boxing gloves and pink shades

sometimes I feel as though I walk around motivated by what i don't like that i see, ready to fight wearing my pink shades.

"we'll be pushing up roses by next spring, once we get through with you world!"

other times, i walk with fists-pumping, heart breaking, but unable to keep my wrists up, so heavy are the gloves that want to fight.

but why always these gloves? why am i perpetually looking for battle, for a status quo to criticize and subvert? what if i walked around with a garden hose to nourish what i liked? there really cannot be so little that i like. and good isn't scarce, it's just the the bad is blooming from behind these blue shades i sometimes wear.

but what if i were to put down the clubs, keep the shades, but carry a hose? i mean, a hose could put out fires too, if i really felt like a fight.

self-defeat

I have a brilliant, articulate, and sharp political science lecturer for one of my courses.

This is not an anomaly, but at a university known for its post-graduate research, we do marvel when we get a great teacher at the front of a lecture hall. So often brilliant minds don't make for brilliant teachers. When a lecturer is able to cross this divide, I am grateful.

So imagine the degree of appreciation I have for this woman. It is so satisfying, so empowering to witness a reputable woman confidently leading this upper level undergraduate course before an audience of critical, nearly as sharp, somewhat younger minds.

But as every woman in this hemisphere will be, she is objectified. I would hazard a guess that upon walking into her classroom, moreso than upon entering any of the male professor's rooms who dominate the international security domain - that we sexualize the person standing at the front of the room.

Not difficult to do when she is a young, gorgeous woman. But why does our society condition us to do this? And it is not only my male peers who sexualize her - who refer to her as a babe, who comment on her walk or dress - but also my female peers. This week, I commented on how much I liked this woman's lecturing style and the girl next to me objected, saying "I can't take her seriously when she's wearing a headband."

I'll leave a space here for you to sigh.

What is it about a woman that causes her to be judged for her physical appearance before her brain. If the things coming out of her mouth are relevant, purposeful, and coherent, what does it matter that she needs a headband to help her keep her bangs from distracting her train of thought. Shouldn't she be applauded for coming to class professionally prepared to address the classroom.

If I'm not just struggling against a patriarchal and exploitive society, but also against women who reinforce this order with such a cavalier dismissal of the people who exist within it, what are the odds that I will come to peace with this civilization?

xenophobia

i just heard a man on the CBC say, for fear of China rising, that he refuses to buy products from China. we condemn China for getting oil from Sudan, but refuse their membership to the organization that would give them access to "acceptable" oil. we belt them with a geopolitical neo-containment strategy. we will boycott their olympics and revile their treatment of tibet.

nevermind our agricultural subsidies. nevermind our SUVs, nevermind our NATO, nevermind our WMDs and AMBs, nevermind our Revolution is Military Affairs, our steroids and indian residential schools, our coughing, failing, status-quo preserving steaks and bordeaus.

yes, revile, strangle, suppress China.

and then let's smack the baby for having fetal alcohol syndrome. because heaven knows, they created the condition.

alas, a quandry! the status quo is ours.

why do we want them to be like us?

our development projects aim to boost them, to modernize them, integrate them, and win them over. them is the third world, that invisible realm we created between cold war allies and enemies, the two inches of blanket our governments treat like they don't really want, but that they would rather have and hold than let their sibling take. so we tug and pull and fight.

we want to spread our values, tissues, collars, colours, coolers, and covers. but why do we want to melt and mold them into our jungle of plastic, waste, coughing, vomiting, concrete, sterile glaring light and art that screams from the pages of literary supplements, begging for you to notice that they took a risk revealing the agony that chomps and chews inside our ears, behind our eyes, in our bellies.

it is not a world i want them to bear. like a tragic paddle to get away from it all, only to find a parking lot and an old logging road that made it an escape for stoned, fucked, and fucking kids like me who are begging for escape. why do we lead the underdeveloped world down a path to development that is only as nice as it is from the outside? that is not sustainable? our development is a folk tale that will be told to the lasses and lassies to come, for months and centuries. our folklore excuses, excuse me, expels and eclipse: drugs, lying, cheating, concrete, mental disorders, excessive orders, drive-through kelp and fries.

it is not a self-selected population of self-loathing, lost women who sigh, half of them, in sad sorry agreement with me, that they two still strive for development: development to squeeze, squish, shit, squander and vomit what makes them too oddly shaped for the mold.

oh good heavens, do we want to welcome the third world into just another hostile world? but one whose precarious equilibrium teeters at such a high level of intake and excretion that certainly, we shall all slip into a fiery whirlwind, only to be saved from concussions and death if we can get a sorry! off our lips in time.

up-following

Stephen Harper has claimed that Canada's decision to support Kosovo will have no bearing on Quebec. Read here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080320.KOSOVO20/TPStory/?query=harper+kosovo

Unlike my post a few days ago, the article focuses on the precedent Ottawa might set for Quebec by recognizing Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. It's not exactly what I was talking about, but nonetheless interesting.

