The PenOpticon

Blogging has been sporadic for months — hey, I've got my reasons! — but I'm going to crank it up again. Feeling inspired tonight after the U.S election (though you wouldn't know it from the way I'm writing). Feeling inspired but a little rusty. In any case:

Obama's acceptance speech and McCain's concession speech were remarkable for different reasons. Obama is always very much aware of the arc of history and he has an uncanny ability to map paths along that arc for both himself and his audience. I envied the crowd in Chicago as tears of joy rolled down their cheeks in concert with his words.  MLK had a dream and now (finally!) Obama is living it and inviting the world to go along.

As for McCain, while he is not a particularly eloquent speaker, tonight he was gracious, transcendent and real. In fact, this was McCain's most presidential moment since the campaign began and it should be a harbinger of the attitude the Republicans must adopt if they hope to rebuild.

All in all, a truly remarkable evening.

And now, as a Canadian, I wonder how, and if, Stephen Harper can work with Obama. Tomorrow morning Harper may discover that he has gotten up on the wrong side of the ideological spectrum. We shall see. All I know I that I will soon have to change the PenOpticon banner. After all, Tony Blair is gone and Bush and Cheney are starting to pack up their stuff.  Can Harper be far behind?

It is amazing that Americans can shoehorn most of their political views into these two political parties, especially when much of the democratic world requires three, four, five or more parties. As Canada lurches forward with four national parties, it is obvious, that the change we need here is a proportional voting system that will enable these diverse voices to obtain seats in government and work together in a spirit of practical collaboration. Until that day comes, Canada will be cursed with a series of minority governments that will have a hard time getting the job done.

Congratulations President Obama! Now how can Canadians get the change we need?

I'm not sure if it was due to a fear of plants or an asphalt fetish, but my neighbour recently paved his backyard. About 2 months ago, they also took out most of the trees on the property, including two 50-foot fir trees and the remaining fruit trees that had been planted by Vincenzo, the previous owner (may he never return to see what has become of his former home!).  So, as of this moment, about 3/4 of the property is paved or covered with interlocking stone and most of the lot's carbon sequestering capabilities have been removed.  I'm not a hydrologist, so I have no idea what effect this pavement will have on run-off water quality or the water table, but it can't be good. They won't be fertilizing this over-sized driveway, but they will periodically re-tar it and will probably also use pesticides to keep peripheral weeds from taking over. 

The above photo was pieced together using Autostitch from a dozen or so shots — hence the fish-eye effect.  You can see there is plenty of room for hopscotch and chalk art, but little room for plant life. 

I think I've moved beyond anger about the whole thing, but I can not understand the mind or the aesthetic that desired and was willing to pay for such ugliness. Why pavement? Why now, when gas prices are on the rise? Why now, when we are bombarded with messages about global warming, peak oil and the need to curtail carbon emissions.

It pains me to admit I haven't been able to post regularly to this space over the past few months.  It seems that life got in the way: drismal weather, ambulances and doctors; a day job that sometimes bleeds into night.  Lot's of good stuff too: long walks around town, a few birding excursions and a few good books. Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Don DeLillo's Libra. Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Also finished Jared Diamond's Collapse and David Orrell's Aollo's Arrow. Now I'm picking away at The Weather Makers. Maybe it's time to dive into some cheerier reading this summer! I was in the middle of DeLillo's Libra when the Virginia Tech massacre took place and this caught my eye:

After Oswald, men in America are no longer required to lead lives of quiet desperation. You apply for a credit card, buy a handgun, travel through cities, suburbs and shopping malls, anonymous, anonymous, looking for a chance to take a shot at the first puffy empty famous face, just to let people know there is someone out there who reads the papers.

Beyond the mechanics of obtaining credit cards, exercising their Second Amendment rights and photographing themselves brandishing weapons, there is little similarity between LHO and Seung-Hui Cho. It seems that every shooter must be insane in his own particular fashion.  What is clear is that Ho's victims were not "in the wrong place at the wrong time", as Bush told Virginia Tech students last week.  On the contrary, as Slinger eloquently writes in the Toronto Star, they were in precisely where they were supposed to be.  With that tired old wrong place, wrong time phrase, Bush attempted to cut off substantive debate over U.S gun ownership and registration, while also  conveniently forgetting that dozens of American children are murdered with guns every day.

