The PenOpticon

I was walking on air for a couple of days, thinking Mr. Turner would quickly run into the arms of the Greens. Although the constituents at his weekend town hall meetings marginally voted for him to sit as an independent, the Greens in Milton were a strong second place. It would have been a tough few weeks, but he could have convinced his riding that they would be better served under a Green banner. After all, some of the most critical issues in the region– the imminent expansion of Dufferin Aggregates on the Niagara Escarpment and rapid growth demand a strong Green voice. According to the Milton Rural Ratepayers, the community is growing by 8.6% a year and will grow from 47,000 to 72,000 residents by 2009. Sadly, I could find very little on garth.ca on how Mr. Turner feels about these issues, although he recently re-wrote the Garth Turner “Citizen’s Guide to a Better Environment” which contains the following telling statements:

“Canada’s Conservative government has just finished writing the most comprehensive and environment-friendly action plan of the last twenty years, aimed at addressing the serious problems of global warming, deteriorating air quality and threats to our fresh water.

We have made the wise choice not to pursue the path of the Kyoto Agreement which would have seen Canada send billions of dollars to other countries in order to purchase pollution credits. That complicated and flawed plan would have cost taxpayers a bundle, while actually doing nothing to address our own environmental issues.”

Maybe when he wrote the above he had taken a few sips of the Kool-Aid but had not downed the whole glass? I dunno. Hopefully he will at least become a Green-friendly independent while the Harper government hangs on, and in a few months, if things look right maybe he’ll become a Green for real.

What I find sad about this entire episode is that Garth Turner seems to have replaced the discipline and ideology of Harper’s NeoCons with his own ideological faith in “digital democracy” — a misplaced belief that through technology voters will tell him what to do — and that what they say will always be the right course of action. Ha! Don’t get me wrong, Turner should be commended for opening a communication channel with his constituents. But active “listening” should not be conflated with blind obedience to the wishes of the few who choose to bend a politician’s digital ear. Sometimes good old-fashioned leadership is required. Sometimes a leader must articulate both the spoken and unspoken issues of her constituents.

In any case, Green History has been knocking loudly at Garth’s door and so far he has not bothered to answer.

Veteran — and now former Conservative — MP Garth Turner is about to join the Green Party. Oh, I know he’s not quite there yet, but after a couple town hall meetings this weekend, his constituents will surely nudge him into the welcoming Green fold. It may be awkward for some Conservative Milton/Burlington residents to bless Garth’s entry into the Greens, but given Harper’s poll numbers, it is hard to imagine they will demand he continue to support the party that has just ousted him. After all, Turner has never been particularly shy about speaking his mind and he is adamant that his constituents come first before partisan overseers. Presumably, that is why they keep electing him. So, when Garth crosses the floor, he will be (mostly) powered by green principles — not by high octane political maneuvering. In other words, Garth Turner is no David Emerson.

If you have a gander at Turner’s recent MPtv segments, — his thoughts about the environment and his recent interview with Green Party Leader, Elizabeth May — it becomes clear that a natural organic chemistry is forming between Turner and the Greens. And, while he is (I think) primarily motivated by principles (and he can well afford them), he is also well aware that choosing the Greens will give him a high-profile platform that will attract significant media attention. After all, should he choose to accept Elizabeth’s mission, Turner will make history by becoming Canada’s first Green Party MP. Equally important, such a move will guarantee a spot for May in the next federal election Leader’s debate.

So, how long will it take Garth to make up his mind? In this week’s MPtv interview with May, Turner asks (and almost teases) “how are you going to get somebody down here (to the floor of the House of Commons). How long is it going to take?”

You tell us Garth!  I’ll be expecting an announcement on Monday, October 23 at 10am, sharp.

With an apparent lull in Afghanistan reportage, Canadian media have again stuck out their tongues to taste the fetid winds emanating from the Liberal leadership race. That air was particularly thick yesterday after Liberal front-runner, Michael Ignatieff told a Radio-Canada interviewer that Israel committed a war crime in Qana after they massacred 28 Lebanese civilians last July. I’m not a big fan of Ignatieff, but I was both surprised and impressed to hear him make such an unequivocal statement. Harper’s response was more predictable, however. Putting on his best paternal, Judeo-Christian, sour game face, our sociopath Prime Minister droned: “This is consistent with the anti-Israeli position that has been taken by virtually all of the candidates for the Liberal leadership.” And predictably, every one of Ignatieff’s leadership rivals has since walked a well-worn Liberal tightrope by distancing themselves from Ignatieff’s “anti-Israel” stance, while lashing out at Harper’s “classically thoughtless” remarks.

And so the winds blow. And so another issue dissipates into the upper strata of the atmosphere — well out of range of public discourse. So the question remains? Did Israel commit war crimes in Lebanon? And did Hezbollah commit war crimes in Israel?

Yes and yes, according to Amnesty International. On August 23rd, the group reported:

“Israel’s assertion that the attacks on the infrastructure were lawful is manifestly wrong. Many of the violations identified in our report are war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of power and water plants, as well as the transport infrastructure vital for food and other humanitarian relief, was deliberate and an integral part of a military strategy,” said Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International.

The report includes evidence of the following:

• Massive destruction by Israeli forces of whole civilian neighbourhoods and villages;
• Attacks on bridges in areas of no apparent strategic importance;
• Attacks on water pumping stations, water treatment plants and supermarkets despite the prohibition against targeting objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population;
• Statements by Israeli military officials indicating that the destruction of civilian infrastructure was indeed a goal of Israel’s military campaign designed to press the Lebanese government and the civilian population to turn against Hizbullah.

Add to this the widespread ecological damage caused by this war, including a massive oil spill that threatens much of Lebanon’s coastline and wildlife. Of course, AI also rightly takes umbrage at Hezbollah’s rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. But this was an all out asymmetrical war, in which Israel threw everything it had into it — thousands of troops, billions of American dollars, bunker busters and cluster bombs, all sanctioned by the questionable moral support of Bush, Blair, Harper and the rest. It was a monstrous — and criminal — confrontation between stupidity and madness.

It’s a pity the Liberals can’t offer substantive debate on this issue.

Another bad day in the free world. Three school shootings in seven days. A bridge collapse in Quebec. Planes lost. And the wars, of course. But it is not all bad news. There are always a few small blessings:

Regent Park Pathways to Education Program: a unique program that has attracted 97% of the youth in one of Toronto’s poorest neighborhoods. Since the program began, the high-school drop-out rate in the community has dropped by two-thirds. 75% of the first cohort is expected to graduate a year from now.

Toronto’s very own Nuit Blanche: a “contemporary art thing” modeled after (ok stolen) similar events held in Paris, Montreal, etc. It was a peaceful, intriguing and whimsical evening that brought over 400,000 people out to explore art in the street. And sadly, I completely missed it.

Matchbox-sized, high-speed turbines: 95% efficient, these tiny devices spin at up to 500,000 RPM, possibly providing efficient 100-Watt power sources, smaller and more accurate drills and god know what else. Not earth shattering, but it sounds like a technology that could help solve other technical problems. Maybe it could be used to process islet cells for diabetes patients or for other medical treatments (besides dentistry).

I think that’s it.

Or did I miss something? I did stumble upon a small film called ~Backspace~ FLOAT. For me it illustrates something I’ve been thinking about for a while: every day we are forced to read thousands of words — maybe a whole novel’s worth. Instead of blindly taking in all of these targeted messages, this film-maker peels the words off the urban canvas and mixes them up to produce a joyful, transcendent message. Thanks Swatstuff.