Justin Trudeau

The temptation of a desperate party would be to grasp at a perceived opportunity without patience.  That’s a common result of desperation.  However, to draft Justin Trudeau into the leadership because of charisma and youthful vitality would be a mistake.

I like Justin Trudeau.  He will, eventually, probably be a powerful force withing the Canadian political landscape.  I even like a lot of his current ideas.  But it is very clear that Justin is not ready for the hot seat.  A few undisciplined episodes over the past few years indicate that a little more experience and maturity is required.  It’s not a good idea to open a fine wine too early.  Drafting him before he’s ready would be to squander a potentially beneficial resource 10 years from now.

Let Justin Trudeau create for himself a resume that extends beyond being just another pretty face.  Let him put a few notable accomplishments under his belt.  Let him rise up through the ranks the same way others have had to in order to establish the necessary connections with other people so as to inspire true loyalty.   Dropping a neophyte into the Liberal leadership doesn’t work, as seen in the last election.

I have great hopes for Justin Trudeau, and would likely vote for him, …in about 10 years or so.

North Carolina’s Amendment 1

Freedom and democracy are when a duly elected legislature can vote on a question or a law, come to a resolution and then enact that law.  Why would a group want to insert a state constitutional amendment that restricts the legislature’s ability to do just that?  Why not have a straight up vote?  A constitutional amendment which states that it is illegal for the legislature to propose a certain law, whatever that law may be, seems to defeat the whole idea of freedom and democracy.  It is basically one group saying, we want to decide for you whether or not you can propose this law in the legislature.  As a result, it doesn’t get proposed, it doesn’t get debated and effectively it is buried and repressed.

This is not the democratic process.  Whatever the issue may be, and in this case it just happens to be the definition of marriage, to stack the rules against fair and free discourse on any topic is an attempt to hobble democracy and have one group dictate to the future.  Who are the people who want to do this?  They are, of course, the religious right, who once again have demonstrated that they have no interest in freedom and democracy if it does not suit their own purposes.  By adding this amendment they are unfairly limiting a legislative body’s ability to act in the future.  One well planned campaign, where analysis indicates that a large percentage of the voters were confused or uninformed about the issue, and where the elderly and the religious vote carried weighted influence, will now place severe imitations on future debate and action.

I don’t care what the issue is, this is an affront to democracy.  It is also a demonstration of the disrespect that the religious right has for democracy.  For many in the right wing, democracy and freedom are good, but not more important than the righteousness that comes from their interpretation of the word of God.

We’ve seen the same in Canada, where just a short time ago MP Stephen Woodworth proposed a private members bill to discuss the question of when life begins.  Once again, it is legislation designed to create a situation where other laws would be affected and limited.  There are few who don’t see his private members bill as an attempt to reopen and prejudice a discussion on abortion.  Why the sneakiness?  Why the attempt to circumvent the normal democratic discussion of the issue?  Why not just have a debate and vote on abortion?  Because as things stand now the right knows that it can’t win that battle with the voters and so once again the sense of righteousness held by these people make it OK to try to accomplish their goals through trickery.

Fortunately few are fooled by Woodworth’s proposal, but North Carolina was not as lucky.

Super Moon Pictures

Here are a few shots I’m happy with from the moonlight hike a few days ago.  The thing about moonrise shots is you’ve got to carefully pick your spot in advance.  Once the event arrives, you don’t have much time to move.  I was lucky and was shown a location that worked really well.

“Life Is Wasted Without Jesus”

Once again we see a fundamentally different culture between the way the U.S. and Canada behave towards a potential problem.

Last week a 19 year old Grade 12 student (?!) was suspended for wearing a t-shirt to school which stated “Life is wasted without Jesus.”  The argument was twofold.  The first was that the school had repeatedly asked to boy to refrain from wearing the shirt and he repeatedly flaunted it.  One might surmise that there was a measure of pontificating that went along with the t-shirt which might have complicated the issue further.  The second was the argument that while saying “Jesus Enriches My Life” is a positive and acceptable slogan, once you say something like “Life is wasted without Jesus”, there is a connotation of discrimination against other religions and beliefs.

I agree with this, although I think that the statement is carefully chosen to be close to the line of offense.  It’s not “If you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re going to burn in hell!”, although it clearly suggests that in an indirect way.

I guess there are two ways that the matter could be dealt with. One would be to prohibit the wearing of the slogan, which is how the school originally chose to cope.  The other side of the argument is to recognize the ambiguity of the situation and let freedom of speech dictate the outcome.  Certainly one should be able to express one’s religious convictions, and as long as the slogan does not directly discriminate against other beliefs, it should be tolerated.  That’s the choice the school eventually made, backing off their original decision and allowing the boy to wear the t-shirt, but also holding some public and student meetings to promote the idea of multiculturalism.  Nicely done Canada.

However, I can’t help but stir the pot a little more by wondering what would happen if a student wore a t-shirt that expressed the opposite view.  How about students wearing a shirt that says “Life is not wasted without Jesus”,  or get rid of the double negative and say “Life is fulfilled without Jesus” or just change one word and have it state, “Life is wasted with Jesus”.  Do you really think that the Christian fundamentalist community would be as civilized about it as the school eventually was??  I think that the cries of discrimination and outrage would be loud and clear.  There would be, as always, a double standard with regards to freedom of speech.

Even so, in the States it would probably get you lynched in some areas.  While we do have some tensions and issues with fundamentalists in Canada, thankfully it usually plays out in a civil manner.

Avengers Assemble !

