ramble through the bronx

Thursday, October 30, 2003

Guess who I met today!

guess! just guess!

your hint: CBC! CTV! Canada AM! Consul in New York!

the answer: Pamela Wallin!

She came to give a talk today at Fordham about Canada-US relations.

she's so cute! and I got up the courage & asked a question! (about trade relations, values, and Kyoto). and after the talk I thanked her & shook her hand.

Pamela Wallin!

jane 5:58 PM [+]

Canada - not a panacea

Prowling about others' weblogs (for instance, the comments in one thread on Making Light - there's 2 references), and listening to my friends here in New York -- I don't know if it's joking, or being frustrated, or what -- everyone keeps talking about how "given things are this bad in the U.S., I should just move to Canada." Or "I guess we could always move to Canada!" Or "Hey, that Canada place - they've got it figured out" (and then they mention things like healthcare. And good public schools. Usually healthcare. Nothing to attract a graduate student's attention like state-covered healthcare. Very few people I go to school with right now have health coverage - Fordham's plan is pretty expensive). (I wonder how much of the "move to Canada" rhetoric is passed down from the Vietnam war era and draft dodgers)

These are usually offhanded comments, for the most part. I've had friends who talked about wanting to move to Canada who don't know the name of the current Prime Minister, for instance (or that in February or thereabouts he'll be replaced by the centre-right Paul Martin). (Then again, I was completely out of the loop for a while about the Progressive Conservative party being about to become to Conservative Party... damnit, they were my prime example for a long time of the reasonableness of the Canadian right).

Canada is fantastic from a number of angles (my favourite, of course, being that it's my home, and I'm perpetually homesick). Healthcare, yes. Affordable universities (even with the relatively astronomical increases of the last eight years, the best schools in Canada are still less than the SUNY public/state schools here in NY). A system of politics that includes an "Official Opposition," which means that no matter what the governing party does, someone is Obliged to argue against it without fear of being called unpatriotic (my friend Josh particularly loves the concept of "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" - especially when I told him of the days that the Bloc Quebecois filled that role!). I could go on.

But all the fuss about impending legislation that Chretien is pushing through before he leaves -- all of that is at the mercy of whatever Paul Martin decides to do once he comes in.

Many Americans are rightly frustrated with their government, but ultimately conclude that they should stay in America and fight the good fight for what they believe in. Canada is experiencing the same rightward shifts, the same shifts away from conserving the things they value (a small-c conservative, I suppose?) and toward money-driven instant-political-gratification kind of nonsense. I'd ask the Americans who talk (or joke) about moving to Canada not only to read the stuff on the CBC archives about the October Crisis & the War Measures Act (1970, civil liberties suspended in Canada in response to terrorism), but also about Paul Martin and his CSL company (see Fly our Flag, an NDP site).

My overall point? Canada - not perfect. Same need to fight. If an American, frustrated with America, were to move to Canada in hopes of a socialist utopia, they would find many of the same battles. I guess a battle fought for better priorities in politics is a battle worth winning anywhere...

--
Two caveats -

(1) The religious right is Much Less Scary in Canada than in the US.

(2) At least we're signed onto Kyoto, the Ottawa agreement on landmines (yay Ottawa), the International Criminal Court, etc., etc.

---
An anti-caveat -

We're just as corrupt. While Canada didn't participate in a bunch of the US's conflicts, we still made weapons for them. woo hoo.

---

I guess my argument doesn't really come through clearly. I've been working like mad this week trying to get a presentation together as well as a conference to be held this weekend. Maybe my comments will be working again and someone can put all this together better than I. I just feel like I've been having endless conversations about Canada since I moved here, and I wanted to try to put some of it down to see where I had ended up.

jane 10:38 AM [+]

comments?

Hey y'all. I don't know what happened to my comments function. Alas. But I'll deal with that sometime later. I have a bad headache & a whole pile of Dewey to get through, not to mention some more conference stuff. In the meanwhile, if comments aren't back up, email me anything relevant & advise me to post it.

