Blogawa

Pie Palace 2010-03-09 17:33:21

The problem with social media is it makes you read new things. Here’s my response to a post that bubbled up in my Buzz feed:

The premise of the post seems to be that religion alters “traits” rather than current state, and that these altered states are a good thing.

I disagree with both of these assumptions.

Did good ol’ fashioned religions cause people to “radically re-think the social order”? Not really. When religions are adopted by the state, they preserve the social order. Think of Islam or Catholicism. Universal suffrage, the (US ethnic) civil rights movement, and abolitionism were artifacts of their time that were adopted by populist religious groups.

When religions are used as tools to change the social order, are the results necessarily positive? No. Just take a look at the crusades or Iran’s Basij (volunteer religious vice squad). We can toss Afghanistan’s Taliban or any number of other self appointed moral police forces throughout history.

The West’s move away from organized religion probably has more to do with the US anti-establishment backlash of the 60s and the Christian church’s failure to keep up with current morality (viz the Catholic church’s various sexual abuse cover ups, and the spasms of hate reacting against gay marriage and the ordination of women). At the same time, less and less of our lives need a mystical explanation, and people are finding it easier to operate without the small scale mutual aide that religion once provided.

Religion isn’t falling to mysticism, established religions are creaking under the weight of an open and accepting society. As time goes on, either religion will become more personal (meaning fewer organized religions) or organized religions will adapt to our progressive social landscape. Or we’ll fall into a spasm of social conservativism and the old-skool religions will suddenly be relevant again.

PS: Is the “the Market” a religion? No, not really. Fervent belief isn’t a religion any more than believing in Santa Claus or cheering on a sports team.

Aloha Crosswalks

Faithful readers will know how disappointing I find Ottawa crosswalks. At the risk of beating the old drum one more time... examine the above crosswalks in Honalulu. They are as wide as the entire widened sidewalk, ie from building facade to curb line. They are brightly marked with zebra stripes.  While you are at it, notice the decorative lamp posts used throughout the downtown and Wakiki areas, and chinese tiles on the building awning.

Now compare those picture of how Honalulu does it right... to these ones of Ottawa. Feel free to come up with your own comparisons: for example, Bank Street now has wide sidewalks - do the crosswalks line up? are they nearly as wide? Shown below are two intersections on Parkdale and one on Preston:

Do you actually wear handknit socks?

I finished knitting a pair of socks yesterday, and then I broke them in by wearing them to the meeting with the employment counselor, which is about 5km from my place. 7,500 steps. 3,750 steps per sock.

Normally I don’t wear my handknit socks when I go out walking, because I’m very hard on socks and I can’t bear the idea of getting holes in the toes after all that work. I just keep them in the special handknit-sock basket on top of my dresser, and once in awhile I’ll pick out a pair to wear around the house, or around someone else’s house.

Handknit socks don’t make a whole lot of sense really. You spend $20 on the yarn and maybe 40 hours of your time to make something that you could buy for $3.97 at Zellers.

XUP and I talked about this one day. She couldn’t understand why anybody would do that. And on a purely logical level, I agree with her. It makes even less sense if, like me, you’re reluctant to even wear the socks because you’ve invested so much time and money in them.

But there’s just something about handknit socks. I can’t explain it. Everybody who knits socks knows what I mean. Right?

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By the way, there’s a contest over at Wandering Cat Studios. You just have to pick out your favourite colourway from her succulent hand-dyed yarns, and you’ll be entered in the draw.

Related posts:

1. Knockin’ my socks off
2. Single Sock Syndrome
3. Socks, power tools, and home ownership update

Events for Tuesday, March 9

Tuesday, March 9

Qigong Master- Dr. Effie Chow visiting Ottawa from San Francisco Puppy Fostering Information Session

Introducing UrbanQuest.com! Online Charity Auction

Wednesday, March 10

Jump into electronic art with Artengine! 7th Annual Champagne Charity Auction

Do something VERY different tonight Capital Crime Writers March meeting: Counterfeit Currency

Thursday, March 11

Puppy Fostering Information Session New session of baby sign language classes! (The only Signing Time course available in Ottawa!)

Introducing UrbanQuest.com! American States Tony Fouhse

Friday, March 12

Jump into electronic art with Artengine! Qigong Master- Dr. Effie Chow visiting Ottawa from San Francisco Accelerated Project Management - full certificate in 7 weeks New session of baby sign language classes! (The only Signing Time course available in Ottawa!)

Do something VERY different tonight Introducing UrbanQuest.com! American States Tony Fouhse

Review: Mind over Ship

Review: Yellow Blue Tibia

I’ve Got a Loverly Bunch

In my experience, on certain islands in the Caribbean, when you go to visit someone on a hot afternoon, instead of giving you a cold beer for refreshment they give you a warm coconut.

The family is usually sitting outside their small bungalow working on something or other. The visitor comes around the side of the house calling “afta-NOON” along with the last name of their host. Before the visitor has ambled his way slowly around to the back of the house (because nobody walks fast), the man of the house appears with a large machete and an armload of tender coconuts.

The family nods at the visitors and pauses in their work. The visitors nod at the family and accepts a coconut from their host. He has deftly drilled two small holes in the coconut from which the visitors are now obligated to drink the coconut water (technically known as “liquid endosperm”). The coconuts are passed around among the assembled group until they’re relatively dry.

