A Great Article on Political Smears

So the early reviews are in and so far (yay!) the pundits seem to agree that Obama won the second... I go forward with fingers cautiously crossed, and hoping that people are smart enough to see past the non-stop smearing the Republicans have been relentlessly pushing on him... It's amazing, the Conservative party here in Canada has treated Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion in much the same way, and they certainly didn't wait for a campaign in order to do it... I heard on CBC radio a few days ago that 10 days (10 days!!) after Dion was selected the new leader of the Liberal party, the Conservatives were launching anti-Dio attack ads. We've seen everything, and - granted - the man is not the most entrancing or charismatic speaker, but to listen to these ads, you would suspect he's a bumbling fool so indecisive he can't decide what colour shirt to put on in the morning... If you watched the debates, or tuned in to any of the radio programs he's guested on since the campaign began, you would know this is far from true.
The sad thing is, parties continue to smear because smears seem to work... They're one of these things that work even though they shouldn't. Even though they're beneath us, and and beneath our decency, and beneath our idea of fairness and common propriety. Why is it okay to tell lies about someone? If you really, truly think you're better, argue why you're better on true merit... Don't lie because you're afraid....
This article asks what would happen if Sarah Palin was running against Sarah Palin, and thinks of the possible smears... It's a good one. Take a look.

Slightly Less Depressed Now

Yay! We do have a thinking population... One of my least favourite shows on CBC Radio is Cross Country Checkup with Rex Murphy, mostly because he's too right wing for my tastes... But today, while I was doing some cleaning up around the house, I turned on the radio and there he was, taking calls from across Canada about peoples' concerns/impressions about the election so far. The calls were overwhelmingly anti-Conservative and anti-Harper. These people were knocking the puffin ad, the sweater-vest family-guy ad, the attacks against Dion, all of it. They were also pointing out the fact that we need to focus on issues, not the leaders' personalities, and finally, they called out the media on the poor job they've done of fair and balanced coverage, instead of just mimicking whatever insults the parties (principally the Conservatives) have been throwing at each other. I found myself agreeing with almost every caller's points. Such a relief! I hope enough Canadians are thinking this way next month that we can avoid a Conservative majority.

Let's Impeach the President!

Yet another reason to love CBC radio. I heard this song today and just really really enjoyed it. Thi is Neil Young's "Let's Impeach the President". My apologies to non-political junkies who follow this blog. It's just impossible to ignore politics right now with everything being the way it is, an election campaign happening south of us and one about to get called here in the great white north... Bear with me. Eventually, I'll be writing more and sharing less youtube vidoes.
In the meantime, enjoy:

A Must-Listen for All Canadians

We're so proud of ourselves in this country for being an open and equal society, for not discriminating against people based on any unreasonable basis, especially race. For the most part, we succeed. But there is something sad and horrible in our past which still exists in our present: the treatment of our First Nations people.
Very little time and energy is spent in the media actually discussing the plight of Native people. Sure, we hear about protests and land claims, but how much do most of us really know about the back story of what these people suffered at the hands of the government. What were you taught in 7th grade social studies? Me, I was only taught about the part where everyone cooperated, not the part where they were killed and manipulated and stolen from. This program on CBC Radio called Revision Quest really helps to shed some light on a serious topic. Don't worry though, if you're not into feeling rotten, the host is a Native comedian, so even though he's dealing with heavy material, he manages to address it in an easy manner. Give it a listen.

Ode to CBC

I wanted to share my specific CBC favourites since I'm always going on and on about them on here. So maybe some of you would like to check them out. It's just an effort to spread the joy:

1- GO - this is the Saturday morning radio show run by Brent Bambry about, well, about whatever they decide to talk about. They're funny and unassuming, and it's more talk and less news and usually has a live audience. They're on hiatus for the summer, but I'm pretty sure you can listen to old shows at their website.
2- DNTO - More radio. Stands for Definitely Not the Opera, and the host is Sook-Yin Lee and the show's slogan is: "We put the U into Pop Culture - both of them - because there are two u's". Usually follows a theme for the entire episode and explores it from different angles. Some of this year's themes of the top of my head: Meat, water, camping, outsourcing... Really just a lot of fun.
3 - Q - Radio again: hosted by Jian Ghomeshi on weekday afternoons and evenings. An intelligent look at arts and entertainment. Apparently, these guys also have a youtube channel, which I have yet to check out...
4- Everything on cbc.ca/arts: Looking for critical, entertaining movie and book reviews, or just an arts section that actually talks more about arts and less about celebrities that are famous for being famous. Look no further. Also, they usually approach this from a Canadian angle, which works just fine for me.
5- the CBC sports page: I was able to watch my Canadiens in the play-offs online. 'Nuff said.