Normally I like to spotlight lesser known films, but the new Avengers movie seems to have smashed opening weekend box office records.  And it totally deserves the success.  The film is a completely engaging action flick while remaining a good drama looking at human qualities and character.  Bringing together characters who have had their own successful (and some not-so-successful) movies, it qualifies as a super-movie the same way that a collection of top musicians is a super-group.

All the way through the movie I kept commenting to myself that the story line and writing in general was just amazing.  At the end of the movie I discovered to my sincere surprise that it had been written and directed by Joss Whedon.  Really, I had no idea.  Hail Joss Whedon!  It had his characteristic witty banter and sophisticated story line.  Having him both write and direct was brilliantly successful.  After his limited contribution to “Cabin In The Woods”, seeing him show his unbridled genius in this film answers the question, “What have you been doing lately, Joss?”  Hopefully this will be the dawn of a long and fruitful second surge in his career.  Can a Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie be far off?  Probably.

A friend on Facebook summed up the enthusiasm for this film when he said that he was considering having himself frozen until the sequel comes out.  Well … maybe going to far.

I would give this film an A.  (I reserve the A+ for movies that have some sort of intellectual dimension, and in spite of it’s success on just about every other level, I can’t really say that it is a thought provoking film.  Not that that really matters.  We need entertaining, kick-ass, well told stories too.)

Mayor Ford and “FenceGate”

So there’s a pretty polarized debate happening in a dozen places or so about Daniel Dale and his evening investigation which resulted in Rob Ford charging him and threatening him with a clenched fist.

One side claims that the Star is out to get Ford and sent the reporter to provoke him.  They say that the reporter had no right to be behind Ford’s house and that he was going “too far”.

The other side says that Ford over reacted to the situation and looked stupid rushing out to confront someone, threatening a person who was supposedly following up on a story about a possible land purchase by Ford from the Conservation Authority.

Personally, looking at the facts that are available, I have to put in my lot with the latter interpretation.

1.  When trying to figure out who’s telling the truth, one of the first things you do is look at the source.  Ford has a long history of unstable and controversial behavior which extends much farther back than his election to the mayoralty.  Dale, it seems, won a major newspaper award last week and is not a hack reporter, but rather a respected international one who regularly deals with hard news.  Even if The Star were trying to smear Ford, I’m not sure they’d be trying to do it with one of their first string reporters.

2.  Dale was on public property.  Even Ford refers to him being several meters away from his fence.  Only the neighbor claims that he was at the fence looking into the yard.  (And that’s according to Ford.  It seems that in a follow up with the neighbor, he says that he never said any such thing.)  To the best of my knowledge, there is no law against being on public property, even if you are taking pictures of people’s fences.

3.  The reporter was there, he says, to investigate a very viable story.  Given the past shadiness of the Ford family regarding land deals, hearing that the mayor wants to purchase an adjoining piece of land from the Conservation Authority gives one reason to pause and question.  It’s a valid story.  Ford claims that he wants the land in order to construct a better security fence.  Aside from the laugh-ability of that motive, why does he need extra land in order to accomplish that?  Hence the need for Dale to take pictures of the fence.  An investigative reporter needs to investigate.  As one commenter put it, “What would Lois Lane have done?”

4.  Ford claims that he felt threatened because it was dark, and yet both parties agree on the time of the incident, which happens to be well before sunset.

5.  There’s a video of the whole thing.  Not only was Dale’s cell phone turned over to the police, but there are surveillance cameras situated to capture the whole event.  Will we ever see either?  I sincerely doubt it.  They will go to the same dark storage area as did the recordings of Ford’s infamous 911 abuse call.  If the reporter deserves to be condemned, fine; release the tapes to prove it.  However if the tapes justify the leveling of charges against a mayor, or even just makes him look like a fool, they’ll be burred instantly.

And what about the land purchase issue?  That’s probably the real meat in all of this.  It may even be that Ford is trying to muddy the water to avoid more scrutiny of that issue.  If so, then Dale has done his job.  I’d rather have a press that pushes a little too hard than one that is complacent and doesn’t scrutinize our politicians thoroughly or aggressively enough.

The CBC reported Ford claiming that he discussed with his family whether or not he should step down.  Or so he says.  It sounds like just another note in an orchestrated “poor me” campaign.  Even though the man is an embarrassment to the city of Toronto, if he were the victim of unfair media attacks, I would defend him.  But most of the time, and in most meaningful ways, these are not unfair attacks.

Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore has long been one of my favorite authors.  Two of his best works, Lamb and Fluke, are easily on my top ten favorite book list.

So it was with great regret and disappointment that I had to abandon reading his most recent work, Sacre Bleu.  The story centres on the impressionistic artists like Matisse and VanGough, painting a tale of a conspiracy surrounding a particular shade of blue paint.  Like his earlier book, Fool, which utilized Shakespeare’s King Lear, Moore seems to be trying to saturate his novel in historical research and context, -but I would have to say that both of these books are in fact his least successful.  Moore is a master of irreverent comedy and satire.  While there was a little witty banter in Sacre Bleu, most of it left me profoundly unamused and unengaged.

I’m an avid reader, but I found myself putting the book down for days and only picking it up again reluctantly.  I really wanted to like it, so I read almost half of it before deciding to just let it go.  I kept waiting for something to grab me, but it just didn’t come.  Maybe I missed something.  Maybe the second half is better, -though that’s no excuse for the first half being weak.  Maybe his next book will rekindle his appeal.  I’m sure there are those out there who will enjoy the book because of it’s subject matter.  I’m not one of them.

Sorry Chris, I would give this book a C-.