EPinionated

Think Tanking

2006-09-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

“Collateral damage” is the term most often given to those innocent civilians who die ‘accidentally’ during the course of a war. It is a graceless parting moniker first coined by the American military to anesthetize the American public to non-combatant death in war. It is a departure from other euphemisms for death in that it equates the accidental death of a civilian in war to that of any other physical object that might be taken by a financial officer as collateral such as a watch, or some form of ID. The very definition of collateral is that of something inferior, an article of significant, though not comparable value to that for which it is necessarily and temporarily in place of. Taken together, collateral damage, then is the loss of something less valuable than that for which it is a temporary substitute for: American military success. Its phraseology is unique - or was, until this past few weeks - in that it intimates so little guilt and yet so much contempt for its subject: the dead.

This week, Alan Dershowitz issued his own phrase for ‘collateral damage’. While it is more a concept then a phrase, the two were constructed as a result of similar exigencies. While the phrase itself may not rival its bureaucratic forebear in guiltless contempt for its subject, it is no less its equal in semantic gymnastics or ‘semnastics’.

In Dershowitz’s treatise on ‘civilianality’, we are introduced to a seemingly new world of what he calls “the continuum of civilianality’. The concept is founded on the belief that all deaths within war fall somewhere on a continuum. At the one end, there is a dead 2 year-old, who, having no cognitive or psychoanalytic capacity or indeed the physical ability to act upon it, is deemed entirely innocent. On the other end, there is a suicide bomber; a willful, cognizant and manifest combatant. The middle, however, is populated by a wide spectrum of individuals: from the mother who supports the terrorist spiritually, to the doctor who supports him financially, each is characterized by both their lack of full participation in committing the crime and by their tacit, complicit or otherwise approval of the acts of the perpetrator. In the mind of Alan Dershowitz, and those of other notables, they are thus neither guilty nor innocent. It is similar in more ways than one to the reasoning used by bin Laden for the WTC bombing or by the Nuremberg judiciary charged with sentencing Nazi officials for war crimes. The reasoning here was that while their jobs may have not been on the front line in the traditional sense of military war, the bankers, investors and other professionals that constitute essentially the machinery of the American capitalism are as guilty as their armed brethren in the military. Thus while the semnastics may be of interest, the kernel of his theory is not. The only innovation Dershowitz has come across is that of a more limber, robust sense of ‘semnastics’.

Over the past several years, few, if any, new insights concerning the humane treatment of individuals during war has fundamentally shifted the discussion. And there have been no groundbreaking philosophical developments. What has mushroomed however, is the insurgence of Dershowitzes: polemics that seek neither to infuse the debate with intelligence nor to engage in any academically rigorous fashion the kernel of the debate. Rather, the debate finds itself now bloated with articulate, brilliant writings of, regrettably, no philosophical worth. Much like the 'fog' Secretary of Defense Macnamara alluded to in Errol Morris’s documentary on the Vietnam war (The Fog of War), a similarly distortive mist has befallen the world of coherent, worthwhile debate; the consequences of which, may even be greater than that of the fog of war.

Memorials for and by other means

2006-07-16T21:55:00.000-07:00

On Canada Day, a few individuals were reprimanded for pissing on a war memorial in Ottawa. The news received national coverage, appearing twice on the nationally syndicated news program, The National. Some called it: “an atrocity of immeasurable proportions,” others petitioned politicians to insure the sanctity of the memorial by securing the surrounding premises with vigilant Mounties. Ottawa South MP, David McGuinty, was perhaps the most damning in his contempt of the perpetrators calling them “the worst of the worst that society has to offer.” It is presumed that the group in which these offenders are a part, as claimed by McGuinty, includes rapists and murderers. Not only am I disinclined to see the drunk adolescents as card carriers of this particular group, I am baffled that McGuinty suggests they constitute the “worst” of this group. It is an egregious error in political judgment tantamount to the very lack of general judgment for which the subjects of his condemnation are guilty.

In political terms, the solution is clear and risk-free: the perpetrators are young, usually overly apathetic when it comes to voting, the victim is the very ideal for which any nation exists – patriotism - and the solution, a simple, yet firm statement expressing the punishment for any indiscretions in the future. One needs only a morsel of political acumen to hit the ‘ball out of the park’. Yet, by being overly critical of the youths and issuing incorrect analogies, McGuinty’s gauche handling of the situation is as exposed and foul smelling as the urine which now coats the steps of the war memorial.

The furor, articulated mostly by retired generals and self-serving politicals –typified by McGuinty - all seemed a bit vacuous. It was ignorance, fury and self-righteousness dressed up as patriotism by an ever obliging media, who - having recognized the symbolism of the story rather than the substance of it - were all too happy to pander to the special interests of some entrenched former pugilists and contemporary mugwamps looking for some quick political capital. There is, however, a more puzzling element within this topical discussion, one that is characterized not necessarily by the self-serving antics of various politicals but rather by the unquestioned presence, purpose and relevance of the “war memorial” in general to society.

In the early 19th century, Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist, wrote: “War is merely a continuation of politics by other means.” While the quote is itself a trite, somewhat hackneyed synthesis of a much larger theoretical treatise: On War, for which Clausewitz is best known, its general resonance today, and within this particular story, begs some further consideration.
Our country, and indeed most countries, recognizes fallen soldiers by way of erecting what is invariably a phallic monument situated in some public sphere. While I have no problem with the act of erecting monuments to those ‘that have fallen’ - apart from the unjustified lionizing of ‘those that fall’ (from 1990 to 2003 an American service men was six times more likely to be murdered by one of his comrades, nineteen times more likely to kill himself and fifty times more like to die in an accident than to be killed in combat– N. Ferguson, Colossus, Penguin; 2003) - it seems necessary to infuse a bit of logic, by way of Clausewitzian theory, into the debate.

If war is diplomacy by other means; that is, if they are essentially the same, why then do we have only 'war memorials' and no 'diplomacy memorials'. Pacts, alliances, treaties and accords kill just as many people, if not more than wars do - and they do it in a much more insidious fashion: by constructing themselves as for the ‘greater good’. I don’t see diplomacy memorials for those that died obscure deaths in a hospital in Scarborough or Moncton because the government decided to spend his or her Medicare on improving NAFTA or softwood lumber. I encourage war over diplomacy: it doesn't get one wrapped into malevolent pacts with illusory friends and imaginative evils like treaties, alliances and 'general agreements'.

While I do not necessarily condone the actions of those that pissed on the war memorials, those public figures that hastily vilified the perpetrators of the act would themselves benefit from a healthier, more rigorous sense of judgment when publicly excoriating the acts of their fellow citizens.

I heart Fetish: the Bourgeoisie Paradox

2006-07-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

It’s not so much the fetish that I heart, but the idea of possessing one. Since adolescence various authorities have told me, well not me directly, but certainly indirectly, to resist the urge to do what your ‘body tells you to.’ Ive never really had a problem resisting the things my ‘body says’ it desires, the problem Ive cultivated is one much more pernicious: not doing what my body tells me to do. I’ve tried, earnestly, to do things that I want to do, but each time my efforts are deflected by a strong sense of one of two things (and in some cases both): indifference, and lethargy. I can’t help but not do what I want to do.

Mine is a disease common amongst jaded disjointed, well off and well adjusted youth (too well adjusted). I was once convinced that my lethargy was the result not of some consistent predilection for indigence but rather of some fortuitous, catastrophic event in my youth of which my laziness is a simply a symptom. This is only in part true. I suffer from a much more oblique evil, the intellectual shrapnel wounds of which are manifest in my lack of desire. There is a great sense of foreboding within this suspended reality: everything eventually slides to the middle. It is ultimately a state, as economists have dubbed it, of equilibrium. Ultimately all rational individuals with expendable incomes recognize the world for what it has been made to look like to them: a world of opportunity, where everything is possible except failure. It is the bourgeoisie paradox: why pursue anything when you have everything?

Her and History

2006-06-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

There are two opposing strains of thought concerning the worth of history. The first, expressed by philosopher George Santayana, claims: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The second, antithetical to the first was originally declared by Freidrich Hegel and later paraphrased by one of History’s greatest actors, Winston Churchill, follows: "The one thing we have learned from history is that we don't learn from history." It seems however, to examine the true worth of history - if that is indeed possible - these particular strains of thought are relevant only in so much as they constitute the opposing ends of the spectrum of the debate.
The history of History is convoluted. It is, for some, a moral anchor and a necessarily incorrigible truism. Those who violate it, as David Irving is intimately aware, do so at the risk not only of one’s own freedom, but more importantly and naturally more contentiously, at the behest of the devil – as some may have you believe. Irving’s indiscretions, being as they were, un-scholarly and hackneyed, received their rightful recompense but only because he was an anti-semite. However, while the substance of his work may not reach beyond the superficial anti-semitic rhetoric in which it was marinated, the philosophical argument concerning the nature of his work – revisionism – remains on the concious backburner for many a historian and philosopher. There are, for some, specific events that cannot and should not be open to different interpretations. The phrase ‘never forget’ speaks to this sentiment. For others, History’s dissolution into the minutiae of personal pasts is necessary. History is, they argue, the consolidation of millions of personal histories, reasoned, articulated and forwarded by and of the tip of the academic sphere – intimidatingly, forcefully - and to others – liberally or coservatively. And to some, it is neither something to be forgotten nor is to be remembered, rather, it is just to be. What then with such ambiguous definitions of history is history’s worth today?

The worth of history in making decisions, such as invading Iraq, labeling genocides, and more topically, invading Iran, inevitably cut across many spectrums of interpretation each couched in endless levels of dense ideological and philosophical bias.

Often our understanding of and appreciation for History is more nuanced than those views expressed by Churchill and Santayana. It is naturally encumbered by fractured thoughts, manufactured opinions, sensitivities and proximities. Fraught with such inconsistencies and inconveniences, traversing the academic terrain of historical analysis is mission impossible. It is a post-modernist minefield. As Lothrop Mothley said of History to the NY Historical Society in 1868: “ It is all confused babble, hieroglyphics of which the key is lost.” Despite History’s necessarily modest conceptual boundaries, it, more than any other form of academic inquiry, penetrates the public discourse. For this reason alone it stands to be worth something. Why, though?

