INFO-Tain-ment

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A Piece of Peace

Yay. Al Gore won another award. Shocked?

There are many critics of Mr. Gore, or the Nobel process itself, that say that he is not a good choice- their reasons range from he is a liar to he hasn't actually stopped anything, let alone global warming, and shouldn't get awards until he actually does something. Unlike the UNCCC, Mr. Gore is just one man, and isn't even a scientist. Why should he get an award for telling the world something that it either already knows and doesn't care about, or doesn't believe?

I think this chorus of critics misunderstand what the Nobel Peace prize is for. Given some of the previous winners, it should come as no surprise that it isn't results based. Unless you can get the award for actually shooting someone.

The Peace Prize, in my opinion, goes to someone who dedicates themselves to changing the world to make it a better place. It has never, explicitly or implicitly, been about ending wars or averting them. It is about an individual who has taken their position, celebrity/political or otherwise, and used that to communicate a message of hope to others. Let me assure you, however, that I can imagine a world where slowing down climate change could avert wars. Ever been to Africa and tried to have a shower?

Now, even though we know that the award isn't results based, let us have a quick look at the results. Al Gore is almost solely responsible for shifting the debate on this particular issue in North America, if not the world. Point finale. Al Gore's key message - which is obfuscated by almost everyone who criticizes him (myself included, professionally) is that we need to become more energy efficient and we need to revolutionize the way we create energy. Only an Oil Executive or Danny Williams would disagree with this position. Mr. Gore's role isn't to stop climate change - it is to help the world understand that it is up to them to do so.

There is NO doubt that Mr. Gore has created many converts to that position - and my views on the precautionary principle aside - there is no doubt that he has dedicated himself to the cause. There is considerable doubt that he did it for completely altruistic reasons. Time will tell, but I remain convinced that one day in our future he will be the President.

In the meantime- he continues to tirelessly, if not selflessly, lobby for change. Bravo.

Friday, October 19, 2007

What a week it has been

1) Four months after proclaiming the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, the Governor General announced that the Government of Canada would not meet its Kyoto targets. While I have always had principled problems with the accord, I have a bigger problem with a regent who proclaims a statute only to have it ignored. Parliament does, after all, guide the executive.

NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND

2) Dion Blinked. I am elated. An Election today would be suicide and would lead to another two years of "unfettered" minority while the Liberals fight, stab and scratch at each other

3) I was in the Gov't Lobby when they granted honourary citizenship to a person I have never heard of. Apparently she is an opposition leader in jail in Myanmar (Nee Burma). I am not sure if I really care that they did that - but it seems unfair to grant honourary citizenship to someone who fights against oppression, but we are reluctant to grant actual citizenship expeditiously to those fleeing it. Refugees don't always get citizenship.

4) On Crime- I can't stand most of the silly changes to the criminal code. I really hate mandatory minimums. I think it is dumb that Parliament is going to waste another X number of days talking about it. None of it is going to pass- and I am not sure that making something that is already illegal even illegaller (TM) accomplishes anything. This is the perfect argument for fixed election dates because the government wants to tell Canadians they tried to strengthen the criminal law and it didn't pass because of the Liberals.

5) On Afghanistan - I am even more opposed now that it is turning into a training mission that keeps Canadian targets in play until 2011. I don't care if the Military's job is in Khandahar, Kabul, Kazakhstan - they are targets no matter what their mission is. OUT NOW - because this remains a proxy war for Iraq in Afghanistan.

6) On the Speech from the Throne - In America, the response to the State of the Union is done on the NPR. Not one second of House time is dedicated to the speech, other than the speech itself. Not Canada - we spend weeks endlessly debating it when there are REAL pieces of legislation that need to be re-introduced and passed. The Speech is nothing more than a sounding board for understanding the prism with which the legislative agenda is to be rolled out.

Maybe I should admit something. I love a lot about the American process, I love how their federalism works, I love how their judiciary works, and I love the fact that their Cabinet Secretaries don't have to put up with Question Period. Amazing how many bad decisions a President can make notwithstanding checks and balances.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

It is no accident...

Is anyone surprised that in the days immediately following the appointment of Bob Rae (L-Foyer) as foreign affairs critic for the Liberal Party the Prime Minister gets a new foreign affairs adviser?

A foreign affairs adviser who was the political minister for Ontario under Chretien, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the only really credible member of the Chretien inner cabinet left - John Manley (L- Chairman of the Bored out of his mind). A little more in touch with Ontario than the Liberal Critic, I would say. Or at least a little more popular in Ontario. Almost makes Steve look (looks both ways, and whispers) palatable to those on the fence.

Ok- he is part of a team considering options - including Pamela Wallin (god, what will she contribute?) and a slew of Mulroney insiders - but an adviser nevertheless. Frankly, I think it is a great idea for the Prime Minister to take counsel from people that are himself and his cats. Liberal or no, Manley is a very intelligent and able manager - too bad he isn't in Cabinet like Emerson (Look ma, no chance of re-election) or Fortier (C - look ma, no riding - election, c'est quoi ca?). I have always had a problem with this ridiculous notion that you had to be a) an MP and b) a member of the Prime Minister's party to be in Cabinet. Bill Cohen (R- Clinton's Secretary of Defence)anyone? Bueller?

