Smart Street Art

(Sent by a friend currently in Vancouver)

12 Inch Communists

Just when you thought this crazy world couldn't get any crazier... I was browsing through stuff on Ebay as I often do when I'm bored it's 1am and I came across the toy pictured above.

So bust out your CUCs or in the case your US Dollars and place a big on this amazing 12 inch replica of the "Bearded One", your pal and mine Fidel Castro. I don't know what's next Pinochet and Pol Pot dolls? Well I looked around and didn't find any, but surprise I did find a Che action figure complete with murderous stare.



A little more digging and I found a Stalin toy soldier.



It makes me wonder, because if people actually manufacture these, it must mean there's a market out there for toys that depict murderous communist bastards out there. What kind of people actually buy these things? I mean when I was a kid we had Darth Vader and Cobra Commander and Megatron and My Little Pony, but these guys were all made up and aren't actually responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people.

One thing's for sure: my future kids will never EVER be playing with a Che or a Fidel doll unless they plan on burying it deep in the ground where no one will ever ever find it again. That's just my opinion...

Google Forced to Reveal Identity of Blogger

A New York court today ordered Google to reveal the identity of a blogger, following a lawsuit brought forth by a Canadian model. The lawsuit claimed that she could not sue the blogger for defamation and damaging comments if she didn't know the identity of the blogger responsible for the damaging posts.

Google issued this statement in regards to the judgment: “We sympathize with anyone who may be the victim of cyberbullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order. If content is found by a court to be defamatory, we will of course remove it immediately.”

So this tells me Google is reticent to rat us out; but still in the end, they like us, are subject to the rules of the courts.

If courts start handing out judgments of this kind who's to say that politicians, foreign nations or anybody with a little bit of a reason can't file the same complaint and have my identity revealed?

While this isn't exactly a landmark judgment it certainly sets a dangerous precedent for those of us who use this platform to express our opinions and beliefs that are not always in line with the mainstream. On the other hand, victims of cyberbullying should be allowed to face their bullies and have their day in court.

Either way, this judgment scares me a little.

(quote from the Globe and Mail)

The True Price of the Afghan Election

(Image taken from: HERE)

With the Afghan election around the corner a bunch of articles have been popping up just about everywhere online as well as in printed papers about the fear that people have in regards to the vote, the violence leading up to the vote, the potential violence on voting day and most of all the corruption that will most likely plague this election.

The Globe and Mail had one on this very subject, trying to weigh the amount of corruption or what was already being faced as far as vote buying and whatnot. There was an interesting sentence in the article: "The discussion among analysts, both Afghan and Western, revolves around “acceptable levels” of voting irregularities..." The article goes on to talk about bribes and vote buying by Karzai who is running for reelection and the same things being done by the opposition leaders.

Some Afghan citizens were even quoted in the article saying that they might fear the police even more than they fear the Taliban. A shop keeper said that he had turned down bribes and offers of lavish meals by the Karzai family and in the face of bribes and intimidation says he still plans to vote for the opposition.

One important thing that the international community, who is footing the bill for this election to the tune of 250,000,000$, must remember is that Karzai is the one who played behind our backs and passed the infamous "rape law" and promised to revise it but has left us holding our collective breath, the same Karzai whose brother is playing middle man with the Taliban. Not only are we paying for this election with our money, but we've paid for it in blood with the lives of our young men and women, dozens of whom have not returned home to their families and friends.

So what is acceptable corruption? The Globe asked the question but didn't get an answer... I don't think I will find one either. I mean let's just face the facts: in a country where most of the people can't reach polling stations, where registered voters have the names of American pop stars, where husbands are legally allowed to rape their wives and people are afraid of the police; the country seems corrupt enough without us asking the question: how much corruption is acceptable?

I hope the people of Afghanistan have a better shot at democracy and freedom of choice that I think they will. Because a lot of Canadians don't even bother voting but for some reason those same Canadians are willing to give up their sons and daughters for the right to vote of the Afghan people. That my friends, is the price true price of an election.

A Metaphor for a Broken System

While our Prime Minister parades around talking about his plan for protecting Canada's north and asserting our sovereignty north of the 60th parallel, one has to ask oneself about our communities who live in the northern territories. After all what's the point of protecting the north and asserting our ourselves if our communities are dying a little at a time?



This whole thing for me was sparked by the picture seen about of two ten your old boys sleeping next to an Iqaluit grocery store in the early hours of the morning. I know that it might be an isolated event, as officials from Nunavut were telling the Globe and Mail. The bottom line though is that the figures don't lie here is a chart below that shows the suicide rate in Nunavut as compared to the rest of Canada.



