure its best interests? If a child is born into a world with restricted rights then it is not really living.
Letting heads of state decide whether or not 13-year-old Jennifer has to keep her incest baby—causing a lifetime of torment for her as a mother and a questionable future for her child—is unimaginable. Asking government for the consent to prevent a child a woman cannot look after from spending his or her life in foster care, or to stop the birth of a child with severe physical or mental defect should be just as inconceivable.
An abortion is not a form of body modification, and should never be taken lightly; it should be used as a last resort method to avoid bringing a life into the world that will not be properly cared for—abortion is not a form of common birth control. Great care should always be taken to avoid unwanted conception, and the proper methods and barriers be used.
But throughout history, people have sacrificed their lives for freedom. Freedom comes at a price, and unborn babies, along with soldiers, are part of that cost. If people allow government to make such a personal decision for them, they take away the freedom that government themselves claim they fight for.
If the War on Terror is for personal freedoms, then the War on Terror is also for abortion, because if women don’t have a choice, then the terrorists win.

No More Meat

2008-02-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

It’s tough to be a vegetarian. Not only are humans conditioned omnivores, but refusing meat often labels a person an environmental extremist.
It’s been over ten years since I last ate beef; I have never eaten seafood, lamb, rabbit, or anything other than pigs and poultry. But three weeks ago, after extensively studying the process by which animals are readied for human consumption, I decided to quit meat “cold turkey.”
Recently, professors and scientists have joined environmentalists in the vegetarian cause. Two University of Chicago professors, Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, claim the amount of energy and greenhouse gases required to produce even the smallest amount of suitable animal protein are astronomical, and the meat and fishing industries are main contributors to global warming. In a 2005 issue of Physics World, British physicist Alan Calverd announced we could cut 21 per cent of carbon emissions by eliminating production of livestock. Calverd said, “Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels.” So why isn’t anyone listening?
I blame barbeque pork ribs.
Barbeque pork ribs are tasty as hell. It is easy to grab a rack of ribs and forget about the land used, carbon emitted and animals tortured while indulging on them; the only immediate problem the customer has is the sticky fingers the ribs cause.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states, “The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.”
Not only is livestock polluting our atmosphere, water, and land, but meat may be directly causing major health problems in consumers. “Hormonal substances” are widely used by industry for the “development of more lean meat with less fat deposited on the meat”, “more growth using less feed,” and, “reduced cost for the cattle producer and less expensive beef for the consumer,” according to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and Beef Information Centre.
The effect these hormones have on humans has been the subject of great debate in the health and scientific communities, and many groups claim the injected hormones are carcinogenic. Widespread illness has also been known to crop up in our mass production livestock, such as mad cow disease and avian flu.
On top of health and environmental issues, with expanding human populations, it just isn’t practical to devote vast sections of land to food that is then fed to food; it is a sort of worldwide double handling. Why not just stop at the grains and beans, instead of passing them on?
Then there is the humane aspect to this meaty issue. Chickens, for example, seem pretty stupid. They have small, beady eyes and act as though they are just walking vegetables. They even keep running around when their heads are cut off. I, as a devourer of many chickens, used this excuse and justified my diet with the “stupid animal” argument.
Every living thing on this planet, including chickens, barnacles, and people, only gets one lifetime, one chance to experience anything and everything they can. Humans may have conquered other animals, but they need to keep respect for other creatures that share the planet. Keeping a bird in small cage all its life, chopping off its beak, and then stringing it up on a production line and boiling it alive is not respect. Separating calves from their mothers and shacking them up in pens to be fed on all-liquid diets before slaughtering them is not valuing life. And manipulating animals in painful ways so they may die for our dinner is wrong.
So, how does one know what is ethically edible? Free-range, cage-free, organic—who regulates what? Which meat is more environmentally friendly? Which one saves more lives? Who can be trusted?
It’s much easier to simply cut meat out of a diet all together—it really isn’t that hard.

Deal With Ivy Before Replant in Stanley Park

2008-02-07T01:13:00.000-08:00

On Dec. 15, 2006, an intense windstorm swept through the jewel of Vancouver, Stanley Park. The storm knocked down over ten thousand trees and left the park in utter disrepair. But why?
Trees can live a long time; they boast being some of the oldest living organisms on the planet. Trees stand patiently through colonization and all sorts of weather conditions. The fact that thousands of trees fell because of one storm should speak to the public in more ways than one: If trees that have lived through many past storms are now falling during one night, the cause must be epic—or us.
Global warming has been touted as one cause of ever-increasing storm-strength. And the storm on that night in December was particularly ruthless, throwing 120 km winds at Vancouver. So, if the storm was caused by climate change, then we have ourselves to blame. But is that the only reason why this park was destroyed?
In 2004, the Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPEC) and the Vancouver Park Board started an environmental initiative called Ivy Busters. They realized the park had been inundated with English ivy, a plant not native to North America.
Alien or introduced species of plants are much more common than people realize, and many gardeners cultivate and contribute to the problem in their own backyards. Invasive plants, like ivy, replace the natural vegetation of a forest, which can have major negative impact on the ecosystem: Yet another problem humans can blame themselves for.
SPEC states on its website that English ivy also “can prevent the regeneration of understory trees and shrubs, and as it climbs trees, the weight of ivy will increase the likelihood of blow-down.”
There is still a significant ivy problem in Stanley Park, and obviously there is a correlation between trees falling and ivy growth. So why is replanting going forward before the ivy problem is dealt with? Not only could this happen again during a storm, but the young, replanted trees will be hindered by the copious masses of ivy along the forest floor.
Eventually all trees will fall, whether from wind or saws, but it is becoming apparent that ivy plays a significant role in destroying our British Columbian woods. The forest along the shores of the Coquitam River is an excellent example of the wreckage caused by these green invaders. The foreign ivy is weakening our native land, and it needs to be dealt with.
There are a few local groups devoted to stopping alien plants from taking over, including the Coastal Invasive Plant Committee (CIPC) and the Incasive Plant Council of B.C. (IPCBC).
Next month, the replanting of Stanley Park will begin again in full-force. The public can only hope the Vancouver Park Board has taken battling aliens into their strategy, as well.

So Heath Ledger is Dead

2008-02-07T01:12:00.000-08:00

During the summer of ’97, I became obsessed with a television program (a rarity for me to care for TV). The show was called Roar, an epic drama that took place around 400 A.D. in Ireland. There were only 13 episodes, but during its short run, many North American viewers got their first glimpse at the young, handsome leader of the clan and star of the show: Heath Ledger.
The show was incredibly cheesy, which probably explained its quick cancellation. Ledger played Conor, a Celtic hero who was always too honourable for his own good; and he was the only in the cast to go on to bigger and better things in his career—although it had its ups and downs.
In 2000, he starred alongside Mel Gibson in the war drama The Patriot. The movie won several awards and brought Ledger praise from critics. But from there, besides having a role in acclaimed film Monster’s Ball, Ledger starred in a slew of slumps, including A Knight’s Tale and The Order.
That all changed with the fabulous wonder that was Brokeback Mountain. Ledger went from little known Aussie to big-star hottie overnight, and his career looked on track and promising. But some thought he played a lost soul a little too accurately, and the fact his body was found on Tuesday, Jan. 22, attests to the parallels between the character he played on Brokeback and his real life—not as a gay man, but a man that hurt so deep he couldn’t even act his way out of it.
Ledger was high school dropout, and supposedly struggled with different sorts of drugs for a long time. Watching him on-screen, it was sometimes hard to find his characters believable because something else was going on inside his head while he was acting. Whether it was his eyes or his subtle movements, Ledger had the aura of someone who had been broken and was having trouble rebuilding.
So, he is dead now. Gone the way of many stars: Monroe, Dean, Joplin. And he leaves behind a two-year old daughter who will never get to know the real him. She will only know him as we, the fans, do. She will see him in his movies and wish she could meet him, just like I did when I saw him in Roar.
In a way, all celebrities are already dead to their fans. Fans know them through the roles they play, and will never really know their true personalities; they are unattainable to us, just as the dead are to everyone. Good-bye to a man I never met, and good luck to his daughter, Matilda, who just left Hollywood and entered reality.

