It’s cold and flu season, and I’m your canary in the coalmine. Got railroaded by the bug last week and I’ve been sick a full week.
I spent my weekend being The Human Spigot and exploring my all-too-close love-affair with polar fleece and cozy slippers, sipping honeyed tea and regretting food choices that turned me into The Loudest Coughing Neighbour Of All Time.
But all this time under the weather around All Hallow’s Eve has given me a chance to watch horror movies I’ve always been too cowardly to see. I was never a “horror” fan. But I never gave it a chance, either. They were scary, so, no, I wouldn’t watch ’em. Ever. A + B = Not A Fucking Chance.
Having crossed a number off my list now, the experience has left me sort of pensive after my horror-movie-spree of Halloween week. I still have more horrors on the trusty PVR, and I’m not worried about watching them.
I began wondering if maybe my fear of watching horrors was part of the problem with my general fears about life. If there’s any one thing I most regret from my childhood, culturally, it’s that inability to confront All Things Scary in horrors. I’m not sure where my apprehensions came from. Maybe it’s just demonstrative of my unlikely tendency to face fear in general.
It’s the cultural chicken-or-the-egg conundrum. Did my fears come first, or was it my fear of feeling fear?
I know that even today I’m a big old scaredy-cat. There’s so much I’m scared to face, so many excuses I find for honouring that fear and not facing those things which I should have the balls to face.
On some deeper level, this “I’m gonna watch horrors” movement I’m in reflects that I’m finally trying to do some of those things that scare me. I’m trying to take the scare out of the figuring, and make choices that don’t come from a place of avoidance due to fears. But, it’s hard.
A friend of mine does theatrical classes with kids and had a big scary day planned for his class today, but the asshats who run the school (and I know they’re asshats firsthand, having worked for the jerk owner myself) said it was “inappropriate” and now he’s doing a “harvest” class because the ghouls and goblins are nixed by administration. Probably partly on religious grounds, since I know who’s doing the deciding there. Whatever, lady.
When I heard about this, it made me angry. The thought of kids being raised coddled and protected, without the experience of being scared shitless, well, that’s not working out so well for me in my middling age, and I think it’s a recipe for failing the next generation.
Every kid needs to experience horror, fear, and the idea that Evil Lurks Somewhere.
Fact is, life is a big scary place. Evil is lurking. Bad things happen. But the further fact is, we usually outlast the fear. We get over it. Things scare the bejesus out of us, then we laugh it off, take a deep steadying breath, and carry on with life. That’s the human condition… most of the time.
Except we’re trying to handhold everyone out of fear — whether it’s Big Pharmacology trying to medicate the shit out of our anxiety or bubble-proofing kids, we try to “protect” ourselves. Don’t tell the politicians and the newsmedia, though — their whole industries exist on sneaking fear into our daily lives.
Today’s playgrounds — rubberized so kids don’t “get hurt” — are an example of just how ridiculous we are about life and its trials. God forbid Little Johnny should scrape his knee.
Personally, I know my stubbornness probably made it unlikely anyone would have succeeded when I was young and saying “No, I won’t do that, it scares me.” I wish I’d had craftier people around me that could have manipulated me past that fear. I wish my brother had taunted me less and supported me in confronting those deep, dark, scary places where having a big, strong brother with me holding my hand rather than trying to up the fear-ante might’ve taken the edge off things. I wish I’d had a lot of things, but that’s the way the growing-up-in-the-real-world cookie crumbles.
I think it comes down to us being one of two types of people — either we focus on the exhilaration of relief we feel when fear subsides, or we get hung up on the terror that comes with fear’s rise. I’ve always been the latter, unable to get past the scare and celebrate how awesome it feels to realize we’re safe.
And maybe watching horror movies doesn’t mean a fucking thing in the long run of life. Maybe it’s a stupid waste of my time.
Or maybe it’s a sign that I’m changing some fundamental philosophies inside and opening my eyes to the reality that most of those things I’ve feared in life have been without point, and overinflated by yours truly’s excessive imagination.
Because, in the end, none of those movies scared me. A couple made me angry. “THIS? THIS is a horror classic? Carrie SUCKS. I didn’t even gasp once!”
In the end, the most common reaction I had, though, was that there was never anything I needed to fear, and I could’ve gotten it over with literally two decades ago.
Now I need that line of thinking to my day-to-day, because waking up on the fear side is no way to live.
PS: The Exorcist is still a fucking awesome movie. Saw it a decade ago and still love it.
Category Archives: Opinion (Editorial & Commentary)
Riot Report? Fuck the Report. Charge Someone.
This riot report business, man, I don’t know.
You want to know what it says? Go ask someone who cares.
Important facts are pretty simple: Here in Vancouver, we had us a little hockey riot. Everyone made a big deal about it, ‘cos it IS a big deal. We’re civil Canadians, we don’t do that shit. Want to do that shit? Hand in your Canadian passport at the door. You ain’t Canadian enough.
Well, cue the UK riots. That brought a lot of perspective to Vancouver folk.
All our hockey-riot hullabaloo passed — millions of dollars in damages, people injured, and all those things that come with mass destruction unleashed by drunk assholes — and not one charge has been laid. Not one.
In the Queen’s realm, not only have charges been laid, but people are already doing HARD time for their actions! Our riot was a couple months before theirs, and much easier to dissect, being all of 3.5 hours in Vancouver, versus four DAYS in the UK.
