just to stay in this real life situation

It’s Just Jetlag, I’d tell myself. I remember stumbling to the toilet and looking in the mirror at myself trying to decide if I was going to vomit or not. Instead, it went the other way on me. Something's wrong when you find yourself not looking directly at yourself any longer and rather more distantly. I wonder if it's my own depression, which is closer to me. I try really, very hard. Sometimes I would think I’m the evil incarnate of man. If you didn't already see me as of late, you may not have captured that weight on my flesh. I would look at myself in the mirror, a chaste of disgust, yet there's a streak of refusal to look at what I’m pulling. I later emerged, staggered, seeing that I was unwell, all I wanted was to go back to bed. Out to work I went. It’s Just Jetlag.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been practising my personal right to be an asshole this holiday season. In the spirit of things, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary with regards to the always tedious ‘year in review’ post that is all but common as saying 9/11 made me crazy. As I’m examining 2005 from a personal perspective, attempting to be as honest and forthright as possible, what I can give you is this little regress...

This year began in the grips of something that’s becoming more prominent in my life, a feeling of general disinterest in most of the things that have consumed me. After a season in psychiatric therapy, in an attempt to bust out of the blues, I booked a trip to Vancouver. And then, as is always my luck, everything went sideways once there. But it was a trip well worth remembering and I think I should book plenty more once I’m comfortable with the idea once again. But hey man, there’s always an upside! And well, for one thing I’m now a government employee. All I can say is, it beats labour.

Of all the things I’ve seen, read, and experienced this past year, by the end of it all I must say that I’m brought to tears. Yet sometimes we, and yes, I mention myself too because I’m as fallible as anyone else, we do not even break with form to familiarity, responding to cries of help with the emotionality of a stone. Over the last few months I’ve received numerous emails condemning me for not focusing on the positive aspects of life or tragedy, and I have sat in silence, blankly staring at this screen, stunned by them.

Have we been so submerged in denial as to not be able to look at this and ourselves plainly? Have we become so accustomed to living each day in a state of constant self affirmation and arrogance that we must intrinsically find some fantastic aspect to all of this to better demonstrate that even in the face of mass incompetence, tarnishing our fantastic exterior is inconceivable?

2005 has claimed a unknown number of lives. So too has government inefficiency. But why must we look for examples of heroism to help combat the realities that tragedy has made plain? Those that acted to save lives did so because they possess a decency that, by all accounts, seems to be absent from many in positions of authority. Therefore, using such stories of heroism to deflect criticism from those whose incompetence cost lives is beyond revolting.

If positivism is what you’re after, besides donating money to help the victims of waking-disaster, start asking yourself some tough questions about government, about how we view the loss of life in other parts of the world or in our own communities, ask about the realities of poverty and inequality in our society, and how we have grown distant from each other despite the fact that there are more of us now than ever before. Perhaps, when all is said and done, tears should encompass more of our days. Maybe then more might be done about the state of this world and with our own lives rather than very little, with a smile.


WARNING: Imagine, if you will, where you’ll begin this new years eve. If it is, in a sense, beginning at the exact same place as you began last year – maybe in front of your television – expect the same shit of 2005 to happen yet again in the year of 2006. As for me, my plans have yet to progress. But I hope that my tendency for spending a lot of money will diminish for only essential items as in food or computers. Actually, I’m hoping for 2006 to be my big start towards being a bit of a financial hermit, probably because I’m going to develop myself even more as a homebody and rarely go anywhere that requires me to spend money. Note to self – if successful, continue trend.

...And to all my readers, have a safe and Happy New Year.

a happy holidays to all

Will I drink vodka out of your belly button? Hmm? I’m relatively a newbie at his current place of employment within the federal governments department of justice. I was expecting to get a special kind of shaft for the holidays. In this business, there are certain suppliers and such who unashamedly shower their clients with presents of liquor, gift certificates, food, cool knickknacks, and etc I’m sure every year at Xmas. In the past year I believe I’ve done quite well – but when it comes to gift giving and receiving I must say I have been left out of all of the swaglists.