Then the host hacks each coconut in half so swiftly and cleanly with that giant machete, that it makes the back of your neck tingle. The host slices small wedges from the outer green skin of the coconut (the exocarp) and hands everyone half a coconut. The wedges are used as spoons from which the visitor is now obligated to eat the coconut jelly (aka “endosperm”). 

The endosperm is the stuff that later turns hard and crusty so people can grate it and use it to spoil perfectly good baked goods and other confections.

I was never quite sure if this Passing of the Coconut ritual was actually supposed to be a welcoming gesture or if it was meant to discourage visitors. Because, while it’s an interesting novelty to eat a coconut like this once; once is really more than enough.

None of this stuff has any flavour to speak of. It looks very much like that for which it is named and boasts a rather gaggy texture. However, it’s impossible to refuse to take part in this ritual or say you’ve already visited 4 other people that day and are full up with endosperm.

On the up side, coconuts are very nutritious and have been so revered for there nutritious and healing properties by cultures all over the world that the coconut tree is nicknamed the Tree of Life. Every bit of the coconut tree is used and usable from its roots to its trunk to its bark to its leaves to its seed.

In traditional medicine around the world, coconut is used to treat a wide variety of medical problems including; syphilis, tuberculosis, asthma, typhoid, bleeding gums and even dropsy! Modern medicine, likewise, has a long list of the beneficial properties of coconut and coconut oil, in particular.

Still, my favourite uses of the coconut is the coconut bra.

 And coconut monkeys.

 

Have you ever wondered why coconuts are called coconuts (Cocos nucifera) when they clearly contain no delicious coco? Well, it’s because “coquo” means “monkey face” in Portuguese. Portuguese explorers named them this because of the indentations on the shells that make them look like monkeys — though not like any monkeys I would like to meet. 

Some interesting coconut facts: 

• Coconut oil was the world’s leading vegetable oil until soybean oil took over in the 1960s.
• There are more than 20 billion coconuts produced each year.
• Coconut juice or coconut water is the liquid inside a coconut. Coconut milk is produced by steeping grated coconut in hot water then straining; coconut cream is coconut milk cooked down until it thickens, or grated coconut steeped in hot milk instead of water.
• Falling coconuts kill 150 people every year – 10 times the number of people killed by sharks.

Many songs have been written about coconuts including:

• I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts (written by Fred Heatherton)
• Coconut Woman – Harry Bellafonte
• Coconut Rum – Ron Bertrand
• Coconut Skins – Damien Rice; and,
• Does anyone remember Harry Nilsson’s Coconut song (1971)? Have you ever wondered what “put the lime in the coconut” means? There’s been a great deal of speculation on this over the decades.

Tagged: bleeding gums, coconut bras, coconut jelly, coconut monkeys, dropsy, endosperm, Harry Nilsson, killer coconuts, lime in the coconut

Radio Topics for March 9th

Mike is off doing real people stuff this morning so I am holding down the fort by myself this week. That means a little more music than usual but at 8:10 we have an interview with Dave Mason who is Deloitte’’s Ottawa Tax Leader. He will be discussing the recent Federal Budget and its implications for listeners. As per usual the show airs from 7-9am on 93.1 CKCU FM in Ottawa and at www.ckcufm.com everywhere else.

Federal Budget is released and the Liberals decide it isn’t worth forcing an election over.

Federal Minister for Women Helena Guergis celebrates International Women’s Day by announcing a Federal grant program designed to get more women elected to municipal governments…although don’t think about changing the words of “O Canada.”

Amazon.com wants more of a presence in Canada than just a .ca domain name.

A sin tax on pop? New York State thinks its a good idea.

Ottawa to become a little less ugly: Concrete barriers at US Embassy to be replaced.

Bob Chiarelli heading back to Queens Park.

Iacotty-yak

I've held off commenting upon the recent developments in the Torturegate scandal, which, like Grand-daddy Watergate, started with something minor and is now busting out all over. But reading Kady O'Malley's excellent colour commentary last Friday and now today, taken together with a curious press release from Democracy Watch more than a month ago, I'm starting to worry about the resolve of the Official Opposition.

Duff Conacher called for a reference case to the Supreme Court of Canada; now Michael Ignatieff wants a keek at the terms of reference for retired judge Frank Iacobucci, and Derek Lee is holding off on his motion of privilege. The NDP, meanwhile, obviously made of sterner stuff, is giving the government until March 19 to comply with the demand to produce the documents, or it will raise its own privilege motion at that time.

What on earth is going on? Can the Liberals say "Parliamentary supremacy?" For all of Ignatieff's tough talk, as O'Malley points out, the phrase just never comes up. With the greatest of respect to Iacobucci, now a private citizen, his opinion is as irrelevant as yours or mine. What is all this talk about terms of reference? Who cares what they contain or don't contain? And what is this side-issue of a public inquiry that Ignatieff is on about? Get the damn documents--then hold a public inquiry. It's not either-or.

Don't the Liberals understand what is at stake here? This isn't about Afghanistan any more, or torture, or our direct complicity in it, or the involvement of CSIS. It's about who's in charge. It's about who gets the last word in our House of Commons--Parliament or Stephen Harper.

Why should Iacobucci, bless him, be inserted into a question of pure principle? And a reference case to the Supreme Court? The Court that just ruled in the case of Omar Khadr that they didn't think it proper to interfere with Executive powers? Why, if that's the case, should they get a crack at legislative ones?

