Category Archives: Opinion (Editorial & Commentary)

Having a Blog vs. Using It: Some Thoughts

I don’t follow analytics much with my blog. You’re reading it. That’s all I give a shit about. Following the traffic, I don’t do much of that.
I’ll check once or twice a month, see if my daily visits are holding up, and if there are massive spikes, I see what posts were near that day. Pretty chill, but I’ve done this for enough years to actually have a grasp on who you, my reader, often is. Or the readers I care about, anyhow.
And while my old sex posts drive my traffic the most, it was actually politics and current events that became my stratospheric posts over the years. When I get pissed, it seems to resonate. Apparently my anger reflects the frustration we feel both in Canada and the USA, and even England, because most of us are living in a classist divide that’s becoming increasingly religious.
So, over the weekend at the Pride events here in town, I chatted with friends about social media conferences, and how, for me, it seems more about selling tools than encouraging propagation of debate and discussion.
When it comes to blogging, I feel it can, and does, change the world. I don’t wanna talk about WordPress, metrics, and all that shit. The message is the message, for me, not the medium.
I feel an obligation to put ideas and content first, design and discussion-tracking last. I believe my voice matters. (And so does yours; whether you choose to use it is your drama.) I don’t really need to host the discussion here, I just need you to leave this page with a few thoughts percolating in your brain, and then I’ve done my job — that’s always been my take on things.
Sunday’s conversation kind of ended with my thinking that I’ve betrayed my ability to write, my strong beliefs on where we’re going wrong today, and my desire to see the world live according to my ethos (since I’m super-inclusive and secular), all by failing to continue blogging in a more frequent way.
I give good debate, baby. And I’ve been letting myself and my readers down at a time when I think we need more discussion, because if anyone can be the spark to a good fire, it’s me.

The Past’s Shadow is Long

Part of the reason I don’t watch my traffic today is because I don’t want to feel beholden to numbers. I’m cranking out some 1,500 unique visitors a day, and without doing a lot of work to sustain it. It’s what I call “legacy traffic.” Google had lost me for a long time, but now it points anyone looking for sex tips and smart writing here. Good job, Google!
Still, it bothers me a little, because I haven’t been writing about sex for about 3-4 years.
To have so many of you still turning up, with questions arriving in my inbox (which I’ve been ignoring in my life chaos), it tells me there’s a dearth of great information out there, and that mine’s standing the test of time on the web, a hard thing to do.
These days, I’m a-thinking. I don’t want to be writing about sex and relationships, because I’ve more or less been celibate since all the trouble began with my back, except for, you know, a dalliance or two. My head’s not there right now, and I haven’t wanted it to be, either.
Maybe I underestimated the voice I bring to the sex discussion, and maybe I need to rethink my role and the validity of my place in the fight for a smarter world that’s sex-positive in a way that doesn’t mean we have to jump the “taste” shark. Maybe I also underestimated how much we have devolved into an orthodox society with increasing hangups about sex and sexuality.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But if the Shoe Fits…

I’ll be doing a lot more thinking about this. I’ve avoided talking about sex or sex news because I was tired of being pigeon-holed as a “sex writer,” since I feel that’s about 8% of what I’m comprised of, but if it’s not getting done properly by others, maybe it’s time I dust that conversation off. Just something I’m considering, and not a promise. Your thoughts are relevant to my thinkin’, so feel free to persuade me on this.

Maybe combining sex and politics in this same post is indicative of who I am/have been as a blogger and a person.

I think sex and love are basic human rights. I believe who we are as a society is something that shifts and changes through the ages, like a river carving a canyon. Change and evolution is constant, but often only visible on a wide, long view, and while I see the massive changes we’ve had for the better, I see how far there is to go.

Born Under A Bad Moon Risin’

I’m of that generation that came of age in the analog times but made the digital world our bitch. I was my college’s last journalism class to lay out a newspaper with glue and paper, and the first to do so on the computer. I was born at a crossroads, with one foot in old-world news, and the other kicking toward the future. My head of journalism was a former editor who ran political campaigns, so I learned about the press from both sides.
I’ve blogged since 2004, about sex since 2005, and I’ve been political since my teens. I live in borderlands and know more about America than most Americans will ever know about Canada, and I bleed maple syrup.
I was raised Catholic, rebelled against it after I learned of molestation scandals and cover-ups in my own Archdiocese and high school. I identify as a feminist but love men and deplore radical thought in any vein, especially if feminist.