Dear Everyone

2008-02-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

STOP CHASING BRITNEY SPEARS AND START FOLLOWING THE TRUTH.

You May Be Wearing Dog Fur

2008-01-29T10:14:00.001-08:00

Humans took wolves and, over centuries, bred the wilderness from them. Within their canine selves, we instilled a sense of loyalty and service to mankind. So, after all the work we have put into making dogs the perfect people companion, it’s only natural we view them differently from other animals, such as livestock.
But thinking of dogs as pets is a very Western view, and in many countries dogs are considered just another source of food and fur.
In poorer places in the world, people do not have the luxury of caring for animals that are of no concrete value to them. Dogs are not human; therefore, they are fair game for dinner—meat is meat.
But even if someone were to argue the merits of eating a creature we worked so hard to tame, the treatment dogs are receiving overseas—and here in North America—attests to total disregard for their existence and total disrespect to their loyalty.
The recent high-profile case of football star turned dog-fighter Michael Vick woke many Americans up to the reality of dog abuse, and broke many hearts with its truth. But what many Westerners don’t know, or don’t want to know, is the foul treatment of man’s best friend goes far beyond the fighting ring, and the end result of abuse may end up on their parkas.
Dog fur is an exportable commodity in Asia. In 2000, the United States passed the Dog and Cat Protection Act, which prohibits the import of products made with dog and cat fur. Other countries have also banned dog fur, including Italy, France, Denmark and Australia. But Canada has not. Not only that, but Canada also does not have labelling requirements for fur coats and items, so consumers, thinking they have made a more humane choice by buying an item with faux fur trim, may actually be wearing German Shepherd around their necks; sometimes it’s easier to skin a dog than to make faux fur.
But it isn’t just the fact that humans are killing man’s best friend; it is the way the slaughter is being carried out. America’s Dog and Cat Protection Act states, “The methods of housing, transporting and slaughtering dogs and cats for production are generally unregulated and inhumane.” Many could argue the same for North American livestock, but because Fido has a place at the foot of the bed he gets this special exclusion from being processed in such ways. But it’s more than that: Dogs work for us, they depend on us and many humans depend on dogs as their sole source of companionship. To turn around and stab them in the back (literally) is the ultimate betrayal.
A number of the dogs used for fur and meat in Asia are strays or even pets, and their human-induced friendly nature makes them easy targets for thieves. According to Humane Society International, “Investigators witnessed firsthand the brutal slaughter of domestic dogs and cats in China and other Asian nations. What we found shocked people. Many of these animals are raised in cold, unsanitary breeding compounds. Some are strays. Others are obviously pets who were most likely stolen.”
The Internet is littered with images and articles on the abuse of dogs overseas. The photos can cause tears and anger, but there is one especially abhorring video that should cause action, and it stars the unfortunate raccoon dog.
Raccoon dogs are not pets, but a wild species of canine living in Asia, and have luxurious coats and large litters of pups that make them perfect breeding stock for the fur trade. Sometimes sold under the false name of “Asian Raccoon,” this species was recently uncovered to be present in a number of prominent fashion lines, like P. Diddy’s Sean John and Jay-Z’s Rocawear.
According to animal welfare advocates, countries like China have little or no legislation prohibiting inhumane treatment, confinement or live skinning of animals. This is apparent in the videos easily accessible, but rarely viewed, on sites like YouTube. One such video shows just how brutal the last minutes of a raccoon dog’s life can be: It starts out bad, and ends so much worse.
The raccoon dog is flung to the ground in an attempt to render it unconscious. But it is still moving, so the butcher strikes it over the head. Gasping for breath and continuing to struggle, the creature is strung up and skinned. It still moves as its flesh is peeled from its being, and its eyelids are torn off in the process. Now, completely skinned alive with muscle and sinew exposed to the world, the raccoon dog is tossed into a pile of dead dogs. In a last ditch effort to live, the animal lifts its head, a bloody and grotesque version of the creature it was before, and looks at the camera.
The lengths the fur industry has gone to deceive the public about this cruel reality indicates their guilt.
From Britain’s extermination of wolves, to packs of dingoes eating babies, human and canine histories are gorily intertwined. Humans have betrayed dogs just as dogs have attacked people. But humans have conquered the world, and there is no need for these primitive, disgusting crimes of fashion.
According to reports, such as Fur Report 2005 by Care for the Wild International, fur farmers in China hold 1.5 million raccoon dogs captive at any one time. Canadians, consumers and government alike, should be taking steps to ensure they are not contributing to the demand of this brutal practice by writing to politicians, spreading the word and, of course, not buying fur.

NOTE: To learn more about this issue, please visit the following:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HcjS5pNNt5o

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1mhFs-uLyWo&watch_response

Thanks.

Old Clipping from the TIMES

2008-01-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

2008-01-29T10:01:00.000-08:00

New Logo for Against Restraint

2008-01-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

No More Chicken

2008-01-22T12:49:00.001-08:00

"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian."
-Paul McCartney

Practice Promo

2008-01-13T23:14:00.000-08:00

Practice banners...

...and the image for the column I am hoping to get...

Plenty of Wish Wash

2008-01-11T20:45:00.000-08:00

I had heard the hype—women finding their husbands, men discovering their soul mates—about online dating sites. So last summer, fed up with what I was finding in the real world, I registered on a dating website.
An acquaintance of mine swore by cyber love, boasting about the wonderful man she scooped out of the net. But then again, another acquaintance was disgusted by the barrage of freaks that filled her inbox, and sternly warned me against signing up. I tried to go into this with an open mind.
After coming up with a non-sexual-yet-not-too-nerdy screen name, (attempting to put off those who may only contact me for sex or, at the other end of the spectrum, Dungeons and Dragons games), I filled out a form and was presented with the blank square that was my About me section. There was also one that followed where you could describe my perfect date. I skipped that one. No one needs to know of my need to sacrifice a yearling goat on a first date in order to set the mood.
But I did need to write a profile bio. I played it safe, mentioning my studies and hobbies, and avoiding any negative wording or sexual reference—I wasn’t just looking for a quick bang, yet I wasn’t disillusioning myself either—I wasn’t going to find my soul mate.
I completed my profile and it went live. Now, I waited. What wackos awaited me in the depths of this electronic abyss? But it wasn’t wackos that I heard from—it was the illiterate.
“Nice pics so who yer summer goin.” “I like movies an holdin hands you like 2?” “I
I am attracted to you in wayz that r diff cause of yer bootiful eyez.”
I perused the male options on the site and found little in the way of good choices. Anyone majorly gorgeous came off as extremely egotistical, and many others seemed too bland.
Evidently, I learned, there are a lot of single men in Surrey. The site was also full of what many would consider to be chauches (www.urbandictionary.com defines a chauch as “Pretty boys who are beefy, vain, do stripper dances at clubs and think it’s hot, wear tight shirts. Also possibly tan, use hair products, go to the gym to be looked at, have frosted tipped hair.”) Now, beefy doesn’t sound so bad. But many of these guys were the chauch without the beef, which I guess one could call chince.
I decided to take the plunge and allow some of these cyber-suitors to contact me via MSN Messenger. There was no way I was going to just meet dudes straight off the internet. So I got to know them better, and realized I really wasn’t interested in dating anyone at all.
When it comes to dating, whether it is electronic, phone or in-person, a person needs to go into it with not only an open mind, but an open heart. There are a lot of fish in the sea, but if I am not into it, there isn’t one for me.

