Free markets, as a dumbed-down fairytale

Martin Shkreli in his new office  Photo: Universal News & Sport (Europe)

Once upon a time in the early 20th century, we, as a people, became inflamed by the gospel of the free markets. This lasted until such times as we fell into utter ruin and cried no more! We have nothing to fear but fear itself and no house of commerce shall be too big! Then we legislated the hell out of the markets to make sure it never happened again. 

There was some civil rights and union stuff too, you know, interesting things if you give a shit about people, but as it turns out, completely irrelevant to the story. So carrying on.

Once upon a time in the late 20th century, we, as a people, became inflamed by the gospel of the free markets...

For whom the dog whistle blows

Photo Credit Flickr s_sultana06

I've noted some anti-Muslim sentiments flowing through my Facebook newsfeed over the last few days. An uptake caused in no small measure by the Conservatives pledging to reintroduced measures to ban niqabs at citizenship ceremonies within 100 days of reelection, but also by a less than critical assessment of the worthiness of that argument and a basic ignorance of the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

According to the Conservatives, banning the niqab means they are standing tall for women's rights against an anti-woman culture. They are doing so by forcing a woman to do something she doesn't want to do in exchange for something. In terms of women's rights, both modern and historically, think about that for a minute.

They are also making a really big deal about it, despite the fact that Muslim women make up 1.6 per cent of the Canadian population and only a tiny portion of those women wear niqabs. In a country of 35 million, it's an insignificant number. 

It's especially insignificant when compared to bigger problems, like the nine per cent of Canadians who live in poverty, a disproportionate amount of whom are single mothers and Aborigines. As of 2012, over 1.3 million of our children live in poverty, worse still, one in four of our indiginous children live in poverty, yet a veil worn by a fraction of one per cent is worthy of a federal election platform? 

This is where critical thinking needs to be applied. If you respond favorably to Conservatives dog whistle about the niqab ban, you’ve just become Pavlov's dog. Just as the dog drooled when the bell rang in anticipation of food, you’re putting support behind an insignificant policy expressly designed to divert attention away from actual issues that affect large portions of our population, like poverty, just because it coinsides with your beliefs. You are for whom that dog whistle blows.

Whilst we dabble in the cultural minutiae of win-at-all-costs election politics, we have more children living in poverty than when the Canadian government made a pledge to end child poverty 26 years ago.

Which brings me to the last bit: ignorance of the Canadian Charter. The Charter guarantees all of us

"(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;"

While the Charter recognizes the supremacy of god and law, it does not specify a particular god. To do so would violate our individual right to religious freedom and freedom of expression. 

If interpreted as such by the woman wearing it, a niqab is an expression of religious freedom. That's how beliefs work. You believe in something and that something becomes your belief. It may just be a belief you don't like. To that end, there’s plenty not to like in any given religion, but the Charter does not discriminate. Religious freedom under the Charter means a woman can cover her faces during a citizenship ceremony if her religious belief call her to do so (FYI once they become a Canadian citizen, that woman, like any other Canadian citizen, need never show their face to cast a ballot again, even after the Fair Elections Act). Heck, wear a pasta colander on your head and a hula skirt of wet noodles if the Pastafarian movement is what gets you through your big day.

It’s your Charter guaranteed freedom to worship or to not worship as you see fit, but don't for a second think your Charter given right to freedom of religion and of free expression gives you the right to dictate the beliefs of another, just because you like yours and you don't like theirs. It’s not your call, because that's not what the Charter sets out. 

If you don't like the niqab and you feel women are oppressed, rather than persecute the tiny segment of the female population that thinks differently than you, challenge the Charter that permits it in the first place. Seriously, pursue it like it's the last cubic metre of of air to breathe in the whole country. Just know that when you do so, you need inject those same feminist values, that same pro-woman culture, as a requirement into all other beliefs, expressions, policies, and laws in Canada. 

You do that and I will be your biggest cheerleader.

The day the war began

Photograph: Reuters

With the photo of a little boy dead on a beach, Canadians saw the real cost of the war in Syria today.

The news this morning did not draw our attention to the latest images of the atrocities of ISIS. Those fanatics in black devising ever more venal and gruesome killings to smear across the internet. To be sure, they are monsters to the very last man.

The images weren't of the horrific aftermath of a suicide bomber. The dead, the maimed, the traumatized. Another monster beyond all reason and humanity, intent on inflicting the greatest harm.

Our hearts were not engaged by the before and after photos of temples and monuments of the ancient world reduced to so much rubble. Over 2000 years of history, destroyed by monsters in hours.