Some highlights from the article:

"Both sovereigntists and federalists in Quebec underscored important differences between Quebec and Kosovo, which was marred by conflict and ethnic cleansing in the wake of the breakup of Yugoslavia."

Political scientist Stephen Saideman, a scholar of separatism at McGill University, said Kosovo and Quebec are so different that Ottawa's decision would have little impact.

"Over the past 40 years, Ottawa and Quebec have negotiated and bargained to give Quebec most of what it wants, whereas in Kosovo, the Kosovars never saw a chance of being a significant member of the political community in Serbia," said Prof. Saideman, Canada Research Chair in International Security and Ethnic Conflict.

But Alain Gagnon, a political scientist at the University of Quebec in Montreal, said Canada's blessing would certainly provide inspiration for Canada's homegrown independence movement. "[Kosovo] is a full-fledged nation that decided to exercise its right to self-determination," said Prof. Gagnon, Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies. "It offers proof that independence is a realistic and feasible project."

wind breathing through trees

some days, i would be the strands of wind that breathe though the old growth cedar stands
some days, i would be the threads of steam that rise from Salt Spring's hot springs
some days, i would be the breath that rolls through the Okanagan hills,
that whips through the jagged peaks of the Rockies
some days, i would be the waves that breathe the ocean breath
some days, many days, i dream

skyscapes and peoplescapes of a monday

It's funny how infrequently our nostalgia summons the memory of yesterday. Not the literary "yesterday" that references the summers in canoes, the recesses of Red Rover, or the birthdays that warranted a countdown.

Oh sure, those are good too.

But funny how scarcely we're nostalgic about the literal yesterday. This blog was borne of a fluky memory of fondness for a Monday when it was just a Tuesday evening, lying on my bedroom floor, papers spilled and spread around me.

I can't recall what summoned the fondness for that particular Monday. But the fondness for yesterday made me smile. I realized it was so close to the today and the tomorrow that I must be in a good spot now, not to be reaching back.

Oh but this comes with a disclaimer, it won't be long until I am haunted with a utopic, perfectly preserved memory of my wandering ski days out West. My mind has a strange tendency of distilling memories, preserving the most savory morsels of sun, adrenaline, flesh, rugged skyscapes, and peoplescapes to feed me on vacant days in the present.

But I'll wait until next Monday to reach back, today, I'll take today, yesterday, and tomorrow. There is really fresh jam waiting in my fridge for breakfast in the morning.

the arrogance of interpretation

Secession is tricky. It's trite to nod at the controversy that plagues this political move, but I'll nod a second time to summon the idea that more nuances exist in such a controversy than even the hostile parties can name.

I sat listening to the CBC with my head in my hand last month when Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence. How does a young woman an ocean removed from the conflict formulate an opinion on a foreign conflict, and even if she does, how do I defend it conscious that my gap is greater than my fill of knowledge? The short answer is that I don't.

Our media, even the CBC that I hallow, presents us with information that is framed in such a way that we are predisposed to draw certain interpretations and conclusions before others. And rarely do these frames offer any insight comparable to sitting on a street amid Kosovars for months, listening, spinning my thumbs. Of course, I've never had such an opportunity. The closest I've been able to get to a first hand experience, between textbooks and lectures, is to receive an email from a high school friend asking me to renounce the unilateral declaration to preserve some of the historical integrity of Serbia. A second email to a Canadian Serb revealed her own confusion, over the situation.

I wonder, as a polity, how we are expected to take a stand on such issues, when the sources of our information cascade down from Parliament and the Prime Minister's office. Certainly, media sources like the CBC offer an invaluable service my calling upon expert informants who provide myriad paradigms on such a situation, but when an issue is so infinitely complex and time and attention are finite, the juxtaposition can serve only one result: decisions made on incomplete information.

And likely, incomplete information may also inform parts of the public who are involved in any conflict - whether civil war, secession, domestic dispute. Poorly communicated information and intentions are Hallmarks of this era, an age abuzz with instant communication and transportation technology. Texts soar between mobiles, emails rocket between informants, and plots chatter through airwaves, each to the extent that the mass of waves radiating around our bodies could themselves be a scapegoat for riling us up. Certainly this hyper-abundance of communicated, incomplete information fuels passions for action, identification with a cause, tensions between rivals, or at the least, curiosity that provokes the further dispersion of increasingly incomplete information.

I offer this blog as case in point.

But maybe the rapid pace of our technology only acts to stir stewing ideas. I mean, of course they do. But arguably, they aggravate passions as much as they help to resolve them. Which is a caustic symptom of our 'progress,' one we have an obligation to recognize - not for the sake of censorship, but to compel a responsible criticism to accompany our participation in the dissemination of information made accessible to us.