Bhutto One Giant Leap for Women

2008-01-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

Many claimed Benazir Bhutto was the lesser of two evils. And regardless of her stance on issues or her party’s past dealings, Bhutto was well loved in Pakistan, as the world can tell from the fiery backlash occurring from her December assassination.
As news stations show streets full of mourners, it is amazing to see that it is mainly men who are the most distraught over her death. How come a woman politician garnered more respect in an Islamic republic than any woman can achieve in North America?
North America is awash with passive sexism. It is blatant our television programs and in our parliament. If a woman shows strength in the West, she is either a bitch or a lesbian. Or ambitious.
Take the treatment of Belinda Stronach. As a good-looking female in an old and ugly male-dominated role, she was scrutinized by the media and members of parliament on everything from her wardrobe to her personal relationships. When ex-party member and boyfriend Peter MacKay may or may not have called her a dog in Canada’s house of legislature, and former premier of Alberta Ralph Klein made a dirty reference about her in a speech, the instances were laughed off and treated as nothing more than jokes. But when Liberal leader Stephane Dion suggested Stephen Harper get some exercise, the Conservatives were in an uproar.
Helena Guergis, a junior minister for the Tories, said “real leaders ... do not go around making fun of other people's weight.” But what about the litany of personal disrespect the Conservatives threw at Stronach when she left their party?
Politics are not the only areas slated for chauvinism. A quick flip through international and local news reports show gender bias alive and well throughout North America. Most six p.m. broadcasters are men. But not just men, but old men, and usually overweight and unattractive. Besides Barbara Walters, it is rare to see a woman past fifty years old (without ten pounds of injected botox on her face) in the big seat.
Global BC offers a prime example of televised sexism. After faithfully remaining with the station for years, Deborra Hope was passed over for the 6 p.m. anchor position for newcomer Chris Gailus. And you won’t see a single sagging female face in the Global cast—but plenty of overweight, aging men.
Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. Meg Griffin is a loser. Britney Spears is a whore. We are still a long way off from seeing women in positions of real power in the West.
Rest in peace, Bhutto, for showing the world a woman can make a difference.

Tired Thoughts

2008-01-11T20:41:00.000-08:00

Have you ever secretly empathisized with a tyrant?
Or envied a killer?

Buy This Album!

2008-01-02T16:29:00.000-08:00

Ode to Glory Winter

2007-12-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

The trees shiver off their last leaves,

And shed all memory

Of warmth.

Time's Up

2007-12-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

The time for accomplishments is almost over; soon it will be replaced by necessity.

Woman is the Nigger of the World

2007-12-18T15:10:00.000-08:00

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is...think about it
Woman is the nigger of the world
Think about it...do something about it

We make her paint her face and dance
If she wont be a slave, we say that she dont love us
If shes real, we say shes trying to be a man
While putting her down, we pretend that shes above us

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you dont believe me, take a look at the one you're with
Woman is the slave of the slaves
Ah, yeah...better scream about it

We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen
We tell her home is the only place she should be
Then we complain that shes too unworldly to be our friend

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is
If you dont believe me, take a look at the one youre with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yeah...alright...hit it!

We insult her every day on tv
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When shes young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb
Woman is the nigger of the world

Yes she is...if you dont believe me, take a look at the one youre with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yes she is...if you believe me, you better scream about it
We make her paint her face and dance

And The Devil Will Drag You Under

2007-12-17T04:58:00.000-08:00

"The fact that the rats had been created and placed in the maze did not automatically make them inferior, just less powerful. But only at the moment--not absolutely less powerful."
-Jack L. Chalker, And The Devil Will Drag You Under

March for a Cause, not a Claus

2007-12-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Public events can unify residents of a community, which may give them a deeper respect for their neighbours. And creating fun events for children is always very important. But in an age of acute environmental awareness, needless parades seem archaic; the waste and greenhouse gases created give parades a dinosaur-sized carbon footprint.
Christmas parades, in particular, are the epitome of Western civilization’s gluttonous lifestyle, and it is time people rethought their expectations of entertainment. Parades laugh in the face of nature and poverty. Granted, food was collected at the recent Santa Clause Parade, but that seemed an afterthought to the real priority—advertisement.
Organize a parade for a hero, or a cause—not floats with Dora the Explorer. Parades are just another chance for corporations to promote their products. Christmas is the biggest consumer scam of all time, and events that promote it just exemplify greed.
While 300,000 people came out for the Rogers Christmas Parade on November 20, only a small fraction of that showed to the Vancouver Remembrance Day ceremonies on the 11th. Entertainment is the only thing worth rallying for in Canada, it seems.
Hundreds of Buddhist monks marched down Burma streets in September, risking their lives in a reach for democracy. In contrast, the West only unify when it’s time to see Santa on his greenhouse gas-spewing float.
Parades are either the ultimate show-off or the ultimate embarrassment to the Western countries. Roads are blocked, cars are detoured through longer routes and a huge amounts of garbage is created, not for a cause—but for Santa Clause.

Being Human is Still Glorious

2007-12-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

Humans have been taking a lot of flack lately. We are blaming ourselves for soiling our own nest, polluting our only home—destroying the planet Earth. But humans are the ultimate example of nature corrupting Nature.
Humans are still a part of Nature, and Nature is the most glorious entity possible. Nature, in whichever way you view it, creates the most beautiful, incredible things, like waterfalls, flowers, eagles—and humans.
To turn against humans is to turn against Nature. All creatures deserve equal chance on this planet, but it does not mean that other creatures have to realize this fact. Predatory animals will hunt until their prey is decimated, without guilt—all for the sake of self-preservation. But in doing so, the predator does not realize that it is hunting itself into extinction. Nothing is immune to fault, and this is the fault of Nature, and a fate that humans have shared.
Evolution has granted us the means to destroy our creator—but who says that if lions ruled the world, they wouldn’t cause even more havoc? Our minds have developed faster than our bodies; we are superior minds with bestial hearts—these are things we cannot control.
It has been said that war is human stupidity at its best; but war is also humanity at its most primal. Animals have territory just as we have borders, except ours are marked with concrete walls instead of piss and smell. Even the most seemingly complacent of creatures will fight to its death to maintain its territory, just as millions of people have done over human history—so we conquer because we can, and we should be proud to have lasted this long.
Some god is kicking himself for giving us so many creative traits, because we have surpassed deity status—humans are now mortal gods. Have you ever seen a god portrayed with a Blackberry, or anything that seems remotely modern? No—because we possess what any god could not create, and our creativity and curiosity have granted this.
So, as we have destroyed beauty, we have also created it—a sort of beauty replacement. Even in primeval ages, sub-humans were depicting their kills in the most aesthetically pleasing way they could on the walls of their caves. As our current waste and wars pile up around the world, humans are still trying to express their creativity in ways that make up for the ugliness of our polluting habits.
Humans have evolved so much that they no longer have to be in the same vicinity to kill one another. We have tamed other creatures and made them our slaves. We have developed ways of communicating over vast distances without getting out of our luxurious homes. We are amazing.
Nature is a cruel place, and humans have obviously not escaped this reality. We may be mortal gods, but Nature is the one real law we must obey. We can try and overcome its ways, but in doing so we will only destroy ourselves. The world may be our oyster, and ours to destroy, but we as a part of nature will perish with our achievement.
Have we reached the pinnacle of human society? Do our rapid advancements correlate with the worsening storms, a sign of an impending split between nature and man, which will result in an ultimate battle that will destroy all life? No.
Humans as a race are only guilty of naivety. We didn’t realize how much impact we were having on our home, just as a pack of wolves devours the last elk in the forest. So that is a fault of Nature’s, not ours. We have survived by conquering the world, and that is the greatest achievement of all time.
Anti-human advocates promote their views by way of talk, but they still continue to reap the rewards of being human. Celebrating birthdays, being involved in relationships and even breathing are all activities that anti-humans should not participate in—if you are anti-human, you better kill yourself fast, because you are what you are against, and every moment you live is a hypocritical action. To hate humans is to hate yourself.
Every individual human may not deserve admiration, but as a race, humans deserve respect. We have only done what nature has allowed us, and when Nature has had enough of its creation, it will let us know—unless we destroy Nature first. Humanity may be a plague on the Earth, but it is a disease the Earth asked for.