No one hugged their child a little tighter after viewing an angry mob of foreign-looking refugees demanding to ride a train. These people are not monsters, but it's easy to imagine them as such.

Today we saw a dead little boy on a beach, washed up like refuse with his dead brother and mother. In the boneless way of youngsters, he looked like he was sleeping. His parents wanted to take them to Canada. Instead, his father is taking them back to Syria for burial.

It is easy to turn away from monsters. It is easy to vilify a people by reducing them to the worst of their people. We don’t just do it abroad, stereotyping and bigotry are alive and well on the home front. It is not so easy to turn away from a dead child. To cast a blind eye to all that hope and promise extinguished.

To that I say, publish all the refugees photos. Show us those suffocated men, women and children in the back of a refrigerated truck. Inundate us with hundreds of bloated bodies on the beaches and the bellies of ships. Go into the refugee camps and take their pictures, write their stories, tell us what they've endured and what they've lost. Rain down on us their suffering and their pain. Above all else, show us their humanity.

 

Do it over and over again and maybe, just maybe, we'll keep seeing real cost of war. 

The war that began today.

Adventures in plumbing

It's plumbing week on Chappell Street. In this unaired and conceivably finite home renovation series, we're tackling the last remaining vestiges of cast iron plumbing and putting in a new toilet.

As with everything in this temporary WWII house, the existing plumbing was poorly executed, crudely modified and deteriorated with age.

Ridding the house of its cast iron stacks is part of the larger downstairs bathroom renovation, which in turn is part of the larger downstairs renovation, which is encased in the larger renovation/rebuild of the exterior in 2012. It's like Russian dolls, but each one is a smaller Pandora's box that opens with the words "while we're at it."

In the duo that is us, one of us is incredibly handy. It's not me. I am best at ensuring everyone is fed, watered, and if necessary, libated. I am also good at holding the ends of things, carrying things, carrying one end of heavy things, unskilled labour, and retrieving well-described items from building supply stores. A smart phone helps significantly with this last task. Pictures do say a 1,000 words. On rare occasion, my geometry knowledge proves useful, but mostly I am an all purpose flunky. A sawhorse with hands, feet, car keys, a debit card and a compulsion to ensure everyone is hydrated and full.

And sometimes I have gaps in logic. 

After successfully retrieving ABS connectors and a toilet from Home Depot (because, while we're at it, let's get rid of the remaining water-pig toilet), I was draining the water from the old upstairs toilet. There was a bunch of gritty sediment at the bottom of the tank and the cloth I was using to sop up the water was getting very dirty, so I started to rinse it in the sink. This was rapidly followed by intense screaming from downstairs.  

I shut off the taps and ran, envisioning Shawn pinned beneath heavy cast iron. As I hit the top of the stairs I recalled how less than an hour ago I held the upstairs stack still as he cut through that thick metal pipe, then opened the door for him as he took it outside.

As I said, gaps.

On the upside, the flood provided some comic relief in a day of frustration and filth (poop goes through those pipes). The handy one of us was still laughing an hour later.

Thankfully, I was able to redeem myself later in the day. While applying ABS adhesive in the basement, the dabber slipped out of Shawn's hand and fell out of reach at the bottom of a 45 coupler, a foot down from the closest opening in the stack. Repeated retrieval efforts with coat hanger wire were unsuccessful. We couldn't leave it there. It was a waste inhibiting fluff ball of crazy glue attached to a metal stick. We also didn't want to undo what Shawn already put together. I told him I had an idea. I attached some fridge magnets to a string and fed it down the stack. The metal stem of the dabber stuck to the magnets and I was able to pull it back up to where Shawn could grab it through the hole.

This is not to say things have gone smoothly since then. I just put a fresh Band-aid over a small chunk of missing skin on Shawn's finger. He had to wait till I mopped up a tiny bit of blood and got more Band-aids from upstairs after accidentally impaling the side of my foot with a spade bit. Don't worry, I know first aid, we have a first-aid kit, and our tetanus shots are up to date.

Also don't worry because we've been at this for years. We're seasoned, experienced, and one of us is very handy.

Not Alone and Not of this World

I watched the Catholic Votes' parody Not Alone today. The video mimics the "It Gets Better" video series. The It Gets Better Project was founded by gay activist Dan Savage and his husband in response to the suicides of teens who were bullied for being gay or suspected of being gay. The goal of the It Gets Better Project is to prevent suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.

Actually I watched Not Alone at least half a dozen times times. You're welcome for the views, Catholic Votes! Every hit counts. I suspect I'm, pardon the pun, not alone in multiple viewings. As I write this, the video has been viewed 1,330,214 times.