The way things are going (but there are more rapid twists and turns than a luge course in this affair, and I hope I may quickly be proven wrong), this utterly crucial issue is being sidestepped and may never get resolved. If that's the case, the consequences for Canadian democracy, already creaking at its foundations, will be dire.

Come on, Official Opposition. Force the issue, demand what it is your right to demand, and if the government continues to resist, exert your ancient Parliamentary authority with the other opposition parties. Place the Prime Minister under arrest if you have to. At this present historical juncture, a decisive exercise of political will is called for. Don't you have it in you?

The colour of justice

Today we learn of yet another example of the Harper government's less than colour-blind approach to Canadians in difficulty abroad. And once again, only the courts stand between this government and the basic rights of our citizens.

Dwayne Grant is a Black Canadian who is presently serving a seven-year sentence in Costa Rica after attempting to return to Canada with 34 kilos of cocaine in a suitcase.

Under Canadian law, citizens imprisoned abroad may apply to serve out their sentences in Canada. As journalist Paul Koring points out, Brenda Martin was flown home at a cost of $82,000 to the taxpayer, after being convicted of a fraud that affected 15,000 people, who lost $60 million.

But Grant is not Brenda Martin. Two women convicted with him for the same offence were permitted to return, but Grant's application was refused last July by then-Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, despite the unanimous advice of his senior officials.

Readers will remember Van Loan. He's the man who didn't exactly cover himself with glory over the Suaad Hagi Mohamud affair, and refused to meet with Abousfian Abdelrazik after the latter returned from his government-imposed exile.

The new Public Safety Minister is family-values guy Vic Toews, who has just been ordered by the courts to justify or reconsider his predecessor's refusal. It may well be out of the frying pan and into the fire for Grant, but at least a little transparency--always a problem for this government--is being imposed.

Justice Robert Barnes, who previously crossed swords with the Harper regime over another repatriation case, was blunt: the Van Loan decision was "inconsistent and arbitrary, and therefore it lacked consistency." And he goes further:

Mr. Grant's two female accomplices were accepted for transfer by the Minister notwithstanding their apparently equivalent culpability....There may well be a valid explanation for this differential treatment that is not gender-based, but Mr. Grant should not be left to guess about it.

"[T]he reasons given by the Minister are entirely insufficient to meet the requirement for intelligibility and transparency," Justice Barnes went on, having already noted that the two repatriated women had "apparently equivalent culpability."

The women, as it happens, are Black, which no doubt will be seized upon by those wishing to take issue with Grant's lawyer, who suggested ministerial racial profiling, and his fiancée, who suspects the same thing.

But don't be too quick to dismiss that suggestion. At the intersection of race and gender, surprising things may happen. While, for example, women were certainly lynched in the Deep South, the overwhelming majority of such victims were Black men--and boys.

Anyone who has seen Birth of a Nation is aware of the "wild Black man" trope--the dangerous, savage id-creature in a state of nature who poses a threat to all that is civilized and orderly. Van Loan stated (see below) that Grant "may, after the transfer, commit a criminal organization offence," but he offered no substantiation for his fears.

Grant had no previous criminal record; he has strong family associations in Canada, and he was a third-year student and a varsity athlete at the University of Toronto. The judge also noted that under section 10 (2)(g) of the International Transfer of Offenders Act the Minister may refuse a transfer if in his opinion the person concerned "will"--not "may"--commit such an offence.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion, at least, that the "wild Black man" was running through the jungles of Van Loan's mind when he made his decision. In any case, the results of the upcoming court-ordered reconsideration, expected in April, will be well worth our attention.

Letter re Bike route along Otrain corridor

The DCA sent the following letter to Vivi Chi and Mona Abouhenidy of the City cycling program, and Councillors Leadman and Holmes:

At its meeting on March 3, 2010, the Dalhousie Community Association passed a motion respecting the need for a cycling underpass at Somerset along the Otrain corridor. The Association feels it is a high priority for the community to have the technical feasibility study for the underpass and for its construction as part of the Somerset reconstruction process in 2010-11. We have been waiting almost half a century for our bike path to be completed; we do want it to take a full century to complete this cycling arterial.


In approx.1962 the first segments of the Carling-Bayview cycling and pedestrian path were built by the NCC as part of the railway relocation projects in Ottawa.

The segments ran from Prince of Wales to Carling to Young Street (the Queensway) along the east side of what is now the Otrain corridor. It is a stonedust path through a treed corridor and is remarkably placid and calm pathway.

The right-of-way is there for the path to continue under the Queensway (the underpass has plenty of room), cross Gladstone, and continue north to Somerset. Somerset has always been the big barrier to completing the path north to Scott/Albert and Ottawa River parkway. The existing railway underpass under Somerset is just too narrow to contain the bike path.

There is an opportunity now to get this missing underpass in place. As part of the Somerset reconstruction project the City could allocate funds for a feasibility study to be conducted in 2010. Preliminary work by Delcan, for the current Somerset Street road works, indicates it is possible to construct a cycling underpass parallel to the rail track. Detailed study is now required.

If the study is done, it would be possible to construct the underpass in 2011 as part of the ongoing Somerset reconstruction work. Once the underpass is built, the last barrier to completing the Carling-Bayview cycling and pedestrian corridor would be removed, and work could commence to complete the path in the next few years.