One reason is that everyone has history, each can reference their own past. Arthur Schlesinger said of history that “it is to the nation as memory is to the individual.” History is thus the projection of individual pasts upon a collective canvass. This is the pixelization of history; only coherent from a distance. This distance though is not of space, but rather a distance of time; time from the ‘screen’ of the past.

There exists an intimate relationship with history within the self. In this way, each individual of society has within themselves a particular history – one that is easily referenced, brought upon debate and thrashed about at dinners throughout the world. It is this intimate relationship we have with our own history that makes history as a justified form of academic inquiry so vile.

Such conveniences are not extendable to other academic lines of thought that are equally - and indeed, the argument is made here - far more relevant to current events, than those methodologies preached by the historian. Sociology, Psychology and Economics do not themselves lend to easy incorporation into everyday debate. They are for that same reason often marginalized for their lack of a ‘personal touch’. They require at the very least elementary understanding of basic concepts and, being as they are, not necessarily everyday experiences (ie; no one has a sociology or a psychology for which they feel or have felt objectively exposed, in contrast to that of history), the average person is less inclined to relate to abstract concepts. History, however, is with us all. We reference it, analyze it, forget it and remember it. History thus trumps all other line of academic inquiry simply by way of presence. Its presence in both our subconscious and conscious thought impedes our ability to think objectively about events, people, actions and movements. Schlesinger, responsible for packaging a potent, proud and righteous history for which JFK is indebted for both gaining his presidency and a Nobel, called these “permutations of consciousness.” Like all spin-doctors, Schlesinger was a master of deciphering new permutations of history – in an effort to contextualize the present in manner fitting of a great nation. In this way, history, having as it was several interpretations, is the anti-christ of academic inquiry. History is everywhere and at the same time nowhere.

Crucially, though, presence does not then beget relevance. On the contrary, relevance may in fact be best understood by the lack of presence. Even if we were to have ‘the annals of mankind’ in our lap to read, as Motley claimed 150 years ago, it would be beyond the human capacity to do so.
It was Marx, a historical theorist in his own right, in Das Kapital, that suggested that the real factors that control humankind’s destiny lie below the superficies of the knowable, deliberately and necessarily beyond our collective or individual ken. The contemporary ‘false consciousness’ – the term Marx used for such a state of ignorance and under which he believed all but the capitalists were held captive - is the product not of some nefarious plot conjured by ideologues, capitalists or of some similarly slimy ilk (as Marx might argue), though it may be deliberately forwarded by them, but of each person’s exposure to their own individual history or to our own individual ‘annals’. The mere act of inquiring into one’s past, let alone a nation’s, is in and of itself a doomed endeavor forever a fruitless, counterproductive pursuit. Collective history dogmas, those that speak of events, movements, people and places as though they happened in isolation to both their actors and framers struggle earnestly to disambiguate history from itself. When then we speak of a collective history such as WWI or the Cold War, we are really attempting to consolidate individual histories into various shared histories – a process that irrevocably distorts history so as to produce a palatably democratic one. Palatable permutations are the victors not truth. We are thus held to ‘never forget’ an event like the Holocaust if only because we can never truly do justice to it through the anti-rational pursuit of history. Thus we try and remember it by way of fracturing it off into little things like: memoirs, numbers, pictures, records etc. We may in some cases restrict the various ‘permutations’ of these variables, or those voices such as Irving’s that pursue them, but ultimately the permutations for which we are responsible are fraught with similar endless fights, each victimized by an earnest though subjective tendency: the pursuit of truth.

Peace Corpse

2006-04-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

An Army of Peace

Spiro Agnew, UN Ambassodor under the JFK administration, once characterized the America Peace Corps as "a spirit of national masochism, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." His statement has stood the test of time, regrettably.

Designed to corral the virile and sustained optimism common amongst youngsters proceeding graduation and in an effort to funnel it into constructive programmatic development projects rather than have it siphoned off into the degenerative abyss that is after graduation domestic employment in the US, the American aide agency, the Peace Corps, is by most standards a valiant, worthwhile development objective. It attempts to marry the quixotic views of American peaceniks with that of its unwieldy though equally ambitious paradigmatic cousin: the American development agenda. It is un-holy alliance, between those that make policy (Government) and those that are the physical manifestation of it (Peace Corps volunteer). This grotesque partnership is personified by the unabashedly opinionated, helplessly unintelligent, overwhelmingly ignorant, and lastly, and perhaps most regrettably, ubiquitous Peace Corps volunteer.

The first thing that strikes you about the Peace Corps is the name. It suggests a sort-of Hobbesian world, where anarchy reigns. Peace is won, but only through the legions of idealistic, lost, confused 20 somethings fighting for it. It implies an army of Peace (which is in itself an unadmirable oxymoron), in which individuals are labeled volunteers, or, when taken collectively, a corps. Despite its intentions, the semantics are decided militaristic. Secondly, it registers ‘volunteers’ despite the fact that the stipend they receive far exceeds that of any ‘native’ they are charged with aiding. It is indicative of another paradox within the Corps. The Corps relies heavily on appealing to one's self interest (in the form of tuition repayment schemes, career opportunities and a substantial stipend upon completion: $7,000) to recruit people. Yet it asks them, once signed, to be selfless, to teach and propogate. It thus attracts a brutally self-seeking, opportunist type of individual interested only in preaching.

Crouched over, attempting to escape the thunderous rain under an awning in downtown Nairobi, I had the misfortune of meeting my first Peace Corps volunteer. It was a loud night, the rain hit the awning with a deafening, consistent beat a sound I was soon to beg for. I stood in a corner hoping the only other white person corralled in with us wouldn't drag me into a conversation that I not only did not wish to participate in but feared might involve the weather. Luckily neither happened. She ended up speaking to me, but neither about the weather nor with the intent to elicit dialogue. This happened to me a lot with Peace Corps people: they tended to talk about things not with, but at me and not about anything but rather about everything. I found this lack of coherence disturbing partly because it sounded very similar to how I had envisioned a subject in a Picasso picture might talk, struggling to open its disjointed jaw only to spew out a distorted and disjointed smattering of vowels, ultimately resigned to the fact that it simply was not meant to speak. Simple resignation however, was not a trait possessed by peace corps volunteers. I often used art as a basis through which I could compare Peace Corps volunteers to normal people. It provided for me the visual representation necessary in understanding what seemed to me a species not only appropriate for but the heinous product of another world. A world where being a wallflower was not only not a euphemism but also an admirable trait and, all be it, a functional reality. Mostly, though, it took my attention away from having to listen to them. It was not so much my first encounter with the Peace Corps that piqued me, but rather, the consistently bad encounters that followed. The mind can only take but 5, at very most, 6 conversations with these idealistic, uber-motivated muftis before it begins to wonder not just about the Peace Corps, humanity and life itself but of more reasonable questions like: the reason for their ubiquity. They are everywhere, inescapable, the personification of spam. Unfortunately, no human faculty of mine could discern an ‘x’ on which I might click. It was not long before I made the seemingly simple philosophical leap from not concerning so much of the guy (Peace Corps volunteer) as I did about the ‘guy behind the guy’: the US government. To a certain extent, those who participate within the Peace Corps are given, through the mandate on which the Peace Corps is itself framed, a sort-of moral, intellectual and culture ascendancy. They are told to teach rather than to learn, to patronize rather than to care and to talk rather than to not. Despite that many Peace corps volunteers are liberals, they exult views that are neither progressive nor open. It is fundamentally opposed to the idea of indigenous knowledge. Indeed the phrase itself is understood as an oxymoron. The ethic of willful ignorance is palpable.The first goal of the Peace Corps is to " Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women."

There is little effort to learn from the subjects as they are told not to listen - and most are inclined to not without having been being told - but to teach. Perhaps Incapable of making the connection, peace corps volunteers spend their time disaffected, ignorant and irritated. The peace corps volunteer is thus the ultimate manifestation of their government’s moral, ethical and philosophical core: ignorant, infuriating and everywhere.

Coping with Hoping

2006-04-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

Hope did this

A recent survey by Gallup International Association of 50,000 people across the world found that Africans are the most optimistic people. Asked whether 2006 would be better than 2005, 57 percent said yes. Asked if they would be more prosperous this year than last, 55 percent said yes.

Where does such relentless optimism in the face of unyielding misery come from? Africans can expect to live the shortest lives, earn the lowest incomes and suffer some of the worst misrule on the planet. They are more likely than anyone on earth to bury their children before the age of 5, to become infected with HIV, to die from malaria and tuberculosis, to require food aid.

Could the paradox of African optimism be reducible to pure idiocy? Perhaps it is simply a rational response to an overwhelming sense of pessimism; a sort of collective cognitive dissonance. Often this perceived dissonance is reduced, without justification, to a cliché: those without anything have only hope to live for. However, this specific cliché, as argued here, mistakes ends for means. Hope is insufficient as an end. Alone, it is but the mere motivation inspired, embodied by and emanating from a desire (often this hope is manifested as an irrational reliance on events extemporaneous from the self). That is to say that hope alone, baseless as it is, is never an end nor is it even sufficient as a means to a desired end. Thus no one lives for hope nor does hope allow the possessor of it to live for the end it irrationally motivates. Re-defined then, hope, is merely the perpetrator of irrational perseverance.

In Greek mythology Hope is personified as Elpis. Elpis, mother of Pheme - Goddess of Rumor - is often portrayed as a young naive woman. In the one myth that involves Elpis directly, Pandora - the main character - opens her box so as to let out all the ‘evils’ except one: Hope. These associations are not coincidence. Hope’s propinquity to evil and her birthing of the Goddess of Rumor call attention to her capacity for perversion. Taken within the context of contemporary events in Africa, its role, though equally as devious, is, however, more likely the subversion of reason rather the propagation of rumor.

Primo Levi, in his book Hope and Despair in Auschwitz, suggested hope and reason, opposite as they are, lie within the same continuum. He calls attention to this continuum by locating the idea of hope antithetically to reason: “…and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and in the other, uncertainty of the following day.” His uncertainty, rather than his hope, allowed him to persevere beyond the limits hope had set for others. Hope implies a certain amount of perseverance, a perseverance born not of reasonable inclinations, but rather, in contradiction to them. It is the act of believing that something is possible even when there is some if not all evidence to the contrary. Being that it is fundamentally counter-productive to solve problems through the willful neglect of reason and reality its purpose and ultimately its survival within the human psychee is reliant upon the suspension of reality. In doing so it operates as a mechanism through which leaders and major religions in Africa enslave those they claim to represent. It is a theme not unfamiliar to those with power in Africa.