In Kenya, election controversy ignited a Western-diagnosed 'tribal conflict' that I never saw manifested during four months in Nairobi (capital for Kibaki's government) and Nyanza province (home to the Luo fisherpeople of Lake Victoria). I worked in a clinic alongside Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu, Kamba, Kissi - all Kenyans whose tribal identity never was relevant in our daily proceedings or post-work Tuskers. However, months later, these tribal cleavages have been emphasized and described in dichotomous, irreconcilable terms in our media. But the Kenyans at my clinic ne'er missed more than half a day of work together throughout the election furor, and only ever because of the Director's decision to close early so that mothers and fathers could get home to their families.

My incomprehension at how such a civil conflict could flare up so shortly after I witnessed the peaceful coexistence of Kenyans in an urban setting has led me to some conclusions. First, the conflict cannot possibly be comprehensively framed in all of its complexity by our media, and is therefore being distilled to an essentialist understanding that the media can use to engage a distracted and simple audience (from whom I don't dissociate myself). Essentially, it is just easier for us to see the conflict this way than in its profound complexity. Second, rational people - when provoked by tribal loyalties, economic fears, the quest for social representation, ancestral pride, and myriad factors I don't pretend to understand - can be irrational. Third, this could happen in Canada too.

It is this third assertion that scare me most. For the longest time, I cringed at a parallel being drawn between the secession of Kosovo and the secession of Quebec. Fine, I recognize the parallel to the extent that I understand the political posturing of a Federal government trying to placate any sense of possibility that secession could be repeated domestically. But I drew the line there.

"Quebec and Kosovo cannot be categorized as similar." One nation suffered a genocide, exists in the geopolitical context that birthed the term "Balkanization," and has witnessed street protests. Conversely, Quebec is ... civil? Western? I think not. If there is one thing that Kenya has shown me, it is the volatility of calm - even amidst people who share offices, pack into matatus (van taxis) sharing seats, and who dance, shop, sing, act, and attend church together. So Quebec is not so different - our language laws could be their street protests. And while we can - and I have been - awarding us an air of civility, this term only reflects our socialized expectation of how we expect things to get done.

I used to say Quebec was not like Kosovo because I did not want to offend Kosovars with an assumption that our circumstances were somehow equal to theirs. While the marginalization of the French off the land sought by the English was no genocide, it summons a notion of "injustice" that could be ignited, provided the (in)opportunity. I think perhaps I committed a greater offense by supposing that the absence of rock throwing somehow made us mild and only superficially similar to Kosovo. (Hello lady, recall the exploding mailboxes of the FLQ crisis?) Ultimately, we are all humans who passions can be ignited when we let them.


I offer this post as a call to consume our media aware of its flaws. But mostly, to urge myself to recall how our similarities to others, afar, abroad, might be greater than our differences. I'm wary of the next time I will housekeep and organize my information in a rigid, orderly, way that compels me to frame a rhombus as a square.

reaching critical mass

The cuffs of my jeans are rolled up and my bare ankles kick carelessly under this library table on a wet and white March day.  Habit dressed me in boots this morning, but in the haven of the library, winter is no contest for the heating system of this first class, first world institution.  

I think this is an appropriate time for the first post to this first public blog.  

My mass of whimsies and curiosities is helium to rubber, the elastic of my head flesh has stretched far enough.  I've reached my critical mass, now my hot air can be yours.  

I make no contest against being warm.  I am comfortable in this library.  Body in one chair.  Coat, scarf, mittens, socks, sweater, and hat occupy another.  With our instruments, we are always comfortable; our simple inventions keep our necks warm and our fancy inventions keep warm air pumping warm through our hallways so warm blood pumps through our warm bodies.  

I often wonder if we suit our world or if we have made it suit us.  And that's my starting point. 

We live in a world where there a few continuities except for perhaps the love of our parents, annual birthdays, and women's affinity for chocolate - and of course, change.   We rely on something called "planned obsolescence."   Planned obsolescence is the self-destructive feature inherent to most of our modern goods.  It's the intentional design of something to become obsolete, broken, or outdated.  Manufacturers rely on planned obsolescence to keep the public demand for their goods high.  Things aren't made to last, not like my Nanny's thick quilts or my Grand-Papa's well-tailored hat.  Instead, we can count on the style changing, the chip failing, or the screen freezing to the ominous beach ball of death.  

The irony is perfect.  When we are most educated and more clever and all-knowing than ever, we design for failure.  I see it in our fashion, our technology, even in our relationships.  I almost wonder if our greatest fear is the fear of being left alone with the elements.  God forbid we are confronted with a tree, a stream, and an uninterrupted moment to have a conversation with a sibling.  We are so afraid of the notion of just being that we have to design failure into our society to keep us nimble minds focused on the fickle distractions that will be our next trends, our new technologies, and the textiest, flippiest phone.  

You have to be a hypocrite to know.  

So I sit here, and irony sends a cold jolt down my warm back: "Abort Exception: Reset."  I don't understand.  My phone is broken, it's been menacing me for weeks.  But now it seems to have decided to fritz into obsolescence.  Obsolescence so carefully calculated that it gives me a warning message before thrusting me back into the market to which it is loyal to its last cold, sterile flash.  

This urban world we have made, it is strange.