• This path would be a vital link in the city and region wide official cycling plan;
• It would offer local residents and employees an easy off-road cycling route through the neighborhood and access to other neighborhoods and work places;
• It would connect with the existing Rideau Canal and Experimental Farm paths;
• It would eventually connect with the Ottawa River and BikeWest routes, offering access to the downtown;
• It would make a cycling loop possible, from our neighborhoods along the canal-downtown-Ottawa river-back to our west side communities;
• It would meet recreational and commuter cycling needs;
• It would offer a safe off-road route for those who prefer to avoid busier commercial streets.

This neighborhood has seen a number of false starts for this facility over the years. With the reconstruction of Somerset, and the rapid development of transit oriented condo developments along the corridor, now is the time to finally complete this cycling infrastructure that will manifest smart growth policies in the central area.


Eric Darwin,

President, Dalhousie Community Association.

EricDarwin1@gmail.com

www.ottawadalhousie.ca

River Ward 2010

Since January 2, 2010, people have been asking me if I am going to run in this year’s municipal election. More specifically, will I run in River Ward? The answer is no. I’m not going to be a candidate in this municipal election. My life has moved on since 2006 and it would be very difficult at this time to dedicate the time and effort needed to win an election this time around.

To all those who know me, they know it has been an agonizing process for me to come to my decision. I love my neighbourhood and I’ve worked hard over the past four years with many community groups. I have gotten to know so many wonderful and dedicated people who want nothing but the best for Ottawa. I know that many of them wanted me to run.

I remain a strong believer that we need to change our councillors. We need a fresh set of ideas and a more open and consultative leadership for the city and unfortunately, that is not in abundance with the current set of councillors.

I will be working with a number of candidates across Ottawa who are running, some for the first time. Specifically, I will give added focus to River Ward to keep candidates accountable and vetting them on their capacity to make things better.

There are many good, capable people in our city and I am excited about the election prospects for 2010.

Events for Monday, March 8

Monday, March 8

Eric Vloeimans at the NAC - Presented by the Ottawa Jazz Festival New session of baby sign language classes! (The only Signing Time course available in Ottawa!)

WOMEN??S DAY CELEBRATION (Dance at 245 METCALFE ST 1:00-3:00 PM) American States Tony Fouhse

Tuesday, March 9

Jump into electronic art with Artengine! Puppy Fostering Information Session

Online Charity Auction "Canada and Afghanistan: Keeping Our Promises" to Benefit the Afghan School Project

Wednesday, March 10

Wedding Workshop! 7th Annual Champagne Charity Auction

New session of baby sign language classes! (The only Signing Time course available in Ottawa!) Introducing UrbanQuest.com!

Thursday, March 11

New exhibition - Food for Health at the Canada Science and Technology Museum Qigong Master- Dr. Effie Chow visiting Ottawa from San Francisco

Wedding Workshop! Online Charity Auction

Aloha Chinatown Honalulu (ii)

Images of Bronson

Bronson Avenue is undergoing reconstruction beginning in 2011, all the way from Sparks to the Rideau Canal. It's being divided by the Queensway into two sections, each with its own Public Advisory Committee (PAC)--a group of business owners, community members, and other stakeholders. I'm the Centretown Citizens Community Association's representative on the section North of the Queensway. There are also representatives from the Dalhousie Community Association, the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, councillor Holmes' office, various condo boards, etc.

It will be the PAC's job to inform the consultant of what we'd like to see on the street in the redesign, and it will be the job of the Technical Advisory Committee to ensure our desires are met, and to work with the PAC to work out issues. I am similarly on the PAC (as the cycling representative) for the reconstruction of Somerset from Breezehill to Preston, and next year from Preston to Booth. I've found that to be a very fruitful process, with cooperative consultant who found ways to realize the goals of the community.

Not so much with Bronson. Their Technical Advisory Committee met twice and presented their results to Councillor Holmes, and the Public Advisory Committee hasn't even met yet! The consultant has actually tried to widen Bronson (presumably gaining space by shaving the bricks off the houses?), and has used a 1950's highway-expansion suburban model. Not a good sign so far. Councillor Holmes essentially told the City's engineers to start over, with more pedestrian-friendly engineers.

Anyway, I felt it was important that I familiarize myself better with Bronson, so on a nice day in early February, a friend and I took a walk down Bronson to take photos of the existing conditions. No doubt I'll take photos during and after construction as well.

I've tagged, geo-tagged, and uploaded the photos to a Picasa Web Album at http://picasaweb.google.com/centretown.ottawa/BronsonAvenue, and I've also uploaded them to Panoramio, which should eventually get them added as thumbnails on Google Maps. It was a very time-consuming process, but hopefully it will be useful during consultation.

Here are some highlights from the photos:

From the top. You can also see Bronson coming back up the hill at Laurier:


OMB supervillains on the Ottawa Tech wall:


Crosswalk/sidewalk near Bronson Centre. Note the precast concrete pavers in the crosswalk and the sidewalk. These should be replaced with something at least as good:


McPhail Memorial Baptist Church. You can see the recently-added elevator, built to match the existing style, as documented on West Side Action:


At Somerset. The on-street grates will be removed, a relief to cylcists. On the right you can see Peace Tower Church, formerly Erksine Presbyterian Church (also, wrongly, known as "Erskine"):


Nightmare sidewalk south of Somerset. A sidewalk snow plow requires 1.8m clearance to pass. Imagine trying to pass this sidewalk in a wheelchair!


I was admiring the decorative work above the side door of this house when my friend pointed out the strangely-placed window--in the chimney!


