Absolute Power Corrupts, Ontario Power Corrupts Absolutely

It's business as usual at Hydro One Inc, Ontario's largest electricity distribution company. Senior executives and their secretaries are making frequent use of corporate credit cards to purchase "gifts" and God knows what else. According to Jim McCarter, Ontario's Auditor General, some $127 million was billed last year with almost no receipts to show where and how this money was spent. Meanwhile, us dopey Ontarians fork over extra money every month to retire Ontario Hydro's infinitely large debt.

McCarter also took school boards, hospitals and many other nooks and crannies of the public sector to task for waste and iffy accountability. You can read the gory details yourself if you dare. Much of this abuse stems from the widespread use of purchasing cards -- PCards -- which have been used to buy DVD's, eyeglasses, Christmas lights, leather jackets, gift certificates, candy, chocolate, household supplies and a bajillion other items at our expense. And yet, this government has the gall to worry that a few homeless bottle pickers might "cash in" on the newly-announced 20-cent wine bottle deposit program by hoarding older bottles and returning them when the program starts.

The Hydro One accounting anomalies are reminiscent of the furor over Eleanor Clitheroe when she presided over Hydro One as CEO when it was supposed to go public. As Canada's highest paid civil servant, Clitheroe pulled down 2.3 million a year, made use of corporate limos for her children and nanny -- and apparently even for her cat. Clitheroe argued that such perks were provided in lieu of her taking maternity leave. There were other allegations involving home renovations that were billed to the corporation and along with personal country club memberships, etc. But, the nuclear waste hit the fan when the public learned of a golden handshake agreement that would let Clitheroe walk away with a multi-million dollar pension and three years salary for her trouble. Since getting the corporate boot, Clitheroe went on to become an Anglican priest, though she is still suing the Ontario government over her severance package and pension.

There is little point in rehashing any of this, except that last month's Canadian Business features this gem of an article by Thomas Watson: An Apology for Eleanor Clitheroe. According to Watson, "Reverend Ellie" was actually a victim in the whole affair. Seems she was double-crossed by Ernie Eves and his Conservatives when they sacrificed her in order to save themselves. Well, that sounds about right, doesn't it? But a victim!!!!?

Oh well, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised by the Canadian Business view of the world, but it is sad to see how the media can sometimes be co-opted to defend this kind of rot. It makes the job of cleaning it up (if that is even possible) all that much harder. Ya think?

Stéphane Dion Comes out Swinging in Ottawa

Apart from a few sound bites on the hourly CBC news, I decided not to torture myself last weekend -- I didn't watch any of the Liberal leadership convention. Fact is, I have to keep smacking the side of the head to remember: "I am not a Liberal!" Slap! "I am not a Liberal!" Slap. "I am not a Liberal!" Slap. And so on. Even if Dion proves to be as intelligent and honest as he seems, he'll still be surrounded by the big red, slow-moving, patronage-pedaling Liberal machine, won't he? Dion is supposed to be a green Liberal, -- just ask his dog -- but who knows how green he'll be allowed to be if the Liberals form a government in 2007. After all, the Grits learned early on how to posture about the environment better than most other parties. Remember when they signed the Kyoto accord during the Chretien era and then did little else besides pay Rick Mercer to tell us about the One Ton Challenge.



Ah, well. Time will tell, won't it? In the meantime, welcome back to Ottawa, Stéphane. Keep yer stick on the ice, watch out for Celine, and give Harper a whole lotta Hell. He's been asking for it!

London North byelection shows need for mandatory voting law

I was quietly (for a change) optimistic that Elizabeth May might carry the day for the Greens in last Monday's London North byelection. Although Liberal candidate, Glen Pearson won, the Green's second place showing represented a dramatic increase in support relative to past elections. But in our first-across-the-post electoral system, "relative" is all that really matters, isn't it? The fact is, only 42.8% of the riding's voters even bothered to show up to vote, despite the fact that this was one of the most hotly contested, broadly covered byelections in recent memory. Every party, including the Greens ponied up in a big way to try to get the vote out. What, pray tell, did those 50,000 North Londonites do while they were not voting last Monday?

By staying away in droves, the election was handed to Glen Pearson with just 15% of the pool of possible votes. While the Greens are making hay out of the fact they garnered 25.9% of the tally, the reality is that only 9% of the riding actually cast a vote for Elizabeth May, despite the fact that the GPC mounted a good strong fight, with volunteers spread across the country phoning London North voters while an army of canvassers criss-crossed the riding.

I'm as cynical about our majoritarian electoral system as anyone, but this is all we've got right now. Since the people we put in power occasionally send us to die to "protect our way of life" and to "guarantee our freedom", the least a person of voting age can do is to show up and mark an X when the time comes.

Clearly, it's time we changed the election act to require our citizens to vote and to levy fines against those who don't bother. Australia has such a system and averages a 95% turnout. It has been noted that mandatory voting results in a larger number of spoiled ballots and may actually skew the results in favour of liberal-leaning parties by bringing out larger numbers of "the poor and disenfranchised" [Slate]. So what! At least after voting, the poor will no longer be disenfranchised. Mandatory voting won't necessarily give us better government, but everyone will share equally in blame for whatever government we elect.

Blogging my way through world problems

When I started writing this blog some ten months ago, I told myself this is just a practice area -- a place away from work to play with words and ideas. I was not trying to solve the world's problems. I was not trying to right all wrongs, though I did hope to praise the just and satirize the guilty. I expected to have few readers and sadly that expectation has been exceeded.

But I lied. O how i lied. Like Ralph Philips, a minor Looney Toons character from the fifties, I daydreamed myself into dozens of blogging adventures -- ranting about Afghanistan, raving about nuclear power and roaring about the Green Party. But it turns out I have not simply been playing -- I care deeply about these things and want to make the world right. Typing away in front of this computer screen, with a cup of fair trade coffee at my side, I've had a few Walter Mitty-like moments where I thought I was making a difference. But we all know that's load of bull cookies (as the venerable Colonel Sherman T. Potter used to say).

The problem with world problems is that there are so damn many of them. Even if young Ralph Philips could keep the world safe, he'd spend the rest of his days playing global Whack-a-Mole, battling insurgents here, terrorists there and global warming everywhere. Even when I push the blog cart down the aisles and toss fresh issues into the basket, they often go bad on me before I have a chance to fully cook 'em. And so I've ended up with a growing list of half-baked blog entires:

• Beware of Run and Cut Politicians


• The Past and Future of the David Dunlap Observatory


• Harper replaces Kyoto promises with false premises


• Afghanistan: You've Never Seen Everything


• The Perils of Expanding the Canadian Forces


• How the "Will of God" Cheapens Human Life


• The Nuclear Greening of Ontario?
  

The obvious truth is that I have neither the time nor the skill nor the patience to type the world's problems away. But damn it, Jim -- that's what I wanna do. Type the world's problems away. It could be worse. I grew up watching Looney Tunes and always had a soft spot for little Ralph Philips. The kid gets grounded by his mom but quickly escapes via his overactive imagination to save the world from aliens in a most spectacular way. But the reality of Ralph, according to Toonpedia is that he "never appeared in comic books, on lunch boxes, or in any other venue. He's such a minor character, he wasn't even with the rest of the Warner Bros. toons in Space Jam". Hmmm... sounds a lot like me!

Ok, it could be a lot worse. In recent months another Ralph Phillips made the headlines. Ralph "Buck" Phillips escaped from prison last April and played a deadly game of Whack-a-Mole with with upstate New Yorkers by popping up in dozens of towns, hiding out in state forests and shooting three New York state troopers (one fatally). He was finally caught on Sept 8th, 2006. This Ralph was 44, old enough to have watched the same fictional Ralph Phillips that many of us grew up with. Now that Ralph "Buck" Phillips is back in prison (aka grounded), I want to know how he will escape in his dreams. Or maybe I don't. I'll just keep typing along my own merry, deluded path.