In other news, I re-watched the Trudeau miniseries with Colm Feore. yum! (while I could have been working on Dewey).

jane 9:53 PM [+]

everything means nothing to me

I heard it on the radio just twenty minutes ago -- apparently it's beginning to leak out from California, though I didn't see a reference to it on the internet (arbiter, of course, of all things newsworthy). WFUV said that they'd heard & sources now seem to confirm. - no wait, here, at a fan pageSweet Adeline.

Elliott Smith is dead. At age 34. His body was found yesterday afternoon by a friend. Police believe it to be suicide (is the story so far).

The Rolling Stone biography says: "There are few tunesmiths who can tackle delicate issues -- heroin addiction, alcoholism, heartbreak and self-loathing -- with more sincerity and sensitivity than folk crooner Elliott Smith."

All I can say is... the scene in The Royal Tenenbaums when Ritchie is slashing his wrists and Elliott Smith's song "Needle in the Hay" is playing... it takes on a ... well I guess it couldn't be a darker tone, given that it was already dark... oh dear.

anyway.

The lyrics to "Everything means nothing to me" (from Figure 8, released 2000)

Someone found the future as a statue
In a fountain
At attention looking backward in a
Pool of water
Wishes with a blue
Songbird on his shoulder
who keeps singing over everything

Everything means nothing to me
Everything means nothing to me
Everything means nothing to me

I picked up the song and found my picture
In the paper
The reflection in the water shouted
"Are your men still
Trying to salute
People from a time when he was
Everything he's supposed to be?"

Everything means nothing to me...

jane 10:26 AM [+]

buying their own toilet paper

check this article from Military.com out. this is ridiculous.

A few quotes:

" FORT STEWART - Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait, sometimes for months, to see doctors.

"The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 - Veterans Day."

Also,

" Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in medical hold were deployed to Iraq. Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops. They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior to military service.

"Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

"Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper. "

The Nation's Daily Outrage says: "Since UPI broke this story, CNN has reconfirmed it, and the Pentagon says today it will send a team to Georgia to investigate. CNN also quotes a sergeant who says Fort Stewart soldiers are afraid to talk to the news media about their poor treatment. 'Here we all were overseas, ready to get ourselves killed in order to bring democracy to these countries, and we get home and we don't even have freedom of speech anymore,' she says."

And it further points out: "Then again, if we wanted to divert some of the $87 billion (billion!) the President wants to spend in Iraq to places like Fort Stewart we could do so easily -- because that $87 billion isn't even necessary right now. According to a study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, we've already approved hundreds of billions of dollars for military needs, both general and Iraq-specific, and the White House has enough cash to play with through early May. Apparently Bush is trying to pile up as much slush for the war as he can now because he doesn't want to ask later -- during an election season."

...

in other news, who thinks I should go as Valerie Plame for Hallowe'en? (Has the Canadian media been pushing this one at all?)

jane 3:00 PM [+]

Cat in Box Experiment

No, nothing to do with Schroedinger.

It has been observed that Cats Like to Sit in Boxes. (Most notably, one cat named Ajna)

Now, the question has been raised: Does the Size of the Box Matter? What is the cat Attempting to Achieve through Box-Sitting?

Please, submit observations/comments/evidence/theories. We must do what we can to keep our cats happy (else witness Neil Gaiman's "Dream of a Thousand Cats", from Sandman Dream Country!)

jane 1:19 PM [+]

Ottawa!

Ottawa!
Is beautiful in the fall, standing out behind the Parliament buildings, looking at the coloured leaves, smiling at the stray cats, giggling politely at the tourists, chatting up the cute guy at the LCBO (thanks for the Henry of Pelham recommendation, wherever you are), driving around the Experimental farm, driving down to Barrhaven, wandering along the canal, eating maple candies, visiting Record Runner on Rideau Street, walking to the Tim Horton's on Greenbank, hanging out with old friends, loving it all.