Maybe I should just move to the States and get it over with. A great system run by white men who barely understand it, let alone know any better.

Or maybe instead of wasting our time on stupid debates and referendums on the electoral system, maybe we should look at reforming the way that the government actually works. Running a Ministry does not require political leanings- it requires the ability to reflect the wishes of Cabinet led by the Chief Executive Officer. People have quit Cabinet for less than disagreeing with the leader, you know.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

History's irony

INDIANS CRUSH YANKEES

This same headline would have had a certain providence 150 years ago.

I was slipping in and out of sleep last night as the Yankees failed to mount their comeback.

Here are the things I know:

It wasn't A-Rod's fault- all of the Yankee bats were brutal. Six months ago I said they needed to get better pitching - because that is what wins games in October.

It was still really fun to watch a team come from 14.5 back and make the playoffs.

I am now cheering for the Rockies. They totally deserve to win given where they were a month ago.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

MMP - an exercise in Dumb.

I have to admit, the level of debate on this particular issue has been miserably low - and this is despite over 3,000,000,000 million papers written by second year political science students who know what is best for democracy. Rest assured, I was once a big proponent. I wrote about how PR would cripple Quebec Sovereignty. I wrote about how PR would end regionalism in Canada. I wrote how PR would end the linguistic divide. I wrote about how PR would put a woman on the moon - and I was right each and every time. It would/could solve those problems - if they were in some way actually problems.

When it comes to public policy, I have a really simple matrix that I like to follow. I learned it in grade school - it is called, "Needs, Plan."

If there is an established need, you come up with a plan to fix the "problem."

When it comes to electoral reform in Ontario, I don't think we have an established need, nor do we have a good plan to alleviate the so-called problem. At least we can blame that on "the citizenship."

ON NEED - Depending what MMPadvocate I am talking to, the problem with the current system is that it either a) doesn't accurately reflect the will of the people in the legislature b) it over rewards the winner or the party that forms government or c) doesn't ensure that smaller movements that have broad support are able to achieve representation. As far as I can tell, these are three identical criticisms - criticisms of the underpinning philosophy of the Westminster Model, and not on the electoral system itself.

There are many inspirations for our system of government, the least of which is best articulated by C.B. Macpherson in "The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy." In this work, the most important aspect of our system is plainly articulated to hold that (from memory) "as a people, we do not have a national government, but a chorus of representatives from the regions to form a national government."

I will concede that most individual voters don't give a hoot who their MP/MPP is, and I will concede that it is rare that a vote will not be most directly influenced by the leadership (or lack thereof) of a party. Regardless, we don't vote for Prime Minister or Premier. We vote for an MP/MPP. Until I hear something more than "Convention says that..." I will not be convinced that we need to change anything. I know that conventions matter, but I get to vote, and I can vote for anyone I want. How am I disenfranchised? How are my views not known to my MPP? Poppycock I say. They look at polls not the poll - and it is working out just fine.

Frankly, anyone who thinks that an individual MPP has any say on policy formulation is a pretty dumb anyway. Unless of course, they are a one issue MP who got CRTC reform the week after he sat down in exchange for supporting the government budget that funded his CRTC reform. Well played, Mr. Bernier. Well Played.

ON PLAN - There are multiple presuppositions to the MMPadvocates position that I resoundingly reject out of hand. Among them is the idea that rewarding a broad cross-section of disparate support across provincial boundaries will in some way empower this support into a seat or two under a list. Ultimately, in a brokerage model, an idea or direction will eventually have to be changed or adapted for political potability (deliberate word choice). What makes 0.01% more or less palatable than 0.02%, or 1% vs. 2%? The arbitrariness is annoying- and yet - a plurality provides people with a tangible model which they can turn to when they need help with their health card application.

Which begs the question - who will these "proportional" MPPs represent? Will they have the same duties as other MPPs? I am sure the answers would come in time- but the vast majority of people don't actually know what their MPP does - rest assured I do - and unless the Queen's Park Rules are also changed, we will have 30 people (most of whom will represent small pockets of otherwise un-electable fringe interests) with a lot of time on their hands - and now a small staff.

MMPadvocadoes lament that now, nobody gets a majority of votes, so why let anyone govern like they do? If we had run-off elections between the top two candidates in every riding, would the smallest parties get a voice? Not likely. Again, this is an issue I just don't care about - political legitimacy and the rule of law demand that the official who holds the office be granted the authority that it comes with - period. Wait until the first MMP election and I start drawing arbitrary lines on what constitutes relative legitimacy - like, how you get your name on the top of the list to be Conservative MMP(b) from Toronto. Once you are at the top of that list, do you honestly believe anyone would ever be able to get you off of it? Is there going to be a term limit on who can be on the party lists? MPP for life by MMP. It has a nice ring, doesn't it?