What happened in Canuckistan?
The same thing that always happens in North America, but that BC politicians have perfected.
The relevant happenstances get forgotten. All the players turned the riot chaos into a political free-for-all ‘cos there’s an election in five months. Next thing, everyone’s pointing fingers about whose fault the thing was.
Maybe these guys didn't burn this car, but they're celebrating it, so that makes them assholes too.
“I didn’t do it. You did it! It’s your fault! Hey, people, blame him! And, psst… vote for me!”
No. You know who fucking did it?
Assholes who got loaded and trashed our city. Young, angry, stupid people who deserve to be in jail, on probation, or doing civic service to atone.
It’s not THE MAYOR’S fault. The city wanted public parties and viewing in the streets. We were longing for the communal bliss of the Olympics, and a little recreating didn’t hurt.
More than 150,000 or so folks convened downtown to watch the games. They thought it was a good idea. Those who didn’t go down mumbled thoughts that Vancouver would riot no matter how the game transpired, because some folks just look for the excuse, but I didn’t hear many of them saying “don’t do the public showings,” because they figured riots would happen with or without public events.
Still, there were plenty of politicians and would-be candidates in the mix, wearing their jerseys, cheering like it was the best thing since Oprah handed out hams.
Public parties are an awesome photo op, it would seem. “I’m a good citizen! I like hockey too. Look, I bought a jersey!”
The riot ain’t the chief of police’s fault. Our fine officers stopped the riot without firing a weapon, without using rubber bullets, and when it was all said and done, the citizens were so impressed they literally wallpapered a department squad car with THANK-YOU notes.
When you cover your face, you know you're a thieving fuck and should be ashamed of yourself, so that makes these guys fucktards.
In 3.5 hours the riot was done and dusted, honey, ‘cos our boys & girls in blue ate their Wheaties before the shift.
The fault of the great Hockey Riot was simply people who wanted to kick the shit out of things because… who the fuck knows why, “BECAUSE”? Because they did.
Why doesn’t matter.
The problem we have here is, the citizens don’t CARE about the mayor or the cops, and antagonistic media DOESN’T GET IT. We don’t care about the politics! SHUT THE HELL UP. Stop sensationalizing! Contribute to the solution! PLEASE.
We understood what happened THAT DAY. We didn’t need any fucking inquiry. The increase in cops wasn’t enough, the confiscation of liquor wasn’t consistent enough, the ability to get alcohol downtown on the day of the game was a part of the problem, even with sales ending at noon. The sunny weather brought out even more people. We got it. It was booze, numbers, and shitheads. Pretty simple.
How do we prevent the next riot? Well, we don’t. It’s always a possibility. Our riot response just needs to improve even more. The response improvement from 1994 to 2011 was impressive. Continue that.
In the meantime, we want justice. We want these punk-ass bitches, many of whom were caught IN ACTION, to be punished!
And if they’re NOT punished, FIX THE GODDAMNED LAW so they can be charged NEXT time. Get us some fucking politicians in chambers who execute new legislation that makes it possible to prosecute for incitement and agitation when it’s not related to a political protests. Those get a different measuring stick.
Seriously, write a law that escalates punishment if in conjunction with civic celebrations. If a riot happens within a day of a sporting finals or major sporting event, or public celebration like The Symphony of Fire, have it be a charge of hooliganism.
Or something. My University of Phoenix correspondence law degree ain’t done yet, so let’s not make me think so hard. Write somethin’, lawmakers.
But stop the fucking finger-pointing. If leaders weren’t so damned afraid to bust out a dance in this province’s political scene, we might actually have progress happen and effect some real change. God knows we need it.
That’s fantasy thinking, there. Here, in Lotus Land, everyone’s prepared to play the blame game before the record even starts to spin.
I’m tired of it. Guess what? Most taxpayers are tired of it.
Assholes that are “the future” went out there and tore my city apart, assaulted my police officers, broke our hearts, AND THEY’RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT.
They’re on TAPE! We have photos! There are witnesses!
AND THEY’RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT.
I’ve never considered politics in British Columbia to be more pathetic than it is now, and any politician campaigning with “riot speak and blaming” as a major part of their platform will not get one damned bit of support, or a vote, from me.
It’s time to grow up, BC politicians. And grow a pair.
Shut up and solve some problems that need solving. Get these punk-asses charged and answering to society.
If these jerks can’t be prosecuted, then I want laws in place by June 1, 2012, that make it simple to lay charges and have them stick, when it comes to wanton sports-hooligan violence like this.
Because right now the legal system and political system in British Columbia is an embarrassment. An EMBARRASSMENT.
People wrecked our city. We know who to blame. Prosecuting them is just not brimming with enough political cachet.
Well, we, the people, we don’t need politics.
We want justice.
Now give it to us.
Emotional Hangover: The Morning After
A Conservative majority was elected in with barely 60% of the country’s registered voters caring enough to do their civic duty.
For all you cynics out there who bitch about governments then don’t vote, claiming “it doesn’t work anyhow,” you get the government you deserve: A government that legislates as it sees fit because too many of its residents are more pleased to whine and moan about policies than get involved.
It’s devastating.
I don’t know what I’m more angry about today — that some 40% of registered voters never showed up, never mind the eligible asshats who’ve never bothered to register — OR the fact that some ridings had, say, 70+% of residents voting for several LEFT-wing candidates, but because none could amass a sizable lead, a Conservative could win with less than 30%.