The Alchemy of a Writer’s Voice

Somewhere, in the midst of all those qualities and attributes lies the reason why I too have a voice that’s important to the mix of who we are and where we’re going.
We have the ability to stand up and be counted, to leave our prints on the windowpane of the world, thanks to the internet.
For those of us who can do so, yet don’t do so, we’re betraying a gift of being born with talent in this time and space. We’re at a point in evolution where we have the means and the ability to project our lonely voice around the world, free of corporate interference, free of investment, and yet we’re mired in a complacency that sees our society devolving almost daily.
While the 1% keep getting richer, we applaud and watch the Bachelorette while reading TMZ, glorifying the division of our classes, because glamour is somehow more significant to us than protecting our dwindling average-citizen quality of life.
We belittle the intellectuals, want leaders we can have a beer with, and seem to do everything we can to avoid the realities of what’s going on as economies around the world teeter on the brink.
We delude ourselves into thinking change can’t come, that we’re just the little guys. We pretend that if we keep watching TV, shopping for “Made in America” products, and praying to the good God above that we’ll be just fine when that high-water mark of society gets overrun.
I don’t buy any of it.
In a span of three years, with no technology, no automatic weapons, no electricity, nothing, the working class of France brought down the nobility and monarchy, and modern democracy was born. Three years. By people with HOES and SHOVELS, with the occasional dagger for good measure, for crying out loud.
Shit started rolling last year, but I don’t respect the Occupy movement a lot because there are too many dumb-assed anarchist fucks in the mix. But they’re heading in the right direction, as long as they leave anarchy out of the debate.
They’re right, though. Anger, frustration, these aren’t things we should be feeling fleetingly. These should consume us.
There’s a disparity of income distribution that is a mockery of what the USA was founded under, what Canada should exemplify, and it all comes down to legislation by politicians who are bought and sold by the interests of those they mainly seek to protect, the upper-upper-class.
We deserve better.
And the only way we’re gonna get better is if we never, ever let the matter drop.
Me, I’ll never be that guy on the street with a placard, but I have this soapbox.
I think it’s time I start seeing this blog as an obligation, not a hobby, because I loathe the world we’re becoming, and I cannot respect myself if I don’t shout out loud about why I feel it’s all going so horribly awry.
And that’s what blogging can be. That’s what it should be.
If you want the latest scoop on TomKat’s Divorce, maybe it’s time to aim higher, expect more, and become a part of these discussions we really need to stop avoiding.

I Hate The Way That You Twitter

STEFF NOTE: I think we all do some of the following to some extent. It’s stuff we can all cut back on, but doing any of these points to excess is irritating to many folk, like me.
I thought the timing was right for me to have my say about All Things Twitter.
In the interest as someone who’s NOT trying to sell you social media systems, who doesn’t want to fix your blog, who doesn’t give a shit about your search engine optimizing, and who’s on Twitter solely for the reason it was invented — to microblog and interact — I’ve got some ranting to get off my chest here.
Now, if you’re new to Twitter, you might foolishly think there are rules. And if you’re some old guard on Twitter, you might foolishly think there are rules. Yer wrong. There are no rules on Twitter. And that’s why it’s fucking awesome, but you can still do it badly.
I know, anything I write here really doesn’t matter, because this is all about how I like my Twitter. But that’s cool. And I should warn you, I actually *am* PMSing and have chosen to embrace it. You’ve been warned.

1) Starfuckery.

I’ll reply to celebrities occasionally because they’re “part of the conversation” once you get past the “famous” bit, but I don’t do it on a daily basis and I don’t actually delude myself into thinking they’re likely to read it or respond. I’m generally aware I’m throwing 140 characters in the wind and maybe 12 people will read it.
But to indulge in this often? What are you, in grade 10? Come on. Talk to real people. They may actually reply. People who engage in chronic starfuckery are people I’m assuming are trying desperately to raise their Klout scores, and you don’t want me going there.

2) Circlejerking.

When you mention a specific group of people all the time, people who are of benefit to you business-wise but aren’t pumping out great Twitter content, then you’re wasting my time and everyone else who follows you. Instead of “chatting” to 9 specific people in your group, remember that you have 500 or 2,000 or however many OTHER followers you’ve specifically not mentioned by name.
Twitter is about content, not you getting a reach-around and a smile, so if you continue down this path of exalting a few users over everyone else, you may do so at the cost of having an audience who no longer are invested in you.

3) Noise.

No, you don’t need to thank people for retweeting your stuff. If people can’t assume you’re grateful for spreading the word on your tweets, then they’re stupid.
Of course we want to be heard. Of course we want to be retweeted. Of course we want our content to grow legs and cover a wide territory. When I’m retweeted, I notice, and I’m happy about it. But it happens 10, 15, 20, or more times a day. If I start thanking all these people, then I’m increasing my tweet count considerably, and with absolutely NO VALUE in its content. Then I start hating Twitter because it feels like a job.
Hearing me THANK people isn’t why people follow me. I’m not a fucking Walmart Greeter. If you want gratitude lessons from me via retweets, you got the wrong guru, man. Stop with the endless thank-yous. No one really gives a shit except the 12 people who think Miss Manners invented Twitter.

4) Music & Lyrics & Check-ins.

Who died and made you DJ of the Year? I don’t really care what you’re listening to on Spotify or what you’re watching on YouTube. I certainly don’t want to see you channeling your inner-13-year-old and typing line after line of broken-hearted lyrics. We get it. You like music. And you got dumped. Wow. Aren’t you special?
Every now and then, tweet it, but don’t default your third-party apps to broadcast every track you play. It’s noise, and most of us don’t want it. These reasons are also why I don’t give a shit that you’ve “checked in” to a coffee shop or a drug store. You don’t need to push those notifications to Twitter, so don’t be surprised by those of us who think you’re a douche when you do it constantly.

5) Event Tweeting.

If you’re out for dinner with people, and you tweet the location, and you mention everyone by Twitter names, and it’s NOT a public event, NOR an invitation to have the event crashed, then shut the hell up. Just grab the KY Jelly and get on with your little circlejerk then.
Again, you’re excluding EVERYONE in your following except those who are there. It makes you look like an exclusionist douchebag, or else some happy little tag-a-long who’s just thrilled they Made The List. Either way, I’m betting the majority of your public thinks it’s douchey. Again.
And if you do happen to see event tweets, no, it’s NOT an invitation to you, so don’t go crashing events without at least asking. (I hear you can do actual replies and ask permissions on Twitter. Wow, who knew?)