It starts off well enough, there's gender balance, visible minorities, nervousness, evident secrets. At 0:53, the absurdity starts. Watery-eyed, hesitant, Minority Female confesses that she's tried to change, but it's just too important. White Female says "I actually think marriage is between a man and a woman." Latino Minority Male reiterates his same belief.

That's right, Catholic Votes took a video series created to prevent gay teens from killing themselves and made it about their belief that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry. It took me two viewings to realize it wasn't satire. I wasn't sure if should feel impressed by their sheer audacity (or ignorance of irony) or revolted by their callousness. I settled on ignorance and callousness.

African Minority Male says "I already have an idea of what marriage should be. That will never change." I too have an idea of what marriage should be: brief and unrepeated, but that's my view on marriage for my own self; and that is open to change.

There were four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that delivered the decision legalized same-sex marriage. In three cases, parents needed the legal rights marriage confers to be guardians of their own children. In the fourth, Obergfeld wanted to be named as husband on the death certificate of his partner of 21 years, and whom he legally married in another state.

Marriage may start out with a ceremony and pledges of love and devotion, but it is a legal contract bestowing protections, rights, and responsibilities, including children, property, taxation, health, retirement, inheritance, and death. These couples wanted parental rights to their children, they wanted the right to have their life together recorded in death. They wanted the same rights afforded to every other legally married couple.

In the Opinion of the Court, Justice Kennedy wrote "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.  They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law."

After explicitly stating their marriage beliefs, the people of Not Alone go on to express the discomfort that arises from expressing an increasingly unpopular opinion. They simply wish to speak openly about denying the same marital rights they enjoy to same-sex couples and not be judged for it. The first part is guaranteed under freedom of speech. The second part is guaranteed to have the opposite effect under freedom of speech. Everyone has an automatic right to hold and express an opinion on any side of an argument. No one has an automatic right to be liked because or in spite of their argument.

When the argument is  denying same-sex couples the right to marry, Kennedy wrote, "it is appropriate to observe these cases involve only the rights of two consenting adults whose marriages would pose no risk of harm to themselves or third parties."

No one is denying the people in this video of their right to believe and to say marriage is between a man and a woman. No one is denying them the right to appropriate an instrument to prevent suicide amongst LGBT youth to discriminate against LGBT people. No one is denying them the right to cry publicly about two consenting adults entering into a contract that does no harm to themselves or to others.

Everyone has a right to their own reaction and response. No matter how well crafted the video or how heartfelt the message expressed, even with "gay friends"(FYI, friends don't wish away friends' parental rights and spousal next-of-kin status), media is not a message sent-message accepted medium. This video is no doubt raising support and funds for Catholic Votes from its supporters, but with or without intent, it is receiving the attention of a majority that thinks differently.

Regardless of intent, whether fundraising, understanding, or support through perceived martyrdom by fictitious persecution (the denial of the right to discriminate against others is not persecution), it is likely only to resonate with an existing base and invites a Pandora's box of commentary, parody, and more parody.

When I was a kid I remember people being openly racist and it being acceptable. Those conversations wouldn't happen today, because beliefs do change over time. I may hold the Not Alone video in disdain and contempt, but in keeping with sunlight is the best disinfectant, I want their argument heard, because what can be reasonable among a group of people that think similarly, can become an obtuse, callous, and inhumane parody when exposed to the light of day of a broader audience.

Remember this? It's not happening

 

February 5, 2016 update:

Mother Canada, the 10-story vision of some privileged white dudes in need of a legacy will not be built in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Parks Canada announced today it could not support the $25 million project with so many unknowns, primarily money and design unknowns. The privileged white dudes, through their spokesperson, said the group was disappointed and shocked that their beloved cement woman had become a partisan political object.

They're not wrong, but that still doesn't make the project right. The only political support this project had was Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, more privileged white dudes in need of legacies. The Conservatives lost the election and their stranglehold on Parks Canada.

This project isn't being turfed because it was a Conservative project, it's being turfed because it's grotesque; unsupportable by anyone who doesn't share the same rose-coloured, myopic and misogynistic view of war (or just a sense of taste and esthetics). The privileged white dudes' website is essentially a $100k stiffy to trench and naval warfare, interspersed with excruciating design elements like the Necklace of Tears - a sponsorship opportunity - and Equality in Respect - a tribute to long ago women who kept the home front running whilst the menfolk were off to war.