While the front door did not survive the fire at 346 Bronson, the stained-glass windows next to and above the front door did survive. Dr Tung Le has relocated a few blocks East, to O'Connor. (The above-door window and the sign with relocation details are in the album...click the photo)


My friend also pointed out that Gail's Hair Design is just the front of a building, and that there was a house buried inside there somewhere, which you can just make out here. Auntie Loo's is just a couple houses down.


Lastly, since we're ostensibly concerned with the street, the crosswalk at Catherine. I was rather surprised by the backup of traffic on Bronson all the way back up from, presumably, Carling.


A good chunk of the way through, maybe around Gladstone, it became really tiresome to continue taking photos. Partly because I hadn't brought warm enough gloves, but mainly because Bronson Avenue is so incredibly hostile to pedestrians, with largely uninteresting buildings, narrow sidewalks, and high traffic on many lanes. We made a point of using a side street to get back up to Somerset.

Hopefully the City will actually listen to the input of the community so that Bronson can be less depressing and difficult to traverse by foot, bicycle, and wheelchair.

Don't forget to have a look at the Picasa Web Album photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/centretown.ottawa/BronsonAvenue

There are some really nice photos in there!

I Pack My Bags

So, on Saturday, XUP Jr. and I are going to Paris (yes, the one in France)  for a week. This will be her first time in a foreign country, not including the US. I think I’ve been neglecting an important part of her education in this area because she was quite irate when I came back with only 205 euros in exchange for 300 of her dollars.

“Where is my other hundred dollars?” she demanded, like I’d stolen it from her. This reminded me of when she was 4 and to surprise her one day I traded in about eight dollars worth of the coins she’d amassed for a shiny new, purple ten dollar bill. Holy moses, what a carry-on that sparked.

“You stole all my moneeeeeeeeeeeeey! Where’s my moneeeeeeeeeeey! I don’t want this stupid piece of paper. My own mother steals my moneeeeeeeey! I can’t belieeeeeeeeeve it!  I want my money baaaaaaaaack!!”

No matter how many different ways I tried to explain that I’d actually given her more money and that this paper money would be easier for her to take shopping, it wouldn’t wash. I had to give her the coins back.

Fortunately, she’s a little better equipped to see reason these days — although she’s still looking at me with some suspicion about the euros. Then when I told her to save the receipts for anything she buys so we don’t get charged duty on the thousands of dollars worth of designer goods we’re going to snap up for a few hundred euros, she laughed at me.

“Why would they care what we bought? And how would they even know what we bought?”

Sigh….

I’m looking forward to this being a real eye-opening experience for her — something to give her a teensy bit more wisdom, cultural awareness and sophistication.  At least she’s come a long way from last year when I suggested we go to Paris for our vacation and she said, “Why? What’s to do there?”

I said, “Nothing at all honey. You’re right. We won’t go. We’ll spend March Break in the mall instead.” She has consequently spent this last year finding out exactly what there is to do in Paris and is now quite looking forward to it — while struggling to maintain the most blasé attitude possible, of course.

I’ve never been to Paris and am the opposite of blasé. While my main purpose for this trip is to collect new blog posts (ha ha), I’ve also been enjoying going around at work saying, “Oh, sorry, I have to miss that meeting because I’ll be in PARIS.” I’ve done lots of research and mapped out an itinerary so we’ll be able to get to everything we really want to do and see while structuring it loosely enough so that we can still be as spontaneous as possible.

We are hoping to meet up with Linda somewhere along the line for a café au lait or a glass of wine (The official drinking age is 16, which seems to be the most anticipated highlight of the adventure for XUP Jr. so far.)

I’ve been dumbfounded at the number of people who suggest to me that we should visit the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre while we’re in Paris.

“Really? Do you think those are worth having a look at? We were thinking of spending the entire week at Euro Disney and Le McDonalds.”

I would however, very much welcome suggestions for any non-obvious places to visit while we’re there.  My main goal there is to soak up the atmosphere. We have a small apartment  in the Marais district, so I can shop the markets and bring back a baguette and some fresh eggs and make our own breakfast.

I have a couple of interesting off-the-beaten track things I want to check out and the child is looking forward to seeing some art (aside from the usual places she specifically wants to see the Palais de Tokyo , the Catacombs, the Moulin Rouge (because she’s seen the movie about 30 times) and of course, she wants to shop and spend all the money she’s been diligently saving for the past 4 or 5 months.

So, any other ideas, advice, suggestions, warnings? I just found out on a random blog the other day, for instance that sometimes the transit people don’t want to sell tourists the very reasonably-priced Navigo Decouverte   transit pass — which gives you access to all forms of public transit within the city for only 16 euros for the entire week. There are other transit pass options that are more expensive and I understand some of ticket guys do their best to convince you that only locals can buy the Navigo. So, anyway this blog thoughtfully provided a link to the Navigo handbook to print off, along with the relevant paragraphs highlighted. So I’m ready and even rather eager to having this argument now.

I’ll probably get a friendly, accommodating ticket seller though and will have to save my mediocre French outrage, arm-flailings and shrugs for another occasion.

I’m looking forward to tips from all you seasoned travelers!

_________________________

PS: For those of you who may be concerned, rest assured that Bazel has a nice person, who he knows and likes, looking after him and his home while we’re away.