The following morning I will have opened my present; that of flannel pajamas. I may even lose my nerve and throw out the radio playing the oldies station of Christmas songs. Songs like James Browns’ funky Christmas, or whatever it’s called, where he’s not really singing but just kind of rhyming. Songs like Don Henley and then David Bowie. Johnny Mathis. Motown to the Jackson Five can all go out the window. I will rest tomorrow because I’m ready to go off the edge. Feelings or not. I will wonder how it feels to return full circle to the mountains and to the vagaries of my assumptions about familiar, natural sights. I will take off my clothes when it suits me best and stare at what I have always laughed at all day. Naked bodies. I stare at them in the mirror or in the shower or in the bed with a lover. I think I know what nakedness is. But conventions change. They are fluid, like taste. And convention is another word for habit, which is also a word for routine. There are of course many kinds of routines when it comes to the art of life. One is a way of seeing, which shifts over time along with the rest of human culture. I’ll hasten alterations in natural habit of looking. Another kind of routine is a way of working, which most good artists practice because it helps one see more clearly where they are actually leading.

In this candy coating of life there’s experience meant fully for the here and now, which is always right before your eyes, but fleeting. As an artist in a laboratory of spontaneity, abstract expressionism shifts with scrutiny. As I stay awake staring long enough it’ll seem to me we move and change before these eyes. As a model in first entry unable to help the one foot in front of another. Poses change slightly hour after hour, week after week. Like a realist wrestling unruly visions into cogent shapes. In a challenge of tweaked routine of lucky, we are the ones who hook into a problem beyond solution. To watch me stumble into your variations of theme, to all those things I’ll do as an old man, where I just can’t pull it off alone. I’m desperately looking for novelty, turning art history into a crazy comic book of Merry, to all a goodnight.

Lastly, in response, I have been drinking. No, art's not a new thing, it's an old thing. Actually I spent a lot of my time painting when I lived in the forest. But after leaving I decided that the art world was too fickle and sought a job in goverment work. I haven't painted since I left, but I hear there's some pieces floating around out there. Ask the animals, they might know.

My New Years Resolution: work harder, quicker deadlines, play more guitar. Try to record some silly songs that have been festering in my brain. One word: Motivation.

this outset of normality

It has been a joyful year by degree. For one, I have learned to be modest when it comes to predicting the future. Still, trends are observable that may project into the future: agendas are operating or envisioned which command certain bases of political support. Some of these are contrasting: incubating within them are very different futures of ourselves.

I believe there is a major scenario developing and I’ll outline it here. Predicting the future is not an exact science: my projections are frankly based on experience, observation, understanding of the major agendas now on the ground, and an intuition about the relationships between people. Here, my readers are offered a perspective -- a projection inside of a movement -- a perspective from the heart and gut, so to speak.

Canadians from all backgrounds realize that a profound injustices have been beset since neo-colonization of the original inhabitants. We all know that: it is a primary reason why many Canadians are sympathetic. But when they look at the conditions we’re in, they see it through an inherited framework. Perspective conditions oriented to primary reference points for concepts of normality and abnormality.

My scenario assumes that the mind set for considerations of all issues will continue. Canadians will continue to see the current problems through the lens of another. This will continue to be the half filled glasses we use to survey and think about these issues, problems, and solutions. This is the foundation of the current operating agendas in government and many movements.

I believe in distorted perception. I believe we’re all sheep following a gateway to more confusion, and not on the verge for a starting point to clarity. There’s apartheid and racism still existent today, founded in discredited ideas of European superiority, domination and manifest destiny. It was and remains a means to keep us tightly under wraps of ulterior motives. All of the prickly detail of the regulations, policies, administrative discretion, rules, regulations, and by-laws set in motion predicate the same domineering philosophy. All of this is compounded by an often overbearing and sometimes self-serving bureaucracy that is itself a major constituent of th system the legislation created, with its own bureaucratic power, prestige, jobs, pecking order and privilege to preserve.