6) The Sanctimony.

Don’t assume everyone follows every aspect of Twitter as religiously as you. I’ve accidentally retweeted things that have come back to bite me, and never even knew I’d retweeted it, because the UI on Twitter’s apps makes it far too easy to kneejerk retweet or unfollow/block people. Don’t presume you’re always in the right, or that people knew when they fucked up. Get the chip off your shoulder and just relax. Ask people if they meant X in Y way, rather than getting on your high-horse and getting bent outta shape about it.

7) Grammar.

Not everyone’s got the writing thing down pat, and I get that. I don’t mind some spelling mistakes or missing grammar, but can you stop turning it into an Olympic sport? This isn’t TEXTING. It’s communicating. It’s out there for the public. It’s on record.
It’s in the Google now, bitches, so maybe demonstrating your communicative powers in succinct tweets like “I c wut u mean” is a little inappropriate. Strive higher. If I see people at least attempting to make sentences, I’m a lot less judgy, and I know I’m not alone.

8) iAwesome Tweeting.

Oh, look at you, you got “#FollowFriday”ed. Aren’t you special? Wow. THANKS for retweeting that, you douche, but I’m already following you. Or I fucking well was before you started retweeting other people name-dropping you. Then I decided to embrace UNFOLLOW Friday and ditch your smug self-congratulatory ass. What is this, high school?

9) The HumbleBrag or PityParty.

This is the crowd that belongs in a narcissism support group. Yes, the Twitter is all about you. Yes, we’re all here to support you and quell your little ego panics. Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no! I think everyone does this to some extent, but some take it to new heights. Get over yourself. Or at least don’t constantly tweet it.

10) The ReTweeter & OldNewsers.

Don’t be surprised that I don’t follow you when I see 90% of your stream is made up of retweets. I can find other people’s content too. I can also read the news. So, when you’re THAT GUY who logs in Monday morning, ‘cos you’re some marketer or weekend warrior, and you just start arbitrarily sharing news links without realizing everyone’s been talking about that celebrity’s death for 2 days already, you’re a waste of tweet space. News has a 6-hour shelf-life on Twitter, so don’t bother if it’s a day old. Seriously.

________________

I’m sure there are far more infractions that get under my skin, but here’s a good place to end it.
I mean, god, this doesn’t even touch on the misinformation, retweeting broken links, not checking the article you’re about to tweet, and so forth, but there’s only so much a girl can do.
What’d I miss? What pisses you off? Why do you agree/disagree with?

News of the Week: My Thoughts on the Facebook IPO

I’m not following the Facebook IPO offering. I’m also not an expert, or even very knowledgeable about the present world of stock buying and selling.
But I know a dumb bet when I see one.
Much like Groupon’s IPO, I wouldn’t buy this stock if I did have all the money in the world. Why? Because there’s no commercial future in Facebook, as far as I’m concerned. Societal, well, that’s another dealio.
If monetizing depends on advertising (and I don’t think it does, but until THEY figure that out, this opinion holds) then Facebook’s fucked on race day.
Just this week, GM announced they’d decided to pull all advertising from the site, which has a larger stranglehold on the public than any entity in the world. Why? Because the branding pages are free.
What’s the Big Picture at Facebook? Apparently they’re working on at least one, possibly two Smartphone devices. This from a company that has spent three years trying to deliver its own branded app for smartphone use, which offers little stability, and delivers on few of its so-called features. More on that in a moment.
Zuckerberg himself stated that the future of Facebook is in mobility use, because the stats for mobile use of the site is skyrocketing. Nearly 10% of its audience doesn’t ever access it from anything but their phone. More than half its users frequently use its mobile site only.
I’m one of the latter. Increasingly, I’m using it less on my mobile device, which means less overall, since I seldom sit at my computer beyond my workday. It’s a pretty simple reason behind this shift. The app just don’t work, Mom. Seldom does it load profiles or news stories, both of which are 80% of why I read the site at all. Instead, it hangs there in deadspace, sapping my battery as it constantly tries loading.
And if it wasn’t bad enough that Facebook was failing to monetize its web-based site, they admit they’re kinda stumped on how to monetize the mobile site.
I don’t get the problem. If companies like GM want to reap the rewards of engaging their public on Facebook, why are they not made to subscribe? Have a like-based monthly subscription fee between $1 and $50, and at least take in money there. That’s practically a no-brainer. Hard to be able to argue against the efficacy of having a space on the world’s most widely-viewed website.
In fact, I’d say a branding page is worth far more to a company than adspace. They can engage, interact, and respond to consumers. They can continue to brainwash the devotees, while winning over new audiences they may have never reached before via interesting articles and posts that can be shared from user to user while always citing the original source, the branded page.
Groupon had a $6 billion offer they rejected from Google, all because of arrogance about how quickly they took on the world and how popular they had become. But they were only unique until they were duplicated, and now there’s no point in having loyalty to Groupon because they fucked up the service end of matters, and they can offer a better discount than the next guy, because everyone’s offering the same. The $6 Billion Google Buy Bust is gonna go down as the biggest “Shoulda Coulda Woulda” in corporate buy-out offers ever.
Now Groupon trades below their initial IPO. Why? There’s no real value there. You’re not buying into a unique syndicate, real estate, or tangible investments. There’s an arrogant CEO who drinks copious beer in meetings, and they have poor accounting practices.
What works as a private entity can often fail as a public one when there’s a figurehead at the helm.
Enter Facebook.
Zuckerberg really is a genius. He’s been fantastic at rolling with market demands. He’s seen the future of what the internet could be on a social and commercial scale. And, for the first time ever, the world has a website that has literally changed the way we are as a people, and how we interact.
When people say “Well, someone else could’ve built the same site,” I have to laugh. They didn’t. No one did. Some whizkid from Harvard cracked the code. No one else did, so stop saying it so flippantly. You cannot deny the influence Facebook now has, and Zuckerberg is the man behind that vision.
Zuckerberg is one of the great minds of our time. Period. 28 or not, a great mind.
But I wouldn’t buy his stock.
I don’t think it’ll bottom out, but it’ll lay there like a lazy lover.
Social relevance doesn’t mean you can take it to the bank. Facebook had a great model, but if they want to be a publicly held company, they’ve got to have a lot more up their sleeves.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s enough. Maybe the phone is a thing of brilliance the world won’t mind forfeiting their privacy to when their every little activity is datamined by the grand-daddy of  all datamining, Facebook. Maybe.
But I still wouldn’t but the stock.