Tagged: drinking wine, eating baguettes, France, Marais, missing meetings, Paris, shrugging, travelling

Thursday Night: Breaking the Mould

This Thursday, March 11, 8:15pm-11:30pm at Roosters Coffeehouse, University Centre, Carleton University:

Julie Keon of Ottawa Belly Casts has put together an exhibit of 14 casts of women (including my sweety, the lovely Manon) from a variety of ages, experiences and stages in life. Each cast is accompanied by the woman's personal story or statement.

"Breaking the Mould seeks to educate and inform the community on how to challenge and criticize current popular ideas of the body beautiful. The group hopes to unite all bodies in hopes of changing the perception that some bodies are more valuable than others. Through the power of art and the spoken word, their hope is to mobilize social change."

A view from outside

The American psyche perplexes me. At least from the view point I pick up through US cable news and blogs, from the right and left, from the Republicans and the Democrats. How can a people who a short 16 months ago voted to improve their country through hope and change settle for fear and despair? When I listen to the debates on health care, the economy and bailouts, all I hear is fear mongering by both sides and forecasting of doom and gloom.

The expectations that everything from the economy to wars to international relations would be fixed within a year of election is puzzling. It took years for the USA to find itself in the position it’s in and it will take years to straighten out its path. Looking at the declining presidential approval ratings however, Americans seem to be disillusioned about the fact that things are getting better faster. Is that a realistic expectation?

Specifically, look at the healthcare debate. The US is the only country in the civilized world not to have a national healthcare program. Americans voted for change in healthcare but when offered a solution, the only argument against it is that it is too much change and things should keep the same until another solution is found. The arguments that the healthcare plan is a government takeover of healthcare or the plan would bankrupt the economy are all hollow. Just look at the rest of the world and you would see that universal healthcare is doable and affordable. If the USA is the greatest country in the world, why can’t you achieve this too?

The American psyche seems to want change but fear change when it is presented to them. It is no wonder that the USA is the only major country still using the imperial measurement system (Liberia and Myanmar also still use imperial measurement) while the rest of the world has moved onto the metric system. Fear of change rules your politics. So even though you vote for change, fear trumps change.

Last election, it seemed like the US was poised to embrace real change. From the outside, it seemed like President Obama was trying to be a different kind of president. However, over the last year, it is pressure from within his own party that has made change difficult. In fact, I will argue that it is his core democratic base that is pushing him to be the same as before…”we won so we get to do what we want”. This is not change. This is exactly the way the past president governed. President Obama vowed to be different no matter how hard. If you remember his election night acceptance speech, one of the most important lines was “And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.” President Obama has been attempting to do exactly that. In the face of pure politicking by the Republicans for election purposes only, Obama has been trying to find the important issues for those who did not vote for him and incorporate their needs into the country’s solutions. So when the left demands a public option in any healthcare solution and Obama decides to omit it, he is trying to bring the right onside and to at least start the process of true change – change that is made up of elements from both ideologies of America. The democratic leadership must see this but more importantly, the American people need to see this.

This is not weakness…this is change and hope as voted for November 4, 2009 by a majority of the USA. But fear, a much easier emotion to elicit, rules the arguments made by both the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans. And fear over change will lead to sameness. As I said, it is perplexing from the outside looking in.

List Day: Oscar Edition

Tonight, the live telecast of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards will be viewed by tens of millions around the world.  Many will be watching at home, and others will make it an evening to remember by throwing or attending parties just for the pure fun of it.  Here in Ottawa, The Mayfair Theatre will be broadcasting the ceremony on the big screen for their members, and serving drinks to benefit non-profit theatre company Negative Theatre.      

While I do love to look at all the glamourous gowns sported by Hollywood starlets, I sometimes find watching live just a touch too unpredictable to be comfortable.  Instead, the inevitable trips, slip-ups, and flops make me cringe with embarrassment, and I usually end up leaving the room and waiting for these memorable moments to pass.  Mostly, I’m interested in who wins, what movies I still need to see, and yes – who were the best dressed, but these can easily be summarized in just a few short paragraphs in the next day’s newspaper. 

So, while I remain undecided about my approach to tonight’s Academy Awards ceremony, I do think today’s top-ten list of my favourite film genres is ‘apropos’…no?

Here we go, in no particular order:

1.  Quirky dysfunctional family movies.  Take Little Miss Sunshine, Running with Scissors, and the classic Royal Tenenbaums for example.  There is something juicy yet comforting about other peoples family foibles, especially when they sometimes seem strangely familiar.

2. Cheese-ball romantic comedies (preferably taking place in high-school or at the Whitehouse or both).  Ok.  I confess, I’m talking about Chasing Liberty and First Daughter here, but you get the idea.  Add outrageously implausible romances The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan, and Monster-in-Law to this list, and it would appear that J.Lo in a starring role is also a key contributing factor.

3. Movies about movies, musicals, and theatre productions.  You know the ones  – Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending,  State and Main or The Producers, for instance.  I loved Moulin Rouge, Chicago and Nine too.

4. Shameless slapstick movies, made mostly for kids.  Daddy Daycare comes to mind, as does Christmastime favourite Home Alone.  I can’t help it.  I laugh when people fall down (only if they don’t get hurt).  Sorry. 

5. Capers & Cons (preferably involving glamourous international jewel or art thefts).  The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan and  Renee Russo is at the top of my list in this genre, since it was so elegant and the costumes kicked ass, but there are many others worthy of watching too.   The Italian Job, any of the Oceans movies, or even my dad’s favourite Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are sure to please if you’re looking to live vicariously for awhile. 