Comm Ralph to General Staff. Comm Ralph to General Staff. Routine report. Martians captured. World Safe. Over

Life Imitates Art with Submarines and Cocaine

One of strangest stories of the week has got to be the take-down of a 50-foot home-made submarine that was laden with 3 tons of cocaine. According to an Associated Press report, the vessel, which was made of fiberglass and wood was spotted cruising at 7 mph, while submerged just 6-feet under the surface. Four "crew" were found inside, breathing through plastic pipes which poked up out of the water. The craft was found near Cocos Island, some 550 km from Costa Rica.

Amazingly, this is not the first time home-made subs have been used to transport illegal drugs. Last August, an empty 33-foot long craft was found floating off the coast of Spain. In March, the Columbian navy seized a 60-foot long submarine that was used to carry drugs north along the Pacific coast. And, finally, in December 2005, Columbian police discovered a half-built submarine in a warehouse in the capital Bogota. Hmmm. Why would anyone build a 30-metre sub in a city that is 2,250 metres above sea level. This one was found with a stack of Russian documents and was guarded by closed circuit TV cameras.

Now where would such a crazy idea come from? In 2001, Sturla Gunnarsson directed a small gem of a film called Rare Birds, staring William Hurt, Andy Jones and Molly Parker. If you like birds, you'll love this move. If the mere concept of birders and birding puts you off, you may enjoy this movie even more. One of the film's deliciously crazy subplots involves Andy Jone's character, Phonce. He plays an eccentric inventor with an underground workshop that contains at least half a ton of salvaged cocaine and the recreational submarine he has been building for years. Phonce was finally ready to test the sub -- he just needed William Hurt to stumble onto the scene to become a co-conspirator.

There you have it: cocaine and submarines. Another great Canadian idea. It's a fact.

Bird of the Week: Hooded Mergansers

For the past week or so, I've been visiting a family of Hooded Mergansers at Stong Pond, in the middle of York University's Keele Campus. You can walk around and around the pond to get a closer view, but these guys will calmly move to the opposite side to keep a safe distance from anyone with a camera. Even when geese and mallards crash and slosh around in the same pond, these tough ducks just mosey along in a zen-like state. I'm not sure how tasty the fish in Stong Pond are, but these ducks spend quite a bit of time under water, looking for food. According to the Cornell ornithological lab:

The Hooded Merganser finds its prey underwater by sight. The merganser can actually change the refractive properties of its eyes to enhance its underwater vision. In addition, the nictating membrane (third eyelid) is very transparent and probably acts to protect the eye during swimming, just like a pair of goggles.

The Last Word on Garth Turner

I keep telling myself not to dwell on the doings of the Honourable Member of Halton, Ont -- but everyday I find myself clicking on garth.ca for his latest rant and for the latest news on how the CPC is thwarting the will of the Halton Conservative Riding Association. To paraphrase a character in Don Delillo's White Noise -- the art of getting ahead in politics is based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. Mr. Turner has learned that lesson exceedingly well. And so, last Friday, when he happened to be speaking at York University, what choice did I have but to go?

Garth wants parliamentary reform. He talks in glowing terms about digital democracy and virtual parliaments. Essentially he wants to use technology to bring constituents closer to their representatives, to push more decision-making power into the hands of voters through referendums. These may be lofty ideals but there are lots of nasty details to work out. He's starting with two practical ideas, however: fighting for the right of independent MPs to issue tax receipts for campaign contributions and pushing for a reform that would allow independent MPs to sit on parliamentary committees. Anything that can be done to put independent MPs on an equal footing with established parties is worth fighting for. Mr. Turner's efforts are certainly getting noticed. We learned that his website is garnering some 1500 emails per day from all across the country. We also learned that the PMO has created a full-time position to monitor the political whereabouts of Garth Turner. Talk about your Fear and Trembling in Ottawa (by Harper S. Kierkegaard).

The room wasn't particularly crowded but a number of York professors monopolized the floor and peppered Mr. Turner with questions on the minutiae of digital democracy and referendums. When the Honourable member suggested it would be better to let voters decide issues such as stem cell research, abortion and gay marriage, one prof demanded to know why populist politicians only wanted to allow referendums on "divisive, right wing issues". Why not ask the people to weigh in on economic issues as well, he demanded, and then asked the audience: "Who wants to raise the minimum wage to $10/hour?" As you might expect, the room erupted with applause and Garth was a little taken aback -- but only a little. Why not hold a plebiscite to legalize astral flying, I muttered to myself. To me, the problem with radical populism is that it heightens the tension between the easy answers that we all want and the hard choices that have to be made. We saw this when Mr. Turner "went to the people" with a series of town hall meetings to see what he should do after being ousted from the Conservative Caucus. He could not get a clear and decisive answer from his constituency and he wavered for for days before deciding to sit as an independent.

Anyhow, I did manage to get one question in edgewise. I reminded Mr. Turner that although many in his riding wanted him to sit as an independent, a large number also wanted him to become a Green. Then I asked if he would consider accommodating both camps by joining the GPC while continuing to sit in the House as an independent. Sure, it would merely be a symbolic gesture, but one that just might help Elizabeth May win the London bi-election. He merely smiled and reminded us that his grandfather was a "Liberal Conservative" MP who traveled to Ottawa on horseback twice a year and that he'd like to see more crossover between party lines in Ottawa. Sure. Whatever. Even if Mr. Turner was unwilling to commit to the Greens as a card carrying member, he deserves full marks for spending quality time campaigning with Ms. May in London last week. I wish him well, but that's enough Garth for a while.

Garth Day in Ottawa

Garth Turner held his Ottawa news conference today to announce his resignation from the Conservative Party of Canada. Many were predicting he would drop some sort of big juicy scandal bomb on that party, but it was not to be. Neither did he announce his intent to join the Green Party as some have hoped. His situation illustrates perfectly how the rough edge of party politics seems to grind away our ideal notions of democracy.

The arbitrary fashion in which the the Conservatives denied Turner the right to run as a CPC member in the next election -- despite being nominated by the local party twice in the past 18 months -- is scandalous. Turner deserves credit for opening a debate on parliamentary reform. Why shouldn't independent MPs have the right to issue tax receipts for campaign contributions just as full-fledged parties do? To that end, Turner announced he is taking the following actions:

1. I resign my membership in the Conservative name.

This is not easy to do after being a Conservative MP twice, a cabinet minister, a national leadership candidate and a Tory my whole life.

But my Conservative party believes in free speech, diversity of opinion, co-operation, equality of all people, progressive social values, true environmental protection and stands firm against intolerance, bigotry exclusion.

More importantly, though, I have realized that party politics - not just this party - is the problem.

2. Second, in the House of Commons I will support the government only when its actions are consistent with what I have just stated. I may only have one vote, and I may not change a whole lot, but it matters to me. I will try to make that vote count, and you will know it.

3. Third, I will seek out expert legal opinion on how our big national political parties, can be forced to be more democratic - to actually listen to, and obey, members. Right now these parties operate as old boys’ clubs accountable only to themselves. Is it any wonder voter turnout is dropping and cynicism is rising?

4. Fourth, I will introduce a private member’s bill seeking equal treatment in the House of Commons and under the Canada Elections Act for Independents. They should be able to sit on committees and raise money by issuing tax receipts right along with every other MP.