Ottawa!
Is beautiful because whenever people ask me where I grew up I'm quite insistant that it was not in fact Toronto, lovely though that city may be, and often I remember that I in fact grew up in Nepean, but given that I took the 95 bus from Baseline Station along the Ottawa River Parkway to downtown Ottawa every time I had the opportunity (from my dad taking me to the Nature Museum to admire the dinosaurs followed by ice cream at the Mayflower pub, to going down with friends in high school & drinking pints of Guinness at now-defunct Irish pubs, to clubbing or whatever that may be at Zaphods and other such places), I think Ottawa - the whole bloody new amalgamated city of Ottawa, yes, the whole damn thing - is home.

Ottawa!
Is beautiful because I can take the train up from New York to Montreal and have friends meet me at the train station & go out for very yummy sushi (though I actually just had salmon teriyaki). And then drive through crazy mist, stopping at Tim Horton's on the way, on to Ottawa.

Ottawa!
Is beautiful because I've been slowly managing to convince a Californian (yes, a Californian!) that being able to skate along the Canal as a regular activity may, in fact, be almost worth the coldness.

Thanks to everyone I saw in Ottawa, for making me feel at home in a place I haven't actually lived in for over five years. I love you all.

jane 12:47 PM [+]

mccabe's knee

everyone wish bryan mccabe luck as he goes through arthroscopic surgery.

hockey season starts soon.

jane 1:07 AM [+]

Oct. 20 -- replaced post with the oh-right-other-people version.

Lessons learned today.

So, I guess everybody's lonely.

I was unable to focus on work today so I went onto the Internet and discovered that Game 5 of the National League Division Playoffs (baseball, for the non-baseball minded who may be reading this... prior to this year I had no idea what such things meant) between the Cubs and the Braves was on tonight. I figured I'd phone my friend And-then-nothing-turned-itself-inside-out and ask him if he wanted to come over to watch the game, since (a) he has no T.V. and (b) he's a big baseball (giants) fan and can explain the finer points of the drama of the game to me (very important and useful). So And-then-nothing agreed and came over and brought beer and I made nachos (double layer of cheese, salsa & chips, yum!) and we watched the game. (my roommate, stuck around for the first few innings but alas, she has a cold, and retired to her room).

While we watched the game, we chatted about various things, like, oh, relationships and so forth. Baseball is very conducive to good conversation. Baseball is good for a society of story-telling. Baseball is about story-telling, and personal histories, and personal interactions, and drama. Baseball, unlike hockey, has enough pauses to allow stories to be told. Hockey is the drama happening Very Quickly over three periods. Baseball is a series of moments, followed by stories about those moments, for nine innings (plus a conveniently timed stretch).

The following people are lonely.

- people whose partners live far away

- people whose partners are real busy

- people whose partners broke up with them

- people who broke up with partners when they moved far away

- people who live with people who are happy and engaged, regardless of whether they have partners far away or no partners at all

- people with no partner at all

- not sure about Jesuits.

I guess I'm lonely, but at least I'm lonely in good company. It would be interesting to figure out the precise differences in loneliness between those who are lonely with partners far away, and those who are lonely because of a complete
lack of partners. Or prospects. Or permission.

I think the loneliness felt by those who have partners, but far away, may be more bitter.

There doesn't seem to be any way to really solve that problem, though.

I wonder how many people around me, who seem like fantastically wonderful well-adjusted graduate students (a possible oxymoron), secretly cry into their pillows at night. I wonder how many would be surprised if they found out who did.

And I wonder if it is easier after high school, or if it's just that I haven't hit anything that was as bad as high school again, and will at some point in my future.

I guess all we can do for each other is listen when someone is calling. And tell stories to each other during baseball games.

Go Cubs go.

jane 1:00 AM [+]