RANT: You're Stupid And We Know It, School Board

A six-year-old has been suspended for singing the words an LMFAO song: “I’m sexy and I know it.”
The school board thinks he should’ve known better.
You know what the six-year-old knows? That these people look like they’re having a LOT of fun when they’re bouncing around singing this song in the video. They’re cool, weird, neat performers with great hair, exciting lives, and they’re singing a super-catchy song that makes the six-year-old come to life when he sings the song too. And they were on top of the world because of it. That is what he knows.
Know what the adults on the schoolboard know? Better. They damned well know better than to suspend a six-year-old for mentioning the words to a ludicrous song by a campy band. And to call it sexual harrassment?
“Zero tolerance” laws are for a moronic people in a moronic world. We’re smarter than that. We know that not everything’s a crime. We know that kids tell lies, adults make mistakes, and shit happens. But we want to seem tough, strong, and like we’re in the moral right, and so we say HEY, ANY CONTRAVENTION OF THIS LAW, AND YOU’RE SCREWED, PAL.
So what happens? A kid gets suspended because he’s singing lyrics to a song he probably doesn’t even understand.
When I was a kid, I was 8 when I found an Elton John record with my brother at a yard sale. On it was “The Bitch is Back.” I didn’t understand the lyrics, but I loved the way it sounded when he sung the words, and I remember dancing around the room singing all summer long.
In grade 7, I loved the song “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It would be years before I’d understand it was about premature ejaculation, or even what “premature ejaculation” meant.
We can hear songs as kids and love the way they sound, but not have a clue what the premise is.
Even if the kid had any gleaning of this song’s meaning, to call it sexual harassment when he’s just emulating what’s in pop culture is a ridiculously hypocritical move.
I don’t want to live in a world where there are no shades of grey. We’re boring enough already, people.
Let’s get over ourselves and stop the stupidity. Zero tolerance makes zero sense. Look at cases on their merits, not just under the dimwitted light of asshat politicians who pass laws under the guise of looking tough on crime — because it’s we who pay the price, not actual bad guys.

Our Lives After Their Death

There’s a full moon tomorrow. I’m in a weird headspace.
In social media, I’m seeing snippets here and there from those I’m connected with, remembering the passing of our good friend Derek Miller last year. My thoughts on Derek, as his death took the world by storm by way of an incredible blog post, were posted here.

Someone once graffiti'd a lot of sites in my new neighbourhood, and this one made me think of Derek last week -- a lighthouse, a beacon, at the end of a long path, and at the foot of it, "The things you really want, you can't buy."


Derek’s death became a lot of things for a lot of people, and I’m having trouble even now identifying what it meant to me, but I know his blog post, and his passing, were part of why I spent the next few months realizing how unhappy I was with my life. The thing was, I knew someone like Derek would simply comment, “Well, then change it.” So, I tried to figure out what I needed to change, why I was so deeply unsatisfied with everything.
He may have “just” been a husband, father, and all-around geek, but I got the sense that there was really nothing else Derek wanted from life. He had everything he wanted. He was where he wanted to be. All he wanted was more life, more of the same with the people he had around him.

All The Things I Wasn’t

I found myself thinking a lot about, well, I’m not where I want to be. I don’t have what I want. I don’t have the people in my life I want (ie: love). Let’s not even talk about the bigger picture.
I’d been kind of skating through life and sort of ignoring anything below the surface. I’d stopped being a good writer (in my view) and stopped living the deeper, observant, involved life I’d once had. I’d been depressed before, but this wasn’t depression — this was plain old unhappiness.
Derek’s death somehow was a slap in my face, like a loud shout of Wake up! Get it right! Time’s ticking!
And, it took a while, but I think I’m where I am now because I’d realized through him of just how far afield I was from the things I considered basic requirements in life — time to write, close to the ocean, quiet, and so many other little things that speak to who I grew up being, who I was in my 20s, when I was most “myself.”
I’m new here, in Victoria, so I’m ironically even more “alone” than I had been in Vancouver. I’ve not been looking for a new tribe yet, but I will begin later this month. Because that’s another lesson I’ve learned through him. Some people just make our souls feel better, and we need them in our lives. We are better people when we have better people around us, and there are few we can’t learn something of life from, but others offer a master class in it.