Our system is broken. It’s a fucking joke.
I’m forced to strategically cast a YES/NO vote because I’m more concerned with end-numbers and whose figurehead will get into power as our Prime Minister, because Canadians vote for one Member of Parliament for their little pocket of the world, a “riding.” The dude(tte) who wins the “riding” goes to Ottawa and represents that town/city/region, and their “seat” is counted into a total, and whomever’s party wins the most “seats” out of the 308 available then forms the ruling government. We don’t vote for a leader, just our local MP.
Minority/majority breaking point is at 155 seats. The Conservatives didn’t just win, they spanked the Left.
With 167 right-wing seats, there’s a whopping 26-vote lead over the 141-seat TOTAL opposition. That’s four political parties that somehow have to work together and still have about a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding at defeating measures that are likely to throw the Canadian social safety net’s sanctity into question.
I expected the Conservatives to win, and secretly wouldn’t have minded it. I didn’t want a majority. I wanted a weak minority, mostly because I do fear messing much with the national financial mix in a world where the global economy has the stability of hitching a unicycle ride with a drunk.
I’m not a fan of extremism in any form.
I was a profoundly religious child who grew up with bad experiences in the Catholic church, I’ve seen both sides of the financial coin from a first-person-life point of view, have paid for my own education and worked my way through school, have seen what abuse and addiction and crime can do to families, and how long even smart, capable people can be unemployed in hard times. My politics are absolutely shaped by my experience, but as sympathetic as I am to the left, I favour a more centrist view. Too bad that party got smoked like Bob Marley on a fatty last night.
I’m scared of a majority government that stands unsympathetic to most of the issues I hold dear, with a party run by a man who has shown tones of wishing autocracy was doable in Canada, and who is profoundly religious, and who I consider one of the SHREWDEST political tacticians Canada has ever seen.
I’ve said over the years that Harper was like a man on a tight-rope who understands to his very core what the advantage of balance was when faced with a minority government. Has he pushed his limits in the past? Yes, but not often.
Will he seek that balance now that he has nearly a 10% lead over the combined opposition? Heh. Insert cynical chuckle here.
I find it hard to believe a man who tried to rename the country’s government from “The Government of Canada” to the “Harper Government” is likely to squelch any ambitions now that he’s been handed a broad mandate.
I’d love to be wrong.
So, today I’m stuck here with this pretty sullen state of mind as I realize this is the shape of the government until October, 2015. Someone last night said “Cheer up, the Americans suffered 8 years with Bush and got Obama!” I countered with, “Yeah. We’ve suffered 7 years under Harper to get 4.5 more years of Harper. Great.”
Canada’s system is broken on several levels.
Our citizens, with their apathy and refusal to get involved, are a mockery of democracy. You people don’t even deserve to vote. You don’t deserve the advantages of a socialist nation if you refuse to participate in its operation. And that’s what you’re going to get, a lack of social systems, more prisons, and more defense spending, because that’s the platform you elected. You embraced the status quo by choosing to have NO vote.
So, you get what you apathetically chose, Canada.
My parents used to take me along on the odd election day. They said, this is what you do when you live in democracy, you vote. They taught me civic responsibility. Have you taught your kids? Or are you teaching them cynicism and that you have zero power to change the world? Are you okay with that? Are you okay with your friends raising kids that way?
People often say “Oh, we have no real power anyhow.”
Yes, you do. If you, and enough like-minded people, all believe and fight for something, you can get it. Sometimes it’s as easy as putting check-marks on paper.
It’s called voting. It’s powerful. It shapes laws that define everything from how much tax is on your bottle of wine tonight to whether your kid can afford university or whether your spouse will be struggling to pay medical bills after your death like Americans do, or just mourning you like Canadians usually do.
So, way to fuck that one up, you 40% who didn’t show up, and the countless others who’ve just never registered.
The take away I’m hoping to see grow into something bigger?
- Justin Trudeau won his riding, and as much as he’s been a bit of an idiot in the past, the Liberal party is too important to his family’s legacy for him not to get a reality-check slap in the face and grow up FAST as far as developing a political acumen goes. He’s his father’s son, and I can’t see him not reading this election correctly and growing very quickly from the experience. If anyone can resurrect some of Canada’s dream for its left-of-centre roots, it’s a Trudeau–but the kid has a lot of savvying-up to do. (The whole family in fur coats on a Christmas card. Really, Justin? Sable farmers are a big electoral backer? Slick.)
- The NDP are more likely to continue in an idealistic point of view, and I think the country needs that with all the crap going on in the world today, and given more time to campaign, they might have turned this election into something for the history books. They don’t have the economic know-how to get this country through tough financial times YET, but they have 4.5 years to really strap on those big-boy pants and get sound policies that embrace reality rather that fairytale finance.
- A lot of people I see who are smart, motivated, and driven are now wanting to get involved politically, because it’s clearly not happening with the people we’ve got.
- The chance of Canada’s political system melding down into fewer politics are stronger this morning than they’ve ever been. While I loathe the one-or-the-other system in the United States, the alternative in Canada hasn’t exactly floated my boat either. Maybe less is more in a frustrating political time like this.