5. And, fifth, I’m not going away. Over the coming months I will travel anywhere people want to talk about democratic renewal, parliamentary reform, the role of our MPs and how citizens can get involved to reclaim this system from the unrepentant, arrogant party bosses and the unelected backroom boys.

Turner's chances at reform may be slimmer than the Leaf's shot at a Stanley Cup, but stranger things have happened. And while I hope he succeeds, I'd still like to see him return to party politics as a Green in the next election (There may be hope here: Garth is campaigning with Elizabeth May this Wednesday afternoon (Nov 15th) to support her by-election bid in London North Centre) Sure, we need more independent voices in Parliament, but the times are also crying for coherent, Green voices with the will to ameliorate some of the damage our species has caused.

Go Leafs Go!

Go Garth Go!

Go Greens Go!

Borat: Social Failings of America for Make Money for Sacha Baron Cohen

After seeing Borat on the Daily Show last week, I was not tempted to plonk down cash money to see the movie. But then I started reading about the law suits and that Russia is planning to ban it. And we were a little bored and needed to get out tonight. So ya got us Borat/Sacha -- ya got $14.90, anyhow. So what can you say about this Borat? It was hilarious, but most of the time it was uncomfortably hilarious -- and all too often it was like watching an Abu Gharaib prison video. Desipite the title, Borat has very little to say about American culture: New Yorkers don't like strangers kissing them on the subway. Southerners like their prayer palaces. Texans like rodeos. Everyone knows who Pamela is and apparently, anyone, can be on TV if they really want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With out challenging it, Barat gives us a bland, escapist America that is at once hedonistic and inward looking and he reflects a full spectrum of racism, sexism, homophobia and ignorance that is intended (one imagines) to mirror the American psyche.

But Borat is pushing more than American buttons. Apparently Kazakhstan may sue the makers of the movie because of its negative portrayal of that country. Russia may ban it completely. Meanwhile a Turkish web star claims to to be the inspiration for Borat's character and wants recognition and cash. To bring the surreality of this film full circle, several American frat boys who make racist and sexist comments in the movie are now suing to have their scenes cut. It's only a movie boys -- we've already forgotten you.

So what is Borat really trying to tell us? At first glance the movie is very unkind to the good people of Kazakhstan, but the racial humor is so over the top that no one can take it seriously. On the other hand, Borat barely scratches the surface as satire of American "Cultural Learning" and it challenges nothing about the over-protected, over-medicated, self-indulgent, hyper-consuming society in which we live. Except for this: in the middle of a fancy dinner party Borat excuses himself to use the washroom and then returns dangling a plastic bag containing his own feces. Earlier in the movie he defecates in a public garden in Manhattan. What's really going on here? Bother literally and figuratively it would seem that Borat is shitting on America -- and audiences are eating it up. So don't sweat the small stuff Kazakhstan -- you got off easy.

Of course nothing about this movie is really that easy. Borat does make it back home after all and he brings part of America home with him: a new iPod and a new wife. So we end the movie with a flourish of cultural globalization and a cute product placement for Apple?

Please can me help make a learning about your movie, Borat? I have feeling it is not getting me.

The Frog Lady: Harper Middle East Advisor Rejects

The Frog Lady: Harper Middle East Advisor Rejects

Spinning: Ted Kennedy's Alternative Energy Program for Nantucket

Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy today proposed an alternative to the massive Cape Wind renewable energy project slated for Nantucket Sound. Kennedy has been a vocal opponent of the wind farm, although it could generate up to 475 megawatts of clean energy. To keep the wind turbines from cluttering their view of the Sound, the entire Kennedy clan, along with other elite Vineyarders plan to build and operate a 24x7 spinning farm using high performance stationary bikes. Any excess power generated would be fed back into the national grid.

At a hastily convened press conference, Kennedy explained that despite being out of shape, he was ready and willing to do his part to help meet the state's electricity needs. When a reporter queried whether the portly senator was hiding Jimmy Hoffa inside his person, Kennedy merely smiled and said that he was eagerly looking forward to "dropping a few pounds".

Meanwhile, opponents of the Cape Wind plan danced with glee, poured gasoline on the ground and started several celebratory wildfires after learning the FAA has been issuing stop-work orders to various wind farm developers around the U.S. It seems the U.S. air force has suddenly decided that large spinning blades could allow small aircraft to elude military radar. To illustrate the problem, a Defense Department spokeswoman rapidly waved her hands back and forth in front of her face shouting "Can you see me? Can you see me? I don't think so!” However, by this time, reporters had turned around to watch Senator Kennedy swaying and grunting atop a stationary bicycle. As he pedaled, a small red bulb began to flicker. Faster and faster he pedaled. Until sweat glistened and streamed in the folds of his face. And then the elder statesman, himself, began to glow. Like a large fiery chunk of dirty coal, he vowed to keep the lights burning in the Vineyard.

Bird of the Week: Black Crowned Night Heron

Time for another Bird of the Week installment! The Black Crowned Night Heron is a cool-looking character decked out in a tasteful black beret and “cape”. You might think the blazing red eye is a tinted contact lens, but you ‘d be wrong. The cool factor is completed by two “white, filamentous plumes” which contrast nicely with the eye and back. This one has can be seen foraging for minnows and bugs in a storm pond at York University, but he’ll winter in the southern U.S.

Haunting words from current and past presidents

I've been collecting a number of interesting quotes and sound bites for a small project:

I'm more worried about other parts of the world. The Middle East, for instance. Iran is where they will start trouble if we aren't careful.
-- President Harry S. Truman, two days after the invasion of Korea:

It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home for Christmas.
-- President Ronald Reagan, October 10, 1965

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
-- President John F. Kennedy

Mission accomplished
-- President George W. Bush

Jonathan Sacks answers: Why does God allow terrible things to happen to His people?

Since my earlier rant about God and the Indonesia earthquake, I've stumbled upon Jonathan Sacks’ piece on the 2005 Tsunami. It is as relevant to the current disaster as it was on Dec 25, 2005 when the Asian Tsunami took so many lives.

Java Earthquake: Why does God hate the world?

Never mind the human-generated violence and environmental damage that threatens this planet. Those anthropogenic miseries are mere scratches on the skin of the world compared to the fury often unleashed by the earth itself. The 2004 Asian (Boxing Day) Tsunami. 230,000 dead. Katrina? In the thousands, but somehow know one really knows. Yesterday's earthquake in Indonesia. 5000 and rising. A complete inventory of death and destruction is a never-ending and depressing task

For those of us on the sidelines, we are again haunted by images of displaced survivors, many of whom have their hands and eyes raised skyward as if asking God "Why, why did you do this to us?". In the days to come, the media will give religious leaders an opportunity to answer this question. Explaining death from natural disaster is one of the trickiest things religion can be called upon to do. On the outer fringes, some groups have even blamed gays and lesbians for tragedies such as Katrina.

Anyone who tries to "make sense" of these things (i.e. spin things to make God look good) is not looking closely at the facts. If there is a God -- he/she/it is not a moral being. Or, if you insist that god is moral, then those morals can not be understood by mere humans. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you? Ha! Not this god. Rational self-interest? Not bloody likely. The Old Testament got things as right as any of them -- this is a wrathful god, a god of vengeance.