Steven Biko and Frantz Fanon, two philosophical towers of black consciousness thought, believed that the balance between hope and despair - that which the British and French colonial governments had mastered - had prevented the development of identity and purpose in the oppressed and had led to the perpetuation of the fractured self, which was, and remains still, manifest in the idea of 'hope'. Under its spell, hope compels one to look forward rather than at and beyond rather than within. The Black 'self' under apartheid, Biko argues, was incapable of finding meaning in action and thus resorted to hope. This psychological state, elegantly phrased by Biko in his only book, I Write What I Like, led him to believe that "the most valuable weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed". This condition, as it concerns the manipulation of the mind by the conjuring of hope, resonates within contemporary events.

Distinguishable, if only by its topicality, Kenya's First Lady - Lucy Kibaki - after a spate of 'bad luck' (famine in the north plane crash in same region) has, by some grotesque miss-use of governmental fiat, established a day of prayer so as to heel the country of its bad luck. Kibaki, the ruthless shrew she is, is not herself so much concerned about the spate of “bad luck” as she is the detrimental effects bad luck has on the perseverance of hope within the minds of the Kenyan psychee. That is to say, her reliance on divine intervention is merely a thinly veiled ploy in an attempt to maintain a level of hopefulness. What better way to deflect scrutiny then to chalk it up to the gods. Read more about Kenyan dignitarial despairs with Moi's call to arms (be they the extensions of clenched hands in prayer) here: http://allafrica.com/stories/200604210891.html.

It should also be noted that even amongst this optimistic, hope-filled fervor there remain pockets of pessimism, though these pockets of optimism often reside exclusively within sectors of African society (government) that might inspire the exact opposite emotion: optimism (if only because African governments have a remarkable track record of absorbing their country's resources, and within it, the optimism the citizenry might otherwise lay claim to). The resulting paradox, then, that pervades virtually every ‘social space’ in Africa is: how individualistic and cynical African politicians are, and how communal and hopeful most African citizens are. Between rulers and ruled, there is little connection or even shared values. The result is a dysfunctional political culture where big men operate within the most cynical realms of Machiavellian real-politik and the citizens below within the cushy confines of ignorance. So why then are politicians – individuals with, comparatively speaking, far better life prospects then the underlings that support them – pessimistic, while lowly citizens – people who have little to live and very much to die for – are optimistic? Religion.

Religion, if anything, seeks to re-conceptualize pessimism as optimism. It harvests an optimism far removed from any rational thought. In fact, the very foundation on which religion is based requires the existence of a gap between reality and reason. In the west it does so through employing, and indeed, evangelizing the sanctity of the written word of god – as captured, they reason, in the Bible. In Africa, not only is the space between fact and fiction infinitesimal (as described in several oral history accounts that bear no resemblance to truth), but the arbiter defining which is what (fact or fiction) is not the written word, but rather, the spoken one. Oral testament in African religion, culture, society is profound. It carries a moral significance and omnipresent relevance that’s rivaled by no other communicatory method. In Africa, compelling and charismatic reconnoiters decide where and to what extent this gap exists. They’re bounded not by antediluvian ethics delineated in some tome 2000 years ago, but rather only by the whim of their wit. They are, essentially, responsible for both the rhyme and reason. Africans, then, are optimistic precisely because the leaders that rule them have provided the religio-ethical edifice necessary to make it so.

My Jim Crow Theory

2006-02-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

When living or traveling in the third-world it is often hard to grasp the significance of the poverty and despair one frequently witnesses. Often we seek to understand these foreign elements through exhibiting some form of compassion, usually manifested in the overly empathetic and not necessarily crystallizing mantra ‘put yourself in their shoes’. I tried that and it didn’t work. Often the person I was staring at had no shoes for me to put my feet in - nor would I want to had they. I tried, sometimes even earnestly, to give a shit about the social decay that I so often was a part of, if not responsible for. Instead, I found a new way of appreciating the significance of social decay. I now look at the size of the crows that live in the city. For example, yesterday I saw a crow the size of a my bed-side table. Had I weighed it, which I momentarily contemplated, it would’ve tipped the scales at nearly 30 lbs.
The degree to which crows, specifically, and flying objects in general, are disproportionately sized to the environment which they live, is the key factor I now use in assessing the general degree of social decay in specific regions. I watched this horrific flying beast feast on a heaping pile of burning rubbish for nearly an hour. It was masterful in its environment: meticulously discarding plastic in one pile while sifting deftly through the flaming feces in the other. This crow knew how to scavenge. Similar to the products of Beethoven’s brown study in squalor or Michelangelo’s maniacal masterpieces in suspension, this crow was clearly master of its domain, unfettered by anything. Though its domain was flaming asshole shit and, quite possibly, bird flu, it was undeterred in its pursuit of excellence. But, much the same as its prodigal predecessors, this crow was too good for its own well-being: it had become enormous and could not fly, so it simply sat there waiting to digest. Such is the case with many crows in Africa, the social decay (measured here in terms of the lack of sanitary systems, poor sewage mechanisms and number of burning piles of crap) and the inevitable run-off it creates, offers up feasts so plentiful and so accessible, the purpose of flying is deemed useful only when seeking one’s next feast. Gradually their wings become smaller and their mass greater. Thus, the crows evolve, as any animal does, to suit its environment. It is the endearing logic of Darwinism, only its methodology in this case is used as a means to analyze a different end: how shitty a place actually is. This is why crows in Kenya, on average, resemble medium-sized dogs; in DRC their enormous plumage is used as roofing for huts and in Nigeria I’ve heard of people mistakenly boarding them thinking they're small passenger aircrafts. It is no wonder, then, that the shittier the place, the huger the fucking crow.

Affirmative Distraction: Revisited, now with more right-wing inflammation

2006-01-25T04:59:00.000-08:00

Affirmative Action is one of the most controversial social engineering schemes in recent history. If the heart of the debate concerns the general equality of society, its beat, or that which maintains the intensity of the debate, is its reliance on race as a proxy for evaluating that equality. Yet, as obvious as the issues the debate conjures, it is nonetheless colored by several contributing, though not necessarily germane factors. Viewed through the lens of economic analyses and in comparison to another equally contentious debate - that of racial profiling - the controversy assumes a further hue.

Affirmative Action vs. Racial Profiling

Affirmative action amounts to the use of race as a proxy for other, harder-to-discern qualities: racial victimization, poverty, cultural deprivation; whereas racial profiling is the act of using race as a proxy by law enforcement to ascertain the degree to which a group or individual may endanger the public. Both, however, claim to have the same objective - improving the well-being of society - irrespective of their actual outcomes. The difference is that one rewards arbitrarily, where the other condemns arbitrarily. Ironically, then, while RP and AA may share similar means (using race as a proxy) and claim identical objectives (improving the well-being of society), their actual outcomes (one singles out minorities for something desirable while the other for something undesirable) bare no resemblance. Metaphorically speaking, these policies act in much the same way the human digestive tract does: where the mouth accepts objects into the body (as affirmative action does for society) - the other (the asshole) - rejects them. While the two may work to achieve the same goal - maintenance of the general homeostasis of the body - each are stigmatized, unjustly, by the function (and location) which they serve.

Compassionate or Racist?

If Racial Profiling is essentially the same as Affirmative Action in its methods and intentions, how is it that one policy is considered compassionate while the other simply racist – or asshole? The following intends to explain that while neither is exclusively racist or compassionate, one – the racial profiler - may be more compassionate than the other – the affirmative action advocate.

Efficiency

In economics there is a term called information cost. It is essentially the cost incurred when one seeks information on a given subject. One is said to be an efficient member of society most if he or she is capable of using their time in an efficient manner: ie, minimizing the time expended seeking information while simultaneously achieving one’s intended outcome.(Economics abhors inefficiency; in fact, it claims that members of society that do not aim to maximize their own efficiency, minimize the aggregate efficiency of society, and hence, hinder the overall development of society. The individual, then, that does not maximize her own efficiency is a retrogressive entity acting not in the interest of her fellow citizens or society itself, who ultimately inhibits not only her own development but also that of society’s.) Thus, efficiency, in most scenarios, is defined by the relative success/failure of one’s endeavors counterweighed by the time spent achieving them. However, if we are to adapt this definition of efficiency to the debate surrounding affirmative action and racial profiling we must also consider the unique potential outcomes of each scenario, specifically in regards to public safety and time outlay.

Time, Safety, Information Cost and Reasoning

In both of the following scenarios time and safety play particularly unique roles. As we have already learnt, the amount of time allowed, or taken, invariably influences the efficiency of the solution. Likewise, the degree to which society’s safety is in danger (which usually concerns the level of time expended in making a decision) in a given scenario invariably affects its outcome. Thus, the most beneficial solution to society is the one that minimizes one’s time, danger and information cost while maximizing one’s odds of achieving success. Economics says that the individual who is most capable of combining the four elements in the most efficient way - the pareto efficient solution (ie: enough information and enough reasoning or reliance on odds in the least amount of time and greatest level of public safety) is the more efficient individual, and therefore, the individual that is more beneficial, and, economically peaking, more compassionate to her or his fellow citizens.

Racial Profiling Scenario

Transpose this economic analysis onto that of a racial profiling and affirmative action scenario. Often profiling is done quickly, frequently with little time to think. Time, then, though not absolute, is the most important variable. Thus both the capacity to reason and the ability to seek alternative routes for further information are to a degree compromised. The act of seeking further information is therefore relatively more dangerous to society than the act of reasoning, as it is more time consuming. Thus, the individual more beneficial to society in this situation is the individual that is most capable of reaching a conclusion having incurred the least information cost and highest degree of safety in the least amount of time. Often then, profiling one’s race is the quickest (and therefore least expensive in terms of information cost) and most reliable barometer for safety profiling as it offers a quick assessment and directly attributable odds. Though the information gleaned is imperfect at best, it provides the most adequate measurement in the least amount of time with the most regard to public safety. The conclusion then that can be reached is that the one who seeks further information incurs both an unnecessary cost to society while also compromising his own and that of society’s safety in the process.