This morning, I’m trying not to conjure my inner-Darth Vader and give in to the Dark Side, but it’s really hard to pretend to have optimism about Canada’s future.
Four and a half years… that’s a long-ass time, friends. That’s a big majority.
We need more anger in Canada. The passive-aggressive bend-over-and-take-it nature that seems to come with a Canadian passport really shows up come election time, and it’s tired and old.
We should expect more. We’re Canada, for fuck’s sake.
If YOU care, then you have 4.5 years to make your compatriots care.
No vote is a vote for the status quo.
You wanted it? You got it. Enjoy your government.
Me, I’m just getting started.
Election Day: Democracy Makes Good Eatin'
A rainy election day has dawned here in Vancouver. A low rattling hum comes from my refrigerator with the whistle of wind outside and the splatter of rain under passing roadway tires. It’s a murky aural mess that seems an ominous forboding of the day ahead.
I don’t follow politics as well as I should, given my aspirations, but the peripheral glances I take have me pretty riveted in this contest, and apprehensive, of outcomes tonight.
The NDP’s amazing ascent over the past six weeks is well-deserved. I think their platform at times equal parts unicorns and fairy dust, economically speaking, but a left-wing opposition under a minority government of a would-be autocrat should be the closest thing to balance this country has seen in decades.
I’m nervous about the notion of the NDP running the country, despite liking Jack Layton a lot, but if that’s what it takes to save the social system that defines what it means to be Canadian — a country where we’re in it for one and all, where my tax dollars are your security net and yours are mine, where healthcare access should be a basic human right — then so be it, bring ’em on.
That’s the country that defines who I am. It’s the nation that lets immigrants in, helps businesses grow, provides education among the best in the world, and celebrates arts and the freedom of information.
I don’t know what this country is that I’ve been living in. I feel like it’s America-Lite™. But I’m Canadian, not American, and that won’t be changing in my lifetime.
I’m unsure how we’ve become a place where a Tim Horton’s donut shop is converted to triage because there aren’t enough beds in the hospital across the street. We were the headline gag on The Daily Show that week. I don’t know where Tommy Douglas’s ghost is, but I bet he’s pissed.
Somehow I woke up in a Canada that began razing the Albertan tar sands, the environment be damned. A place where, on the one hand, the Prime Minister at long last apologizes to the First Nations for the horrors of the residential school system’s abuses, but then denies access to clean water for more than 100 at-risk Native communities nationally.
In today’s Canada, women are being legislated into regression by having 43% of federal funding cut under Harper’s administration.
Instead of being a Canada fighting for human rights internationally and advanced-thinking domestically, “my” government decided it wants to build more prisons, despite falling crime rates. Incarceration has never been the solution in Canada, our social programs have been a large factor of our always-lower crime rates compared to our Southern Neighbours, but now we want to replicate their system here? How does this make sense?
Don’t even get me started on issues of internet privacy and the business of bandwidth. If bandwidth is information, and information is power, and power encourages change, then the Conservatives’ position on access to bandwidth isn’t very encouraging for society as a whole.
Education is already priced out of reach of some; protecting bandwidth-access is a way of equalizing that.
Then there are the Liberals. I’m not happy with them, either. They’ve been incohesive for years, and they can’t figure out a leader who can win. I respect Ignatieff but there are issues I have with his record (a politician who doesn’t show up for votes is a politician who’s not interested in the details of legislating, I’ve always felt).
It’s your classic Canadian contest: Who do you want to win? I sure as hell don’t know, sir, but I know who I want to lose.
Long story short, it’s a good year to have a say and play a part.
The above gripes of mine are barely even scraping the issues of what we need to contend with in Canada.
We have climate change issues, and thus need a government who’s thinking about alternative energies, not just sucking the last of our fossil fuels without recompense.
We’re still in a shaky recession that Canada barely got through, while nurturing a massive personal debt/credit-load across the country, and we’ve a dangerously uncertain financial precipice before us.
Education is at a crossroads, as is the entire medical system, so too is the Canadian Pension Plan.
Cutting spending and thinning the spread only gets you so far. Then, one day, you’re not a socialist country anymore, and it’s every man for himself, like it is for our American friends.
In a perfect world, there will be a better distribution of power and no party will have a clear majority.
I’m not a fan of the hoodoo-voodoo economics behind an NDP platform, given it’s a combination of “if the stars align and the genie grants our budgeting wishes”, but if ever Canada needed a Socialist voice in the national government that carried a little weight, I’d say today, this election, THIS is when it’s needed.
Because I love the Canada I was raised in. And, like the rest of the world, I know what a dark and difficult path lay ahead, and we’ll be better for the long-run if we protect this Canadian way of caring for, and helping, our brothers and sisters.
My name is Steff, I am Canadian, and I have voted.
Assaulting Employees: FUNNY! Really, Groupon?
I just don’t get it.
Maybe I’m not funny after all.
Apparently this Groupon video for unsubscribing is the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, so funny you’ll puke. Just asked Wired, that’s what THEY think.
Me, I watch it and think “Wow, we’re just a sad, sad society.”
2,000 years ago, the Romans threw Christians to the lions. We got off on seeing people hurt and killed as entertainment.
You’d think, in the Information Age, that we would have progressed some, so that we’re not at that stage where we think it’s a blast to see people hurt or tormented. Sadly, you’re kinda wrong, it seems.