Paradoxically, crime rates — including homicides involving firearms — have been dropping across North America for the past twenty years. But, at the same time, because urban population densities are increasing, the effective rate of crime in many places is also rising. Perhaps crime statistics should be given in terms of crimes per square kilometre (mile or cubit if you prefer). Some jurisdictions have been reporting crime stats in this way for some time and the U.S. National Institute of Justice, which recently held their 9th Crime Mapping Research Conference, even offers free GIS crime mapping software.

As for me, I'd rather live with the assumption that the vast majority of people are "mostly harmless" and as unarmed as I am. Better that, than a world in which everyone and anyone may be concealing a Glock or a .38 — even if they happen to be angry, isolated or insane. 'Course I'd also rather we address crime,  crowding, poverty, pollution and climate change issues by allowing populations to fall (naturally I hope!) to sustainable levels, but that's a rant for another day.

All for now. Gotta get me a few hours of hiatus.

I'm a loyal rider and supporter of York Region's VIVA Transit system . I spend at least 2 hours a day on these fast, (mostly) efficient buses. Most of the fleet now includes an LCD TV display at the front of each bus.  It used to be easy to ignore these things (they were turned off much of the time), but over the past few weeks, the incessant, mindless, insulting crap that flickers over VIVA TV is really starting to bug me.  This stream of shite appears to be downloaded over a wireless internet connection and played back in a continuous loop using Windows-based display software. As shown in Exhibit A and B, you get the time, weather, scrolling headlines of "celebrity" gossip and any other headline that includes the word "sex", "scandal" or "explosion" in it.  Apparently we are all dying to know about the lunatic antics of Brangelina, Tomkat, Spears and Hilton, et al.

VIVA and byt^emedia (what dat?) have made a terrible marketing blunder here. Most of the time, most riders simply ignore these obnoxious flickerings. And for those few who mistakenly look up, much of the time, that screen will have already crashed with a Blue Screen of Death, or entered a perpetual reboot & crash cycle. So, it would be best for riders and the VIVA marketing geniuses to just get rid of these things now – it would free up some bandwidth so passengers could check their email, browse the web — or blog their brains out. If you VIVA suits still believe that riders can't survive without the boob tube, at least give us BBC World, or CBC's Newsworld, or CNN. I just don't want to hear about Paris Hilton's latest involuntary gyrations or Tomkat's wonky dance moves.

It's time to torpedo this horrible experiment.  

The "407", that notorious ribbon of concrete and crash barriers that slices across the northern half of Toronto has really done it now.  The 407 ETR marketing types have introduced a "loyalty program" that rewards people for driving more.  To paraphrase their own lame slogan: Ladies and gentleman… start your fossil fuel, greenhouse gas-emitting engines. Drive at least 400 KM a month during the six-month "qualifying period" and you could win yourself some free kilometers. As the world slowly wakes up to the reality of global warming, the 407 geniuses want to pay you to stay asleep at the wheel and drive like there's no tomorrow. Way to go 407. Idiots.

On the other hand, at least the 407 ETR suits are honest about what they are doing. In reality their approach is not all that different from thousands of "green" marketing schemes — like airlines that encourage flyers to pay an extra green tax to make up for the tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel they are about to ignite in the upper atmosphere. Captain: "We'll burn 183,380 litres of fuel on this flight". Passenger: "Well then, here's 20 bucks. Go plant a tree".

For too long we have allowed corporate interests to appropriate Green as a mere marketing ploy. Do you buy the unbleached coffee filters? Do you heave a sigh of relief when the 60-inch big screen TV arrives wrapped in recycled cardboard (while ignoring the 20 pounds of packing foam)? Do you pay the extra 10 cents a litre for clean gasoline?  If only these token gestures could actually save the place. 

Sadly, the emptiness and dishonesty of these schemes is just a corporate reflection of the established Liberal<=>Conservative (they are interchangeable) political establishment. Any politician who can look people in the eye and bleat about "sustainable development" in a country with high immigration, dwindling fresh water, dwindling air quality and rapid soil depletion is full of CO_{2 (or some slimy, toxic effluent).}