So why even bother to say any of this? If the Born Again Creationist types insist that only a Designer could have created sea shells, crystalline structures and complex life forms, then they had better admit that this god is every bit a Destroyer as well as a Designer. A more recent "Prophet" -- Khalil Gibran -- may have gotten us closer to the truth when he links life and death as entwined paths to God:

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

There is a poetry in Gibran's words that may appeal to some, but this is of little comfort to the millions who have died or lost loved ones as a result of natural catastrophes. The recent earthquake in Indonesia is yet another sign that moral codes are not handed down by God and the God that we find in the natural world does not provide us with any sort of moral role model. Morality is a human invention -- and it is something we must invent and re-invent on a daily basis. Here are a couple of places to start:

• Canadian Red Cross
• American Red Cross

The Berlin Hauptbahnhof: leaving North America at the station

Now that the Hauptbahnhof -- Berlin's massive new central railway station -- has opened -- we North Americans should pause again to consider and lament the failings of our car and truck-based transportation infrastructure. After decades of enslavement to the automobile, it's time we used the tax system to favour more efficient bus and rail technologies to get more single occupant vehicles off the streets.

One place to start would be to actually run the few trains that we do have. I live one city block from a GO transit train station. Unfortunately, that service only runs on weekdays (excluding holidays) and only runs during morning and afternoon rush hour. Rapid transit can work, but only if it is frequent, clean and efficient and treats people with respect by not packing them in like sardines. York Region's new VIVA service comes close to this ideal, but some buses are still over-crowded and scheduling can be thrown off because of road congestion.

Anyhow, congratulations to the Germans for building a big shiny train station. I don't know if North America can solve its transporation issues, but here are a few armchair solutions to ease gridlock and reduce emmissions. Some of these ideas are crazy -- maybe crazy enough to actually work -- though many people won't like them:

• Increase gasoline tax increases to deliberately push the pump price up to at least $5 a litre.
• Introduce additional toll roads for all intercity routes.
• Introduce tolls for driving into the downtown cores of major cities (as London did).
• Use the above revenues to fund busways and support local rapid transit industries.
• Discourage intercity truck traffic with high tolls and licence fees and encourage rail instead.
• Encourage truck drivers to become bus drivers.
• Require that all new and reconstructed roads have bike lanes.
• Require that car makers design cars that take advantage of RFID and/or GPS technology so that cars are "aware" of the speed limit and can not exceed it.
• Raise the driving age to 18 or 19. This will give young people more reason to use other mdoes of transportation and get more cars of the road.

Maybe you have some crazier ideas on this?

Bird of the Week: the Cape May Warbler

We had a great morning birding Thickson's Woods on Sunday. Lotsa warblers. More importantly-- lotsa warblers at eye-level. I think we ended up with 16 species, including spectacular looks at Canada and Wilson's warblers. As we were leaving, we noticed someone had put out an orange to attract orioles -- and it was working all too well. In addition to a hungry oriole, this little Cape May Warbler was checking things out and did eventually start to chow down on the orange. Cape May's were first identified in Cape May, New Jersey (of all places!) in 1811 and have been in decline since the 1970's -- at least partly because of deforestation and spruce budworm spraying. This bird was a featured "Bird of the Month" at the Smithsonian in 1996, so I'm proud to name the Cape May as my current bird of the week! You can click on the pics for a larger view:

91 Top Blogging Tips: I blog therefore you...

If you are a regular reader of The PenOpticon, you already know this blog is well on its way to becoming one of the most widely read and highly respected blogs on the net. Don't be fooled by the lack of comments and trackbacks -- the kinds of readers who frequent this site are too prominently placed in society -- we're talking, senators, judges, prime ministers and at least one respected ornithologist. These people can't post comments with real names and emails and even posting anonymously would give 'em away. And yet, in spite of the long-winded diatribes, the lengthy delays between posts and the lack of a clear and obvious focus, these readers return to the PenOpticon day after day after day. Now, I can't prove these readers exist -- or that you do for that matter -- but if we can agree, for the moment at least, that you do exist, that still leaves one burning question: how did I get you here? That one is easy. First I studied the following 90 amazing tips for successful blogging. Then with rigourous discipline and care, I ignored each and every one of them. And that leaves only the 91st tip, which comes to you filtered through the blogosphere via Descartes and Offred:

I blog, therefore you are!

I hope you enjoy the previous 90 tips:

• 13 Steps to Successful Blogging
  The 13-step program is by Yaro Starak, an EzineArticles.com "Expert Author".
  
• 7 Tips for Successful Blogging by Michele Schermerhorn
  These tips come from Michele Schermerhorn, a self-described “Corporate Freedom Fighter” who wants to liberate cubicle prisoners so they can experience their own successful online business.
  
• Top 10 Tips for Blogging
  This Top 10 list comes from Sharon Housley, a marketing manager with FeedForAll.
  
• 40 Tips from Dehumanizer.Com
  This huge list of tips comes from Pedro Timóteo, a 31-year old network/systems administrator from Portugal.
  

• 10 Tips for Attracting More Comments
  These come from Chris Garrett, a UK-based former marketing consultant who now works for Performancing.Com
  
• Blogging For Beginners And 10 Blog Traffic Tips
  Yaro Starak "literally put together a 1500 word collection of blog traffic tips in an hour demonstrating that my brain is really full of Blog Traffic content ready to be poured out".

Poll: The Daily Show Effect: Is Jon Stewart Destroying America?

The May issue of American Politics Research features a study of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show's impact on the politcal attitudes of 18-24 year-olds. These ever-so-clever researchers got college students to sit down and watch 8 minutes of Daily Show clips and 8 minutes of CBS evening news. They tried to select clips with similar content -- it was coverage leading up to the 2004 election. They rated the respondants on questions such as "I often don’t trust what news organizations are saying” (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree)." It's an interesting study and for now you can download the PDF here.

You can read on for my own weird take on this study, but if you care about this issue at all, I hope you will voice your opinion at PenOpticon.Com by answering the poll question: Is Jon Stewart destroying America and making you more cynical?

I would not fault -- and am not qualified to fault -- their method or their math, but I think the authors have their own agenda -- they fear honest critique of the current political system. They seem to expect all of us to have unassailable faith in the American "hard news" media and the current two-party system. Here are a few choice quotes from the East Carolina University study:

We contend that the result for young viewers is a more cynical perspective of the news media’s ability to fairly and accurately cover politics.

Yes exactly! When Stewart exposes the fact that TV media sometimes runs news segments that are paid for and produced by the U.S. government, or how one party can insinuate a phrase or talking point as fact so that it is replicated and reported by every network, then we do become a tad cynical.

Our findings suggest that exposure to The Daily Show’s brand of political humor influenced young Americans by lowering support for both presidential candidates and increasing cynicism.

Stewart is on record as saying he is not against Republicans or Democrats but that he is "against bullshit". He calls 'em the way they present themselves and does it in a way that "hard news" sources can't seem to do.

Stewart’s style of humor paints the complexities of politics as a function of the absurdity and incompetence of political elites, thus leading viewers to blame any lack of understanding not on themselves but on those who run the system. In presenting politics as the theater of the absurd, Stewart seemingly simplifies it.

On the contrary, Stewart often bemoans the simplicity and lack of nuanced argument that is put forth by the Administration.

Anyhow, for me the BIG question about satire in general -- and TV satire in particular -- is whether it creates snarky, politically passive individuals who feel as if they have done something by consuming satire. Maybe that will be subject for a future poll. In the meantime, I hope you will cast your vote in this fun little poll:
Is Jon Stewart destroying America and making you more cynical?

Ontario's Crude Oil Attitude

There is a fundamental difference between the north and south shores of Lake Erie: the Canadian side is dotted with oil and gas wells while the American side is not. In fact, all oil and gas development around Lake Erie -- with the exception of a few wells in Michigan -- is taking place on the Canadian side. There is, as always, a bit of history to this. Canada's oil industry began in the 1850's when asphalt beds were discovered along Lake Erie. Then, in 1857, while drilling for water in the same area, workers struck oil and North America's first oil well was born. It is no coincidence that Detroit and Windsor grew to become the heart of the North American auto industry -- just a stone's throw from the site of these first wells.