Not that the men who fought our trench and naval battles don't deserve our utmost respect and gratitude, they do, but they don't deserve to have the horrors they faced glorified. Being cannon fodder is not glorious. It is also not the face of modern warfare. We pay no tribute to the fallen by holding onto a visual perception of long ago wars while we send our military into new and utterly different horrors. The enemy isn't lined up on the other side of a field or sailing off the port bow anymore. The enemy is tucked away in a highly residential area, ensuring high civilian casualties and no end of post traumatic stress. Today's enemy beheads people on camera and straps bombs to children.

This is not your grandfather's war. It's an entirely new hell.

Nor should the contributions of those women go unsung for even a second, but reducing the female war contribution to the most they were permitted to be 70 years ago, a 100 years ago, isn't honouring them. You know what women got after the First World War? A lot of shell shocked and broken husbands and sons. And the vote. After the Second? A lot of shell shocked and broken husbands and sons. It took a little longer, but they also got the pill, the workforce, and independence.

Today, our women serve as equals in the military, including combat. Get used to it.

Also get used to both our men and women coming home broken from IEDs and with heads and hearts full of PTSD. If we send them to fight, we need to be absolutely and utterly certain that decision isn't clouded by some misguided notion of the glory of war. Instead of aggrandizing the boys who lied about their age to die in a trench in the imperial insanity that was WWI, or be blown to bits on a naval ship in the south pacific in WWII, wars we won, think about Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The wars we lost. The countries we made worse. The evil we helped rise.

If you want to pay tribute to our fallen, buy a poppy, attend a Remembrance day ceremony at any of the beautiful and tasteful cenotaphs that already adorn our country. Donate to veterans causes. Volunteer. Cast your vote for the political parties that didn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in court trying to prove they had no special obligation to provide for veterans at the same time they threw their clout and dollars behind Our Lady of Lots of Cement.

And for every last bit of grace and love and compassion and decency in this world, stop entertaining the idea that  more bombs and civilians staying and fighting is the solution to a civil war without an acceptable victor.

Remember this

A lot of words have been written about the proposed "Mother Canada" statue, a 10-story cement colossus to be installed atop an outcropping of rock within the otherwise pristine setting of Cape Breton's national park. Its named supporters are a who's who of the older white, right, and well off. 

The National Memorial website says "Mother Canada will stand tall with arms outstretched to embrace each and every one of Our Fallen who lost their lives in overseas conflicts, peacekeeping roles and Canadian missions."

The website imagery is dominated by the first and second world wars, which it names along with the Korean War. The 60 plus years of armed forces involvement since are anonymously consolidated into "peacekeeping missions" and "recent international conflicts". 

The only modern visual references are two thumbnail images, one of a blue-helmeted peacekeeper with a child, and one of a peacekeeper laying a rose on a grave. Consistent with the rest of the photographs, the soldiers are men. Inconsistent with all of the other photographs, one person, the child, is not white.

Setting aside the artist renderings of an 80-foot behemoth, the few women depicted are mothers with their children, stoically supporting the war efforts and waving their sons and husbands off to war. The statue is exactly that: a mother on a distant shore waiting eternally for the sacrificial sons who will never come home.

It's a rose-coloured tribute to a long gone era. A time when brave men enlisted to fight honourably for king/queen and country while women stayed behind and kept the home fires burning. The men died noble deaths and the women mourned with noble endurance.

A time when wars were waged against clearly defined enemies on clearly defined battlegrounds that resulted in clearly defined outcomes.

A time when we won wars.

It was a time when wars could still be won.

That time has ended. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, those unnamed "recent international conflicts" of the memorial website, the concept of winning has been reduced to a point in time; after which something worse happens.

We do not honour the dead by erecting a gigantesque replica of a First World War monument so a handful of privileged white conservative supporters can continue to celebrate their favorite wars of years gone by. 

We do not honour the dead by glorifying war. 

We do not honour the dead by romanticizing their sacrifice. 

We do not honour the dead by selectively paying homage to only those who died wars with acceptable outcomes.

To honour the dead, there is no finer tribute than taking care of the ones who make it back home. We have a social contract with the men and women who take up arms in our name and whom we we intentionally put in harms way. We have a sacred obligation to those that fell in our name to take up for their wounded brothers and sisters in arms.

The local supporters mostly appear to want jobs and tourism dollars. If we're going to pave paradise, erect a bloody roller coaster to go with that restaurant and gift shop and leave the fallen to rest unexploited and un-commercialized. Honour the dead by looking after the ones who make it back home. 

And remember to cast a harsh eye on any government that glorifies war while it litigates the survivors.

A Song of the South

I returned home from Little Rock, Arkansas yesterday. It was a place I knew little about and what I did know made me question if it was the place for a bleeding heart liberal like me. The recent news makers from Arkansas that trickled up to Nova Scotia did not inspire confidence. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and the Dugger family are folks so far to the right of my social and political beliefs it would take Einstein's theory of relativity to accurately calculate the distance between us. Throw in extremely liberal gun laws and a religious population and it didn't seem like my kind of town.