6. Mockumentaries:  This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind have to be among the funniest.  Admittedly, these often star many of the same actors, but what the hell – I always know I’ll be in for a laugh.

7.  Political comedies:  Recent release In the Loop had me rolling on the floor.  See this movie, and then decide if the political staffers you know would find it equally as funny.  Dave with Kevin Kline was sweet and satisfying, as were Man of the Year and Swing Vote.

9.  Epic intergalactic battles between good vs. evil:  Star Wars (all of them), Star Trek (most of them) and yes – Avatar.  Need I say more?!

10.  Loose Literary Fun:  Baz Lurman’s  Romeo & Juliet was a wild ride, Shakespeare in Love was delightful, and ensemble piece Six Degrees of Separation while not based on a book, makes many a literary reference.

The general trend for me is clear.  This girlaboutOtown appears to be most entertained when she leaves laughing or has a silly grin stretched across her face.   

What about you?  What film genres do you favour?

Not feeling much like me

It’s been a funny sort of week. The weather is glorious and everybody else seems to be feeling the weight of winter being lifted from their shoulders. People look lighter and happier.

Not me. I’ve been feeling unusually stressed out and a little depressed the past few weeks.

A bunch of things are weighing me down. Even the fact that I’m feeling stressed out and depressed is stressing me out and depressing me. It’s not compatible with how I see myself. I’m the one who’s supposed to ride the waves, roll with the punches, get back on the horse. I’m supposed to be the eternal optimist. Nothing’s supposed to get me down.

So I went to see a counselor. She told me that sometimes people summon up reserves of strength to sail through a crisis (like cancer, for example), but once the crisis is over, the feelings catch up with them. And that’s when they start showing signs of stress or depression. Maybe that’s what’s going on with me.

Unemployment is kind of stressful too. Career-changing, job-hunting, financial worries – it all adds up.

All I know is I feel ten years older than I felt a year ago. And I physically feel something unpleasant in my body. It’s in my stomach and chest and face and shoulders. It builds up until I sigh deeply, which relieves it temporarily, and then it starts building up again.

I tried googling stress. But it freaked me out to read about what all that extra cortisol is doing to my body. Yikes.

What else is new?

• I heard from my ex-husband a couple of days ago, for the first time in 10 years. He sent me an email saying he’d found my blog and has been reading it. That gave me a moment’s pause. I mean, I write this stuff and I put it out there for anybody and everybody to read, but every now and then I’m startled to find out that a particular somebody is reading it. Like my ex-husband. I felt the same way when my mother started reading it, and when my son did, and when my boss asked me if I was Zoom.

• Last night we bought some Hoegaarden beers and drank a toast to Dave1949’s health. He just finished his cancer treatments and is looking forward to starting to feel better soon.

• GC and I went to the Ottawa Calligraphy Society’s open house the other night and some scribes made us these lovely complimentary name plates.

Related posts:

1. Blah blah blog
2. The day I got cancer
3. Could it be a manufactured economic crisis?

East Jerusalem protest

A sign of hope:

Once justice dwelled here. Now the settlers do, murderers of the nation's soul.

And no one utters a word, but for a few patriots. People of truth and morals who refuse to stand idly by while the state of Jewish refugees repeatedly throws Palestinian families into the street and hands their miserable homes over to bearded, blaspheming thugs.

...Israeli humanism has been reborn in East Jerusalem. We are there in the summer heat and the winter rains, shouting and calling on others to gather round, seeking both Shabbat and peace. We will not recoil from violent police officers or hotheaded harassers. We stand and pledge: We shall not be silent when Ahmad and Aysha are sleeping in the street outside their home, which has become the settlers' domain. Is that justice? Not ours! Is that law? No, it is iniquity.

...How long, Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. Mayor? And why do you, judges of Israel, cooperate with the evil that threatens to destroy us? Come with us, return to the Judaism of "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not murder." Leave Sheikh Jarrah now!

Note who the author is. The protest went ahead despite opposition from the Jerusalem police.

Progressive Israeli Jews and Palestinians, standing together in solidarity against apartheid ethnic cleansing urban colonisation whatever. An optimistic note on which to mark the end of this year's IAW.

Meanwhile, in other news, the East Jerusalem house-thieves celebrated Purim by singing songs in praise of Baruch Goldstein.

Aloha Chinese Architecture

This is a modern building in Honalulu with an otherwise non-descript exterior. Typically, the bottom few floors are parking garage, apartments above. The front porch however has this generous canopy that celebrates chinese culture and influence. It was not located in Chinatown per se, but along one of the main streets in Wikiki Beach area. I do not recall what the tile mosaic above it on the wall of the garage was portraying.

I did think this was a nice touch on a building, particularly if it was located in the Chinatown area. In Ottawa's chinatown, there is one newish building that has Chinese tile elements on it that offer a restrained element of the orient without being garish.

I also saw this high rise with a decorative hat on it that to me suggested an oriental influence.

Events for Sunday, March 7

Sunday, March 7

Belly Dance Classes! Just Kiddin’ Theatre presents James Blond Gets Smart I Wish for Sushi Fundraiser for The Children’s Wish Foundation Introducing UrbanQuest.com!