Two Lost Souls Swimming in a Fishbowl

When I sat in that theatre for his remembrance, listening to all those amazing people paying homage to Derek, hearing their stories, I couldn’t stop thinking about the degrees of life. This couple, Derek and Air, they were in the same crowd I’d run with nearly 20 years before. But by inches and degrees, we must have missed each other here, there, and at different times. Somehow, some way, we never connected until the end of Derek’s life.
What if I’d paid more attention? What if I’d slowed down? What if?
I’m not done learning lessons from Derek’s life. Or anyone’s life. I’m just not done learning.
Next week, Mother’s day rolls up again, and the Hallmark Machine is playing that message loud and clear. So, these days, I’m thinking a lot about the people I’ve lost in life, the legacies they’ve left me, and whether I’d feel I’d done enough if I were to leave this realm tomorrow.

Coming Back to Life

Getting here, moving, that was a start toward the life I’d like, and the legacy I seek to leave. But I’ve barely even begun on my way. I was off-track so many years that just getting back on-track is a hell of a journey in itself.
I’d like to think there’s plenty of time for me to get it right, but that’s foolishness. Sooner is better than later.
So, as the full moon messes with my frequencies, and the hazy oppressive clouds dampen the world beyond windows, I’m lost in thought about who I am today versus who I’d like to be, when I really should be writing a project quote and starting my day job’s work.
Sigh. I don’t know how to finish this post. I’ve tried six different endings and I keep deleting them. Maybe there is no ending. Not for me, not for this, not yet. Maybe there is just a beginning.
Well, then. That’s how it is.

STUPID PEOPLE win money for believing NUTELLA IS HEALTHY

Oh, you think that title’s politically incorrect? Well, then, buckle up.
I’m kinda pissed after reading the makers of Nutella, that incredibly addictive chocolate-hazelnut spread that pimps out a crepe like nobody’s business [shudder/twitch], are settling a lawsuit with consumers because people actually BELIEVED the commercials.
Nutella claimed their meal was part of a nutritional breakfast. You know, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, if it’s on whole-grain toast with a banana sliced on top, and a bowl of strawberries on the side, plus a glass of fresh-squeezed OJ and a shot of insulin.
Unfortunately, people didn’t grasp the “PART of a balanced diet” bit. Nor did they read the sugar content or the fact that North America’s lesser-than concoction of Nutella (Europe gets the REAL thing, we slum it) has PALM OIL.
See, I had this “holy SHIT, is THIS STUFF CRACK?” phase of Nutella addiction, and then, one day, I read the packaging. I saw the fat, the sodium, the sugar, the palm oil, and I thought “Whoa.” There was a really tasty Real Canadian Super generic version that had all CANOLA, not PALM, oil, and it was pretty good, so I switched for a month, but then I just realized I was eating too fucking much of it and I dropped it altogether.
Because I READ THE LABEL.
Some of us do that, you know. It happens. It’s RIGHT THERE. You don’t have to walk two blocks, catch a bus, and SOME of us have educated ourselves, or were taught in public schools, as to what the calorie count we’re after, how many grams of fat are bad, and so forth. I mean, I barely stumble through this stuff and YET I have an inkling of the right information, and even I was scared off by reading Nutella’s nutritional low-down. I mean, holy crap! There’s crack in them-thar jars, Batman! ask someone —  you just have to turn the jar over and READ THE LABEL.
But, no. People who don’t read labels, who don’t empower themselves, who are ignorant of any basic logic (sugar + nut butter + chocolate = not awesome for your ass) and believe commercials with violin instrumentals, they’re all being rewarded with $3 million of Nutella’s dough.

OH, THAT LOOKS HEALTHY. HOW COULD IT NOT BE? IT'S SO SMOOTH, SHINY, AND GLOOPY.


You know what? I call bullshit.
 
Fucking learn your stuff. Don’t trust advertisements. Be judicious. Empower yourself. Don’t be a victim.
This rewarding-people-for-not-caring thing, it’s just not cool. Apathy and ignorance are not excuses. They don’t deserve this.
There’s ZERO incentive to being a proactive, informed individual anymore. Society only rewards the opposite.
I’m fed up with it.
Here’s an idea. Let’s stop this “I don’t need to know because I can just sue them later” epidemic of STUPID in North America and totally change the game. If a manufacturer misleads you, and it’s not something like, say, a life-saving drug or something like a car’s safety where your life is literally on the line, you don’t keep the money from the lawsuit.

They’re really angry that chocolate spread is unhealthy? It’s FAT-FILLED NUTS and CHOCOLATE and SUGAR. Yeah, that’s a fucking surprise — unhealthy. Idiots!
No. They’re angry enough to sue? Great! Do so from a Good Samaritan, Kantist “for the greater good” standpoint, and I will applaud you — so long as the money paid by the offending party is distributed among relevant charities. (ie: Food banks.) NO MONEY FOR STUPIDHEADS.
Let’s STOP THE BLEEDING. Let’s not reward apathy. Let’s make ignorance less profitable. Let’s just try to be in it together, so we’re shutting down corporations for irresponsible behaviour, but we’re not being a part of the Cash Cow System that’s so detrimental to our civilization. Let’s start caring again.
You can’t fucking tell me you put a couple tablespoons of that chocolatey-hazelnutty crack-like concoction on bread and think “THIS TASTES SOOOOOOO HEALTHY.”
Jesus. It doesn’t taste like sawdust. Do. The. Math.
Fuck. I’m gonna start taking a parachute EVERYWHERE I GO, because society is going DOWN, man. Score one for the stupids.
No Nutella for ANYONE. EVER. Pass the whiskey.