Affirmative Action Scenario

In Affirmative Action scenarios there is no such time limit. It is not nearly as pressing as the racial profiling scenario might be. Though it is not necessarily unencumbered by considerations of public safety, the danger it entails is equally if not more serious. The danger of affirmative action is that there is the potential of accepting or promoting a relatively speaking lesser achieving individual. Indeed the logic on which it is based intends this. The danger then resides not so much in the immediate time-span, but in the long run. The structural danger, or soft violence, of having undeserving individuals in seats of power is in many cases, as, if not more dangerous, to the well-being of society as identifying a terrorist is in the short term. In doing so, we dismiss the principles of meritocracy in exchange for anarchy and randomness – two ideals that rarely contribute seriously to any debate concerning social policy. This is the reason that months are often given to assess an individual’s adequacy for a program, school or position. Thus, the opposite of the previous case exists: the most efficient and most beneficial person to society is the one that seeks more information on which they can base their judgment. Instead of time being the most important variable, information is. The value then of the time as a variable decreases relative to the other variables: safety and information cost. This then allows one, without becoming less efficient than the racial profiler at the airport, more time to consider other factors irrespective of skin. Indeed, economics encourages him/her not to consider skin, as this is the fastest and least appropriate measurement in this scenario.

In conclusion, the best scenario for society (as defined by efficiency in four variables: time, danger, information cost and odds) is to continue racial profiling and discontinue Affirmative Action.

Flat maps and Gender Neutrality

2006-01-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

I don’t get this. I was scorned a few days ago for shitting all over a half-baked theory that a qausi-feminist threw-up on our Christmas brunch discussion. Her comment was this: we are socialized to believe that males and females have different distinct roles and that gender bias nouns, prefixes, titles, etc reinforce and perpetuate these divisive roles. She claims that through the common use of words like “businessman,” “Chairmen” or “he” rather than “she,” we have internalized these meanings so much so that they have affected the way we think, act and conceive of gender roles.

What then would cartographers think of the common wall map that has for centuries represented the world as flat? Would they then be up in arms, saying that flat maps misrepresent the globe as being anything but spherical, and that the distribution of flat maps has brainwashed the ignorant public into believe this is so? Would they file class action law suits to make sure every school burns its flat maps? The answer is No. This is because as scientists they know better. They realize that that re-supplying schools with spherical representations of the world or hiring a “global-sphere consultant" to rectify wrongs would take away from the public’s purse unnecessarily. They know that people will not think that the world is flat merely as a result of it being commonly represented as such. No, they know that we know better.

Such is not the case for feminists. They hold a fraction of the trust in society that the common cartographer has; in fact, they believe society as a whole is ignorant to its own malicious gender bias manifestations.

At one Swedish library, you can borrow books—and a lesbian

2005-08-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

A Swedish library, realizing that books are not the only things being judged by their covers, will give visitors a different opportunity this weekend—to borrow a Muslim, a lesbian, or a Dane.

The city library in Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, will let curious visitors check out living people for a 45-minute chat in a project meant to tear down prejudices about different religions, nationalities, or professions. The project, called Living Library, was introduced at Denmark's Roskilde Festival in 2000, librarian Catharina Noren said. It has since been tried at a Copenhagen library as well as in Norway, Portugal, and Hungary.

The people available to be "borrowed" also include a journalist, a gypsy, a blind man, and an animal rights activist. They will be available Saturday and Sunday in conjunction with a Malmo city festival and are meant to give people "a new perspective on life," the library said in a statement. "There are prejudices about everything," Noren said. "This is about fighting those prejudices and promoting coexistence."

Borrowing a person will be free, and the library will also provide coffee at its cafe where the "living books" will answer questions about their lives, beliefs, or jobs. "It's supposed to be relaxed and human-to-human," Noren said.

Malmo, located on Sweden's southwestern coast, has one of Sweden's largest immigrant communities. It is also located just a narrow strait away from Denmark, and centuries of warfare between the countries has been replaced with a friendlier rivalry in recent decades. Still, both nationalities have several stereotypes about their neighbors. "Danish Radio called to ask what prejudice we have about Danes," Noren said. "They had some tough questions for me."

Interest in the project has been high, Noren said, although the library does not allow bookings—the human subjects will be checked out on a first-come, first-served basis. And it will not necessarily be people with prejudices who will take the opportunity. "It could be that you're about to belong to one of these categories yourself, such as someone losing their eyesight," Noren said. "Or it could be someone who just found out their child is a lesbian. But then there are people who just want to unload a lot of anger. These people [who get borrowed] are ready for anything to happen."

The "living books" are all from the Malmo area and were recruited via different organizations and associations. However, it wasn't possible to find suitable subjects from all desired professions. "We would have liked to have a police officer and maybe a meter maid," Noren said. (AP)

God's Playground (and, subsequently, where I plan on retiring)

2005-08-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Residents say they often see God soaking up the sun on his veranda, often slurping on a few My Thais, soothing the pangs of old-age. Since losing millions during a bout with online rummy, God's fallen on hard times. He's taken to trawling the beach with a metal detector. Other times, when his arthritic hands allow it, he sketches the serene landscape podering what the future holds for him. His presence on the foreshore, regretabbly, has since been curbed, as many took to accosting him about "life issues." There is apparently "nothing he hates more." Nevertheless, God always makes sure he hands out a few ice cream cones to the young tykes. Recently, I had a chance to talk to god. I mine the depths of God's mind in search of some words of wisdom. Amongst other things discussed, God mentioned his past-time of trail-farting in public and listening to trip hop.

EP: God, first, I apprecia....
God: Shit, that's my mobile let me get that, hold on, uhm what was it? Erik?
EP: No, but...
God: Please, shutup this is important I need to take this.
EP: Got it.
God: OK, so Erik, sorry 'bout that, that was my AIG officer, seems my mortgage has gone to shit... kikes.
EP: Right, where was I? Uhm, yes I was just wanting to talk to you a bit about how you're coping with life,?
God: Fine, the wife's deceased, kids moved out years back...uhm, I got a tight little maisonette down on 1st there- water front, what else you got...hit me.
EP: Any particular activities you pass the time with, now that your Cuban live-in maid has installed a parental internet filter?
God: I spend most of my evenings listening to trip hop, or acid jazz, ocassionally I open up a place in my schedule to trail-fart in the local public houses.
EP: Im listening, care to lucubrate?
God: Lucubrate? Kid, don't be coy, I dont know whtat the shit means. Listen: actually, I gotta go, I got a 2:30; could we rescheduled this...acutally, no, Id rather we just left it at that. (aside) I need a double sidecar.
EP: Gosh, I was thinking we might flesh out some...
God: Listen kid, I lied, I dont have a 2:30, and you have short arms.

And so with that, God, it turns out, is a cocksucker. He answered two questions, and he kicked sand in my face and attempted to push me over as I reached to tie my shoes. I gotta be honest: bit of a fuck.

The end of Ed

2005-08-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

Story 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/education/01bible.html

(note: You will need a subscription to access the articles)

"When the school board in Odessa, the West Texas oil town, voted unanimously in April to add an elective Bible study course to the 2006 high school curriculum, some parents dropped to their knees in prayerful thanks that God ...The critics say it ignores evolution in favor of creationism and gives credence to dubious assertions that the Constitution is based on the Scriptures, and that "documented research through NASA" backs the biblical account of the sun standing still."

Story 2: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/education/02gym.html

Public Schools Begin to Offer Gym Classes Online

Posner on Pills

2005-08-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

With no less than eight honorary degrees to his name, Richard Posner takes a stab at exposing America's pharmaceutical companies for what they really are: malevolent...for providing AIDS retrovirus drugs.

"Although heartless, I do not agree that African nations should receive anti-AIDS drugs on a subsidized basis. Drugs that reduce the severity of an infectious disease can actually foster the spread of the disease by making the disease less costly to people who contract it. Pending development of a vaccine (still not in sight), the only effective way of dealing with the African AIDS epidemic is adoption of safe sex. The AIDS drugs will retard that adoption by reducing the benefits."

site: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

Injecting bin Laden

2005-07-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

It struck me a few days ago, whilst popping some pills - pills that had been prescribed by a licensed immunologist for the prevention of Typhoid- that what I was doing was far from the innocuous (no pun intended) action I had hitherto thought it was. I rarely dispute, or for that matter, question the legitimacy of the medical establishment -especially on those that I depend. As a vaccine, my wilful ingestion was a potential act of suicide, a calculated one at that. Before this gets misconstrued as some trite Scientological epiphany, let me say now, I have no affiliation with any or all forms of the Cruisian brand of medicinal ethics. In fact this is less a piece on ethics as it is on the potential sociological effects of the vaccination logic. Vaccines are diseases, by definition, just in small amounts. So our contribution, as scientists, was, and continues to be, to literally internalize the problem. Our solution was to make the problem our own. For fear of sounding too dramatic, to become one with the problem. Instead of sending up force fields to block the intrusion (salient and relatively feckless examples of this strategy include the astronomical - literally and figuratively - Ballistic Missile Defense Shield and the Israeli "gate")we wilfully accept it. My point is this: why isn’t this logic transferable to sociological problems or ‘viruses,’ such as terrorists. Could we not treat these anomalies as we do our genealogical ones? In the latter half of the 19th century HG Wells presciently posed a similar question. The recent adaptation of his book War of the Worlds into movie form only tangentially exposes the real force behind Wells' brilliant, albeit, comic narrative. The eventual demise of the 'alien intruders' was less a result of any human effort as it was the exacting clime we exist within. That is to say that our greatest defense is not in preventing intrusion of our society (in Wells' book ecosystem), but in provoking it. Internalize bin Laden, internalize Muqtadah al Sadr, allow our societal immune system to develop antibodies and shield ourselves not from the outside, but from within.