I believe none of this is normal. I believe we will fail to make real progress at modernizing and advancing this critical condition of Canada and on the rest of our planet. The only solution, if only a dream; to unite societies until we alter our frame of reference for normality.

Normality - another word for justifying the status quo in our society, for explaining why power is allocated as it is. The structure of our society also incentivizes some leaders to justify the staus quo - to explain these acts of ours as "normal". I believe these "leaders", and the system which brings them into positions of what I believe is minor power (under the corporation), contribute to the marginalization of most people. They formulate ill-conceived notions of nationhood; they defend absurd concepts of democracy (rather demo’crazy) and government. Some of these are wrapped in cries of resentment and a challenge to the power establishment. These naturally appeal to the youth groups; anti-establishments if you will to challenge yet fall easily. We are young but disempowered ears. The thought that the power establishment is unfair - that it should be resented - contains a veneer of truth. Joining to this thought a call to transfer authority to control, centres of power adds a second layer of appeal, however thin the conception.

We cannot allow ourselves to miss the selfish spirit beneath the veneer of each and every one of us: the meanness, the stinginess, the careless, autocratic quest for power. For more. Autocratic - for it seeks power on the backs of the most excluded. We’re unrepresented. We’re cut off without a base of power. Without enough effective forum to negotiate or manage our rights. Cut adrift, we will soon enough and no longer reserve what we enjoy little of and value; as our human rights, as our freedom.

transience of fragile lives

It is imminent and I’ve been considering a redesign, but every time I sit down to tackle it I decide against it. I’ll do something eventually, but not until I troubleshoot some functionality problems to do with some unique navigation ideas that I have. As you may have seen, I’ve also been messing with my msn messenger. To be honest, I’m still not all that happy with it, I prefer other means of communication, but it’ll do for now.

Enough to make me inhale, catch my breath, blink rapidly while the world kaleidoscopes, then settles into precise, intimate focus once again. The clarity of this new sight is horrific, every detail searing your retinas - the frayed edge of the carpet, the brown stains on the peeling wallpaper, the slight murmur of voices in the elevator humming and creaking gently past. Something inside me scrabbles frantically for meaning, even I have those few moments of adrenalin when it is shot through my body and I shake uncontrollably.

On a golden pleateau of unimportant things I feed the squirrels. During the bus ride I averted a gun shot wound to the head that I awoke to the other morning. This morning I had tears. I'm not sure who they were for. For those who had lost and those who had been lost. For an existence which had meaning only for me, as I was subsumed with the problems of me, the trifles of me. Now this self-absorption was nothing, shrunk into perspective by the new hole ripped inside, aching to take away the pain of someone loved.
If I'm melancholy, it's because of this new realization slicing through the general blur and slur of a sloppy existence, living from day to day. It slows so that you're able to discern the edges with startling sharpness. Sometimes you forget because even as you partake in the grief it's not really yours. And other times you sit and it settles around you like a cape, yet it offers no warmth, only the chill of isolation, that sad, lonely and dignified word which conceals the depth of the jagged, consuming wound inside - bereavement. When I walked down the halls of the malls it suddenly hit me she wasn't alone, I wasn't alone, privileged with this awful knowledge, this life truth. It was everywhere, etched onto the faces of those with sad, quiet eyes and a storm of grief inside. I'd just never noticed it before.

It's peculiar how something so entirely natural, the only certainty we know about our existence - that it will end - still disturbing, so sensational when it asserts its truth. It shuts the door, turns the key, locking it tight. We know that it will happen, but we are so young, unprepared for the transience of our fragile lives. I watched someone die, year by year. I shrank as if it was catching, this disease of death. The unexpected allows us no such luxury. It takes without excuse or explanation.

weighed against

Last night I drank a Coke-Cola. It tastes a lot like nickel to me. Maybe because my lips were chapped or the bleeding in my mouth after I had bit my tongue to make it stop wriggling.