That’s all very interesting, you say, but why are you telling me this? Well, as a typical North American consumer, I profess to be concerned about the environment, but like millions of others I still fill up the car and turn up the heat as needed and I don't really think about where the gas comes from. But as we drove along Talbot Trail east of Leamington last weekend, we noticed dozens of oil wells on the bluffs that overlook Lake Erie. Somehow they looked out of place and wrong. When I stopped to take some pictures, I could smell the crude and was mesmerized by the incessant noise and power of these machines. How many wells are there? How much oil do these things produce? Are they safe?

According to an Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources report, there are 1,161 oil wells and 744 gas wells operating along the north Lake Erie shoreline. In addition, 478 gas wells operate offshore on Crown land under the lake itself. In total, these reserves provide just one to two percent of Ontario's oil and gas requirements. Geologists estimate that about half of the original deposits still remain in the ground. In addition to these active wells, there are some 20,000 plugged, suspended and abandoned wells scattered around the province.

Only in Canada?

The reason we don't find oil wells along the American Lake Erie shore is partly because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. When the U.S. Congress passed the act last year, it was widely criticized for subsidizing large oil and coal concerns without devoting enough resources to alternative energy and conservation. With billions in new subsidies lining their corporate pockets, Texas-based oil execs had every reason to smile after the act was passed, but so did Great Lakes-area environmentalists: the act permanently protects the American Great Lakes from future oil and gas development.

Not surprisingly, American environmental groups are furious that Canada continues to extract oil and gas from Lake Erie. In particular, they worry about "directional drilling" -- land-based drilling that angles out into the lakebed. The Public Interest Research Group in Michigan cited 51 drilling-related leaks between 1990 and 1995. The group told the Detroit News that "Drilling has been neither safe nor risk-free" and argue that the relatively small amounts of oil and gas that can be recovered from Lake Erie is not worth the risk. One wonders why the Ontario and Canadian governments are willing to risk this shoreline for such a miniscule amount of oil and gas. The MNR map below shows oil, natural gas and natural gas storage pools in southern Ontario. Gas reserves are shown in red, oil in green. The blue areas near Sarnia are gas storage pools.

Although natural gas could be recovered from a large area in and around Lake Erie, these are not expected to be high-yield deposits. And, even though gas and oil prices are higher than ever, only about one hundred new wells are being commissioned each year. It is not a huge industry, but it is dispersed over a large and environmentally sensitive area that includes key wildlife and birding areas such as Point Pelee, Long Point and Rondeau Provincial Park. The risk to human health and the environment is not worth the return, but Ontario still encourages oil and gas companies to gamble with our land and fresh water. Groundwater contamination from Ontario's 20,000 decommissioned and abandoned wells is already a real possibility. If the province's remaining oil and gas deposits are developed, this risk can only increase and more Lake Erie shoreline habitat will be disrupted. Just ask Stanislav Patin, a prominent Russian scientist who specializes in marine environmental problems. Patin has written extensively on the problems associated with natural gas and oil extraction in marine environments and has documented the toxic effects of hydrogen sulfide (which can comprise up to 20% of natural gas) on marine life as well as air and soil. He further notes that large quantities of methane gas (30-300 cubic metres/ton) are released into the atmosphere when oil is extracted.

Little wonder that our American neighbors are fuming over Canada's smug environmental stance. Instead of passing packaging laws that would result in less landfill and more recycling, we send our garbage to Michigan in hundreds of diesel-burning trucks. Instead of doing what ever it takes to reduce gas and oil energy needs, we allow an inefficient and potentially hazardous oil and gas industry to puncture the province with new wells. And our governments continue to pay lip service to the environment while granting approval for new low-density developments and roads and providing subsidies to foreign auto-makers for building new factories.

The Hypocrisy of Hell’s Half Acre

The waste and hypocrisy of these outmoded energy policies was evident last week while I waited for a bus. There was a York Region Transit bus idling next to my stop. "Idling" is not the correct word -- this behemoth was roaring in neutral for at least 10 minutes while its billowing black exhaust made people gag. I banged on the folding doors and asked the driver if he would turn off the engine or at least stop revving it. His answer: "I can't turn it off or it won't start up again". Then he closed the folding doors and continued to sip his coffee. As angry as I was, it appears that this attitude is nothing new:

For many years Turner Valley had the dubious distinction of wasting vast amounts of natural gas. In the 1920s it was common practice to pass the gas through separators, then flare it off. Producers flared the by-product gas after producing the oil, greatly reducing the oil reservoir pressure thus reducing the amount of recoverable oil. With this practice the Turner Valley field realized only a portion of its oil potential. Many of these flares were in a small ravine known to locals as Hell’s Half-Acre. During the 1920s when exploration and production was booming, the roar of the flares could be heard more than 30 miles away in Calgary. In neighboring communities homes were built by this light, grass around the flares would stay green year round, local hunters would hunt by this light and migrating birds would winter in their warmth.

Other accounts of Turner Valley tell how unemployed workers from across Canada and the U.S. arrived in the area to look for work and ended up sleeping outdoors in the warmth of the flaring gas. While we flatter ourselves that we know better, we have simply taken the Turner Valley approach and applied it globally: billions of city lights burn 24x7, millions of engines idle in heavy traffic, propane-powered outdoor heaters blow heat into the sky, our ridiculous dalliance with gas-guzzling SUVs continues and we continue to buy truckloads of electronic gadgets and appliances that can never be completely turned off. It is a never-ending list.

Turner Valley itself is a better place today, but we have globalized the flaring gas attitude and it seems that we are too afraid of the Petrocracy to turn it off.

Is Washington Pollster, Frank Luntz Trolling for Stephen Harper's Business?

It seems that Frank Luntz, a well-known (and many would say infamous) American right-wing communication strategist has been chatting up Stephen Harper and his minority band of merry Conservatives. Luntz made a name for himself over the past dozen years by working with the GOP on "messaging" (a.k.a. LuntzSpeak). And, he is particularly well known for penning two memos that defined the language used in Bush’s Presidential campaign spin on global warming and Iraq.

For instance, in The Environment: a Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America, Luntz insists on the term "climate change" instead of "global warming" because it tested better in focus groups. The rest of the memo is brimful of Machiavellian wisdom designed to help Republicans thwart pesky climate experts: "The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge science… you need to be even more active in recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view, and much more active in making them part of your message."

In Communicating the Principles of Prevention & Protection in the War on Terror, Luntz tries to teach the GOP how to speak about the Iraq War in terms that will sit better with the electorate. Here you will find the famous "9/11 changed everything" mantra and other talking points that make up the Republican rhetorical arsenal.

But all of this is old news. Depressingly sad, but old news, nonetheless. Given Luntz’s track record, it was surprising to see how the Toronto Star Washington correspondent took the pollster at face value -- as an experienced and respected pollster who is "oft-quoted" and "in demand in other countries". The Star’s May 10 interview seems to imply that Luntz may have had a falling out with Washington and the GOP. For example, when questioned about similarities between Bush and Stephen Harper, Luntz quips: "The Canadian and U.S. leaders could not be more different... Stephen Harper is a genuine intellectual, brilliant in his understanding of issues... I think I'll leave it at that." He further notes that "The U.S. system is rife with corruption, or perceived to be rife with corruption, and Canadians have an absolute right to know what previous governments did with their hard-earned money."