RANT: Censorship & The Nonsense of a Non-Seuss World

I’m swearing a lot here on purpose. When I talk about censorship, it makes sense to do so. Avert your sensitive eyes if you’re all bent out of shape by cusswords, and all will be fine. Because that’s all you need to do… not fucking ban it.
We’re regressing as a society, and it scares the shit out of me.
Dr. Seuss is being banned. Why, I can’t fucking fathom it, but it is.

Some bureaucratic asses who are terrified of lawsuits have deemed a story about a turtle as political.
Here’s what the Globe and Mail explains in this article about a BC’s schoolboard’s choice to ban this much-loved children’s classic:

The quote in question – “I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here on the bottom, we too should have rights” – comes fromYertle the Turtle, the tale of a turtle who climbs on the backs of other turtles to get a better view.
In the midst of a labour dispute between the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and the province, the quote was deemed unsuitable.
“I responded that in the context, it was borderline,” Mr. Stigant said. “Contextually, it was political – but it was grey and I would prefer it didn’t appear and I believe she agreed.”
Yertle’s quest for a higher vantage point ends when the turtle at the bottom of the stack – who’s pleaded, “I’ve pain in my back, my shoulders and knees – how long must we stand here, your majesty please” – burps, sending Yertle hurtling to the mud.

Yeah. “Political.” Fuck.
Look, people. Banning political messaging from schools is precisely part of why we’re now living in a society where constructive thought seems elusive at best. We’re in the age of Jersey Shore and Real Housewives, when people become famous for partying and being dysfunctional assholes, and the least we could hope for is a return to critical thinking by the children who are our future.
I mean, DUDE: Teach them well and let them lead the way. So sayeth Whitney.
Instead, political hacks who can’t even be trusted to file expense reports have decided the politics of arguably one of the most intriguing children’s authors is too political to be morally tolerable when teaching kids ‘cos — oh, the unthinkable of unthinkables — it might inspire children to think of classism.
Excuse me while I ram my head into my desk for a minute.
Well, that feels better. Okay. Deep breath.
PEOPLE. We’ve dumbed down EVERYTHING in society.
We print legal warnings that coffee cups contain HOT liquid and therefore are DANGEROUS. We rubberize playgrounds because some kids scraped a fucking knee. We pander to the lowest common denominator in everything we do, and North America is suffering an epidemic of stupid. Are you infected?
Instead of offending ANYONE EVER ANYMORE, we live in a completely vanilla society where the mere suggestion of offense means some public relations department comes running with an ass-kissing statement that does nothing but blow bubbles.
Saying “goddamnit” on television would probably explode transistors coast-to-coast in America, for Christ’s sake.
Children today grow up without any threat of getting hurt. God forbid they go ziplining in a public park, go head-first down death-defying slides, or even get a sunburn. Quick, shield little Jonny before he gets a bruise!
Back when I grew up, we actually got grades on report cards, fell down on concrete, jumped off things without safety nets, learned about racism and political parties in school, and look at me — I’m just as fucked up as the next guy, but I get through my days A-okay without needing meds or therapy. I’m normal, Ma! Fucked up in all the best ways.
Not like today. Kids are growing up without critical thinking, scared of getting hurt on adventures, and obsess over looking good instead of being smart, because that’s the pansy-assed culture we’ve given to them.
Stop it!
Allow kids to fall. Encourage them to fail, so long as they’ve tried. Let them learn conflicting ideas and find their own ways. Make them flex brain muscles.
Let’s pray we haven’t undone everything that’s made our culture so awesome for the last century, and let’s get back to embracing free will, allowing competing ideologies, and enjoying everything else that makes life in a free society so goddamned much FUN to endure.
Bureaucrats are making life boring, and it should be a crime. Lock ’em up! Stop saving us from ourselves.
Wake the fuck up and  say no to censorship, people.
And let’s just stop the rubber playgrounds, please. Buy a motherfucking box of Band-aids and live a little, mm-kay? Like they say, life’s tough. Get a helmet.