Media, Death and Civilized Blood Sport

2007-12-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

Death is a private matter. A person’s last moments are their most personal—time to say good-bye, to make amends and to savour the life flashing before dimming eyes. But modern media has made what should be reserved for family and loved ones a public event.
Then again, death speaks loudly. If people need to make a statement, or shock others to action, then showing the reality of human demise is the way to go. Watching someone die on TV or the Internet can be like looking into a possible future. People ask themselves: Could that be how it will end for me?
People watch simulated death all the time on movies and video games. They are being desensitized with every gory scene they view or every virtual bludgeon they give to Xbox opponents. But is this the way people prepare themselves for their own impending doom?
Throughout history blood sport has been hailed as the ultimate entertainment. Romans, Mayans and many other cultures show that people love to watch gladiators slice through a slave or see a crowd stone a criminal—people have been watching people die since people were people.
So, how come it now seems so wrong to publicly present a person’s last strangled breath? Wasn’t that prime entertainment back in the day? Death still lives on as entertainment in films such as Faces of Death and Traces of Death.
To stress an issue, to prove a point or to get some answers, broadcasting death is the way to go—it is the ultimate emphasis. One only needs to look at this past month to see how death can turn incidents into atrocities.
In Japan, there have been incidents of dolphin culling. But after seeing the video highlighted by Hayden Panettiere, with the ocean turning violently crimson with each wave and each mammalian life taken, people are now aware that it is an atrocity of dolphin slaughter taking place, not just an incident.
The same is true for the taser incident at the Vancouver International Airport. Before the video came out, the public thought of it as just another tasering incident. But the film shows otherwise, and the strangled last breaths of the dying man reveal even more.
People relate to death because it happens to everyone—death is human. But is viewing death humane?
Besides a few cases of extroverted suicides, living creatures don’t usually go somewhere public when they know they are about to die. A family pet will go lay in a corner, a terminal patient will attempt to go home—as common as it is, death is still a mysterious thing.
But some living things do not get the dignity of a secluded death. Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who was tasered YVR, did not get that luxury. Neither did Eugene Armstrong, an American whose decapitation was posted on the internet.
It is hard to choose between respect for the dead and knowledge for the living. In October of this year, a 405-year-old clam was dredged from the bottom of the sea, which ironically died while scientists were counting its rings to determine its age.
Death finds everyone—it just matters if there is a camera around when it does. And with cameras posted everywhere from the street to cell phones, there’s a good chance someone will record your last breath.

Miga-chu, I Choose You…As the 2010 Mascot

2007-12-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

Everyone say “Nee how” to the official mascots of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.
Almost immediately after their unveiling on the morning of November 27, Internet message boards flooded with mixed reactions to the three new characters. But by saying mixed, it is meant that the response was negative with a very light sprinkling of praise.
These new mascots look more like Asian cartoon characters than West Coast icons. The fact that they are not concrete animals, just imaginary creatures, reflects the ongoing theme of 2010's unrealistic goals and confused outlook. Sumi (an animal spirit) is a horrible rip-off of Haida culture; Quatchi (a sasquatch) looks like a cross between the Kokanee spokesfoot and Barney Gumble from the Simpsons.; and Miga (a sea bear) looks like the result of a panda bear and cat mating gone awry.
Two of the creatures, Sumi and Miga, can transform. Is the “transforming creatures” idea just a grab for more dough? (“Well, you’ve got the bear-form of Miga, but what about the whale-form? Gotta collect ‘em all!”) Or was it that VANOC just couldn’t make up their minds about which animal to exploit?
The selection for the official mascot can be difficult. The chosen creature has to be able to participate in all of the Olympic and Paralympic sports. It also must be appealing to children, as kids are the biggest market for the mascots in toys and apparel. This explains why a salmon was not the best candidate, as fish would only be able to participate in the Paralympic sports due to the fact they do not have two legs. Anything edible was also not a good choice, because whichever meat market the mascot reflected might take a financial hit since children would protest to eating “Sammy the Olympic Salmon” or “Venison the Olympic Fawn.”
A trip to the 2010’s mascot website offers a more thorough introduction to the three freaks of nature, and passing a cursor over their pictures reveals the distinct voices of each. Sumi sounds like he is excitedly discussing VANOC’s habit of legally pursuing small businesses in Vancouver (Sue me!!), Quatchi repeats his name in a voice vaguely reminiscent of Ludo from the movie Labyrinth and Miga is a blatant rip-off of Pikachu from Pokemon.
Internet polls suggested the “spirit bear” was a popular favourite amongst the public, along with the killer whale, harbour seal and raven.
The two previous Canadian Olympic mascots were Amik the Beaver (1976, Montreal), which looked like a turd on a stick, and the brother and sister bear team of Hidy and Howdy (1988, Calgary), who probably hindered the Spirit Bear’s chance at becoming the mascot of Vancouver.
The Olympics are a venue for sport, but they are also an excellent place to showcase national and international issues. VANOC had the chance to present a mascot that could make a strong statement, but they seem to have enough controversy on their plate. An Inukshuk holding a club and a dead seal would have been a good representation of Canadian life. Drawing from current events, “Timmy the Taser” could’ve been the new mascot to greet our foreign guests at the airport.
Other more valid representations of West Coast life include:

“Hastings the Hobo”
“Jimmy the Needle”
“Pokey the Pine Beetle”
“Ricky the Rice Wine”
“Peter MacKay the Dog”
“Emerson the Defective MP”
“Bobby the Bedbug”

Whatever people think about the choice, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief with the discovery that VANOC did not go the Power Rangers route that Beijing 2008 did—or did they? (Miga could be Jingjing the Panda’s sister.) But unlike Vancouver, Beijing did choose animals (fish, panda, antelope and swallow) that are edible—probably because trying to find an animal the Chinese don’t eat would prove far too challenging. They even added Haunhaun, a “child of fire,” for easy accessible cooking of the other mascots.
So, like them or hate them, get ready for another two years of Sumi, Quatchi and Miga bombardment. Don’t worry; they are only out to kill you—with love.

Stephen vs. Stephane

2007-11-24T22:27:00.000-08:00

I have always had a healthy interest in politics—I listen to politicians in moderation and exercise my right to vote. In high school social studies, I delighted in composing cheesy jokes about party whips and large caucuses. I also admired Jean Chretien, not always for his stance on issues or the ethics of his party but for his all-out crazed toughness. He could crush a protestor’s face and take a pie in his own just as easily.
So when Chretien left and the Liberal torch was passed, I didn’t envy the party for having to replace him. Where could they find someone as tough as him? Certainly not wimpy Paul Martin.
Now Stephane Dion is the federal Liberal Party leader—and he seems to be the final nail in the Liberal coffin. The Liberals need a leader who can communicate with the people, especially now when their popularity has waned so much. Dion might actually be a great choice, but the English-speaking public has no idea because we can’t understand what the hell he is saying. Where Chretien made up for his lack of English fluency with strength and charisma, Dion comes across as a scared bleating lamb.
But, to give him some credit, Dion is to the English as Stephen Harper is to the Canadian French. After the Liberal Party elected Dion last year, I thought they had failed miserably with their choice of candidate. But then I attended a press conference held by our current prime minister, Harper. During this conference he announced funding for Fraser Valley dike rehabilitation, and then took (carefully selected) questions from reporters. A Quebecois reporter queried Harper: Harper had him repeat the question, then stumbled through his garbled French response, tripping over every word. He looked like an idiot.
So, one could argue that it is not he who speaks the best English but he who leads the country the best. But then one could retort with the fact that the English population outweighs the French by millions, so it is the Anglophones who overrule. I will just remind people to be patient when dealing with those with strong, muddled accents because they may actually have something significant to say—you’ll just need an interpreter.

Bear in Mind

2007-11-24T22:24:00.001-08:00

It’s rare to find a forest now that doesn’t reside in the shadow of high rises. So it’s understandable, what with our encroachment on their habitat and food sources, that bears and other wildlife find our garbage scrumptious— you would too if you had nothing else to eat.
It’s actually amazing that such huge animals manage to stay hidden from sight most of the time—but when they do come out, how does a regular citizen make a decision that is in the best interest of the animals and the community?
Conservation officers remind us to “stay calm, never turn and run, face the animal and make it aware of your presence” when you come into contact with black bears, the most common bear in the Lower Mainland. But after you’ve survived a run-in, the choice between animal and surrounding humans can be tough. Calling a conservation officer may be a call to certain death for a bear, but it may save your next door human neighbour. Not only that, but an armed person may take things into his own hands.
Our local bears are getting ready to hunker down for their annual hibernation, so that means they have to stock up on food and fat—that means your discarded leftovers. Why can’t the bears get their own damn food? Well, because humans have destroyed their homes and tempted them with easy meals.
It’s an increasingly prevalent problem in the suburbs—and even in busier cities—so how does a citizen make the right choice when the answer is so complicated? Some of the bearsafe requests made by BC’s Ministry of Environment seem contrary to our current green thought processes— what is good for some creatures is bad for others. Conservation officers frown on outdoor composting and encourage homeowners to chop down any unattended fruit trees to make backyards less appealing.
Like most problems, prevention is the best course of action. An easy step in saving the furrier members of our towns is in the way we deal with garbage: Keep it in your garage or in bear-proof containers, and wait until the day of collection to put it out. Don’t let lazy people continue to kill bears—it’s easier to kill then relocate.