The birds must die

2005-06-17T10:29:00.000-07:00

Cornered

The reign of birds must now end. For millenniums birds have gazed from their atmospheric dwellings on the toilings of the less fortunate. They have blissfully shat copious shits on the shoulders of the unlucky. Some, such as the sardonic parrot, have gone so far as to mock our every word with striking impunity, and yet we put up with it. The effrontery has become palpable. Even the most innocuous of their kind, the penguin, a hapless yet brilliant bird, is in on it. While some believe their flightless shortcomings are genetic, those in the know are aware of their real intentions: to mock our social elite. Waddling aimlessly around in formal wear, the penguin cannot help but be a biting social commentator. Why are we spending so much time on killing other species? Species that have treated us with relative deference; species whom have reluctantly, but willfully, recognized our superior intellect and happily taken the middle seat allowing us the coveted aisle seat of civilization. We have become too enamored with our new found leg room, it has lulled us into a blissful nap. As we sleep, birds hover above, plotting, waiting to strike with their next batch of fecal flying matter. The time is nigh, call your local MP or otherwise representative, and tell them simply: "The birds must die."

The Postal Service

2005-05-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

The ultra-cool band, The Postal Service, just got cooler. When no-one was looking - save Zach Braff of Garden State fame - The Postal Service introduced a CD that has the potential to rock the music world. The Village voice claims their unique sound is redolent of Neil Young's Trans album and U2's Pop Album; two albums that pissed all over the proverbial toilet seat of the modern music industry. Allow me, however, to take a step further and say their CD, Give Up, is potentially the greatest of it's generation. The synth-pop feel to the album is both a throw-back to the 1980s and a precocious movement to the future of music. The Postal Service's particular brand is perhaps best described as the progeny of the illicit threesome including synth-pop, laptoperization and dubbed over emo-lyrics. Yet the lyrics suggest a far deeper fathomization than those in Simple Plan can lay claim to. Theirs is an artful musical calculus, one that integrates the human and the humanoid to give soundtrack to the disconnected, yet earnest escapades of contemporary emotional life. Thanks to the Postal Service the future has found its tradition, and technology finally has a soul.

Collar ID

2005-05-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

The popped collar in its natural habitat

Since its conception, the shirt collar has been both damned by leftist social historians and oppressed by Parisian fashion moguls. Its original purpose - the "backbone" of the common dress shirt and supporting edifice of the omnipresent tie - has evolved to represent several new meanings. While social historians claim its purpose is singularly evil: the collar is a malignant and malevolent outgrowth of the common shirt that seeks to divide the world into two by way of a sinister apartheid-esque coloring schema ( blue and white), others claim its purpose is still under-understood. Recently however, the collar has been the subject of harsh and backbreaking injustices. As a result of years of oppression by low-rent fashionistas the collar has succumbed. The world of fashion has raped the collar's functional purpose by "popping" them, effectively denying the collar of it's life purpose. Until now, however, I was ignorant of how important and vital this physical alteration was to society. Chris Abraham fills in my blanks>

"Wearing Your Collar Down is for Poor People"
By Chris Abraham
When my ancestors came over to this great country 400 years ago, they had a vision for a utopia, free from minorities, liberals, poor people, homosexuals, and immigrants. There are few today who share such lofty ideals, but we\'re easy to find: Pastel polo shirts, loafers without socks, tucked-in shirts, but most importantly, collars up.Call me a douchebag. Call me an arrogant little cocksucking dickhead. Beat the shit out of me if I\'m not with fifteen of my B-frat friends (unlikely). But just know this: I interned at Smith Barney this summer. Where did you work? A Blockbuster? That\'s right you insignificant sack of dogshit; I\'m going to be your boss. So take your t-shirt wearing, financial aid, blue-collar ass over to Blockbuster and get me a copy of Old School. Do you even own a tuxedo?Look at my girlfriend. You think she\'d go for someone who didn\'t have his collar up? I don\'t think so. I remember the night I met her. I bought her so many $9 drinks she couldn\'t even walk. So I drove her home in my BMW 328ci, but not before I took a few \"liberties\" with her. The next morning I took her to brunch and went to the mall, where I bought her some blouses. You assholes don\'t know the first thing about being a gentleman. You probably don\'t even know how to sail.When I get out of business school, I\'m going to be making $120,000 a year. Add that to my trust fund, and I can buy a country club membership, a ski house, and still have enough money to go barhopping around the city in my designer clothes and shit-eating grin. Maybe I\'ll offer you a hundred bucks to flip my collar up for me. I earned it you middle-class fuck up. I bet you went to public school.You\'re so predictable. I bet I can guess your political party just by looking at you. My cronies and I range from elitist northern liberals to heartless conservative bastards. I\'ve wasted enough time with you. Get some rich parents, an internship, and a pink polo with the collar up, and then maybe I\'ll let you hang out with me. "

Andrew Sullivan's take (red for effect)

2005-04-06T13:17:00.001-07:00

Under John Paul II (and his predecessors), the Roman Catholic church presided over the rape and molestation of thousands of children and teenagers. Under John Paul II, the church at first did all it could to protect its own and to impugn and threaten the victims of this abuse. Rome never acknowledged, let alone take responsibility for, the scale of the moral betrayal. I was staggered to see Cardinal Bernard Law holding press conferences in Rome this week, and appearing on television next to the man who announced the Pope's death. But that was the central reaction of the late Pope to this scandal: he sided with the perpetrators, because they were integral to his maintenance of power. When you hear about this Pope's compassion, his concern for the victims of society, his love of children, it's important to recall that when it came to walking the walk in his own life and with his own responsibility, he walked away. He all but ignored his church's violation of the most basic morality - that you don't use the prestige of the church to rape innocent children. Here was a man who lectured American married couples that they could not take the pill, who told committed gay couples that they were part of an "ideology of evil," but acquiesced and covered up the rape of minors. When truth met power, John Paul II chose truth. When truth met his power, John Paul II defended his own prerogatives at the expense of the innocent. Many have forgotten. That's not an option for the victims of this clerical criminality.

The misappropriation of the NAACP Awards

2005-03-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

After watching the NAACP Awards (National Assoc. for Advancement of Colored People) in its entirety last Wednesday night, I couldn't help but think I wasn't the intended audience. How does the NAACP live with themselves? If the organizers had spent the money (a gluttonous 6 million) used to produce the NAACP Awards (NBC) last week on grassroots economic development in urban areas - where African Americans are exceedingly disadvantaged - I wouldn't be so suspect of their purpose. However, as it stands the NAACP celebrates and promotes the achievements of a select few, who, as a result of their exposure, proliferate the stereotypes they themselves aim to extinguish. The issue than for the NAACP problem is one of necessity and purpose. The NAACP, like all civil society organizations, was hugely needed when it couldn't exist – think Jack Johnson 1920s era. That is at the heart of the problem with civil societies. Where these associations are needed is in times they can't necessarily thrive. Indeed that is the telling sign of a successful demographic: whether or not they can sustain an organization that aims to support their needs. This is the paradox of the minority supporting civil society organization: they are desperately needed when they cannot exist and unwarranted when they can. Now please excuse me, I have a backlog of Girlfriends episodes I've missed.

How I learned to start worrying and hate the blog

2005-03-22T12:56:00.001-08:00

Do you often consider how hot you would be had you been born the opposite sex? I do, quite often. However, the moment passes as quickly as it comes. It is precisely this fleeting state of mind I aim to dissect in this post. I’ll start first with my conclusion and, through a meandering stream of rubbish, end by way of an introduction. I blame this fleeting state of mind on the blogosphere. I recently had the joy of reading a friend of mine’s blog. As I was reading it, I was struck by how aimless it was, seemingly without focus or structure. After passing immediate and unalterable judgment , I gathered myself and tabbed to my blog to make sure I wasn’t as stupid as he. But to no avail; I was faced with reality for the first time in my blog career. My blog sucks; there is no way around it. Teary eyed, I sifted through my blog eagerly anticipating gold, but alas, all that was found was angsty undergrad tripe. My idiocy was strewn all over the damn “EPinionated” page like puke on a wall, reeking of harsh and pointless opinion. Scant little expressed any morsel of interest. It was, as a friend of mine had ominously warned me of, “not a good idea.” So take it from this embittered twit, all you wannabe bloggers, don’t make the same mistake I did. The anti-blog movement starts here; no more, I beg you.
Tune in next week to see if I feel the same way.

Why you should hate DUKE (and their scrappy sharpshooting scamp JJ Redick)

2005-03-18T00:19:00.000-08:00

Led by sore-losing, ref-haranguing coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke has long been a hotbed of whininess, but junior J.J. Redick is the first Blue Devil to publicly elevate it to an art form. In recent profiles in Sports Illustrated, on ESPN, and probably in Cat Fancy, the whey-faced shooting guard revealed that when abuse from opposing fans becomes too heavy, he escapes by composing verse. "No bandage can cover my scars/ It's hard living a life behind invisible bars," he writes in one tear-stained stanza.
When the non-existent bars start closing in and the bandage-defying scars get itchy, J.J. need only look down the bench to find kindred souls. Blue Devil assistant coaches Steve Wojciechowski and Chris Collins understand. They too had crew cuts and held their wrists perpendicular to the ground after every made basket.
While players like Luol Deng, Elton Brand, and Corey Maggette go on to demi-stardom in the NBA, it's the scrappy, high-strung little guards who come back to Coach K's side to form a living endowment of faux defensive intensity. Around 2008—when pro defenders have finished demonstrating that Redick can't deploy his robotically perfect shooting stroke when he's guarded—look for the once-great collegian to take his curdled hoop dreams back to Durham and join them. Don't worry, young fella. There will always be a clipboard for you at the end of the bench at Cameron Indoor Stadium. And it will say "J.J." in big, blue, puffy letters.
(other reasons to hate other teams/people @ slate.com)

ADBOMBinable?