I shutter in my repetition which translates more and more everyday to a ritual of codifying spaces of my mind, giving me a tangible measurement of time. The pearls of my life are consumed one by one, and gather at one end of the scale. There is the past, and it is weighed against the pearls yet to be consumed, the future. To my delight, the scale tips a little more to the future even as pearls are removed and given to the past. This happens because more weight is taken on by the threat of scarcity.

There is a life in the expenditure of the future to the last line, the last drop at the bottom. I am given the vision of the beginning and the end because I have the courage to cut and mete out the present. There is a life in the full bag becoming empty, and the coins disappearing, and the teeth falling away from the mouth, and the last rise of the chest; and in everything that has lived, in minutes and seconds meted out are the moments of the mundane yet significant: the last itch that was felt, the last kiss given or received, the last bowel movement, last erection, last blink, last swallow, last word–my first word was "no", but what will be my last?--That last little pearl is more valuable than everything that was spent, and tips the scale to the floor.

Absolutely, it will be melted down to its purest liquid form and injected straight into the heart. I thought about all of this, after I had confronted the television I hate. I wouldn't watch it, and the small glimpses I'd catch from my family starring at it perpetually would make me empty and sad. They always said "Don't do drugs, they'll make you dumb." I think T.V. is worse.

It's a highly addictive form of recreation which even at its best presents two-dimensional misshapen worlds which watchers fall into, believe in, live in. We watch the President, Paris Hilton, CSI, and whatever shows make us laugh. Some of us feel good when the home team finally wins a game. Some of us even watch Oprah to no end. Through the tube, we get an idea of what the world is like outside, what other people are doing, and what we are supposed to be doing ourselves. But none of it is real.

T.V. is money for the advertisers; the programming is not going to encourage us to be independent thinkers. None of us watch our hope-starved children, our masses of poor, our darkest realities. We’ll watch ourselves to no end as we fail.

Communism failed because of the greed and the desire for power over others inherent in human nature. Capitalism will fail also, in this country, for the same shortcomings. As the economic gap widens between rich and poor--and that is not contestable, it is indeed widening--and the money stops trickling down altogether (money has a tendency to go upstream, not down), T.V. which so beautifully renders the lifestyles of the rich and famous, will serve as a tool to incite the have-nots into a revolution. It's not a prediction, it's simply a logical turn-of-events; it happens in every society every couple of centuries or so. The oppressed feel trapped and have no way out except through violence, and heads will roll so... Stay Tuned.

fresh blaspheme for $40 Canadian

Like a lot of people, the holidays sometimes get me feeling a little down. This year, however, I found a cure. I simply tell myself this and suddenly everything is candy canes and gummy bears. "There are many reasons why I love Canada - the people can be nice, the beer is cold half the time, and yes, Sharon, much like myself, loves puke." Here is a little blaspheme for you today.

With exams ending for all students abroad. Schools within our federal government are in for another exhausting debacle with the way the students are preparing to rejoice. Apparently, those who are to handle a stripper scandal is turning unreal. What happened was a freshmen wanted to celebrate their buddy's birthday by hiring a stripper, but they realized they had very little cash and they didn’t know any strippers.One of their friends said, no problem bros, there’s some girls down the hall who strip on the side. Don’t get me wrong, I love sex as much as the next person but the following is ludicrous.

Sure enough they did strip on the side and they marched down the hall and did a nice bump and grind for the boys for allegedly $40 Canadian. All would have been a fine little tale if it hadn’t been for a few dozen pictures that were snapped.

The other day I noticed a traffic bump on one of our users pages on Buzznet and lo and behold were the pictures and I was all, oh that’s smart, someone decided to put them on Buzznet. We're cool with the nude body, good for them this way nobody will have their email boxes filled up or be cursed with potential virus. No way did I expect the sort of traffic that site is now getting due to the Toronto Star story about this Saugeen Stripper. In over a day, 25,000 hits. I must say that I'm proud for this being handled in an adult manner.

Toronto Star
LOUISE BROWN
EDUCATION REPORTER

Canadian universities have no business, it seems, in the bedrooms of the campus dorm.Yet thanks to the Internet, everyone else can take a peek.