The suicide rate in Nunavut is 11 times higher than the national average. That should tell you something about our northern supremacy. I understand that we have a legitimate claim to the land and the oil and the ice, but how about claiming back the basic rights of our own people and take a second to think about them before we worry too much about the rest?

There is a chronic housing shortage that sees at times 20 people living in the same 2 bedroom residence, it is also a place where 25% of people taking part in a psychology study claimed to be victims of abuse and a place where children would rather sleep on the streets than go home.

I'm not saying that the government is the only one to blame, but I think that the territorial government when asked about the issues should address them directly with a concrete plan instead of saying:
"Just like anywhere else in the cities or towns across Canada, there are negative things that are happening as well as positive things, and Nunavut is no exception.”
and
“The media will certainly concentrate on one area, most times unfortunately on our negative side of things, and not so much on the positive things that have been happening in Nunavut since the creation of the territory.”

While the media are certainly scandal hungry, I also think that they have done a wonderful job in bringing this issue to the front and center where it belongs. In a country that spends billions on bailouts, billions on foreign aid, billions in Afghanistan, billions in repairing our roads, billions on the Olympics couldn't we also spend a mere 250million on building enough homes for everyone in Nunavut, or job creation? (I know we have programs present, but it's clear that they aren't sufficient)

The picture of the 10year olds is a metaphor, an image that mirrors the situation of thousands of our fellow citizens and we need to address this as if they were our own children. Our children and those of generations to come really are the most precious resource that we have and if they keep sleeping in the streets or committing suicide there won't be a population left in the north we're trying so hard to protect.

(all images above are reproduced from TheGlobeandMail.com)

A Forstress of Solitude

More and more lately I hear people telling that sometimes men just need to go to a cave and be by themselves, it’s from the book “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”, or something. Even Superman had a place he went to when he needed to be alone, a cave made of ice called the Fortress of Solitude.

Recently I think I’ve been looking for that cave or that Fortress and I haven’t been able to find it. First I looked for it inside own my head, the one place where I could truly be free; but that was a wasted effort because when worries and concerns and thoughts and nightmares start to creep up the first place they go and look for you is inside your own head. So I looked in a bottle, well in many bottles, and surprise it wasn’t there either; the liquor that up until that point had always an escape from the everyday became the dagger of memory and the fist of misery. So I looked to my bass strings and my guitar strings to play a sweet lullaby of painless, thoughtless, loveless, worry free times; but to no avail, the songs kept reflecting my need to escape to cave. So I kept looking and kept looking and thought: the Internet! That’s the place where I can be alone and gather my thoughts; but the internet somehow ends up getting crowded with people and things to do, so much so that you need time off the computer just to get away from it all.

In the end folks, I’m still looking for my elusive Fortress of Solitude. My place of worry-free time, the place where life doesn’t creep in and bite you in the ass, the place where I can be whoever I want to be, think whatever I want and just breathe. I’m not sure I’ll ever find it. I’m not sure anybody knows exactly where to find it, but I promise that I will and when I do find it, I’m not sharing it with anyone because inviting people to my Fortress of Solitude would defeat its entire purpose. So find your cave or your Fortress and keep it a secret, never tell a soul where it is and when you're feeling alone and crazy, just remember that all of us are also looking for this mystical place.

Trouble in my Old Hood.

Once upon a time, I lived in the heart of Montreal's village on Amherst street, home of cheap rent, leather boy bars S&M stores and Montreal's only Cuban restaurant. But now a proposed bill would see the street name changed to something less... English.

In an article in the Gazette Nicolas Montmorency (a city councilor) and Les Jeunes Patriotes du Québec (don't ask) are in favor of bringing forth a bill to change all the English street names in Montreal to French ones, starting with Amherst, "Montmorency also wants University St. to become rue de l’Université, McGill College Ave. changed to Avenue du Collège McGill, and City Councillors St. to Rue des Conseillers municipaux."

“Montreal is a French city and streets should be named in a French way.” Wake up asshole, Montreal is not a French city, it is a multicultural playground for people of all backgrounds, you want to rename streets because they sound too English? Move somewhere else and screw up their city.

Granted Amherst was an idiot... He is the one who had the idea of sending blankets infected with smallpox to Indians in order to exterminate them, so perhaps we should change the name of Amherst street for that reason. But we shouldn't change it because of language issues.

People of English background have been a big part of making this city what it is and even if the separatists hate to admit it, the Anglos are as much a part of this city as we (the francohpones) are. We can't erase history and we shouldn't forget where we are from.