2005-03-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

Few things catch the eye like a good bombing. Throw a ten-year girl into that equation, and you got yourself a real eyecatcher - one the UN is deliberately exploiting. In a macabre ad campaign (the ad takes a minute to load -well worth it) focused on the proliferation of landmines in the third world, the UN asks the question: "If landmines were here, would you stand for them anywhere?" The premise of the ad: young girls soccer game, parents on sidelines yelling, kid scores... than, in a stifling turn of events, the precocious 10 year-old is blown to hell mid-celebration in the middle of the field. A seemingly innocuous ad at the outset, not unlike the common KIA ad, swiftly turns into a deluge of death as a devestated mother and father run after their now de-limbed corpse skreeching: "Somebody help her!" - a poignant and not so subtle foreshadowing message. To be sure, if the UN really wanted to make their point ring true, they'd have blown the fleeing mass to hell aswell. Keeping things within the finicky palate of big networks, the UN opts only to blow the fuck out of the ten year-old in a strange effort to find the tenuous happy medium between too much death and just enough. The UN website - www.stoplandmines.org - is a fascinating look at how inventive (or imploratory) the UN has become, in light of the recent USA cold shoulder (read: John Bolton assuming the UN ambassador post). Included in those new fundraising efforts is an "Adopt-a-minefield" campaign, where, instead of adopting some destitute Ugandan, you now can have a desolate swath of rugged terain teaming with landminds in Northern Cambodia's old war-zone (time-share not included). As inticing as adopting a minefiled sounds, it will run you considerably more sheckles than adopting a penurious punk might. At $25,000 you can help the UN bribe the corrupt government that installed the mines in the first place. Does thisnot just encourage the proliferation of landmines? Any half-witted tin-pot despot can see that landmines not only offer the advantage of paralyzing the enemy in the present, while also providing a comfy inflow of cash from the UN when the carnage subsides. And the UN wonders why they're as useless as a model with hips. Uber-provocative as the ad is and as inticing the adopt-a-minefield campaign sounds, it is, a grim, if sardonic, reflection on the West's withering difference to the landmine issue.

Surviving cancer, resume worthy?

2005-03-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

A cancer surviving friend of mine asked me if it was appropriate to include "survived cancer" under the "Interests & Hobbies" section of his resume. At first it struck me as an easy question: yes! Look at Lance Armstrong for shits sake, his yellow livestrong band adorns the arms of virtually every person in North America - something with that kind of market appeal has to be exploited. Not that I wholeheartedly support exploiting the fact you survived cancer, just that if you can make a quick buck off of the tsunami-induced sentimentalities of the general public it might serve you well in the long run should another little tumour pop its malignant head. I guess you could say I see it more as a mutual fund for future outbreaks. That said, putting it on a resume seems a slippery slope. Once cancer survivors start putting themselves on resumes the flood gates will open. Who knows who will follow: HIV patients who live perilously straddling the fence between life and AIDS? or the common cold sufferer? Certainly extending this offer to any joe "i'm suffering from..." shmoe will do no good. Besides, surviving cancer, while it may sound like you're strong and all that shit, really just says you got a three of clubs for genes. No smart CEO wants another genetically malfunctioning employee sucking up precious benefits. Furthermore, it also calls attention to the fact you were unemployed for some extended period while you were fighting cancer thus being uninvolved from an ever evolving labour force doesn't serve you well. However, if you do put it on your resume, make it known that your pre-cancer days were active and intense - almost enough to induce the cancer itself. Another exploitable angle could be to manipulate the government quota system. The government puts aside a few bucks for the odd veteran or disabled (read,not for 'weird' veterans but for the average one). This requires companies to have at least a few degenerates; it will, therefore ,be attractive to the companies' HR dept. if they can fill that quota with people like you: potentially ill, but otherwise healthy and capable of working. If you do end up putting it on your resume, make sure you cater to the company's corporate image, play up the fact you kicked cancer. Cozzying your cancer riddled self with the company enhances its image.Hence, if you have an unattractive cancer, say... glandular cancer, try and play it down, no one needs to hear that shit. The real money makers are the testicular and breast cancers; they're all the rage now. Everyone's got a special place for those with one tit or ball.

The Passion of the Kike

2005-02-25T17:05:00.000-08:00

Ezra Levant double fisting

Judaism has been hijacked. Yes, this sheepish pre-pubescent teen is the culprit. On closer inspection, however, the keen observer will notice that the perpetrator of this crime is, in fact, a full grown man - a man who, had Stephen Harper not dethroned him from his gravy conservative seat in the Calgary South West riding, be an elected MP in Parliament. Makes one shudder, no? A rosy-cheeked toddler in parliament…earning close to Uganda's GDP a year… surely no? But alas, Ezra Levant is its name. After being usurped by a politician with all the taste of white bread (not to mention looks), Levant tackled a less ambitious endeavor: that of publishing his own opinion in the form of a magazine - the Western Standard. The WS is a sinfully crass production equipped with all the integrity of a child molester. Levant not only supplies the mag with its daily dose of punditry, but injects it with a lethal and potent BALCO-like conservative angle on every page. He propagates this filth (for anatomy of filth read further) in a charismatic and endearing fashion, which makes the mag a must read. However, as much as I admire Levant in all his charming scampness, I have no qualms in labeling him a Kike. He, conversely, had no qualms in labeling me a "JINO" (Jew In Name Only) last weekend when I made my opinion felt all over his cheek during the standing ovation of his slanderish speech - a speech peppered with references to "JINOS" and "Palees." This brings me to the conference I attended this past weekend in Calgary regretfully called the "Revolution." As a secular Jew, the conference, attended by all "young Jewish leaders in Western Canada," (keynoted by Levant) was not only a sham of epic proportions, but moreover, a tocsin reminder of the latent racist tendencies in Judaism today. Several conversations during the four day conference led me irrevocably to conclude that Judaism in Canada, especially among the Jewish youth, is being understood in terms of its antiquated framework: that the Jews are the chosen people. (That said, it should be noted that said brainwashing is not wholeheartedly endorsed by the hedonistic youth that it is pushed upon). It is, nevertheless, important to appreciate the process of persuasion amongst the Jewish youth. Those fundamentalists (read: Levant) that ascribe to this notion feed on the fertile soil of active Jewish youth. They see an increasingly assimilated Jewish community diluting the Jewish nation, community and race (his, not my words). They aim to reverse this trend through strong Zionist/Israel advocacy on campuses - a strategy that seemingly does more harm than good to their cause - and by promoting the idea that all Jews are bound by intrinsically by blood, mission and nationality in addition to the less provocative bindings of faith and tradition. In attempting to concentrate the Jewish Diaspora, extremists circumvent several hundred of the 613 mitzvoth in favor for the antediluvian ethics practiced by the sages.

Eat Your Heart (Out): Of Sex and Meat

2005-02-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

Getting to the Heart of the matter

Striding past the produce and bulk sections, I unknowingly walked into a shit storm of love. It came in the form of a Valentine's kiosk at my local supermarket. The kiosk, in all its seeming tactlessness, was fitted with a smorgasbord of Valentine "essentials". No nook or cranny of love was left un-accounted. From cupcakes to cock cream, I was standing knee deep in filthy smut and reveling in all its stupidity. Though, it was not so much what the kiosk had then what it didn't have. A plethora of creams, lubricants and festive condoms flooded the table, whilst other notables like Hershey's kisses lay cuddled next to those tiny cinnamon hearts, which, by the way, are actually quite revolting. ( I stuffed my face with a 'free' mitfull). Eagerly fingering through the goodies, the sexual tension of the shoppers swirled uncontrollably. Middle-aged men and women eager to spark an undoubtedly tired love life feverishly filled their baskets and carts with crude sexual games, flavored lubes and dissolving condoms (no joke here, meant more for the fellatio variety, so said the back instructions). As I sifted through the soft-core porn, I wiped the drool from my frothing mouth and realized I was being had. I panned the area and realized the kiosk lay smack dab in the middle of the meat section, in all its suggestiveness. Standing in a sea of meat, bones and breasts (chicken), I suddenly came to. It struck me: my local supermarket, an otherwise innocuous entity, was appealing to the carnal desires of its customers. Thrifty's was shamefully enticing the primordial desires of their unwitting patrons by foisting sex on them, in the middle of the meat section no less. Of course: sex, like food, is a necessity for sustaining life, what better team? meat and sex. It was no mistake placing that Kiosk as they did, they certainly didn't set it up near the fresh fish station for a reason - a feng shui disaster indeed.

How the Neo-Conned us (it's not how you think)

2005-02-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

The Real Neo-Con

Back when Paul Bremer was running the show in the now Jurassic Iraq of 2003, several post-war reconstruction concepts fluttered his brain; none of which involved democracy. Only after groveling to the U.N. for support did the idea of a democratic state arise – and not from Bremer or his neo-con velociraptors at Foggy Bottom. Its origins follow an obscure and perhaps unlikely path back to the religious leader Ali al-Sistani. The U.N. put Lakhdar Brahimi - Special Adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan – on the case. Brahimi convinced a recalcitrant Sistani to ‘give him a hand’ with the Iraq quagmire. Sistani, having accepted the challenge, demanded that democracy was the only solution. Bremer, who ironically was never really considering democracy as a path to peace, accepted his advice without hesitation. Fast-forwarding to 2005 post-election Iraq, a smug sense of vindication emanates from those ideologues stacked like sardines in the Defense Department, when in reality the only person that should feel vindicated is Ali al- Sistani. However, for Sistani to exhibit the slightest hue of satisfaction would be akin to Bush eating another pretzel, except his would be social suicide. That is not to say the US didn’t do anything to make the elections successful, as the animosity arising from their presence has provided the motivation for the large turnout.
Dame democracy is a slippery fish sometimes.

Faking it

2005-02-03T01:08:00.000-08:00

Fake rationales for war, a fake President dressed as a fake soldier declaring a fake end to combat, now it seems the fake-bug has rubbed off on the only thing that hasn't seemed so fake: the insurgents.

Kidnapped soldier may be a fake
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-02/02/content_414324.htm

This photo of what appears to be a captured US soldier was posted on an Iraqi militant website.
Is he a real soldier or a toy soldier?
A militant website has posted a photograph of what it claimed was a kidnapped American, but a Californian toymaker says it could be one of its action figures.
Doubts emerged about the authenticity of the abduction claim after the US military said none of its personnel were missing.
The statement appeared on a website where militants' statements are often posted and was in the name of a group that has claimed previous kidnappings, the Mujahideen Brigades.
The Arabic text, however, contained several misspellings and repetitions.
Staff Sergeant Nick Minecci, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said "no units have reported anyone missing".
The photo in the posting showed a figure dressed in desert fatigues, wearing a vest and knee pads and with a gun pointed to its head.
All the items are similar to ones that come in a box with the action figure, named "Cody".

Pulling on the Harp strings

2005-01-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

The following is written by the Rabbi that presided over my Bar mitzvah some ten years ago. As he guided me spiritually into maturity and manhood, it is ironically fitting that I guide him back to his forgotten immaturity, by way of the blogosphere. Much obliged, Rabbi.