The University of Western Ontario is investigating an incident in which a female first-year student performed a full striptease and lap dance last week for several males in a residence bedroom, with graphic photos soon sent out over the Internet.A Google search on 'saugeen stripper' reveals several x-rated photos.

The incident raises questions about how far a university can go in protecting students, particularly younger ones from themselves.But because the young woman apparently performed willingly in the privacy of a residence room and no one filed a complaint, the school says it likely has no cause for discipline.

"We certainly regret this has happened; it's not something the university condones and we are very disappointed in these students, but rooms in residence are considered to be students' homes, and what goes on between consenting adults in the privacy of their homes is considered to be their business," said Susan Grindrod, Western's vice-president of housing.

"What's different in this case is that these pictures are going all over the world. With the Internet and personal blogs, pictures can be circulated very quickly, and I'm not sure how we would regulate students' blogs and websites even if we wanted to," said Grindrod. As soon as the raunchy images came to the attention of the administration, officials approached the young woman to ask if she had been forced to strip or tricked into being photographed without her knowledge. She said she had not.

"We were immediately proactive because we wanted to know if there had been any coercion and she told us she was a consenting participant and she was aware that pictures were being taken," said Grindrod."If there had been any coercion, there absolutely would have been repercussions. We do plan to talk to the other (male) students involved and continue to review the situation. It's still early in the game for us to have figured out how to proceed."University dorms have codes of conduct that forbid students from breaking the law. Many take a zero-tolerance approach to students taking drugs and underage drinking, for example.

Western has a policy that forbids the circulation of "objectionable" material such as racist, homophobic or pornographic images, either written or electronic, with extreme cases leading to the student being asked to leave residence.Yet most universities warn today's highly involved baby boomer parents that campus dorm supervisors will not serve as party police or morality monitors for their children, but will enter a student's room only if there is reason to believe a law is being broken or someone is in danger.

"We're not the alcohol police and we're not sex police, and I'm not sure we would want to be," said Grindrod. "And we recognize that many young people in first year may try out new things that can lead to errors in judgment. I'm not sure some of these misbehaviours haven't gone on in the past. It's just that today, the images can get sent around the world."

I actually feel badly for all students involved in these sorts of incidents. Allowing oneself to become the source of anothers gratification at ones own cost. It's a very sad situation. For some, the passivness taking place in this is rarely thought on by many. I, myself, am guilty of not mentioning it as much as I should, and am, truth be told, extremely disappointed that I was unable to participate.

must be the holiday fever

Murders are on the rise in the Ottawa Valley. Must be the Holiday Fever. As for Stanley Williams in California, U.S of A, he was executed by the State shortly after 12am. I am against the death penalty. It degrades the morality of what we consider civilized justice, turning it from an ennobled mechanism into little more than the placation of vengeance. Yesterday, Stan was refused clemency by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Williams, 51, was once the leader of the LA based gang ‘The Crips’, and has spent the last 24 years on death row for the murder of four people.

During his time in prison, Williams has written 8 children’s books aimed at deterring young people from becoming involved in gangs and has been nominated 5 times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Even President George W. Bush has written Williams commending him for his work.

"An Eye for an Eye" is not a Christian concept; it is a Draconian one.

How can we expect a nation that we have invaded and created a chaotic war in to follow in our footsteps of "democracy" when we are so divided and there exists a clear discrepancy in the criminal justice system (I.E. A person can torture and mutilate a family and spend the rest of their life behind bars, while in another state, the same or less could be committed by a criminal and they are thrown onto a bench with straps holding them down, while they are injected with a lethal dose?