Officially Ridiculous

Have you heard about the 12 year old girl in Gatineau who took her father to court for grounding her? This child's parents are divorced, and when her dad decided she couldn't go a field trip as punishment for bad behaviour, she went back to stay with her mom, but also took him to court. More ridiculous than this is that the judge ruled against him. Please please do not let this set a precedent for kids being able to take their parents to court. This is a matter of discipline, and whether you agree or not with the dad's disciplinary measures, it's not something that needs, or should have, the interference of courts. I wish the judge had just I'm not an expert in legalese by any means, but I seem to remember hearing that there are so many things that don't make it to court for ages because the system is backed up like crazy. The last thing we need is this kind of thing slowing stuff down even more...
I posted this about the law a few weeks ago. Please, let's not make a complete mockery of the beautiful system we have in this country to hold people to account.

What Will Don Cherry Say Now?

Now that the Detroit Redwings have won the Stanley Cup with Nicklas Lidstrom, a European captain, Don Cherry has lost his favourite, and hopefully last, ridiculous justification for racism. Cherry will have you think only North Americans know how to play play-off hockey. Europeans are soft, wimpy, lack "heart". North Americans, specifically his "good Canadian boys", have all of that in spades.
Listen to Cherry long enough and he'd have you believing that every NHLer born on this side of the pond has played entire seasons on two broken legs and block shots with their face every game. He'd have you believe that there's no such thing as a tough European player, that Danny Markov and Darius Kasparaitis don't actually exist. Most importantly, he'd have you believe that unless you fight regularly, you don't care, and you can't win.
This year's Conn Smythe trophy winner, Henrik Zetterberg, is Swedish. So much for one of Don Cherry's favourite racist insults - "Chicken Swede". The Red Wings not only have a European captain, but have 13 European players on their roster, many of them key. As Cherry himself often says, you can't win the Stanley cup without "Heart". Someone should let Cherry know that "heart" has nothing to do with genes.

Hockey Night in Canada now available in your native language

I love this country. I always tell any visitor to Canada that there are two things that they'll find quintessentially Canadian: Hockey and Timmy's. Well, Hockey Night in Canada (that great Canadian institution, if you forget about the whole "Don Cherry" part) is now being broadcast in both Mandarin and Punjabi. Check it out here.
I hope one day there's an Arabic broadcast. I would watch out of curiosity, just to see how certain phrases like "faceoff" and "he shoots, he scores!" got translated, but in the end, I know I'd switch back to the hockey broadcast I grew up on, or at least the RDS one that shows me the Habs games when CBC insists on airing the Leafs.

The Typo Eradication Advancement League

I heard about this on the radio today (CBC of course!)
I loved it, although I'm curious, who has time to travel a country looking for typos??

Coffee Snob?

I've been drinking the good stuff on a regular basis since I was about 15 - the nearly three hour commute to get to and from my fabulous high school five days a week, plus my lack of self control, really cemented any chance I had of sticking to orange juice to just wake me up.
For years, I kept it to myself and only drank the coffee out of the house. The reason: my mother, who is the most health conscious person I know, abhorred (and abhors) caffeine.
I remember a funny coffee related incident the summer after I finished high school, on my way to a trip to Egypt with my kid sister for a few weeks. We were in the car, on our way to Montreal to catch our flight with my mom and dad, and I suddenly felt the urge to confess.
"Mama," I said, "I have to tell you something terrible."
"Yes?" she asked.
"I drink coffee. I drink it EVERYDAY."
My mom laughed and nodded and said something like "I figured".
I've always preferred a "real" coffee - Second Cup, Timothy's, Starbucks - to a Timmy's or the instant stuff, but the bottom line is that I just have to get my fix, and I'll take it however I can get it (see my trying to quit posts from last Ramadan for further proof). I also like the real cappuccinos from Second Cup WAY more than the sugar-filled stuff at Timmy's.