Beware: All Roads Lead to Polygamy! - Eventually

We are all indebted to the courage and vision of Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper for pointing out that the current Liberal Government is using the same-sex marriage issue as a cover for their true, ultimate aim: the legalization of polygamy in Canada. By speaking out he has voiced what many Canadians have feared and loathed but have been unable to articulate because to do so would mean being “politically correct.” When I read Mr. Harper’s words – that he would not introduce the topic of polygamy and then went on to introduce the topic of polygamy – I realized that he had helped me to find my own voice and indignation over the all too slippery slope to polygamy. Emboldened by his move, I write now to reveal how so many other “liberal” policies – even those adopted by previous Conservative governments no less! -are mere smokescreens for imposing polygamy on an unwitting Canadian public.

NAFTA: How did we all miss this one? It started simply enough as the “Free Trade Agreement” a traditional, exclusive, intimate and monogamous trade relationships between two willing partners. Then we wake up one morning and in our bed is not only the one bilateral partner to whom we swore to be faithful under the FTA, but a sexy, Mexican “addition” creating the current ménage a trois under a new agreement that was struck while we were sleeping: NAFTA! Obviously the government thought that if the government could go from monogamous trade relationships to polygamous trade relationships, the logical and eventual next step would be for all Canadians to invite in a sexy Mexican into all of our marriages.

Ballistic Missile Defense: Officially, the government is only “studying” its “options” in regard to President Bush’s invitation/insistence that Canada become an active partner in Ballistic Missile Defense. Cute move, no? While we are all staring skyward wondering when the fireworks will start, sneaking in under the radar is the subtle, unconscious but clear message that when – not if! – when the heavy duty radioactive hardware starts to fall and incinerate us, what will kick into the minds of all married Canadian couples? Survival! Perpetuate the species! And what is the biblical injunction given to us specifically to ensure the survival of the species? “Be fruitful and multiply!” MULTIPLY!!!! Not “add”, not “divide” and certainly not “subtract”. Creating children by being married to just one partner is slow, hard work. My “multiplying” the number of marriage partners (read: wives) we can also “multiply” the numbers of survivors who will carry in a polygamous society. And you thought it was about missile defense!!!

Child Care: It is now clear what is really behind the so-called “child care” initiative this nefarious government is trying to foist upon us. The Pro-Polygamy Lobby (PPL) has crafted this one carefully and ingeniously. Think of it: hundreds of thousands of young children housed in warehouse-sized child care centres, brainwashed by nonstop taped recordings from “The Best of Ms. Magazine.” As the children stumble into the sunlight, malnourished by hours of tofu snacks and carrot juice, they look around at the blurred image of thousands of unrecognizable adults who have come to pick them up. The children are so dazed, anyone can pick them up – and anyone does! This “family” with four moms and three dads, that “family” with two dads and two stepdads. Who belongs with whom? Who knows? Who cares! The PPL has won!

Next up: The slippery slope from softwood lumber to polygamy. Cover your eyes – it ain’t pretty.

Hillel Goelman is a man who has been in a traditional heterosexual marriage with the same wonderful woman for the past 25 years and he and his wife will fight any pin-headed government that will try to impose mandatory polygamy on them. Well, he thinks his wife will fight alongside him but they haven’t really discussed it yet.

Female as the new Male

2005-01-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

Much like black is the new white, or fat the new skinny, men are the new women (author understands the senseless of this opening statement). It has been a piece meal metamorphosis from male to monstrosity. The proliferation of male lifestyle magazines and ‘products,’ (and eclipsing that of the female lifestyle mag) is but only a couple of ill-omened tocsins signaling the new dominating sex. It is my prediction – and I say so with a heavy heart- that females will be calling the shots by 2010 (if they aren’t already).They are already far more educated (formally) far better looking and less emotionally fragile (thanks “He’s just not….” and the thousands of emotional stability shows). They possess key weapons in the ‘war for power;’ not only are our troops proven biologically to be chronically out of step with that of women, but cultural and traditional persuasions aiming to even out the scales (ie: China) will leave us groveling, shamefully fighting over whatever scraps of estrogen remain. We’re, seemingly, losing from all angles. So heed the call gents, drop that mag and moisturizer and revel in your back-hair.Perhaps even more disturbing are other signs of the ensuing domination that pepper the horizon. These threats are most commonly reflected in contemporary male fashion. Increasing the amount of ‘traders’ (read: metrosexuals) who seek to alter their own ominous destiny by cozying up to the opposite sex are being rejected in droves, but persist regardless. Their love of the manicurist culture and affinity for ‘products’ (as opposed to soap and shampoo) stifle the average Alpha male into bewilderment. However, those who refuse to go lightly (think: chaches, and alternative chaches even more so) will find it an uphill battle aswell, tired evermore so by their three inch heels, pleather jackets and obnoxiously large collars. They’ll soon find out they’ll need more protection to fight this storm than their Enrique toques or Ben Sherman shirts can offer. Stand readied at the gates, HUAH!

PS: If you read Bush’s inauguration address he hints at this dreary future, substitute “freedom” for “females” and the picture is clear. Did anyone think he’d go gently into that good night?

UPGem

2005-01-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

I’m not one to wax philosophical about T.V. shows, but UPN may have the best lifestyle comedy show in network television. Girlfriends is about the trials and tribunes of four young African-American professional females. What could a young, white, Jewish Canadian have in common with four black females - in Los Angeles no less? Your first conclusion is right: nothing. However, it’s precisely this anomaly that makes the show so effective. Girlfriends’ ability to transcend racial and social (amongst other) lines in a uniquely comedic fashion releases it from the shackles of UPN’s notorious “racial programming”.
It is no wonder Girlfriends is Kelsey Grammar’s baby, as it assumes a similar character to that of Frasier. Frasier was capable of attracting an audience wider than the assumed wannabe intellects (usually humanities undergrad students) by enticing the “average” nightly viewer. That is to say, both shows develop a unique, yet, similar narrative that compels even the most unlikely demographic to ‘see’ it through. They cross boundaries rarely even flirted with by other shows. Chronically overrated shows like: CSI (“Suicide jumpers don’t take off their eyeglasses”), The West Wing (the writing wind was knocked out of this show years ago) and Six Feet Under (savants on the edge of society) and a handful of reality shows pander, regrettably, to armchair detectives and other pathetic indolents (think: room-temperature IQ types) lurking in suburban living-rooms the world over.

I'm just not that into me

2005-01-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

I never thought I'd muster up the courage to admit this to myself - let alone the readers of this blog - but I may be in need of a "She's just not that into you" book. As much as I disagree with the now infamous female version (salutations, Harpo), through boredom, sheer misunderstandings or, more accuarately put, a vicious concoction of the both, I have become disconnected from the opposite sex. I have rationalized it, unsuccesfully, on the basis of two postulates. My former belle was an illiterate Norwegian (bless her soul) that probably didn't understand my jokes but laughed regardless which attributed to a satiated understanding of, and overblown appreciation for, my own comic prowess. Reason #2: I have spent much of the past couple years in non-english cultures prompting a lethargic reliance on my uniqueness as an english speaker. Recognizing the saliency of both these arguments, a clearer picture comes into focus: the lack of a genuine 'edge'. A concept mentioned in the recent Napoleon Dynamite movie where Napoleon affectionately refers to the phenomenon as a "special skill."
It has become stiflingly clear to me how average my life is. There is virtually nothing seperating me from you - unless, of course, you have an edge. To be clear, an edge is anything that makes you stick in the minds of the opposite sex. It exists unfettered by the likes of 'good' or 'cool', as edges aren't measured on a good, bad, cool value scale. It can be anything from the ability to whistle loudly (two finger in mouth method), being "really good" with a bow-staff - as Napoleon suggests - or having one limb longer than the other. Any edge works.'Repulsive' and 'undesirable' edges don't exist; each edge achieves the same end. There is a market for anything, it just needs exploiting. It’s Say's Law: "supply creates its own demand"(sorta).

*A disclaimer for all potential users of the edge theory: use discretion. Don't lie. For example don't say your Batman when you're actually just Spiderman. Suffice with the edge you have, or come up with a new way of marketing it.

'Grip and grin' by Israeli Ambassador to Canada at UVic

2005-01-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker

With no less than seven Israeli agents flanking him, the Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, slithered onto the UVic campus Friday afternoon to talk to members of the Jewish Student’s Association. Equipped with dark leather jackets and coiled earpieces – the talisman of any undercover agent - the bodyguards carefully scanned the room for potential 'threats' (read: Arabs). After ‘ok-ing’ the room, an agent closed the windows and drew the blinds. Such is the requirement for any Israeli diplomat these days. A small bemused crowd of fifteen students quickly ended their noshing as the room abruptly came to a hush. Although his composed demeanor didn’t give it away, Ambassador Baker has been on a whirlwind tour of Canadian University campuses, in an effort to familiarize himself with young Jewish life in Canada.
Everything from the recent elections to the legal legitimacy of Israel’s right of return policy was talked about by the ambassador. Taking a decidedly defensive tone in justifying Israel’s tenuous rectitude, the ambassador claimed the "right of return does not exist;” adding, “Anyone can get Israeli citizenship.” Reluctant to acknowledge the obvious Jewish bias of the controversial issue, the ambassador cited the UN Charter article 194 (p.11) stating that it allows for the “return for refugees to their homeland.”
Complicating the debate over Israel’s legal legitimacy is the multiplicity of legal ‘systems’ endorsed by the state. The condoning of Shaa’ria law for Muslims and tacit approval of various orthodox Jewish laws by the Israeli government, offer no clear holistic legal consensus. It is in this ambiguous and divisive legal framework and questionable moral foundation that Israel enters a round of new talks with the new Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas; which is to say nothing of the challenges existing in the P.L.O.. The skeptic might suggest a change in leadership is the least effectual change in a litany of others that need to take place if peace is ever to reign.

Maudlin Moscovites, do not read

2005-01-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

A woman who died in a Moscow apartment lay undiscovered for eight years before neighbors reported they had not seen her "for a while." Vera Barinova, who had no relatives, collapsed while eating a meal in her Moscow flat, the London Sun reported.Police officers found her mummified body slumped over a newspaper dated 1996. Authorities are trying to determine why it took so long for neighbors to show enough concern to go to police. While leads are still coming in, blame is being placed on the cold and emotionless Moscovite psyche.
For the two Russian readers of this blog - Olga & Max - my apologies.