Bomb Me Baby One More Time

2007-11-24T22:21:00.000-08:00

Ignorance is easy to maintain when students are sheltered from the world. It is not deliberate—if kids are never allowed the exposure, they might grow up thinking that puppies rule the world and there is no such thing as genocide. Ignorance is bliss— and I have been blessed with it for far too long.
The Canadian public school system failed me in a few ways, but mainly on its presentation of history. While I was celebrating my friend Katie’s birthday, Rwanda was drowning in a torrent of hate-driven slaughter. I ate cake and smiled while children my age had their limbs hacked from their torsos by blunt machetes—and I had no clue.
I wasn’t deliberately ignorant; it’s just that no one discussed this in school. I never knew about the Rwandan genocide until years later when I watched Hotel Rwanda, which made me feel like an unaware jerk. How could something so devastating occur in my lifetime without my knowledge?
No one really cares about Africa— you hear it all the time: “Those negros are killing themselves, it’s their own fault.” “Why don’t they just stop having sex? Then the population, hunger, and the AIDS problems would all be solved.” “They should rise up against their corrupt governments and take back the donations that have been stolen.”
History is repeating itself in Darfur. Millions of Africans are dying from various causes and the West doesn’t care. But maybe if we taught our children about the horrors of war and genocide when they are still young then a sense of caring would be instilled within them as they grew? Isn’t that the point of history class—to learn from the past to have a better future?
History classes in public schools all have a Canadian viewpoint, as they should, but some main and recent acts of history are left out—we weren’t even allowed to watch Schindler’s List in my high school. I appreciate Lois Riel and all, but a little less Red River Riot and more Dieppe may have helped boost patriotism within students, too.
Recently, I devoted a day to watching documentaries on You Tube about Rwanda. From there, I moved onto Bosnia and Cambodia. I’d heard scatterings of these stories on the news, but obviously not to the gory extent that I discovered on my own.
It’s not like my knowing about the carnage would change anything—one girl can’t stop a genocide— but learning about them has changed my viewpoint on other races, and given me compassion for the millions that have died during these slaughters or have sought refuge in our peaceful-by-comparison country. Just acknowledging the plight of others can make you a better person.

The Good, the Bad and the Disgustingly Ugly

2007-11-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

There is some sick shit on the Internet.
You can look up anything and view it in text, photo or video form. And it needs to be seen. All of it. It needs to be brought to light and discussed, because, at the risk of sounding like Hedy Fry, atrocities are being committed every day, all over the world—and there is no other way to know about many of them other than the Internet.
Knowledge is power; but knowledge has to have balance, so that includes the dark side of life, too. Combating the bad things on this planet require learning about them first. There is hypocrisy to those who eat beef but refuse to watch cows being slaughtered, or racists that support the Nazis but never watched footage from concentration camps—you need the facts before you can make the statements, and consequently, the action.
Internet material needs to be examined closely, though, not just absorbed. Fact is so easily manipulated by technology that uproar can be created over the silliest of things, (ex Bonsai Kittens) which can become counterproductive.
When exploring the darker side of life via the web, it’s easy to get tangled up in it. Farce is so realistic now that an open mind may let in hoax after hoax—but that should not prevent a person from witnessing truths.
It is not morbid to request reality; it will feel wrong, it can feel sick, but seeing where your food comes from should be mandatory for all humans. Vegetarians can watch fruit harvests, and meat-eaters can witness chickens being boiled alive.
Seeing the truth about something, whether it is a human-rights violation or a freaky sexual fetish, can inspire, comfort or scare a person. Everything in life needs to be examined—the good, the bad and the disgustingly ugly.
Dogs and cats are being brutally skinned alive in Asia, their fur passed off as faux and sold as trim on popular coats in Canada. Innocent people are being dismembered in countries for participating in the most benign of activities. Disfiguring diseases can strike even the most ¸
Shock can spur people to action, whether it’s a letter, article or a volunteer aid trip to Africa—there are things that need to be seen in this world, voices that were silenced before they got an audience.Check out the ghosts of the past, easily accessible with the click of a mouse.

Not All That They Seem....

2007-11-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes they come on after the news on weekends, their highly contrasted eyes large and bright against their dark skin. They seem unaffected by the flies crawling over their faces, and their malnourished bellies seem to protrude from the television screen and bump against your heart—all the while a voice tells you that you can help, you can make a difference in these children’s lives.
The voice says that for the price of a daily coffee you can feed a child in Africa. He says that if you give so much money a month, you can sponsor a child. Your money will go towards feeding, clothing and housing the poor and hungry orphans of AIDS or the disabled children of conflict.
But how the hell can a sponsor be so sure?
Aid organizations that have a religion in their name blatantly shout out to the followers of that faith to send money, but simultaneously dissuade people from other beliefs from wanting to help. How does a sponsor know if her money is going to feed a child rice or the body of Christ?
Although it is always important to give people hope—especially the young—giving faith before food is a waste of money; but it’s easier to force others to their knees when they are starving.
But it is not only religiously associated organizations that deter potential donations—animal aid societies flip-flop on their positions so much that it is hard to know if your money is going to help or hurt creatures you want to save.
Recently, Greenpeace, an international environmental organization, flipped their stance on the killing of kangaroos in Australia. In a report released to the media they stated the consumption of kangaroos could cut down on the greenhouse gases and land clearing directly related to rearing conventional livestock.
This new “eat roos for the climate” attitude is contrary to the 1986 film Greenpeace released called Goodbye to Joey where they criticized the slaughter of the Aussie marsupials.
This Greenpeace report has obviously caused dismay in animal lovers and those that who enjoy small drumsticks. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the website for Sea Shepherd, an organization created out of Greenpeace rebellion. Founder and president of Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson, left Greenpeace after he used physically forceful methods to stop the killing of baby seals.
Since Watson has prior animosity with Greenpeace, it makes sense that Sea Shepherd would jump at the chance to point out Greenpeace’s sudden hypocrisy.
Sea Shepherd portrays themselves as an action-oriented organization that sails around the world fighting evil in the form of unlawful whaling boats and any other illegal offenders; their ships have been known to ram fishing vessels and the crew has been filmed fighting seal hunters. If you love the sea and would like to make a difference, Sea Shepherd seems to be the “real deal”; donating to or volunteering with them sounds like the way to go.
But even Sea Shepherd causes questions to arise when it comes to assisstance; if you want to volunteer on of their “all-vegan” crews, you need to fill out a form—and become a “member” by paying a fee of $100. Paying to even be considered as a volunteer for a dangerous voyage where you will be giving up time, energy and possibly your clean criminal record seems a little much.
But as far as hypocritical tactics and iffy donation results go, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have raised more controversy than all the Jesus-prompted help organizations combined. PETA’s advertising campaigns have compared livestock operations to the Holocaust and displayed nude celebrities endorsing anti-fur; the society has released undercover investigations and even video games to promote their cause.
Then in 2005, two PETA employees were charged with animal cruelty after it was discovered they were euthanizing adoptable pets and throwing the carcasses in dumpsters. Co-founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, has made several statements that have caused companies, fellow animal-rights groups and the public to be highly offended.
So, as just one person, how do you make a difference once you’ve decided you want to? Who do you trust with your well-intentioned, hard earned donations?
The organizations mentioned above have done incredible things for their causes; but some of their actions cause potential donators to wonder what they might be contributing to. The Canada Revenue Agency is a good resource when deciding what charity to go with, but there is never a guarantee that your money or time is going to the exact person, animal or cause that you intended. Charity is an unconditional force—it should not consider whether a person converts his or her faith before getting food, an animal is cute before getting shelter, or a disease is marketable before being researched.