We’ve toned it down, but the gist of enjoying the humiliation and harm, that’s still there. Way to go, society. Stay classy.
Sure, all that happens in this video is a guy gets chewed out, pushed around, and a cup of presumably hot coffee (since most mostly-full cups of coffee tend to be recently acquired) thrown into his face.
I’m sure no Groupon Employees were harmed in this video, but the suggestion is that, DUDE, it’s HAH-LARRI-YUS to chuck scalding beverages into a peer’s face. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Chuckle! Giggle. “That’ll leave a mark, dude!”
Can’t we be a little better than this? Can’t the same message be achieved by dropping a bomb on a computer and saying, “Bad computer! BAD! No email for you!” or something?
Well, yes.
But this is what happens when you like to shock and sensationalize for notoriety and water-cooler cachet.
We can be better than this.
Unfortunately, some folk who write the newspapers and stuff (lookin’ at you, Wired) seem to think Groupon’s writing is awesome and their ads are terrific.
In the social media trenches, though, more people than not tell me they hate Groupon’s writing. A number of people have unsubscribed on that basis alone. I haven’t even mentioned the Groupon Superbowl debacle, or the recent controversial ad that poked fun at depression as being a great sleep aid.
Groupon’s lack of taste is ridiculous, and it’s disappointing that there isn’t a larger hue and cry about it.
Thankfully, it seems consciousness has been growing since the Superbowl ads, and I’d hope the prevalence of things like Deal By Day’s newsletter, which aggregates all your local deals into one daily 6:30am email, might increase the number of people who unsubscribe from Groupon’s daily letter, who start shopping a broader array of deals, and will send a message that it’s not okay to mock committing cruelty to people, as Groupon has done on a few occasions now.
But, hey, like I say. Maybe I’m just not funny anymore.
Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe this whole “I’m past treating people like shit for a gag” thing is some emotional midlife crisis.
Who knows.
I just know I ain’t impressed. I ain’t laughin’. And I know I ain’t alone.
Groupon’s market share is falling, for a lot of reasons. I think the media doesn’t realize how much a contingent of the public loathes Groupon’s marketing, definitely a reason many of us have walked away. With ads like these, I say it couldn’t happen to a better company. Groupon walking away from a $6 billion sale to Google? Probably the stupidest decision since putting all the marketing eggs into one Crocs-shoe basket.
Oh… and I haven’t bought a Groupon since last August. Hello, DealByDay newsletter, how YOU doin’?
The End is Nigh: What Journalism's Selling
I graduated with a journalism degree back in the mid-90s, when this little “internet” thing was just taking off.
I don’t think any of us then could have fathomed a world where news could travel instantaneously from not just professionals, but amateurs with fancy cellphones.
Today, I wish the ethics class I had taken then was mandatory for all users of social media, and a refresher course available for all working journos. In the heat of the moment, even I can be guilty of kneejerk retweeting, because I naively believe the news sources wouldn’t DARE misinform us about something as dire as, like, nuclear meltdown.
How wrong I am.
Journalism & social media today.
Times like these, I worry it’s the blind-leading-the-blind news scenario that’s most detrimental to us.
Out there, panic. Apparently we’re all going to be stricken with radiation, then cancer and certain death as a nuclear meltdown abso-fucking-lutely will be laying waste across the world. Potassium iodide sales are skyrocketing. IN THE USA AND CANADA. Hello, there’s 7,000 kilometres minimum between our coasts, let alone travelling inland.
Get yer tinfoil hats on and stock up on duct tape, kids — North America’s in JEOPARDY!
Um, no, no meltdown, no nuclear boom. Not yet, kiddos. And, the thing is, the news is so sensationalised by just about everyone right now that I can’t even watch it. I just can’t.
Being terrified isn’t helping. And it’s insulting to the Japanese who are living with this shit within their borders.
And, furthermore, these constant death totals — the media had no business reporting deaths on day 2, 3, 4, etc. We know they’re going to escalate rapidly, and the foolishly low numbers reported early in the tragedy are just irresponsible — as if the tragedy is WORSENING because the numbers are rising.
No. It was that bad to begin with. You just had to watch it unfolding live. I’ll never forget how that felt. “Hundreds” of deaths? So naive.
I remember the low numbers reported for the first few days of the Indonesian tsunami that resulted in 230,000 deaths. I fear the numbers in Japan. I loathe the endless watch as the number creeps up with increasing speed as recovery efforts escalate. From false hope of “oh, it looked worse” to the ever-rising gloom of knowing that’s so much more than “just a number” as it gets amped up by thousands.
And, then, elsewhere in the world, Gaddhafi is effecting a brutal crackdown on his protesters, as the western leaders twiddle their thumbs. Bahrain is killing its protesting citizens, too.
CNN? Barely even knows the Arab World exists this week. And people are dying while our heads are turned away.
That is the media’s job. To prevent us from being blind to these things.
They’re failing.
They’re scaring us.
They’re reporting inside an echo chamber, putting people who don’t understand the topic in charge of educating the masses, they’re ignoring blood being shed for democracy, and none of us are the better for it.
To the few journalists who are really trying to present information without sensationalising it: Thank you.
To the rest of ’em: Get a real job.
Darkest Before Dawn, In The Aftermath
It’s relentless, the imagery from Japan. Hard to watch.
Yet watch I do.
I may never be witness to such an event again. Lord knows I hope that’s true.