Online Charity Auction American States Tony Fouhse ESTATE SALE *** 797 Pleasant Park Drive

Monday, March 8

Jump into electronic art with Artengine! Qigong Master- Dr. Effie Chow visiting Ottawa from San Francisco

Wedding Workshop! Puppy Fostering Information Session

Tuesday, March 9

Jump into electronic art with Artengine! Wedding Workshop!

Do something VERY different tonight Online Charity Auction

Wednesday, March 10

New exhibition - Food for Health at the Canada Science and Technology Museum Accelerated Project Management - full certificate in 7 weeks

7th Annual Champagne Charity Auction Puppy Fostering Information Session

Objective aesthetics

An Ottawa Citizen editorial caught my eye this morning, defending the new director of the National Gallery of Canada, one Marc Mayer, against criticism after he stated that he prefers artistic excellence over skin colour. Some people, including from his own curatorial community, took exception to that, seeing it as a coded excuse for the Gallery's past practice of over-selecting European art, and they sent him a letter about it. Mayer says he was ambushed by the media, and the Gallery is not, in fact, "a racist institution." Well, that's a relief.

The Citizen editorialist concedes that the protests of the 1990's against the Eurocentrist canon achieved much-delayed recognition of unjustly neglected artists, but he insists on casting doubt upon the motives of the signatories nevertheless. Are they, heaven forbid, into "identity politics," "postmodernism" or "deconstruction?" Does the writer know what he's talking about? (That last question was a rhetorical one.)

The notion of a culture-free aesthetics tickles me--aesthetic principles that, oddly enough, appear to favour overwhelmingly the cultural products of the very culture in which they are enunciated. That might seem to some a tad tautological. But no matter:

I trust my readers will not think me unduly subjective for preferring the often brilliant works of Norval Morriseau, who had to wait until the end of his days to enter the Gallery, to that high-end bit of Abstract Impressionist fakery called Voice of Fire, or a giant spider.

The Amnesty smear

The proper Eustonians have their sights set on Amnesty International these days. Unsurprisingly, they've got Terry Glavin as their Canadian point man.

The issue: in February, a senior AI employee, Gita Saghal, went to the press to attack her organization for using a no-doubt insalubrious former Gitmo detainee and his Cageprisoners group to assist in a campaign against prisoner abuse in Guantanamo and elsewhere. Saghal, who did not see fit to resign, was fired a few days later.

This led to a massive piling-on. Everyone from the deranged Melanie Phillips to the staggering and weaving Christopher Hitchens showed up for the lynching. And prominent at the party was a gaggle of Eustonians like Nick Cohen. This sort of thing is typical:

Assuming that the far left has not taken control of Amnesty, and that may be a generous assumption, its managers must believe at some level that messianic religion is not a threat to the liberal values of feminism, anti-racism and freedom from tyranny they think they hold. To put it another way, Amnesty is living in the make-believe world of a phoney war, where it thinks that liberals are free to form alliances with defenders of clerical fascists who want to do everything in their power to suppress liberals, most notably liberal-minded Muslims.

I worry about what will happen when they realise that promoting human rights isn't a one-way bet, and that the Islamists they embrace aren't nice metrosexuals who support women's rights and want an end to bigotry. [Emphases added]

The same cadences may be found throughout the Eustosphere and elsewhere. The content is the same as well: there are some people whose human rights aren't worth defending and whose accounts aren't worth listening to. Human rights are for nice people, not illiberal Muslims. (AI's measured response to this sort of thing--and a less-than-satisfied retort--may be found here.)

For a lively and mocking rejoinder to this tedious Eustonian groupthink tripe, here is the inimitable Flying Rodent. The comments are well worth a read, too: Harry's Place gets a thorough combing-out, which I rather enjoyed.

Don't go looking for a defence of the character at the centre of all this, Moazzam Begg, much less apologies for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, however artfully disguised. Flying Rodent cuts right to the core issue. Prisoner mistreatment at Gitmo and in other detention centres is being deliberately obfuscated by the deployment of a bright shiny object: a former prisoner's dubious associations. And that versatile BSO is being effectively used to make AI, not detainee abuse, the story.

Flying Rodent's piece is an uncompromising dissection of how propaganda is done, or as he prefers to put it, "How Bullshit Works," starting with the thunderous lede (or, more accurately, mis-lede) that introduced the controversy to the world:

A SENIOR official at Amnesty International has accused the charity of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terror suspects above those of their victims.

Actually, as FR points out, she didn't say anything of the kind. But the fat was in the fire and was soon merrily ablaze.

Lost in all the heat and smoke, of course, was the very "black prison" system that AI had been campaigning against. But, as FR has personally discovered, Eustonians get shifty and nervous when quizzed on their own reactions to extra-legal detention of the Gitmo variety.

The Euston folks have long pushed the absurd and mendacious "Left-Islamist alliance" meme, a variant of the "anti-Semite" smear that they also gleefully promulgate. We are held to embrace (to use Cohen's word) our opposite in both values and behaviour, allegedly united by some vague notion of anti-imperialism--or worse. Yet here at hand we find a lipsmacking coalition of shrieking rightwing dingbats and the so-called "Decent Left," toiling happily away together.

What unites them? The anticipation, it seems, of smashing a well-respected organization that takes human rights too damned seriously for their liking. Nick Cohen, after all, defends the use of torture, and Terry Glavin would prefer to look the other way. For such as they, Amnesty International is a source of frustation: it just can't seem to grasp the fact that universal human rights aren't for everyone. Is it too early to speak glibly of "Eustofascism?"