The Appeal of Dr. House

2007-11-07T20:56:00.001-08:00

Dr. Gregory House is considered unconventional.
Besides the fact that he is addicted to painkillers and sometimes gets his patients drunk, the moody doctor does whatever it takes to get to the bottom of a patient’s problem; the dramatic TV show House revolves around his need to solve mysterious ailments. The show is a hit, but I reckon it’s not just because viewers enjoy watching the disabled doctor harass his subordinates—it’s a deeper illustration of the state of Western healthcare.
Those watching House get to indulge themselves in a medical fantasy where doctors will do anything to find the cause of their illness—not just treat their symptoms.
Western medicine has long been accused of bandaging surface problems and not healing the whole self. Whether it is an issue of money or a lack of patience, the quick fi x is the way to go for doctors on our continent. It doesn’t matter if you fully believe in the folkpracticing ways of Eastern and Chinese traditional medicine—you have to admit that focusing on the broader picture in terms of your whole body and your health instead of a specific warning sign seems only logical.
And if you are unlucky enough to be in the 18 percent of Canadians that do not have a general practitioner, then you know full well the sad state of walk-in clinics. Although clinics admittedly exist to relieve emergency room wait times, and not to continually treat full-time patients, much of the population relies on this fast-food version of healthcare because of a lack of family doctors. But seeing a different doctor every visit not only adds inconsistencies to your treatment, it can also invite medical mistakes since patient records may be scattered throughout various clinics.
But, recently, a study was published in Archives of Internal Medicine that noted the unproductive, and sometimes uncomfortable, nature of physician check up chitchat—so even those with regular GPs do not escape doctor related difficulties.
So, how come a drug-addicted, rude man has become the epitome of dashing medical professional?
Because, although his efforts may seem irregular, a doctor who puts more thought into how he is going to cure his patients rather than what he is going to say to them is what we need more of— patients want to know honest answers from their doctors, not what the doctors had for lunch. Perhaps, if every doctor were as much of a detective as Dr. House is, we’d all be in better shape.

A Response to My Article

2007-11-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

Letter to the Editor

Criticize Celebs, But Don’t Stoop to the Shock-Jock Level
FROM READER

Pussy? Whore? Spearhole? The article “Worshipping False Idols with False Eyelashes” [October 11 issue] falls short of its promise of cultural criticism, and instead rests on the premise created by the very culture it is trying to criticize: when all else fails, say (or do) something crass. Such enthusiastically mean writing is hypocritical in that it embraces the cruel shock-jock mentality even while it derides the culture that created it. Hatred of specifi c superstars isn’t a viable solution to commercialism. In fact, it’s the other side of the same coin; the very act of arguing about whether or not Britney Spears is a whore, a degenerate, or an unfi t mother is crass consumerism no matter what your conclusions are.
The article contains valuable insights into consumer culture, but it is fl anked on both ends by more unfortunate hatred to fuel the fire, and it is my opinion that the author needs to take one step back and gain some rhetorical perspective. There are already too many Perez Hiltons in the world of celebrity writing.

The worship of false idols with false eyelashes

2007-10-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Britney Spears is big news—whether she is dancing or driving, lip-synching or drinking—and anyone who stands within a few metres of any media source is well versed in her life. It is common pitfall of celebrity that with fame comes a bit of shame—but Brit makes sure that her dose of disgrace is higher than any pop “idol” before her, causing many to wonder if she is trying to advertise for the ASPCA with all of the pussy she has been flashing.
So why does the general public care so much about Britney’s spearhole? Are people that nosy? Do folks actually care about the fame-whores they fervently follow, or is it as case of waiting for the stars to crash and burn?
Our obsession with fame surely shows the state of society, and, channelling Socrates, should beg each of us to wonder “What is the life that is worth living?” if we have this much time and money to waste on trash.
The life that is worth living has surpassed mere survival and rewritten the definition of success; meaning that although most people in Western civilization are not struggling for food and water in the natural sense, modern humanity is faced with the new challenge of higher-stakes living.
Evolving pressures in the home and workplace give hectic atmosphere to our current lives, and during our downtime we don’t want more real-world anxiety—we want to relax, and switch our tired minds away from our problems.
This means scrutinizing the lives of others, mainly the rich and famous, and relishing in their falls from grace. Tabloid journalism is about distraction, not morals; and their publications are the furthest thing from ethical reading as one can get. The timeless quest for the “meaning of life” has been blotted out by Tara Reid’s disfigured nipple, and any major life solutions discovered by the more-enlightened humans are being drowned out by hordes of American Idol contestants.
Culture also plays a role in our fame fascination. North America has been a cultural melting pot for centuries, and many average white mutts do not have a history or background of their own. While the Chinese have their traditions and the Scandinavians have their folklore, the mixed-ancestry youth of the U.S. and Canada have adopted a celebrity culture in lieu of ancient ceremonies—shallow roots will grasp at anything to stabilize themselves, and modern man has chosen simplicity and scandal to worship.
When someone reads perezhilton.com, it is not to “test their own standards of morals and principals,” as Trina McQueen wrote of tabloid journalism in The Globe and Mail—it is to get dirt, plain and simple. When Kevin Neuman (Global National) segues from coverage on riots in Paris, France, to Paris Hilton’s new court date, it is to give the television audience a intermission from the horrors of the world—take a break, and chew on this celebrity for a bit, and then we’ll be back with more real news that, although it is stressful, is real news.
Britney lost her babies, but so have a million mothers in the Middle East—mothers who actually wanted their kids. As bad as K-fed is a rapper, he doesn’t seem the type to behead his own children, so Brit shouldn’t be too worried and neither should outsiders; it’s not really our business, anyways. But, perhaps it’s that intimate connection we have with Britney’s boys that has the public in such an uproar—don’t forget, we’ve all seen what those babies came out of, and, as scary as it is, we can’t wait to see more.

A thanks to silence, sex and all things sacred

2007-10-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

Everybody should spend a week in a hospital, strapped down to a bed by an interlacing network of tubes that simultaneously give and take fluids from their shrivelling body; it not only gives a person a new outlook on his or her life, but a new appreciation for other humans as well.
Hospitals are a place where humanity’s strengths and flaws are clearly displayed, from the caring nurse, to the impatient doctor—or vice versa. Within the walls of a medical facility are a million memories of pain, yearning and death.
For so many people, a hospital is the last place they ever saw grandma, or the setting where their brother had to be pronounced dead after an accident. So, when it comes time to visit other family or friends who have fallen ill, the sterile smell and the pasty walls of the building trigger a person’s recollection of grief and fear, which prevents her from being with a loved one that needs them at her bedside.
But as scary as hospitals can be, there are also flowers and forgiveness in the facilities; and in honour of Thanksgiving, here are a list of new appreciations that may happen to strike a person after a week in a gurney.

Food: When a human hasn’t eaten for a week, strange food combinations start to sound delicious: McNuggets on pizza, ice cream on toast—anything to fill the aching void of a shrinking stomach and an empty mouth. Dreams of delicacies only taunt a starving palate, and TV throws constant insults by way of appetizing advertisements—all while the doctors refuse to put chocolate in the IV drips.

Friends: A person will always remember who didn’t care when she was ill—but she will also never forget those that did. Small gifts go a long way in a hospital room, and even a hand-made card can be a best friend on a long, lonely night.

Mobility: Being strapped to a bed is sometimes kinky—but a week in a bed can drive a soul mad. And the physical feeling isn’t any better. Unless someone spends 24 hours a day watching TV or playing video games, even the most sedentary spirit gets restless in a bed where the only movement is the twitch of her toes.

Nurses: Nurses need to be hugged hard and often by their friends and families, as they have one of the toughest jobs on Earth: A job that requires patience and authority, compassion and detachment. While writers must deal with irritated editors, and salesmen juggle cranky clients, nurses have a whole world of shit to contend with—literally. Nurses must deal with fluids and excrement of gastronomical proportions, along with dying babies and demanding patients. Anyone that can stand those conditions deserves a hug and a large paycheck.