Here I am in my comfortable home, mint tea steeping on my table, rain pattering the streets below as a cool spring breeze whispers past, my chimes clattering to remind me of it, as if being cooler than comfortable wasn’t the first clue.
Comfortable as I am, I’m left feeling it’s hard to be ignorant of the events over there. I’m compelled to watch, hour after hour. I’m not desensitized, but it affects me differently than most others.
Deep down inside, part of me wishes I had been a foreign correspondent. I wanted to cover disaster relief, that was my thing. Or genocide.
Humans at our best and worst — and how we’re often at our best when the world’s at its worst.
Japan, wow.
The Mayans might’ve been off a year. It’s looking like end times on that little Pacific archipelago. Nuclear meltdowns, tsunami, 5th largest quake on record, volcano threatening to blow, and even snow falling.
I mean, seriously? It’s so fucking ludicrous that there’s no WAY a writer could’ve submitted this script to a Hollywood production company and had a movie greenlit.
“Come on, buddy. Nobody would ever believe in a 9.0 earthquake followed by the worst tsunami ever followed by nuclear meltdown at not just one but several reactors, while the snow falls, right before the volcano starts to rumble? Word to the wise, curb the drugs when you’re writing. It’s hard to swallow, dude.”
SERIOUSLY, that’s how Hollywood would react. Some C-movie maker would produce it and it’d be a latenight movie on channel 212.
I can’t fathom what the Japanese feel right now. The more we learn, the more jaw-dropping the realisation is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime disaster of epic proportions on THREE levels.
And yet.
Somehow, some way, I see Japan as overcoming it all. If any country in this world is set to overcome this, it’s Japan.
They’re the only country who has ever been levelled to this extent in the past, and rebuilt. They survived a nuclear winter after an atomic bomb. They can do anything.
That experience clearly profoundly shaped the Japanese people today. When relief agents run out of water supplies, the Japanese aren’t yelling or pleading. There are no stories of looting. There is order and camaraderie wherever I hear reporters speaking.
This is a horrible, horrible moment in time.
Yes. It really is.
But I choose to think of how this can make us better. All of us. We can remember we are nothing in the face of nature. We can rededicate ourselves to each other. We can realise that, like millions in Japan, our lives can be torn apart in 10 minutes or less — so, knowing life’s impermanence, what’s really important, and why?
I watched Thursday at 9:30 pm, as the tsunami made landfall, inching over the land that it’d soon cover as much as 10 kilometres of, inland.
I saw the little cars stopping for stop lights, the tsunami roaring closer in their rearviewmirrors. I sat there with a blanket wrapped around me, wanting to scream at the TV, RUN RUN RUN, DRIVE, GO GO GO!
Today, I’m watching as most found in those cars I was likely watching, in Sendai, the same area I saw the tsunami spreading out over, are being extracted and put into body bags.
It’s hard to think anything amazing can come from that. It’s hard to fathom the technology that makes it possible for me to sit on my sofa watching, with a five-second-delay, as biblical destruction lays waste to a whole countryside. It’s hard to think we’ll be in a position to remember this event one day, celebrating those who survived as we honour the dead.
But that’s what we will do.
As a people, as a world, somehow, to make sense of all this tragedy, we will each find a way to be a little better. To be a little more aware.
Because, if we don’t, then it will indeed have been a horribly senseless tragedy and a low point in civilisation.
And I don’t want to live in that world.
But… if we become better, we love more actively, we live more strategically, we laugh more passionately… if we learn to be more aware of each other, of nature, of time’s passing, of the horrible-yet-beautiful temporal nature of everything…
I can live in that world. I can be a better human being, in that world.
And, Japan, honestly, there’s something about their society and their ethos that really does make them a model society for overcoming this adversity. I would hope, in the insanity unfolding elsewhere in the world, that Japanese ethos and air of resilience is something we all begin striving for.
We here in the West could use some lessons in humility, community, and lawfulness. Perhaps they are to teach us some.
Meanwhile, I’m praying for Japan in my non-secular, non-religious kind of way. I’m watching with a grasp of exactly the magnitude of disaster that is ahead, but also with a longterm vision of what Japan has overcome with incredible success in the past.
And, the thing that I’m sure they’re hanging onto is, this time, they’re not alone.
This time, we didn’t do it to them, it was nature, and we’re all horrified at the unfairness of her wrath.
But the world is showing support, people are reaching out to her. Japan will rise again.
After A Morning of Job-Surfing
Dear Human Resources* People:
I’d like to work for you, I would. But given that first impressions are everything, that first impression kinda cuts both ways — starting with your help-wanted ad.
If you’re not getting the really awesome people applying for you, maybe you might want to make sure you’re not writing ads that include the following, and here’s why:
1. You want a “rockstar.” Give that I’m not really a fan of doing cocaine off hookers’ bellies on bathroom counters, I’m not sure I have what you’re looking for. Keith Richards, maybe he’s your deal.
2. You’re looking for someone who can create “viral” content. If one KNEW how to make viral content, do you know what they wouldn’t be doing? Applying for your job. No offense. Anyone who consistently create “viral” content is the next producer of the year, okay, and not a $20-an-hour employee. If you want well-circulated web content, though, I can do that. That’s realistic, and it’s something you can ask for, and is what I’d deliver.