Really! Now why would a right-wing communications wunderkind dis Bush and the GOP and praise Stephen Harper in the same breath? According to the Washington Post, it turns out that newly minted Republican Majority Leader John A. Boehner was waiting for a chance to reduce Luntz's billable hours to zero due to a longstanding feud that dates back to the waning days of Newt Gingrich in 1998. In other words, Luntz has been looking for a new group of political chumps who are willing to pay dearly for his dubious advice. By delivering a speech to Ottawa Conservatives and toadying up to Harper, Luntz is hoping that his unique services will soon become indispensable. It will be interesting – and scary – to see if Harper buys into the program and masters LuntzSpeak.

And, if any of this does come pass, you may want to revisit Luntz's interview on the Daily Show, during which he discusses the effective use of "fake" town hall meetings -- such as those arranged for Bush in the 2004 election. Who knows, perhaps Harper and Luntz will enjoy a same-spin relationship. After all, we have already seen how desperate Harper is to maintain control over his cabinet and the media on Parliament Hill. Perhaps a staged townhall – or cabinet meeting! – is just what he needs to spin his way to a majority. In any case, if the current Prime Minister decides to funnel thousands (millions?) in consulting fees to Luntz’s American company, it's unlikely to come back to haunt him like a Liberal Sponsorship scandal. And if the Canadian dollar continues to rise as predicted, LuntzSpeak will almost certainly be cheap.

But then, how could it be anything but cheap?

Protesting Mr. President in Song

Pink and the Indigo Girls have written a letter to GWB in the form of a song -- click below if you have not heard it. It's an achingly beautiful country melody that is guaranteed to tug at the old heartstrings. It tries to burrow through the Big Rock Candy Mountain of political rhetoric to reach Mr. President as a fallible human -- a father and a man who has known a thing or two about drinking and cocaine. The song tells us W does not know what "hard work" means, however. As much as I like the music, the underlying message -- that Bush is personally responsible for every problem America faces today -- rings false. It panders to some unspoken nostalgic ideal that does not require anything from us -- except our moral indignation. We're just "good, honest, decent folks", right?

Of course Bush has it all wrong. It's the environment, stupid (not you Gentle Reader!) Air. Water. Soil. Food. All poisoned or stressed to the point where repair may not be possible. Fixing it will require "hard work" -- and energy. Bush's crime is that he has essentially bankrupted the U.S. by looking for energy in the wrong places. Our crime is that we have been willing co-conspirators. And that is the message that is missing from this Pink/Indigo Girls song.

Prime Minister? I have no Prime Minister

I woke up this morning feeling kind of rudderless. At first I thought it was just the usual Monday blahs and then it suddenly hit me. I have no Prime Minister. I have no federal leader. Now, I didn't vote for Stephen Harper, but I do respect the democratic process, and was therefore willing to give him a chance. I figured if he happened to be in line behind me at an Ottawa Tim Hortons, I'd cheerfully say "Good morning Mr. Prime Minister -- please go ahead of me." After all, there are plenty of problems in this country. Maybe if the PM gets a nice hot double-double and a few extra minutes before the next cabinet meeting, some of those problems will get a little smaller. Unlikely. But it could happen thinks I in the midst of a Monday funk.

But there have been too many signs that this PM is wrong for Canada. I don't even know if this PM drinks coffee. Lately he's been percolating his own blend of partisan venom. He's waving his robotic arms and droning on in that mopey monotone, pretending that he speaks for Canadians. (And someone is really mixing his metaphors tonight) O well. Here's a quick summary of recent reasons why this PM is no PM:

Item: Prime Minister Stephen Harper bans media from covering the repatriation of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Yes, bereaved families should be protected from hounding media, but these arrivals still need to be recorded. The public has a right to know -- and to grieve -- along with the families. Canadians don't "cut and run" if the cause is just, but most Canadians were cut out of the decision to send troops into Afghanistan in the first place.

Item: Harper brings down a mean-spirited, politicized budget that rewards the wealthy (by lowering the GST), penalizes the poor (by raising the base income tax rate) and then sprinkles a few dollars here and there in a cynical bid to encourage stay-at-home parents (in a society that is structured to essentially require two-income families).

Item: Harper snubs Ontario's Premier by a) delaying a meeting with Premier McGuinty; b) refuses to be publicly photographed with McGuinty either before or after their short meeting; c) attends -- and speaks at -- a Conservative fundraising dinner for John Tory immediately afterward and declaring that candidate the "next Premier of Ontario". Real PMs don't do these things.

Item: Harper justifies his meddling in provincial politics by telling the Toronto Star that John Tory is "a very good friend of mine". What does that mean? Are the other provinces supposed to trust him even if he is not 'bestest friends' with their democratically elected premiers?

Item: He tries to further justify his snub of McGuinty by having the PMO produce pages of Liberal quotations denouncing Ontario's premier. Yes Mr. PM, we know. The previous liberal government was arrogant and corrupt and they self-destructed when they realized they were going to lose the election. Dredging that up does not make your actions more palatable. It only makes your high-school approach to government more apparent.

Mr. Harper, you are one low-down, opportunistic, smug, self-righteous, bad-faith, partisan scallywag. You are no longer my Prime Minister. In Colbertian terms "You are dead to me". If Jon Stewart could add anything to this, no doubt he would close with his patented: "Good day sir. I said good day." And I would only add "What he said".

Freedom isn't Free: The PenOpticons go to Washington

I have visited Ottawa many times, toured Parliament, sat in the Governor General's "backyard", been transfixed by the National Gallery of Canada and cycled miles of bike paths, and gardens. It's an amazing place, but compared to Washington, D.C. my capital is little more than a beaver lodge nestled at the edge of the Ottawa River. A very expensive beaver lodge, mind you. But it's all relative. "Your tax dollars at work" has a very different meaning, depending on which side of the border you happen to be from.

We arrived in Washington in the midst of a nasty storm, a torrential rain that was matched by the stormy events of the day: the Duke lacrosse team rape allegations, Moussaoui's trial in Alexandria and sky-rocketing gas prices (which are now *gasp* almost as high as Canadian prices). We were in the U.S. capital when we learned that four Canadians had been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and that the Harper government had decided not to fly the Canadian flag at half-mast to honor the fallen -- or allow media to bear witness to the return of their bodies. All of these things swirled in our road-weary brains while we wandered around the National Mall.

In case you Americans don't know it yet, your president now has a "Mini Me" in the form of Canada's Prime Minister: a smug, self-righteous, introverted, media-shy conservative. Harper is doing everything he can to follow in W's footsteps. His newly announced budget will build more jails (in a country with falling crime rates), while granting regressive tax relief to the wealthiest Canadians and businesses. He has manipulated Parliament to avoid contact with media. And, as already mentioned, has forbidden media coverage of the repatriation of soldiers lost in battle (sound familiar?). Our Prime Minister does not look much like W, but he sure sounds like him. Given that Bush's popularity is plummeting, it will be interesting so see if Harper's mimicry results in a similar fate. We can hope.

But back in Washington... we are just two more foreign visitors walking around the White House, striding to the Washington Monument and then proceeding alongside the Reflecting Pool toward the Lincoln Memorial. It's all beautiful and huge and well... monumental. And when the rain finally ends, it's a gorgeous day -- there are white-throated sparrows and warblers singing in the trees around the White House. We are foreigners and yet it is all so familiar -- images embedded and deep memories inserted in the mind by a lifetime of TV and film. And books -- like Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain. Familiar but still strange. The small anti-nuclear protest, the Scientology tent and the lone individual screaming incoherently at the White House (until he was quietly cornered by security personnel) felt like business as usual. When Denise looked through her binoculars back at the White House, she said the rooftop security sniper seemed to be looking right back at her.