Privacy and Sexuality: When a patient is admitted to hospital, two aspects of life are traded with entrance so that one can receive care—signing in means signing away shame and sexuality. There is no space for embarrassment in a ward, and as farts and food are regurgitated all around, there is not a lot of room for romance, either (unless a patient is a frequenter of medsex.com). But patients need a sense of normalcy, and many attempt to fix their hair or conceal under-eye circles—all in vain. Energy spent on appearance in a hospital is energy better spent on recovery—if one is sick, others will understand if she looks sick! One can always tell how long a person has been in a hospital by how tightly she ties her gown—by day five, no one cares anymore—and there are bottoms-a-plenty to be seen on any floor.

Seniors: The news often says, “the population is aging,” which is no surprise, as people get old. But the reality is old folks seem to be multiplying and toothlessly consuming our healthcare dollars and hospital beds. Although calls for a geriatric genocide have yet to be answered, it does seem strange to observe an 80 lb. 90 year old being supplied with an artificial joint if her biological clock is already on borrowed time. But life doesn’t end at 50, and joy doesn’t end with the loss of libido—love and wonder still visit a woman even if her period does not. Elders are to be treated with respect, living or dying—there can be a lot of wisdom behind those wrinkle-rimmed eyes.

Silence: Living at the corner of Hastings St. and Boundary could not prepare anyone for the unnerving ruckus of an emergency ward, or the constant whir of machines and pumps in a recovery room. The sound of traffic is surprisingly calming when compared to a hospital’s continuous commotion—even a traffic accident has more of an audible appeal than a nurse screaming “Code Blue” over the intercom. At least with the traffic accident there is a chance that no one is injured, and that a regular Joe can run out and offer aid to victims rather than watch doctors pump “Code Blue’s” chest and stand-by, helpless.

Sleep: Sleep is a glorious, elusive sanctuary that is never to be taken for granted.

Swear words: Cursing is a liberating act of freedom—so go give a good “FUCK BLUBBER!!!” to the sky right now—because the outdoors won’t mind, but a hospital room full of quiet patients will!

Water: Water is a mesmerizing entity when it is scarce—there is nothing like a shower after bathing in sweat and blood for a few days—even if the hot faucet is broken.

Windows: A person can memorize a large tree if they stare at it for long enough—the amount of branches it has, the way it glitters when the breeze that she can’t feel sweeps through its leaves. If eyes are the windows to the soul, then windows are the soul of a hospital; the glass may prevent a patient from leaving, but its pane will still allow a mind to wander when there is nothing else to look at.

Women: Women very commonly view other women as competition—competition for dates, for jobs, for attention—and often admire the “brotherhood” guys seem to belong to with their friends. “Bros before hoes” is a more familiar term to most than “chicks before dicks.” A girl has an air of pride about her when she proclaims, “I’m one of the guys,”—when she is actually “one of the guys that the real guys hang out with to fuck.” It is not uncommon for women to view other females as bitchy, backstabbing whores—until they are faced with adversity, and realize other women really do “got their back.” Females that a woman thought long forgotten will come out of the woodwork to her side, while the men in her life just wonder where their bedmate has gone.

At the risk of sounding demented, the world may be a better place if more people got sick—Thanksgiving would be more about thanks than turkey.

Hahhaha

2007-10-14T22:28:00.001-07:00

Laura --

[adjective]:

Sexually stunning

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Field

2007-10-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

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2007-10-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

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Kimon-oh!

2007-10-03T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yet Another Reason to Hate Drunk Drivers

2007-10-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

It was not the way anyone wants to spend her birthday weekend, but I was living the nightmare. I had been taken to the emergency ward with acute pain in my side, and now I was lying in a draped-off cubicle full of tubes and discomfort—sleep was a far-off, elusive sanctuary.
So, when, at 3 a.m., there was a great commotion outside of the curtains surrounding my bed, I knew that peaceful rest would still be a long time coming; however, I was not prepared for the ridiculous uproar that erupted only seconds later.
A gurney was rolled in carrying a man strapped to a board with a support collar around his neck. He was followed by a troop of uniformed officers; whether they were RCMP or Police officers, I could not see through the space in the drapes, but I could hear their discussions clearly.
They spoke of a drunk driver who had swerved to miss an oncoming vehicle and had rolled his truck over, possibly down a ravine. The driver and front passenger had been wearing seatbelts, but had still been thrown around the overturned truck.
Thinking that the male that had been pushed to the bed beside me was an innocent party in all of this, I felt initial sympathy for him. I may have been in pain, but this poor guy had been injured horrifically in a car accident by a drunk driver.
But, then I heard this: “Well,” the guy was telling the officers, “I only had six or seven beers before I started to drive home.”
So he was the driver, I realized, which explained the gaggle of law enforcement accompanying him. My sympathy melted to disgust, and then even my disgust managed to deteriorate to something beyond abhorrence.
The guy was explaining his side of the story: “…so I was driving down the road when this Chinaman came at me in his Civic. I had to get out of the way, and that’s when the truck flipped.”
I thought it was obvious that this drunk driver was much more intoxicated than he was admitting to, and I was a bit relieved when a female officer began to ask for either a blood test or a breathalyser to determine his blood alcohol content. The drunken young man danced around the subject, not only pretending he was going to call a lawyer, but also by attempting to flirt with the female officer.
“Your name is beautiful,” I could hear is overly obnoxious voice holler. “SA-MAR-A…I’m going to name my next daughter after you…you are beautiful…do you thin k I should call a lawyer, beautiful Samara?”
The officer was explaining his rights, but the guy wasn’t listening.
“You can call a lawyer to at least consult about your situation,” said officer Samara. “But if you don’t do the test you will be charged with refusal. I’d at least call a lawyer to discuss this with, Tom.”
So that was his name: Tom—the bane of my slumber. Tom was a loud, racist wreck who I secretly declared emergency room warfare on—if Tom didn’t shut up, I was going to strangle him with my tubes.
For the next hour, Tom shouted and yelled, sometimes in mock pain, and sometimes with declarations of love for officer Samara. The hospital staff seemed indifferent to his shouting, probably accustomed to unruly idiots being wheeled through their doors.
But, despite my situation and current position, I was not going to take this laying down, so to speak. When Tom continued to yell out, his voice disrupting my sleep and all those around him, I said something.
“Why won’t you guys unstrap me,” Tom was shrieking.
“Because no one cares about you, Tom.” I spat his name off my tongue like it was a squirming mosquito that had accidentally flew through my lips.
Tom shut up for a bit—but, he was soon back to his vocal self, yelling to his friend in another bed. He was claiming that his friend could sue him, and they would just take ICBC’s money. The officers seemed to have given up their requests for his blood and abandoned the situation. I sat there seething, hoping that Tom was now horribly scarred from his accident, or perhaps would never walk again. And that’s when Tom pulled back the curtain, and I saw his unhurt, very young face.
“Oh, hi,” said Tom. “Sorry I’m so loud.”
I looked at him straight in the eye.
“I hate you, Tom.” I said, not believing his apology. “You are the most disgusting, rude and obnoxious person I’ve ever met. You have been yelling for an hour now, and you have been disturbing not only myself but everyone else in this ward, including many older patients. SO. SHUT. UP.”
He attempted to apologize again as I turned my back to him in my bed, but his voice trailed off and the curtain swished shut. I felt a little better after telling off Tom, but victory would not come until he either left…or died!
And unfortunately, Tom was fine. He ended up walking out of the hospital himself, which I found to be the more disappointing of my two victory choices—but at least he was gone, and sleep took his place in the hospital.
Drunk drivers are idiots, whether on or off the road.

Ethics

2007-10-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

The life that is worth living has surpassed mere survival and rewritten the definition of success; meaning that although most people in Western civilization are not struggling for food and water in the natural sense, modern humanity is faced with the new challenge of higher-stakes living. Evolving pressures in the home and workplace give our current lives a hectic atmosphere, and during our downtime we don’t want more real-world anxiety—we want to relax, and switch our tired minds away from our problems. This means scrutinizing the lives of others, mainly the rich and famous, and relishing in their falls from grace. “Hot stuff” journalism is about distraction, not morals; and tabloid publications are the furthest thing from ethical reading as one can get.