Blog Bandit

2005-01-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

Without notice (or request) the father of the upkeeper of this blog has decided to clean up the blogosphere 'one blog at a time'; starting with his son's EPinionated blog. While he likes "the useful perspectives" the blog offers, he feels the writing is "unfocused" and not "clearly structured."
In revolt, EPinionated has decided not to heed the advice seen in this obscure and poorly focused picture (can't even focus the picture, damn), as it amounted to mostly just gibberish; although, it was clearly structured gibberish.

Linguists of the world unite!

2005-01-12T16:33:00.000-08:00

The market is rife with wanton need for linguists these days. Recently, shut-in geeks, (delegates) representing their own opinions, gathered in New York. The result was the crowning of the annual “Words of the Year” award.
Some of the words chosen by the American Dialect Society as 2004's words of the year:
- Word of the Year: red state, blue state, purple state (Dan Rather cleaned up here)
- Most Creative: pajamahadeen: bloggers who challenge and fact-check traditional media. (also known as pajamjaweed for those preferring the Sudanese application)
- Most Unnecessary: carb-friendly: low in carbohydrates.
- Most Euphemistic: badly sourced: false. (Made famous by outgoing Sec. Of State Powell)
- Most Likely To Succeed: red, blue, and purple states.
- Least Likely To Succeed: FLOHPA: The collective abbreviations of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, states said to have been important in the 2004 American presidential election.

Sadly, the society was unable to come up with a word that accurately described the uselessness of their profession.

Aidmirable?

2005-01-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

Just over two weeks have passed since the Earth shook in the Indian Ocean creating a massive deluge of death and misery encompassing the entire region (even Somalia, where 50,000 have been displaced and 200 killed). The projected death toll has risen dramatically from 13,000 - in its immediate aftermath- to, 160,000, in more recent reports. For the most part the underestimation has been the result of ineffective communication infrastructure in disaster zones, under appreciation for scope and intensity of the disaster and a general ignorance by western governments during a holiday season. Aid and donations have followed in a similar manner. However, in the politicized forum of state-sponsored aid, several countries have either been lauded for their generosity or chastised for their stinginess. How then does one discern the Scrooge from the Santa? The media’s mendacity in this regard plays a central role. Some top donors in absolute terms, such as: USA (350m), are comparatively miserly when considered in relative terms (that is, donation per capita, normalized to US GDP). Here’s a brief look at some other anomalies:

Hong Kong, (pop = 7 m) earning close to 75 million
Australia (pop = 20m) donating 1 billion
Taiwan (pop = 20m) donating 50 million
China (pop = 2.2b) donating 60 million
*Source CNN

Competition

2005-01-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

As it stands this blog has received 130 hits. The breakdown is as follows: EP = 115 (mostly to check spelling); my family = 12 (mostly for emotional support); friends = 3 (due largely to my importunate nature, and the addition of an exciting new polling section).
With that said, some reflection on sites that offer stiff competition to EPinionated is needed.

Competitor #1: “Eliot’s blog”

– A common and understandable mistake for many of EPinionated’s customers results in several tens of hits for this lucky recipient. This troubled youth is into the Matrix "big time” and feels cheated by his teacher in grade 9 Biology whom he will take his revenge out on "in this life or the next". He claims to be the first blogger "ever" and has his own website that instructs on how to become a “discerning identifier” of paranormal activity, such was his latest entry:

"Along with some others, I have decided to begin researching certain paranormal threats. We've split up our specialties as follows:
Zombies (don’t be put off with pop-culture pseudo-science films like Shaun of the Dead, that is just bs)
Josh - Vampires
Me - Necromancy (animated skeletons, cthulhu mythos)
Robert - Lycanthropes (werewolves and such)
We may divulge some of our findings at a later date."

Who’s going be the first to tell him he’s got 10 years of solid bullying to look forward to if he keeps this up.

Competitor #2 “Quilt-o-rama blog”

– Not really sure why this site receives close to fifteen times more hits than EPinionated has ever received each day, and, quite frankly, little depressed. That said its earthy green background and quaint style make it a tough competitor. Its 'everything-quilt' approach beseeches the reader to read on; take for example this entry:

“This is a quilt I made for the 2003 quilt show - the first time I entered a show. I would have been thrilled just to see it hanging in a public space, but I actually won a 2nd prize! Feedback from the judges was that it didn't hang flat enough - a problem I attribute to the mostly bias background. The setting triangles on the outside are on grain, but obviously this was not enough to overcome the bias of the main blocks. Oh well. I was still ridiculously excited to have won a prize!! This quilt is now on my bed, or on the floor in a ball, so I guess the hanging flat is not really important!”

Riveting. I’m thinking red state, maybe Kansas or Kentucky, single mom, fairly vocal, probably on the Teachers Advisory Board, financially stable, though maybe E.I. recipient with copious spare time, prefers to be called domestic engineer, looking for husband in all the wrong places – just some ideas.

All Tuckered out

2005-01-06T17:11:00.000-08:00

In a bizzare about face, CNN handed the pink-slip to the man with the most pretentious name in punditry (and that's saying something) - Tucker Carlson. Saying they would like to see less partisan hackery in exchange for more engaging debate. In an interview Jon Klein - CNN's V.P.- issued this statement about his change of mind:
"We need to lower the temperature...It's time for us to do a better job of informing our audience in an engaging way, as opposed to head-butting and screaming. I doubt that when James Carville and Paul Begala briefed President Clinton [as advisers] they sat there screaming at him for half an hour."
A sceptic might dismiss such provocative actions as media savvy pandering (think: Jon Stewart). Crossfire's popularity was in the doldrums, increasingly unable to compete with more carnivorous punditry shows like the "O'Reilly Factor". This should be seen not as an advancement of open-minded responsible programming, but rather, as a concession to the T-Rex of right-wing punditry: Bill O'Reilly. Nonetheless, some good can be gleaned, no-longer will a petulant five year old with neon bow-ties be on the "most trusted news source".

The End of Days

2005-01-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Ostensibly, media’s role in covering the 2004 elections was to provide an objective representation of each campaign, realistically it functioned as an agent not of objectivity but rather, of subjectivity. Increasingly readers turned to opinion editorials for “their news;” news that confirms rather than questions. News no longer has that objectivity about it (nothing too profound here), it preaches subjective analysis more accessibly (through the blogoshpere), persuasively (by aligning itself with religious groups) and more passionately (by iconized op. ed. writers) It has become a medium akin to any major religion. It chooses exaltation rather than information. Its preachers are pundits and parrots eagerly bickering over wedge themes pandering to the lowest common denominator. Punditry offers little promise to a profession riddled with un-educated scintillates. If the Pundit is Batman, than surely the blogger is his Robin. Together this bumbling team inches the web closer to uselessness. It is in this desolate oasis of forumism and blogsphereism that journalism lies awaiting its apocalypse.

The Tragic Heroines

2005-01-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

Italian aide workers turned international hostage celebrities Simona Pari and Simona Toretta were recently hailed as being “European Heroes” and “beacons of spirit and courage” by TIME magazine Europe 2004. In the same issue, iconic figures of history like Romulus - the founder of Rome - to more contemporary political figures like Winston Churchill were all included in an article seeking to “define” what a hero is. Scant few of the 29 heroes listed in the article embody the leadership, courage and acumen our past heroes and heroines did. It is however, the Simonas I choose to pick on here. Why is it that two twenty-something aide workers from Italy are now beacons of spirit and courage? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you why I don’t think they should be.
The Simonas are like humanitarian tornado watchers, flocking to each disaster area after another never establishing firm roots in any country. After spending some time in Afghanistan helping the post war reconstruction, their interests drifted to Iraq.
The flighty commitment young aides workers are disposed to (and the million dollars reportedly paid to their kidnappers) threaten the very purpose of their endeavor. It uproots the core foundation of aid work consigning it to mere resume building.

While Iraq, Afghanistan and, most recently, Southern Asia, require severe aid, they are not the only countries that deserve it. Take for example Eritrea, a country formally ruled by Italy (the Simonas’ birth country) and in shambles partially because of an Italian backed dictator. It poses the same problems; sans the beheadings. Why is there a need to always be near the action? Isn’t mass genocide enough to hold the A.D.D. stricken attention span of any public official anymore? Look no further than the recent disaster in Southern Asia for a prime example. Suddenly a mass genocide in Sudan gets stuffed in the major papers where as constant above-the-fold humanitarian stories about westerners vacationing proliferate in western newspapers provoking private donations the equivalent of fifteen African nations' GDP. This notion was officially sanctioned even by the UN; stating in a recent report that the Indian Ocean Earthquake has since been named the world’s “most pressing humanitarian crisis.” Debating the accuracy of such comments misses the point however. This type of hierarchical (and official sanctioning) crisis management conveniently allows other politically radioactive issues to be swept under the table.

no confident chicks?

2004-12-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

I recently attempted to buy a 'stencil-your-own' shirt with the phrase "No confident chicks" in downtown Vancouver. The store was riddled with cliched t-shirt shit like "Canadian chicks rule," "I'm just not that into you" and the obligatory "Canada Rocks" t-shirt. It was ofcourse also packed with tweens eager to purchase a t-shirt that promised to define them. I, too, was looking to define myself, just in a more vulgar manner. I approached the counter with trepidation whereupon I was greeted by, to my surprise, a confident chick. I hadn't anticipated this turn of events and wasn't prepared for any objection to my ideas. The bull dike's obvious revulsion came in the form of aggression. She placed her beefy torso precarioiusly on the glass counter as the rest of her spilled-out everywhere. She recited some angsty tegan and sarah drek as my self-esteem shrunk rapidly. While I believe her advice was well founded- this can't be confirmed, as I spent the majority of the time thinking about whether or not her dark rimmed glasses actually had been prescribed by an ophthamologist (still undecided, info to follow) - I couldnt' help but snicker at the irony> I had entered the store confident looking for a 'no confident chick' and left a severely unconfident dude having met a confident chick.
(this story was intended to attract a response, hence the language and inflamatory subject, please respond with all the anger you can muster, also if anyone else has some interesting stories have at)