And that's the point, I suppose. Supposedly we are foreigners, and yet when you consider the "fundamentals", we're not so different. Consider these two great souls that we lost last week:

John Kenneth Galbraith: A Canadian-born economist who lived and worked most of his life in the U.S. had considerable influence in shaping the discourse of American liberal politics after World War II. Even if you don't like his politics, ya gotta like his wit: The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Jane Jacobs: An American-born urban thinker and activist who lived and worked much of her life in Canada. Jacob's book The Death and Life of Great American Cities got people thinking about sprawl, urban renewal and the disastrous effects of slicing up cities with expressways. She is credited with stopping both New York's Lower Manhattan Expressway and helping to prevent Toronto's Spadina Expressway from being built. Her dream of a creative, organic city was a powerful vision, though sadly, one that has seldom been realized. She tells us: There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by "pretended order" -- we are corralled and controlled by 6-lane arterial roads, big box stores and factory outlets.

But there it is. Two great minds lost. Jacobs, an American who lived and loved in Canada and Galbraith, a Canadian who loved and lived in America, both dreaming of a different kind of justice and an order that flowed upward from individual choice and responsibility -- not downward from greed and intangible "market forces". Eyes can meet unexpectedly in binoculars, traversing hundreds of yards at the speed of light and ideas can travel almost as fast between our countries.

But we were not thinking of any of this in Washington when we were still climbing the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and meditating on that President's words. We spent another hour or so wandering around the Korean and Vietnam memorials. These are truly moving places, where families still quietly scan for the names of lost loved ones. A few veterans stand by and politely help out when asked. It's a place of wistful smiles and quiet tears, and for outsiders like us, who never had to come to terms with any of it, the raw emotion of the place still echoes over the names engraved on the Wall.

These are places of healing for bereaved families and surviving veterans and care has been taken to build them well. But it took a long time for them to be built -- a long time to jog the official public memory. The Vietnam memorial opened in Washington in 1982, a mere 7 years after that war ended in 1975. It took considerably longer for Washington to memorialize World War II in 2004 -- almost 60 years after D-Day. Perhaps nothing can or should be made of these facts. Or perhaps the need to honor the dead of a war clouded by political spin and national guilt is greater than the need to honor the fallen of a "just" war. If that is the case, then let us hope they have already mapped out a place for the Iraq War Memorial. It needs to be built now.

Nine Days in America

Denise and I just returned from a nine day work/vacation road trip through the north eastern states -- mostly D.C., Virginia and North Carolina. Apart from doing our part to help deplete the world's supply of oil (we burned up 3,000 KM worth), our plan was to make a kind of pilgrimage to Washington, explore the Great Dismal Swamp and visit some of the wildlife refuge areas in the N.C. Outer Banks.

Despite its name, the Great Dismal Swamp is a spectacular place to visit, both for its strange and sad history and its rebirth as a "managed" natural habitat. The Swamp's place in American capital-H-History was cemented in 1763 when George Washington formed a company to purchase the area for logging. The founding father surveyed the Dismal Swamp and employed his own slaves to dig a series of 4 1/2-mile ditches. These waterways were used to drain the wetland and provide canal transport for the logging operation. Washington evenutally sold his share, but logging continued into the 1970's until the Union Camp Company donated the land to the Nature Conservancy.

The old-growth forest is long gone, but there is still a lot of life in the old Swamp. During our two days in the area we tallied over 50 bird species, including numerous Prothonotary and Hooded warblers. We came across several deer and a large bobcat that was slouching across the trail a few hundred yards in front of us. Even in the afternoon heat, the air was ringing with the birdsong of spring migrants and nesting species.

While walking along the Washington Ditch, I kept thinking about our time in D.C. from the previous day. We spent hours trapsing around the National Mall, gawking at monuments and statues. Take the 555-foot Washington Monument, for instance. For a man who started out chopping down cherry trees, and who then moved on to begin the wholesale deforestation of a thriving wetland, it seems entirely fitting that his monument rises like an upraised middle finger from a treeless field of well-worn sod. Does that sound a little bitter? I shouldn't be too hard on that George. After all, for him the American Dream was a vivid waking dream. He couldn't turn away from his destiny and any of us might have done exactly the same thing. I'm sure George wasn't flipping the bird, but I think someone was. Or perhaps Robert Mills, the Monument's designer, has unwittingly built the world's tallest Viagra ad. A terrible way to end this, but there it is. I have more respectful things to say about Washington and the National Mall in the days to come.

Coopers Hawk at York U

I took a walk around a woodlot at York U today and tried out a borrowed Minolta Dimage camera. I was hoping for a good shot of a Cardinal since they have been singing up a storm around the university. Instead I stumbled upon a Coopers Hawk that was glaring at me with a big red eye from a tree branch. We stared at each other for a few minutes until he hopped down onto a log and did a little line dance.

We see plenty of Turkey Vultures arcing above the Ross Building. Hadn't seen a Coopers at York before, though. Beautiful plummage!

Opticons and HOV dummies

Tired of stop and go traffic and all those red lights? You could do what Jason Niccum did. The Longmont, Colorado resident purchased an "Opticon*" from eBay for $100 (US) in order speed up his commute. The device emits the same kind of infra-red pulses that fire trucks and rescue vehicles use to make stop lights change during emergencies. Niccum was busted recently for interfering with traffic lights, but, after using the Opticon for 2 years, he may have gotten his money out of it -- even with the $50 fine. His excuse, as reported by the police: "I'm always running late". Aren't we all, Jason?

If you are still in a hurry, you could try propping up a HOV dummy in the front seat, although that approach didn't work out well for Susan Aeschliman-Hill last month on Interstate 405 in Seattle. When she and her mannequin friend barged into the HOV lane by swerving in front of a school bus, they caused a multi-vehicle accident that injured 12 people. Yikes.

Perhaps Jason and Susan should think about car-pooling. Who knows? It could be a match made in heaven. And if it doesn't work out, they can always opt for 'his and hers' flying scooters. Even that sounds safer than driving with a dummy in the front seat. Me? I'm still getting around on my trusty VIVA bus (my million dollar limo) and bicycles (when the legs feel up to it).

The PenOpticon Limo!

* N.B. This PenOpticon has nothing to do with the "Opticon" that Jason Niccum was using.

Organized Crime and the Midnight Tow Truck

This week's Toronto-area crime news has been dominated by front page pictures of eight murdered Bandidos motorcycle gang members and related stories of gang activities within the GTA. It turns out that the Bandidos and other gangs have been using tow trucks to haul drugs around the city. In fact, the Toronto Star reported that on the night of the Shedden massacre, police tailed a tow truck along highway 401, but were unaware that the car in tow was weighed down with 200 KG of cocaine. The three men in the truck were gunned down after entering a farmhouse owned by Bandido member, Wayne Kellestine.

The tow-truck connection made me re-think an old children's story called Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck. After losing a favourite toy car, young Matthew goes to bed and dreams he sees the flashing lights of a tow truck outside his bedroom window. When the Midnight Tow Truck Driver calls up for help, Matthew sneaks out of the house and the two of them cruise through the night, hauling vehicles to a special car wash facility that shrinks them down to pocket size. The drivers seem to eat nothing but "red licorice" and they even give some to Matthew for helping out. When he wakes up, he finds his favorite toy truck in his shirt pocket and insists that his mother buy lots of red licorice. He tells here to leave some on the windshield of her car so that it will never be towed away. It was a fun story and both of our kids enjoyed it 14+ years ago, but shrinking cars and red licorice pay offs? Were the Bandidos already involved in the murky underworld of children's literature? Such meta-narratives! It's all too much for my small brain!