But hey what do I know, let’s just continue, to kill people who kill people in order to teach other people not to kill people. If we are not unified on this topic, why should the middle eastern nation be invaded and expect a non-confederate democracy?
Yeah, forgiveness is severely underrated by many of those who belong to a religion which stresses its importance. We are no better than that person. We bring ourselves down to their level. What we all need to see is the latent hypocrisy inherent in our continuation of ghoulish practice. What does this teach others like the kids. It’s basically do as I say not as I do. Presumably anyway, kids are being taught to work out their differences rather than fight, and not to inflict harm upon others. Meanwhile, their federal government declares war on a defenceless nation, and the state government says "Hasta la Vista Baby" and murders a man. Hypocrisy at it’s basest.

Forgiveness is the greatest of all powers. Without the ability forgive comes the inability to truly be free. No one’s saying it’s easy. If it was then it wouldn’t be such a powerful thing.

hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for xbox

Okay, so I’m late on my entires. I can explain why. I bought a XBox. If you know me and video games as of late, you be asking yourself if I could be anymore hypocritical? I could tell you about my day playing this system but that would be boring. Allow me to talk about this latest canvas I have been working on in my room, I call it ‘unpainted’. Like life, I’ve had big dreams for myself, but instead, those dreams have sat untouched.

In fact, over the year, I stopped painting completely. To represent this stunt of creativity – my latest piece in all the whiteness and purity somehow remains a tribute to memory lost, and that, unless I was able to paint something utterly profound, it would be an insult to even try -- or if it’s simply the size of the canvas itself that froze me. After all, it takes a lot of time, and a lot of paint, to cover space.

Not everyone gets to keep their bodies when they get sent to here. Hell, that is. We are all tailgaters sometimes turned into trees. The Devil will make us stand here for a couple hundred years. Maybe we’ll make a house. Maybe we’ll tear it down. Never burn. I water-log the wood. As in, warp it. I allow it to float down the river back home to be reassigned. Some get turned into bugs. Some into animals. Some into peoples pets. Some get turned into dangerous animals. Some get turned into fish.

I used to be afraid of fish and when I got down here and they showed me my file. Apparently a long time ago I was sent to hell and then turned into a fish and had to swim around in the dark cold depths of the Atlantic for a few dozen years. A while back I was given a reprieve from what I was doing and reassigned as a male born to a undereducated lower class family and raised in dilapidation. It seems, the giver of grace was not very happy with what I did with those blessings. So there I was banging some girl in hell's sex palace and all of this was dawning on me: life is all context. Perspective. Compared to contracting stds nightly in the pits of pandemonium, flying chopper across the skies wasn’t so bad. And if I didnt like it, it wasnt like I was some old growth redwood, I could go do something else with my life. I could actually take control of my destiny as opposed to waiting on the universe to decide.

Fuck the Universe.

The universe is 2/3s lost souls doing what some guy more lost than them is telling them to do. The only good news was I was getting used to my demonic body. The crowd didn’t flamethrow me as much any more. Usually they waited until the end when I wasn’t looking. Then they all laughed and then applauded my incinerated smoking remains. That night I went to bed on my dirty rag of a pillow.

insatiably graphic with yukon cornelius

I’m going to endeavour to do more personal blogging. While my passion for what most would term ‘current events’ is obvious, it seems to me that talking about nothing has its upsides from time to time. But before I do, I have some disturbing news that I wanted to pass along. According to Organic Consumers, the American Environmental Protection Agency…

Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children, without exception. But the EPA’s newly proposed rule, is ridden with exceptions where chemical studies may be performed on children in certain situations like the following:

Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns, may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.

Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.

If you’d like to contact the EPA about this, please feel free to do so. Other than that, I have to come to terms with my insatiably graphic OCD, there’s no getting around that. I’ve also started to exhibit signs of functionality OCD, which is troubling. Obligatory work parties all but stand in my way. People would rather hear me explain the story of an elf that wants to become a dentist (never minding the reindeer nonsense) than go into a forum about the Kyoto deal . If you happen upon me this Christmas, lets make the following and rejoice!