The reason I'm even thinking about any of this is that this morning on CBC radio (my favourite station ever!), they were doing blind taste tests in TO, having people sample instant vs. really brewed coffee in the streets and seeing which they preferred. Most seem to prefer the real brew, but it seems there are more than expected who like their coffee with "three crystals of Folgers, Half a cup of cream and five tablespoons of sugar" as the radio host said - Yuck!

When I'd first started going into "Proper" coffee stores, I would try not to laugh or roll my eyes as I heard people order the complex sounding names. You know, the "I'll have a non-fat, extra foam, double shot, extra hot soy latte" order? Well, when I first discovered my allergies to milk, my ability to drink Lattes was shot in the foot. I also had to avoid the sugar, but I loved my fancy coffee drinks so much that I HAD to find a way to solve the "milk free, sugar free" coffee crisis. I scoured the various coffee shops until I discovered Timothy's "sugar free vanilla syrup", which they could use with soy milk to produce my "small soy vanilla sugar free latte". I suddenly felt like just as much of a coffee snob as those I was laughing about...
I've since eased up, I only treat myself to a soy latte about once every two months now, and most days I just get a regular coffee and allow myself a little bit of milk or cream in my coffee. I don't avoid all milk or sugar products any more, I just make sure to keep it to a minimum and that seems to keep me ok.

The Habs Are Out

but we should look on the bright side...

Feather Fur and Fin

Have I mentioned recently how much I love cbc radio? Today I heard this absolutely lovely song by Danny Michel about nature, and I enjoyed it so much I had to look it up when I got home. Here are the lyrics. Do you ever feel like this is how the earth will end up if we don't change?

I went to the country
to escape the noise and lights
I laid there in the pine cones all night
I woke in the morning
and all the trees were gone
I got this sinking feeling
everything felt wrong

There were strip malls and dollar stores
and diesel in the air
So I slept in a row boat
and I anchored far from shore
Now I don't hear them chainsaws no more

I woke in the morning
when someone pulled the plug
I was stranded in the lake bottom sludge
With all the tires, paint cans and things

Well,

Every little critter
with feather, fur & fin
cried to Mother Nature
to come back for them
for every piece of litter
for every little sin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

So I went to an island
down the Caribbean way
And I laid there in the sand all day
I turned on a radio
and I heard the DJ say:
Well, batten down the hatches
down Santa Elena way
I swam the ocean reef,
with coral all was gray

Every little critter
with feather, fur & fin
cried to Mother Nature
to come back for them
for every piece of litter
for every little sin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

She saw the eagle's eye
weeping in the willow
She prayed to the mantis
and she cried into her pillow
for the salmon in the Fraser
and the salamander's kin

She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

Well, I went to the city
when all the trees were gone
and I laid there on a asphalt lawn
And she cried out a thousand days
of hurricanes and floods
Her face ran with tears
and the streets ran with blood
Fur coats and sushi boats
and diesel in the air

Every little critter
with feather, fur & fin
cried to Mother Nature
to come back for them
for every piece of litter
for every little sin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

Feather, fur & fin
she cried for all of them
for feather, fur & fin,
she cried for every fin

It's very very new, so If you want to listen to it, this is the only version I can find on the web so far. Go about halfway through the video before he starts singing.

Joke of the Day

Stolen from CBC radio this morning, with a slight modification. Because it's so bad, it's good:

A neutron walks into a deli and orders a sandwhich. The waiter brings it over a few minutes later and says, "For you, no charge".

Knee-slapping ensues!

First Canadian Team Eliminated

The Pens swept Ottawa 4-0, and my hometown is now out of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and though I love my city, I've never actually been a Sens fan, so my only real sadness about the whole situation is that Canada now only has 2 teams left: Montreal and Calgary... If betting wasn't haraam, I'd put my money on my Habs of course, and that's where I'm putting my support...
1 more win tomorrow night and we're on to round 2. Pray for me that our new antenna starts picking up CBC's tv signal from over the mountain...
g'night!

The Slippery Digital Slope

1- I used to write in a journal, not "dear diary" style or anything of that sort, but the kind of poems that end up on this site every so often, and other writing that's either too terrible or too private to share. I keep it in my overstuffed purse and have kept one there (or in my school bag back in high school and university) since the ninth grade, in case the mood should move me and I should be inspired to put something down.