On the other hand, it was the birthplace of Bill Clinton and a recent discriminatory religious bill was booted back to the legislators for correction. I pledged to keep an open mind. I also pledged not to talk about politics, religion, and gun control for the duration.

It takes a long time to get to Little Rock from Nova Scotia. Not being a sunshine destination, there are no direct flights from Halifax. Arriving late afternoon by way of Toronto and Chicago, the din of heavy accents that greeted me at the airport reminded me of the first time I landed in St. John's, Newfoundland. It was a homey deja vu.

At the hotel we were greeted by an enthusiastic and smiling young bellman who seemed surprised to have guests from Nova Scotia. Turns out he has a friend living in P.E.I. With a head of bright red hair and freckles, he could have been Anne of Green Gable's little brother. Hot, tired, and unseasonably dressed, the hotel concierge introduced herself and proclaimed "y'all have had a long enough day" and took us to our rooms for check in.

I learned this was the start of the southern hospitality you hear about.

The first morning of the conference, one of our hosts asked us to identify ourselves if we had travelled more than 500 miles, then 1000 miles. This is when I realized I didn't know how far away Arkansas was and I certainly didn't possess the mental faculties at that hour of the morning to then convert any estimate into miles. I am not sure if Andrea caught the dumbstruck expression on my face or, in hindsight, at a district meeting of predominantly southern states, it was glaringly obvious Nova Scotia is the furthest away, but she graciously said something along the lines of "oh the heck with it, it's Nova Scotia."

I still think the print Arkansas gave us would look nicer in my living room than it will in the boardroom.

As the day progressed some things became quickly apparent. The first was a reminder that I was in a room of extremely bright, well-educated people. It's one of the reasons I like these conferences. I'm pretty sure everyone is smarter than me and they definitely know more about what we do than me so I try and act like a sponge and soak up all they have to offer.

The second was that southerners elevate public speaking to an artform.

I work in a regulatory field and the subject matter can be a little dry, politely speaking, but not when these folks were talking about it. Between the cadence of speech and what appears to be an innate and universal storytelling ability, the potentially dull becomes dramatic, rich with funny anecdote and heartfelt sentiment.

Walt Colman was the keynote speaker. I had thought an NFL referee was an odd choice for a regulators conference. It was just one more thing I was off on. I learned if there is anyone who knows what it's like to enforce the rules in the face of opposition, it's an NFL referee. He's still catching grief for calls he made 15 years ago, even by football fans that weren't born when the call was made.

Coleman said, in the course of recounting some of the feedback he's received questioning his intellect, "that I may talk with an accent, but I don't think with one." It brought me back to Newfoundland and another culture unfairly maligned by accents.

I felt better equipped for work and life at the end of the day and, as it had been since I landed, utterly welcome.

The evening dinner came with a trio of musicians that sang songs I still know the words to from childhood. Johnny Cash was from Arkansas. Afterwards we watched a live recording of a public radio show called "Songs of the South". More excellent storytelling.

Also, there was food. As you know, I love to cook and no chance for regional cuisine is going to pass me by. I think I tried every southern dish I could name, including a crawfish boil. The food was so good I had to swap out my pants for looser ones mid Friday evening.

I had a dear friend, and now her dear spouse drive from the next state because no friend was going to be this close without making the effort to see me.

We went to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library. It's a museum of the Clintons' lives and includes replicas of parts of the White House, like the Oval Office. There's also a dinosaur exhibit to spice things up.

I knew going in I really liked the conference delegates, and obviously my friend and by extension, her husband. I also really liked all the other people I met while I was there. I had to explain where Nova Scotia was sometimes, but my first thought when I found out I was going to Arkansas in June was that it would be hot enough to go to the beach. Like food, geography is also regional. Arkansas is landlocked.

I may not have had the most flattering picture of Arkansas before I left. What I found when I got there was a whole lot of kindness, hospitality, curiosity, and above all else, an impeccably mannered and self depreciating wit. These are people who will go out of their way to make sure you not only feel comfortable, but also entertained. They are deeply involved in their communities and their families. As the conference ended, our hosts were on their way to other events.

As for headlines and news makers, on the leg from Chicago to Toronto I had a great chat with an airline steward from Cleveland, Ohio. Among the other things we talked about he asked if we still had that crazy mayor. After I realized he was talking about Rob Ford, because geography is regional, I happily gave him an update on one of Canada's loudest and most unpleasant news makers; and thought touché.