Yukon Cornelius
Type: Shooter
Ingredients: 2 oz. Yukon Jack. 1/4 oz. Goldschlager
Instructions: In a shot glass pour the Yukon Jack to just below the rim. Add Goldschlager, filling the glass to full. Enjoy.

another exciting day in activistland

I lost the cord for uploading photos from my camera to my computer. When I found it again, I thought about the idea that I might actually contribute something new to my blog, but of course I didn’t get around to it. My camera is bursting at the seems, and the photos from my work related parties and my trip to the Global March in Montreal will be posted in due time.

I’ve been feeling ill, overwhelmed, and disorganized lately, Overwhelmed by what, I have no idea, but it feels like there are a hundred things hanging over my head–a thousand loose ends ready to unravel. There’s moldy bread in my cupboard, and sour milk in my fridge. I managed to do an overdue load of laundry earlier. When I took it out of the dryer, I folded everything nicely, and put it in the laundry bag. Then I brought it into my room and dumped it in a messy pile on the floor. It’s still there.

Political involvement sometimes feels a bit like the much-maligned proverbial bus. You don't do anything for ages and then you end up doing three things in one week.Last Saturday I attended an excellent organised Campaign Against Climate Change. A national demo, part of an international day of action timed to coincide with the First "Meeting of Parties" to the Kyoto Protocol taking place in Montreal. Congratulations to those on organizing a very large demonstration of 6,000. It was impressive to say the least.

The focus of this march was to demand fair resettlement and rehabilitation of our dangerous climate. I think I've suggested before that I'm not all that keen on big demos. In fact I might have put it a little stronger than that. Reservations aside, I understand that they do have a role to play in putting pressure on our so-called leaders and in lieu of anything more useful to contribute to the cause I decided to saunter along and show my face. While I hadn't planned to meet anyone in particular, I had figured if I wandered around for long enough I'd run into somebody I knew. That wasn’t the case.

Unusually for me I managed to get there early. Over an hour before the demo was due to start in fact. Unsurprisingly, there weren't many people around at that point , although the paper sellers were already out in force. This was something of a surprise, while I was aware that various socialist groups were cognoscenti of the issue of climate change, I hadn't thought it was something they approached with a great deal of enthusiasm. All grist for the mill, I suppose.

We started off around a bunch of chanting. This presented us with an unexpected chance to gauge the state of civil liberties with megaphones of fury. To be honest, I don't like megaphones. The people who end up with them are generally those who need them least, but if I have to chose between them and the police, it's not something I need to think about for very long.

We worked to recognize and give a great deal of importance to the grave violations of human dignity and to the loss of life that these occupations entail. Global Warming is a major problem, and our response shows a lack of vision, analysis, and understanding of the political economy of the contemporary world. The more important issue at stake here is the fundamental lack of solidarity of the leadership of important sections of a peace and justice movement with billions of poor people worldwide, overwhelmingly of color.

It is imperative we recognize the damage before the country starves and exploits for the profit of multinational corporations. It is equally important that we recognize that exploitation extends to the environment, and that forests are clearcut, air and water polluted, and ecosystems destroyed every day to extend economic control. The economic control of the planet for corporate profit is a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy. A failure to recognize this reality is also a serious analytical failure on the part of the peace and justice movement. This lack of vision is also self-defeating.

If the U.S is serious about ending the occupation of Iraq (and of Afghanistan, Haiti, and Palestine), a movement needs to develop and internalize an understanding of the motivations for and the roots of war and occupation. The drive for imperial control of natural resources, cheap labor, and markets has been a key part of the motivation for U.S. wars and interventions for decades (some would argue, centuries), and a peace and justice movement that has a strategic goal of not merely ending this latest war but undermining the U.S. war machine in the longer term, needs to build this understanding into its actions.

These protests should not be expected, in that us locals do the "dirty work" of logistics without having a central role in shaping the political message. We end with the observation that it would be breathtakingly arrogant on the part of the "leadership" of so-called progressive organizations to imagine that "the masses" are not ready for a sophisticated and nuanced analysis, and can think only in soundbytes and bumper sticker slogans.

We talk to our neighbours, to people we meet in our jobs, to cashiers at our neighborhood grocery stores, to cab-drivers, and to other folks. Grassroots constituencies have a far greater degree of political sophistication than the so-called leaders of the progressive movement give them credit for.