The CBC Bleeds: Life inside the Zeitgeist

As I type this, Canadian’s national broadcaster CBC is bleeding heavily after being gutted by budgeting cuts imposed by a national government that sees no value in Canadians having a free and informed press, and loathes a national culture that often indulges in mockery and satire at our government’s expense.
The CBC will survive today, but at what strength, I don’t know.
Without a real breakdown for me to compare existing jobs versus those that will be cut, and so forth, I’m mostly blowing smoke out of my ass if I speak to numbers or measurable consequence, so I’ll stick to peripherals and ideologies rather than facts. Proof I’m smarter than I look.
This gutting today, the “surgical” cutting of budgets, speaks to Stephen Harper’s government, who’ve shown a disdain for anything based in science, culture, or public interest.
I don’t even want to go there, right now, though.
This moment, here, now, what has me sad is the change to our culture. Whether it’s small theatre or the CBC, Canada has its own bent when it comes to what flies, culturally.
It’s why some American show like Arrested Development might barely get a following in the US but is a runaway hit in Canada — we see things differently from our American friends. We like bleakness. We’re big on books and words, have a great ability to comprehend complicated plots. We’re completely oddball when in comes to humour, proven by ex-pats like SNL’s creator Lorne Michaels, or Jim Carrey, Mike Meyers, and pretty much anyone else who’s made $10 million or more for acting in comedies.
Some question if that weird worldview is borne of our “bi-polar weather” — amazing short summers with endless winters. Maybe it’s the great beer, or the wide open spaces where you get to really be alone with the voices in your head, or the way we’ve always needed community for surviving in the wilds of this Great Northern Land.
There’s something about Canadians that’s just different from Americans, and every effort to encapsulate it falls short.
Nation-wise, we’re often depicted as being the little guy who needs his big strong friend to pick him out of trouble spots.
But like most people with self-esteem issues, the reality is very different from what the perception might be.
We’re not really the ineffective little friend that needs Big Dude’s help.
Instead, we’ve got a crack military force. Our education consistently ranks with considerably higher results than USA’s. We’ve got more natural resources than most countries could ever dream of. We’re the fourth largest oil provider in the world, and one of the best beer providers. We’re funny as fuck and have long been the backbone of the American comedy industry. We once had more writers per capita than anyone in the world, probably still do. We’re polite. We’re a massive country with a little population, and somehow we not only have infrastructure everywhere, but we also have universal healthcare.
Sorry, eh?
Granted, a lot of those places where we rock are places our budgets have been cut, funding slashed, and the glimmers of hope dimmed, but hey. It’s what we are.
So, today, I’m of two minds.
One, I understand why the slashing is happening. I know that, like most public organizations, there are a lot of deadbeat managers and redundant positions, but I also understand that when these cuts happen, it’s not the deadbeat managers who are gutted, and when more and more of the supposedly “redundant” positions are hacked, it starts bleeding into the quality of the overall product.
Take a look at the shitty barely-researched articles offered by so-called “online reporters” for newspapers like The Vancouver Sun these days as an example of what happens when you keep lowering the bar on employees due to this perceived need to have “new news” every moment of the day. I worry that this will be what happens to a once-great CBC. And then Harper will be as happy as a pig in shit.
Two, I know we’re on the cusp of a new time. When printed music first appeared, it changed everything in the world of musicians and concerts. We’re at that point now with digital media. Suddenly, we don’t need newspapers, or record companies, or book publishers. We’re turning into a world much like that of 400 years ago, where artists are back to distributing their own content, and it comes truly down to who’s got the best way with the world instead of who’s standing with the biggest corporation marketing machine behind them.
The CBC, like every other entertainment giant in the world, has got to feel the pinch from the fact that it’s now by ourselves or fancy third-party apps that we aggregate our news, culture, information, and images from a variety of sources. We don’t need reporters or people who were cultivated by a corporation to try and figure out what the hot-new-thing-now is, because we’re better judges than most industry hacks ever could be — we have no advertisers to appease, talking heads to curtail us, or shareholders to satisfy. We just have to find cool shit to watch, read, hear, or circulate, and it doesn’t matter who’s behind it.
How the CBC could escape that changing reality in this modern age, well, that’s entirely beyond my imagination.
It doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t break a little today. It doesn’t mean I wish we could resolve this in a way that doesn’t mean hundreds of jobs vanish, shows go unproduced, and content-creation begins treading even softer so as to avoid becoming a part of the gutting.
The CBC was a huge part of my upbringing back when we got five channels and most of what we watched was on CBC. The CBC was the voice in the night when I moved to the Yukon and had only radio to keep me company before I met any locals. The CBC is, in many ways, synonymous for me in thinking of what “My Canada” means.
So. Yes. We’re at a difficult point, to be sure.
It’s like anything. Some things need to die before others can be born. We’re alive during a drastically changing zeitgeist.
Culturally, the upheaval is incredibly hard to handle.
But, underneath it all, deep down, waiting for its moment, it is truly the time of the Individual. Or: The Viral Age.
It means we’ll have fewer corporations to do us the favour of weeding out the crap. We’ll be subject to more and more mediocrity. But once in a rare while, someone who’s truly unique and has great talent will break free and get noticed in the wide world of the web, and we’ll all share the link.
Or maybe not.
And that’s life in the zeitgeist for you: Everything you love changes; there are no guarantees.
And sometimes it’s really fucking sad to watch that becoming the case.