For maybe 6 or 7 months, I haven't put anything down in my journal except maybe a phone number or directions. It's become more like a notepad than a place for writing... and I miss it.

2- My old cell phone was a pay-as-you go plan, essentially used to say "Baba, I'll be at the bus station in 25 minutes" after a late class, or "Mama, was it walnuts or hazelnuts you wanted me to pick up from Bulk Barn". My new cell phone is a full-fledged, long term plan with lots of minutes and unlimited talk and text to "my 5" which I used to make fun of endlessly before I signed up for the same thing.

3- I had a laptop at work a few years ago before switching jobs, but I rarely used it and stuck instead to my trusty, old Windows XP Service Pack 1 machine for all my computing needs at home. When I switched to my "new" job about 2 years ago, I went laptop-less until about 3 months ago, when I decided to buy one for my new, mobile, double-citied life.

4- Around that same time, I got a new mp3 player which also happened to play FM Radio, so now I can listen to my beloved CBC Radio in transit.

I would have scoffed before at getting internet access wherever I was, but now that I can listen to CBC anywhere, and make endless phone calls on the Greyhound between Montreal and Ottawa, I'm practically itching to be able to check anything from anywhere. But here's the catch: I don't need to. I sit at work for 8 hours with internet at my finger tips. Depending on the day of the week, I can check the internet either 1 or 3 hours after leaving my office. That's barely any time to be "un-plugged" but I think I'm hooked.
My solution is to slow down, get a bit more "disconnected" and read solid, physical, tangible books or my Quran on my bus rides... The physical world is actually a fabulous place, and for all the advantages of constant connection, it's nice to stop and notice what's actually around us once in a while. There's something to be said for having access to too much data and not enough information, and that's what I'm afraid the digital age has done to some, including myself...

Hadeel's Back! (online that is, and in Egypt)

In case you missed it, your favourite (or, at least, my favourite) blogger/journalist/Egypto-phile has come back to the blogosphere after a short break. Check her out at Hadeel Speaking

*insert superlative here* of 2007

How many best of, craziest of, funniest of, whatever-else of lists have you seen as the year winds down? I'm a complete sucker for these lists and here's something noteworthy:

CBC's 2007 Top 10 Canadian Newsmakers in the Arts' list includes Zarqa Nawaz, the Little Mosque on The Prairie creator.

You go sister!



p.s. Did you know you can watch the episodes on YouTube??
p.p.s. Happy New Year!

Very Very Sad

I read this article today about a sixth grade boy in a Montreal area school who died a few hours after getting into a fight with someone at recess. If you read the article, it doesn't seem like an incredibly violent fight. There's no mention of blood. Neither of the kids in the fight have a history of violence, but the boy who died did have a cardiac condition.
My condolences and prayers go out to the boy's family, and to the little girl who is probably feeling incredibly guilty and quite traumatized right now. I can't think of an 11 year old who hasn't gotten into a shoving match during recess at least once. I hope she's able to get over it.

Be happy (but don't mind if noone notices) & Little Mosque

I love reading these funny little articles about the human brain and how it acts in certain social situations. Came across this one today, and apparently, the brain often ignores, or reacts much more slowly to smiles than it does to frowns, or even neutral expressions... Don't let that stop you from smiling though! Remember: Your smile in the face of your brother/sister is charity :D

Totally unrelated, but I'm loathe to post two threads in the same day, Little Mosque on the Prairie is winning a humanitarian award for addressing conflicts in a creative way and encouraging harmony. Way to go, my fellow Canadians and Muslims! That's how it's done!

At the Risk of Increasing my Competition...

I heard this on the radio a few weeks ago, and since that time have alternated between "Yeah! I can do this! My writing's good enough to warrant an entry" to "Do I really want some poor soul to have to read over my pretentious poetry and then go home and comment to his friends/wife/kids about the TERRIBLE writing he had to read today?"

And I'm still undecided, but regardless of whether I enter the CBC's writing contest or not, I think some of you should. Especially Jen, and Sajda. Then I'll be very pleased that someone I know put some good writing in, even if that someone wasn't me...