Culture also plays a role in our fame fascination. North America has been a cultural melting pot for centuries, and many average white mutts do not have a history or background of their own. While the Chinese have their traditions and the Scandinavians have their folklore, the mixed-ancestry youth of the U.S. and Canada have adopted a celebrity culture in lieu of ancient ceremonies—shallow roots will grasp at anything to stabilize themselves, and modern man has chosen simplicity and scandal to worship. When someone reads Perez Hilton, it is not to “test their own standards of morals and principals”—it is to get dirt, plain and simple.

Jon Nödtveidt: Into Infinite Obscurity (2nd Try!)

2007-10-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

It’s been over a year since I stumbled upon a website that announced my favourite vocalist was dead. In August of 2006, Jon Nödtveidt, front man and founder of the black/death metal band Dissection, shot himself in his home, causing as much controversy and as many rumours as he had during his life. It wasn’t that his suicide was a surprise—to the contrary, Jon had not only been contemplating it but announcing it for years. No, the speculation swirled more around what he had surrounded himself with as he pulled the trigger, and how many Satanic Bibles he used as headrests as the bullet pierced his brain.
Jon had recently been released from jail, and his band, always a force to be reckoned with in the 90’s, had just released an album (Reinkaos). But the album was a terrible failure in the eyes of most Dissection fans, and I joked that it was the result of the horrible reviews that further motivated him to kick his own bucket.
Whether it was the intense belief he had in his religion of “anti-cosmos based Satanism” or simply that his raging river of creativity had run dry was not really that important. In his hay-day, Jon had inspired many a musician, myself included. “The Somberlain” and “Storm of the Light’s Bane” will always be hailed as classic albums, and the world of metal has him to thank for them.
In late 2004, I had a chance to meet Jon in London, and witness the unholy gory-glory that was Dissection, (before the release of “Reinkaos”). A friend of mine had set up an interview with the guitarist/vocalist, and I was happier than a Viking at a pillaging to go along with him.
Jon was fresh from jail, and obviously happy to be free. The fact that he had been convicted of accessory to murder did not cross my mind as I sat myself next to the Swede; he was my musical icon, but not my god—sharing a certain aspect of my life with someone else does not connect me completely to his ideals. Besides, Jon came across as a well-spoken, highly intelligent man who spoke passionately about his music and beliefs, not an enraged killer, and the show that followed was the best concert I have ever seen.
The experience caused me to wonder about his evil reputation, and how, in general, a person can truly be evil if they inspire such great joy in others. Does an evil man create “evil joy” to prosper in the souls of those that appreciate him? I thought it strange that a man with such supposedly misanthropic views would choose to sit down for an hour-long interview, and then shake hands and sign autographs after his concert—shouldn’t he have sacrificed us instead?
But regardless of his motives for suicide, or his jail-term, Jon Nödtveidt left behind a musical legacy that instigate further head banging for many years to come…well, his first two albums, anyways.

Shut up.

2007-09-28T22:05:00.001-07:00

Some people are too stupid to realize that they are too stupid for philosophy.

Vaccinated with lies?

2007-09-23T14:45:00.001-07:00

Over the past few months, I, like many women, have been inundated with TV commercials discussing the dangers of contracting the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Not only is HPV a sexually transmitted virus, which no one ever wants, but the ads also tell me that HPV causes cervical cancer. As a woman under 26, I should be vaccinated against this increasingly common virus, because, according to the jolly women in the commercials, most people who have it are not aware they are infected.
Initially, I thought this was a great idea. Anything that defends me against cancer is a good thing, right? But then I read a MacLean’s article titled “Our Girls Aren’t Guinea Pigs,” which discussed the dangers of the new Gardasil HPV vaccines, and it caused me to take a step back and review the situation.
In the article, complications, and even deaths, from the vaccine were outlined, and I was amazed with how I had been so blindly influenced by the media. The Gardasil vaccine is clearly not perfect, to say the least, and its testing has been limited. Long-term effects and benefits are not guaranteed…so why was I so eager to roll up my sleeve? Clearly, I am not immune to advertisement-induced brainwashing. But how come this topic affected me so much when smoking, Cheetohs and Ford commercials had failed to influence my spending habits? It was because I felt threatened.
These ads made it seem that if I did not get vaccinated, I would get cancer, and slapping the big C word on this product is a great sales tactic. And I was so worried about cancer that I didn’t even think of the vaccine as a product; but that is exactly what it is. Someone must pay for it, and a company will benefit—and at the moment, Gardasil has a monopoly on Canada’s HPV vaccine market. Threaten and scare the young women into consuming—keep them in fear so that they don’t ask questions, that they don’t wonder what is being injected into their young bodies.
So, when Gardasil tote bags and other propaganda were handed out in the concourse in the first week of classes, I had to wonder who authorized such an obvious marketing ploy. I thought it a strange coincidence that on Tuesday I was reading the MacLean’s article bashing the needles out of the vaccine, and on Wednesday I was holding a doorknob hanger that read, “Do not disturb! Unless you want to talk about Gardasil.”
This product is for “girls and young women aged 9 to 26 years of age.” I am in no way suggesting that women not protect themselves from cancer and STDs, but before putting anything in your body (or your daughter’s), remember to ask the necessary questions to ensure you don’t leave the doctor sicker than when you got there. And also remember that good ole condoms will protect you from more than HPV (when used properly).
So maybe next year the college will hand out something useful rather than tote bags with advertising that tiptoes around its true intent. Condoms at least don’t pretend to be something they are not; they are straight to the point and honest in their presentation, possibly making some people uncomfortable. But Gardasil hides behind its packages and slogans when safe sex is really the message everyone needs to address.

What it’s like to get your first lap dance

2007-09-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

(from the Other Press, Sept 2007.)

It was shaping up to be a classy night. Invited by a friend to watch his girlfriend strip, I stood in the bar admiring the scenery. Girls in fancy underwear stalked men all around me; I could hear snippets of the sexy spiels that they used to entice patrons to pay them for a lap dance.
They had expert sales pitches, and reminded me of when I used to hawk cell phones for a living. I had hated coercing my clients into purchasing items that they might not need; it felt as though I was selling my soul. So, it was unfathomable to me as to how these women could flash their flesh for a few bucks; but I wasn’t about to mention that now.
After being there for an hour, a girl with a particularly ample bottom approached my friend. After the exchange of whispered words and money, I was told to follow her. I was confused, but I don’t usually argue with half-naked women.
She led me into a curtained room, and I sat on a bench. I realized that I was about to get my first lap dance. As curious as I was about what was about to happen, I couldn’t shake the awkwardness out of my voice when I tried to make conversation while she spread a towel over my legs.
Her actions were definitely rehearsed, but not mechanical. As she danced and undressed before me, she held my gaze with her vacant eyes; I had to look elsewhere to avoid getting lost in them. Once nude, she moved onto acts that I had not been expecting in a lap dance; but as I said before, I don’t argue with naked women.
I am not sure how lap dances usually end, but mine ended very abruptly. I left the room with mixed feelings of need and confusion colliding in my brain. My flushed cheeks announced to the bar what I had just been a part of, but no one seemed to notice.
I mulled over the situation as I nursed a beer; that lap dancer had just made one hundred dollars in six minutes.
I wondered who, out of the two of us, was the stupid one: the girl who made lots of money by simply showing off her naked body, or me, the student whose income may never compare. I wondered who, in regards to a stripper/patron relationship, had the power, and who was being exploited.
But realizing that no one needed philosophy in a titty bar, I finished my beer and kept my mouth shut.

Back Up for a Sec!

2007-09-17T16:43:00.000-07:00

Well!
I have been unable to write in the blog for a while now because of some glitch! It seems to be fixed now, unfortunately for you!

Back to school!

2007-09-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I guess (if anyone should care) there will be more action on this blog again as I am back to school, and will be adding articles, reports, stories and such to share with all my no fans.

Thanks if you care!!

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