Time to legalize red licorice?
Now I personally am not big on the stuff, but I do believe it may be time to legalize "red licorice" so that society is no longer held hostage by these midnight tow trucks. Imagine if you could walk into any LCBO -- Licorice Control Board of Ontario -- outlet to purchase enough for your own use? It just might take a little business away from the Bandidos and tow truck drivers of the world. Perhaps this was the unspoken message that Michel Auger, a Montreal crime reporter, had for CBC's The Current last Wednesday. Auger, who took six bullets in the back from a Quebec-based motorcycle gang in 2000, spoke of the futility of expensive police stings and undercover operations. He told The Current's Gary Simmons:

"It's too easy for the criminals to profit from the millions they are making with drug trafficking and if there is trafficking it's because there are customers. So it's the citizens who are complaining about the violence and activities of organized crime, but they are buying the cocaine and hashish and marijuana... so there is no way to succeed against organized crime because society is the customer. They are supplying what society needs."

Hmm. What society needs? It's hard to say. In developed societies, where the basic needs of most are easily met, many people struggle with individual wants and desires. But perhaps collectively, we really can't function unless a certain percentage of the population has regular access to psychoactive drugs. Maybe those who sing the Ramones signature song: "I Wanna Be Sedated" really need to be sedated. If that is the case, better they should buy their stuff from a surly civil servant than a burly guy on a Harley. If nothing else, at least recreational drug tax revenues could be used to fund drug rehab programs -- just as a percentage of state gambling revenues are funneled into gambling addiction programs.

Guitar Gods

A friend sent this and I had to blog it because I love this piece of music and this kid is an awsome player. And to think I had the nerve to post a few of my own MP3s (though I posted them on April Fools!) Click and enjoy:

And still the birds fly...

In spite of global warming, the war in Iraq, multiple murders and assorted mayhem, da boids are doing that crazy migration thing that they do. The Redwing black birds have been back for a while. We've seen a few Great Blue Herons and some have seen Egrets. Today we took a walk at Thickson Woods in Whitby, and found returning Phoebes, Golden Crown Kinglets and Winter Wrens. The woods were waking up with Northern Flickers, Sapsuckers and Downy woodpeckers hammering away. A Great Horned Owl -- a regular at Thickson's -- dosed high up in the canopy (I included a pic of two babies from a few years ago). It was a pretty good show, a warm up act for the return of the warblers in May.

Last weekend, we headed out to Grimsby for a taste of the spring Hawk Watch and watched waves of TurkeyVultures and sporadic flights of Coopers, Rough-legged, Sharp shin and Red shoulder hawks rise up over the Niagara Escarpment. I have neither the time, the eyesight or the skill to do a full-day observing and counting the return of these creatures, but those who do are a rare breed and are to be respected. I should have taken a picture of the large crowd of people out for a day of hawk watching, but all I got was this pic of the town of Grimsby and Lake Ontario.

NB. If Grimsby does not have a sports team called the "Reapers", they really ought to.

Midnight justice, or whatever you want to call it.

"Midnight justice, or whatever you want to call it" is how one resident described today's discovery of eight bodies in a farm field near Shedden, a tiny community in south-western Ontario. Was it a psychopathic mass murder or just another example of what sometimes passes for justice under a dark rural sky? Either way, this tragedy will provide further ammunition to Canadian and American politicians who want to tighten borders, build more jails, and generally spread fear, uncertainty and doubt among the citizenry.

But what if crime rates are actually falling? What if there is a disconnect between what is really happening in our neighbourhoods and what is reported? Such a disconnect was evident in the Toronto Star's reportage of this event. The Star included background on several other "grisly" Canadian mass murders and duly noted that "the scale of the [the Shedden murders] is unprecedented in modern Ontario history." No doubt the "if it bleeds, it leads" approach to journalism sold a few papers today.

But, what the Star failed to note as part of this story is the fact that crime rates in Canada have been falling steadily since 1991. And, despite a growing population, Ontario, Canada's largest province, still has the lowest crime rate in the entire country.

I don't know why those eight people in Shedden died, but the circumstances in which they were found sound like the drug-deal-gone-bad scene in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. It's a depressing episode that may have more to do with our Draconian drugs laws -- laws which have served to foster a thriving underworld economy -- than a societal meltdown.

After all, when you look at crime rates in America, you see a similar trend. All forms of crime have been falling for several decades -- all except drug-related crime. The U.S. answer to the drug problem -- the infamous War on Drugs -- has resulted in a record number of black and Hispanic men being thrown in jail.

The ugly, dirty little secret (which is really not a secret at all) is that all crime committed for the purpose of turning a profit requires both producers and consumers. The Christian right, and various conservative movements prefer to target the producers of crime while ignoring the fact that it is primarily mainstream (dare I say white?) Americans and Canadians who consume it. We see evidence of this consumption every time a celebrity is "busted" for drug use or a politician is ousted for corruption or a TV evangelist is revealed to have a predilection for young prostitutes. When things go wrong for "mainstream" consumers of drugs, illegal gambling and prostitution, they are often embarrassed (while the rest of us are sometimes entertained). When things go wrong for the marginal, unacknowledged producers of illegal goods and services, it can often lead to something more tragic -- like eight dead bodies slumped in a farm field.

* Graphs from Statistics Canada 2004 Crime Statistics Bulletin

Help make a difference and Save the SUVs

We had a lively conversation at work today about cars and SUVs. Several of my co-workers have bought gas-guzzling cars and SUVs in recent years and now they gripe about the high cost of driving, parking and repairs. Let's not even talk about the post-petroleum stone age. It made me think of one of those Save the Children ads -- but for SUV owners. So, here's the PenOpticon Save the SUV Public Service Announcement.

Focus (Folk Us) on April Fools

In the few weeks that I have been blogging, I've been happy and bitter, optimistic and critical -- and often a bit of a pompous ass! And, as I expected, I have not been able to focus on any one subject. I wanted to play a good April Fools trick on you -- my non-existent readers -- but as my satirical muse, Jon Stewart would say: I got nuthin! So instead, I'll leave you with a few home-made MP3s and two pictures of Midnight (who went to the big pond / cheese factory / squirrel-chasing country in the sky last year).

Here's old man Midnight looking at you kid!

Midnight could always make us laugh, no matter how surreal things got. He put up with us for 15 years and we walked hundreds of miles together all over southern Ontario. This was taken years earlier at the southern edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine near Richmond Hill, Ontario. Sadly, this valley has now been cut in half by a 4 lane bridge, the paths have been eroded by ATVs and thousands of new houses are crowding in where the trees used to be.

...and a few MP3s

41 Hours in the Gaping Maw of WalMart

Woe is us. A few weeks ago Skyler Bartels had an idea. The Des Moins, Iowa college student decided he would inspire himself as a writer by spending a week in the bowels of a 24x7 Wal-Mart. Fitted out with only with a debit card and a toothbrush, Bartels was consumed by Wal-Mart for a mere 41 hours before he was spit back out for a second chance at life. This story is remarkable precisely because it is not a story at all, though it has been replicated in hundreds of news outlets around the globe. Even Bartels remarked that he thought the exercise was a failure until he spoke to the Des Moines Register. And then the networks began to call. As did National Public Radio. And a book agent. And a film company.

So was the Wal-Mart experiment a success? Can Bartels take his rightful place within the celebrity pantheon because during March Break he spent 41 hours in a store, watched Chicken Run and took a nap in the garden center? Or was it a failure because it was inane, pointless and boring? Or will it be considered a success if it engenders a book or a movie or an interview with Oprah?

If Bartels' stunt can be compared to placing a canary in a coal mine, it appears that he survived this 41-hour ordeal quite nicely. However, the fact that such an an experiment was even attempted is proof that something vital in us has failed and may already be dying. Or dead.

So woe is us. And woe is U.S.