"The people" are ready for a political message that links fundamental racial, economic, and gender inequalities with similar inequalities on a global scale, and the role of maintaining these inequalities. I think the people are ready for a political message that links economic deprivation and war with global climate change and environmental destruction. They are ready to question the role of the Canadian and U.S. political and economic system in creating and perpetuating these injustices. Particularly after Hurricane Katrina, people are eager for such a message.

Are the "leaders" listening? The Mobilization for these based groups that worked on issues of global economic and social justice and sustainability believe another world is possible and necessary. We envision a world free of corporate domination and crushing debt, particularly in communities of color. We act to expose and change the institutionalized violence wrought by international financial and trade institutions.

None of which is to say that there should not be a protest against climate change, the Iraq war, or genocide on the weekend. There should be protests against these illegitimacies 365 days of the year. We hope that our march (as it continues in branches) provokes the leadership of large national organizations to engage in some reflection about how not to sacrifice longer term goals to advance short term interests.

all in all, another exciting day in activist-land.

string along bullet-pointed key words

Mutes they like to protest. To shine your ears and eyes. There's a feeling one gets when one knows one is being strung along. It's a heavy feeling. What with all the humiliation. Even when it's unintentional on the part of the stringer, the feeling is ever-present and strange. The worst is when one is aware and chooses to remain strung all the same. The longer this nonsense carries on, the worse one actually feels. It is possible, even, to find lying to oneself. Truths become blurred, what with disingenuousness. Often, while tangled in the dysfunction we actually convince ourselves this is healthy. One is hard-pressed to find a situation more demoralizing on the spirit than the feeling of being mislead or exploited. Let us be clear and not confuse this with being taken for granted, different in that it lacks malice. Stringing is a sober thing. It is selfish. And pity not the one who over time winds up covered in silly string, not unwittingly. For the self-pity is more than ample on its own.

Take that Dr. Phil.

a 'love' that stinks of addiction

Shelved blog posts are the greatest – so long as you write something that isn’t temporally specific you can hammer out all at once and leave it sitting until those days when you don’t have anything to say. Like this post for instance. I’ve had the intention of saving it for later. Something tells me that it will be used tomorrow, but that tells you nothing what with your not knowing when today is. I am reaching out from the ghost of my past to speak to you today.

With another caffeine over-indulgence. What does all of this do to ones body? I don’t know exactly, but I feel like I’m invisible and what I say can’t come back to haunt me because you won’t find me anywhere, anyhow. Maybe, that’s why I’m sitting in my office with no pants on.

I sincerely don't feel like writing. I don't have the discipline to think. Some people who say they love me are using their (mania expectations nostalgia jealousy) claim on my loyalty to distract me from my own thoughts. My own goals, which are always, more along the lines of producing than consuming.

I am working an unmanned experimental aircraft tonight and guarding four scratchy frequencies and I may have a health problem to deal with soon but in the quiet moments of my interrupted existence, I keep thinking of the last three movies I've paid to see. Maybe it was the company I was in, or the show atmosphere. But I keep thinking of the pain behind addiction.

How often creativity and the need to re-birth, re-parent yourself, springs from the same baptismal font as the thirst for a craving. It's not that I'm not romantic. Or being remote or sadistic. I just don't have time for a 'love' that stinks of addiction.

Compulsiveness hurts. Distraction is a form of abandonment. Perhaps the most cowardly and passive form.We remember. We noticed. We were there. Whether the addiction is to the internet, or compulsive volunteering, or to serial romantic manias that remove your ability to be in the moment with real life you remember. We are scarred. And scars are ugly and boring.

I have avoided addiction before, but at what cost? I have all the charisma of a dry drunk. But I’m afraid I will never grow up, cringing with dread and panting with rage. And I have never bull-shitted anyone. My absence of mindfulness in this realm is for anybody's greater, own good.

I am spent.

Positive conversation commences now.

Talk amongst yourselves.