3. You want a “guru.” Sorry, but I’m still learning social media, and I guarantee you that anyone worth their salt is, too. Social media ain’t OVER, it’s still evolving, and we’re all on this ride together. Some of us are intent to be students and don’t think we’ll ever be masters — just highly consistent and always awesome. It’s not about where your “guru” is today, it’s what kind of an online community they’ve built for the long-term, because staying power is HARD on the web today. Some of us, though, epitomise it.
4. You’re using super-hip lingo buried in long paragraphs of uber-corporate jargon. You’re hip or you’re corporate, so decide which type of person you want on-board, because one isn’t the other, and you don’t seem to know which you are.
I can’t tell you how many jobs are written with the above styles, and they’re selling what they’re unlikely to deliver, because they’re overwriting and overselling.
This does you, and me as the job-seeker, a huge disservice.
Make sure your job posting reflects who you are and what you’re really looking for. Buzzwords might give you the impression you’re attracting those who are “a cut above,” but you might just be isolating more than those you’re attracting, because it doesn’t sound sincere.
I want to work for you. But, based on your advertisement, I can’t.
I’m a great communicator, a fun team-player, loyal as the day is long, and always thinking forward, not backward. I say exactly what I mean, and don’t need to oversell things, because quality sells itself.
When it comes to writing movies, books, stories, and songs — less is more. It’s true also of job advertisements.
Until we get to salaries.
Let’s be realistic — for most of us, the world revolves around money, and in Vancouver, there are a lot of folks who won’t apply if you don’t list a salary range. (I’m not necessarily one, but I certainly look for that information.)
We’re not expecting you to nail a number down, or to have you promise us the world, but we need to know if our financial responsibilities can be met with your position. If not, then let’s spare both of us some time.
We all know it’s not just about the paycheque. We all want to be valued, and find the right place. Know the job you offer, and who you want.
We don’t need to be oversold on our jobs. We just want to work someplace we fit into, and your job advertisement is where that relationship begins. Please think twice before posting.
Love Steff.
*Mostly PR, marketing, communications, writing, and editing jobs are what I’ve been surfing, obviously. Got solid part-time work? Maybe I’m your girl.
Falling Dominoes: Our Changing World
I started a posting a couple weeks ago, when Egypt’s revolution was on the verge of blowing wide open. I saved it, moved on. I’m not a political nor economic pundit, so what have I got to say, right?
But it brought to mind the oft-misattributed proverb/curse “May you live in interesting times.”
Party like it's Tahrir Square after Mubarak stepped down, people.
Boy, things are getting interesting.
Watching the Eastern world come tumbling down is like being spectator to a game of Jenga after a bottle of vodka. It’s just crazy shit. It’s terrifying, it’s beautiful, it’s mind-boggling. It’s everything I never thought I’d live to see.
Decades of corruption, oppression. Decades of us living in the west and thinking Arab countries liked their lives and those horrible leaders.
A few years ago, I did some ESL tutoring. I met this great pair of Saudi couples. They were profoundly Islamic, and very traditional, but still young and hip, living on the university’s campus, trying to take in the Western way of life for a couple of years, and finding it really hard to assimilate, because nothing says “We’re different” louder than a full-length burqa, you know.
You might as well have a klaxon blaring “SUPERORTHODOX” as you approach a young group of kids, if you’re in a burqa here in Vancouver. We don’t get a lot of that here. And this was five or six years ago, closer to 9/11, still in the throes of war, under an idiomatic Bush regime to the south.
Yeah, it was a tough time to be a Saudi student in a burqa. So, naturally, the husband wanted a female teacher so the wives could learn some of the culture and take their burqas off, and be comfortable.
Well, learning about the culture went two ways. They were wonderful, kind, curious, sensitive people. I loved learning about traditional Islamic experiences, trying their food.
So, my attitude about the news I was getting, with western perceptions of Islam, began shifting at a faster rate. I’d also seen the documentary Control Room, around this time, and knew Al Jazeera to be a fair and well-delivered news network, not the “mouthpiece of terrorism” that our leaders were demonizing it to be.
As much as I loved the couples I got to know, I never did abandon my belief that much of the Arab world is far too patriarchal, and that the deference to their traditional beliefs was not only hindering their progress, but putting much of our world in a risky position. I’m a feminist and a leftist thinker, do the math.
Fast-forward a few years, and here we are, waiting for the house of cards to fall in Libya.
A powder keg of change has exploded in the Middle East and North Africa, and it all traces back to one man on December 17th.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old fruit vendor who set himself ablaze, in response to being slapped and beaten by officials, after they tried confiscating his apples and his scale.
So, when denied a meeting with the governor, he set himself on fire.
He died January 4th. The people fought in his name. By January 14th, Tunisia’s dictator had fled.
Less than two months later, the eastern world is being redrawn as decades-old regimes have begun toppling. Mohamed Bouazizi’s indignation sparked the fire that now rages.
It’s an amazing time to be alive.
Honestly, the future terrifies me. With this economy? Throwing in the uncertainty of a fast-changing world?
Where do we go now? What do populations that have been poorly educated and long-repressed bring to the societal table? How do tribal nations create democracy?
No one KNOWS how to accomplish this. Everyone’s got ideas. Everyone has a different level of “holy fuck!” they feel about what comes after all this. Every pundit’s betting on a different outcome. We have no idea.
When communism fell in Eastern Europe, that unleashed crazy shockwaves and took a while to adjust to, but it wasn’t that bad.