A Dissenting Voice Against Stephen Harper

I never thought I could feel my reputation as a Canadian in the world was sullied, but then Stephen Harper came to town.
Under Stephen Harper, since 2006, Canada has enjoyed George W. Bush-quality leadership.
Rejecting climate change, encouraging destructive environmental practices like the tar sand oil refineries, creating division and hate between right and left, the Harper Government is anything but about bringing Canada together.
They practice active misinformation, enjoy peppering the news with stories aimed at distracting Canadians hot-button issues (by way of talking about changing Oh Canada lyrics, and other foolishishness), and use scary rhetoric on issues of catastrophic importance, like Iran (because, hey, war is good!).
Stephen Harper, like George Bush, seems to have a “divine right” sense of rule, like old-time monarchs who believed they came to power with their bloodline because the gods deemed it so.
The latest issues in Canada?
Harper wants to build more prisons. He wants to impose mandatory sentencing on crimes.
And he wants to give the government and law enforcement the right to invade personal privacy in email, on cellular transmissions, and more.
And, with a majority government, the odds are in his favour.
Oh, Canada… indeed.
I’m not the only one who’s concerned that the government is looking to expand the books on law, push for tougher sentencing, and increase incarceration capacities at the same time that they want to invade a nation’s privacy.
Hey, baby — incarceration is good for business when you’re trying to appease the big business that got you elected, like Stevie is. Here’s to self-incrimination and the web! Now, about those emails…
Aw, who’s kidding who? Nothing’s REALLY private on the web. Want private? Stay off the web. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna sit by and watch more and more of my privacy erode with a great, big government-approved snooping stamp on a new law, thanks.
You can’t assume an entire country’s in on crime and throw open the doors to electronic monitoring. It didn’t work well under McCarthy or Hoover, and it won’t work here. Creating more paranoia and suspicion isn’t what Canadians need, Harper.
When I grew up, I’m sorry, but I grew up believing Canada was more free than the United States.
Pierre Trudeau said government had no business in the bedrooms of Canadians in 1969. We allowed free speech, but not hate speech. When slaves fled the US back in the day, they came here. My dad gave me a book on the Underground Railway when I was 10, so I had this pretty noble view of Canada in the world.
We had so much pristine nature, so many parks. We had so much to be proud of, and my parents raised me to believe that.
It wasn’t till I got to travel, see the north and the prairies, that I realised the immensity of how little a population we were in such a great, big land. Like a 5-year-old wearing his father’s clothing, there are wide expanses of beautiful nothing where population has yet to grow, even now.
These days, those naively innocent feelings on how great Canada is are a thing of the past, as much as I still love what being Canadian means to ME. I only dream we can bounce back after Harper with a leader who inspires people on the world stage, like Obama, who didn’t turn out to be the second coming, but he’s certainly sitting pretty now.
Under Harper, the erosion of privacy, the divisiveness, the refusal to work with — let alone not LEAD — the world on the issue of climate change and the Kyoto Treaty, elimination of arts and equality funding, our declining stance on human rights around the globe, and so many other issues make me cringe when I think of how far Canada has fallen in the eyes of the world.
Because it’s our fault. We haven’t allowed Stephen Harper to get into office ONCE. We’ve elected him THREE TIMES.
No leader of Canada has ever disgusted me as much as Harper does, and it’s the apathy of the voting public and the lack of turnout at polls that’s to blame.
Now, Harper and his henchpeople want to stomp all over your privacy.
Are you gonna let them do that? Or are you gonna take 30 seconds out of your life to sign this petition, to tell Harper, Toews, and co. to go fuck themselves when it comes to reading your emails and snooping on your phone calls?
Join OpenMedia.ca and fight the invasion of privacy that will tie up cops’ time and raise your utility costs. Sign here.
And start speaking up.
This is OUR Canada. Harper has a MAJORITY MANDATE until October, 2015. We need to stand together to keep the Canadian pendulum swinging too far left. I’m in. Are you?

The Red Pill Makes You Smaller

Whitney Houston died this weekend, just the latest in celebrity deaths caused by prescription drug abuse.
There’s nothing more hypocritical than the American War on Drugs when this parade of legal abuse deaths goes marching on. Doctors everywhere just lining their pockets from commissions based on prescribing drugs, corporations raking it in hand-over-fist as a population is encouraged to stop coping with emotions and instead just mask them with things like Xanax.
While some people legitimately need pharmaceuticals, there’s no way in hell the number of people who are doing them should require them. Life IS stressful. Life IS tiring. Sometimes we can’t sleep because we can’t sleep. That’s life — it’s tough. Get a helmet, not a pill.
But that’s not what doctors today say, think, or do. Instead of telling some folks they should exercise harder for stress management, they prescribe pills. They push pills for a quicker here-and-now solution rather than asking patients to exhaust other methods of coping before turning to chemical solutions.
Many doctors don’t care if you’re still on prescriptions or you have a backlog. I have pills kicking around that I could have one hell of a party with, since I stopped the prescription, but has anyone inquired whether that’s the case? Not really, no. And my doctor’s one of the good guys.
People legally skate through life on a 24/7 high thanks to the lack of pharmaceuticals accountability in doctor/pharmacist offices.
Seldom do these prescriptions come with active education or management. They’re handed over all casual like by doctors who are either too busy or apathetic to care.
America’s fighting the wrong war on drugs.
Big Pharma’s a part of the addiction problem. A big part of it.
Over a decade ago, a movie named Requiem for a Dream did a brilliant juxtaposition of addiction’s downward spiral — one through heroin, the other through prescription abuse. They were both harrowing in their awfulness. It’s a dark, jarring movie, and I’ve always been impressed at the similarity in the depravity of those downward spirals. Legal-schmegal — when it comes to a drug that’s got you in its grip, it doesn’t fucking matter if it came by way of a prescription pad. Ask Michael Jackson.
Prescriptions need to be doled out judiciously, and more doctors should be investigated for their keen tendency to problem-solve through pills rather than tough-love.
Frankly, laws involving all drugs need to be revisited.
No one dies from smoking marijuana, you know. Who’s the person really in danger here? The guy chewing Xanax like it’s Tic-Tacs between beers, or the fella toking off a bong and watching Harold & Kumar with a big bag of Cheetohs?
Whether it’s preppy kids in universities, housewives in suburbia, or celebrities in bathtubs, I’m getting tired of people dying from prescription drugs because doctors can’t be bothered to investigate before they prescribe.
Can we finally admit this is a problem?