This time, our cultures are completely different. Whether it’s about the roles women play (but usually don’t play) in the eastern society, or the lack of widespread quality education, or the fact that the countries have all but given up trying to export anything but oil, well, we have one hell of a road to travel.
Never mind the whole “writing a bunch of constitutions and creating safe, transparent elections” dilemma.
Simply put, the ability to effect change in so many regions, at such a pervasive and far-reaching level, is an opportunity the world has seldom ever had, and certainly not on this breadth or scale, at this pace. With technology and communications that we have today, this is an unparalleled time of potential.
For the moment, today… wow. What a thing to behold. What a time of change.
There is nothing more amazing to watch than that light-switch that flicks on when someone realises they’re entitled to stand up for themselves and ask for more.
That’s basically what’s happening to millions of people. These people are saying they’re willing to die before they’re willing to take another day of being treated like shit.
Me, I’m inspired.
Interesting times, indeed.
Tomorrow, we’ll put together the world again. I hope. Today, we’ll watch, cheer, and dream.
Fight on, Libyans.
The Stormy Psychic Seas of Job-Huntin'
The thing about the unemployed-becoming-self-employed-or-something lifestyle is, it’s fight-or-flight, feast-or-famine for a while.
It’s a reactionary life. “What’s out there? Jump! Get it! There it is! Don’t let it escape!”
When it’s about job-hunting, other pursuits in life tend to get dropped while opportunity gets pursued.
At the moment, that’s where I’m at. I have to work as much as I can RIGHT NOW because I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. I could sit around and collect unemployment insurance and do nothing, but I’d rather be working. I’m thrilled to have the chance.
When it comes to taking jobs, I’m old enough to know that not just anything will do. When it’s 25% of your weekly life, including sleep, you better fucking like what you do, or at least who you’re doing it for and with.
There comes a point in one’s life when one should realize a job interview isn’t just about them interviewing you, it’s about them being good enough for your commitment. This is the first time I’ve ever been patient enough to see it that way and I’ve come close with some amazing opportunities, some of which aren’t yet played through.
Unemployment is a hard, hard road. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve been through, if you don’t learn new things about yourself during unemployment, dude, yer doin’ it wrong. Most of us, it’s probably one of the toughest tests, and most educational passages, of our lives.
I’ve been that person in the past who gets laid off, then the next day has a new resume, and nine days later has a shiny new job. I’ve done that. And it was one of the worst six months of my life. Including my mother’s death. Seriously. Bad choices equal bad results.
Getting A job, ANY job, is easy. They have books on it, you know. It’s a method. Look pretty, smile, be funny and warm and engaging, do stuff during your life that looks good on a resume, learn the answers, know how to talk, and really give a shit. It ain’t for everyone to master, no, but it can be learned.
The right job? Whew. They’re like blue moons and honest politicians, they’re out there — it’s just real damn hard to come across one.
Me, I’m in an era of transition. Whatever happens in the coming days will shape my year(s) to come. And it’s totally up in the air.
How often do we get to enjoy THIS? Uncertainty, hope, possibility, unpredictability, the unknown, variety? Most of us, we find a groove in life and off we go. That’s the path we tread for months, years, and even decades: Routine.
I called a dear friend on the weekend and told him a situation I had to decide about. Do I press forward despite the personal risk? He took a deep breath and sighed, we batted the idea around for a while. At the end, he commented, “I’m jealous: The unknown. I don’t envy the choice, but I’m jealous of the possibility.”
For years, he’s gotten up, worked at the same store, same people, same routine. For years, I had, too.
There’s a comfort in such a routine. It’s not exciting, but you know your bank account empties and refills, ebbing and flowing like any river of life.
This fluttery what-will-I-get confusion and possibility I’m living under these days, it’s driving me sort of insane, but it’s also something I know I might not experience again for 5 or 10 years. If ever.
All that being said… I’m glad I’m getting closer to resolution. I’m ready for a new chapter. I’m ready to work on other areas of my life. I want my financial picture clear and reliable so I can move back to feeling, and being, creative — with abandon.
The long things drag on, the more I feel like I should censor my creative efforts. @Smuttysteff who writes The Cunting Linguist? Sure, that says “hire me.” Well, actually, unbeknownst to some, it does say just that. Still, I’m not a fan of this creative apprehension.
A year ago, the Olympics were rolling into Vancouver. Since then, I’ve grown a lot through taking chances, confronting fears, and believing in myself in a quietly persistent way through some trying times. I’ve had refreshers about what’s important in life — and who. A year ago, I didn’t know I was about to lose my job. I never would’ve predicted the year that followed, but there you have it.
Even now, I’ve no idea what’s around the corner, except that it’s hurry-up-and-wait time.
But what I can tell you is, I hope I never forget some of the lessons I’ve learned this year, or the old ones I’ve been reminded of.
Adversity’s your friend. Suck it up, buttercup. Become better. Find your weaknesses and replace them with strength. Unemployment is a relentless opportunity to discover who you really are and what you really need.
Unless, you know, you actually enjoy the living-and-operating-from-a-place-of-fear approach to unemployment.
It can be a long ride, man. Best advice is, buckle up and see where the hell it goes. It might just be an end destination you never woulda seen coming.
With that, it’s on with my unpredictable-yet-not week. Oy vey.