I was recently asked to comment on a challenge to the current ballot initiative as to its constitutionality. The question, advanced by a fairly clever lawyer who doesn't understand party politics, was that John Q. Public would not be able to "vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein," with the key point being that You nor I would be eligible for the seats dedicated to smaller parties seeking proportionality, or the larger ones being squeezed out of particular areas. My trite response was that there was nothing, presumably, preventing You or I from joining one of these political parties and lobbying for a position on those lists. While a joke at first, the relative constitutional permissibility of any proposal can't be taken seriously when $10 and dream can so easily outstrip the validity of the missing constitutional foundation.


Suggesting otherwise unwittingly defeats the purpose, and the foundation, of the system- that as a rule of law - elected officials are still just people in whom are vested responsibilities. Suggesting the party apparatus is impenetrable to You and I is akin to saying that the system in impenetrable to those of us not in the major parties - so why even bother with elections?

More seriously, in my view, is that the parties become institutional, more so, in the proposed system - all but removing the ability for independents to participate meaningfully in the second caste (deliberate word choice, btw) of MPPs. I suppose all independents could come together and have a circus meeting about what sword swallower should get to be at the top of the list of independent circus candidates, but I digress. Such a meeting would be bedlam, and highly entertaining to watch.

The plan is not the problem - it is as arbitrary as the lines drawn on a map that define the various electoral districts. The proposed new system draws additional arbitrary lines in even more arbitrary places.

At a base level, the electoral system is designed to create a government and opposition in which the electorate can maintain confidence. I am one of the resoundingly apathetic Ontarians who don't feel maligned by the system. My relative confidence level with the governments the system creates has nothing to do with the fact that I didn't vote for Mike Harris or Bob Rae - and yet they formed a government. Both ideologies were thrown out, resoundingly, in subsequent elections. I honestly believe that the current proposal will not make that so easy. If it is your position that we need to change the foundation of the system - fine - let's do that. We could separate the legislature from the executive, cancel question period, and have fixed election dates that divide responsibility towards a checks/balance system that leans towards the congressional model. That would be a far cry stronger than tinkering with the system without a true vision of what the results would be.

In fact, perhaps ironically, up until this point - the points for and against have been bolstered by evidence of what elections would/not have looked like with various systems. Isn't that irrelevant to the system while smacking of tinkered fixing to engineer specific results and preclude others?

And, sometimes, minority governments can be a good idea. Except when they aren't. For every MMPadvocado who cites a European example, I can find another one (usually Ireland, Italy or Germany) where the results were fracturing, disproportionate in a different way and led to another election almost immediately, and subsequently say "Ontario isn't Europe."

On the process - In a miracle of cowardice - the Government of Ontario wouldn't even create, propose and defend a new system themselves. They have pawned it off on a citizenship panel, who proposed the mess we have on the ballot. Now, the citizens have to ratify it. Basically, we will remove all forms of leadership from the equation. And, let me assure you, few people will understand the ballot initiative. It is inspiring.

How deliciously ironic that in a desperate attempt to appease a supposedly restless electorate and to tinker with representative democracy, the very representatives it creates are unwilling or unable to lead those who they claim to stand for in the legislature. It almost makes me want to vote for the new system. Almost.

Monday, October 01, 2007

If the Shoe fits - BUY IT!

Don't misconstrue this post as a criticism of fashion - or of women - but construe it as the latest salvo in my ongoing struggle with the rampant consumerism in North America. Every once and a while, I do come off as a start raving mad socialist.

I helped a colleague take a load of stuff over to her new house on Friday night. I am good at many things, including lifting boxes. We loaded the truck that so many people covet on moving day, with as many boxes as it could stand filling the back. And then I saw them - the racks of shoes. It was like that scene in the Matrix where Neo says "We need guns, lots and lots of guns."

I am 33 years old. I have 13 pairs of shoes, including my winter boots, and including three pairs of golf shoes. I have two pairs of brown shoes, two pairs of black shoes, a pair of shoes at my second office, and some loafers and a pair of sandals.

My colleague, had, to be blunt more shoes in her one bedroom apartment than I had hundred's of miles on my year old truck. After we filled two giant glad garbage bags full of shoes - with the stiletto heals protruding outwards - puncturing the plastic and sticking directly into my kidney- I don't think we even had half of them. There were pink ones, yellow ones, sharp ones, dancing ones, tennis ones, knee high ones, short ones, tall ones, fat ones, thin ones and of course - pointy ones. There were lots of shoes. If you asked her, she would tell you she worn them all fairly regularly. A centipede couldn't wear them all regularly. That is, of course, notwithstanding the shoes I found with cobwebs between the heel and the toe.

I am not going to pretend that there isn't a catharsis that is developed as a result of shoe shopping - for me it is looking at baseball cards and coins. I am also not going to pretend that there are tremendous social pressures on a lot of young women to get the latest whatever designed by whoever from where ever in Italy - for me it is new suits (I have five suits I haven't worn in five years unless I make a conscious decision to wear them despite the fact they are ugly).
What I am going to say is that I think that shoes are the the most obvious example of need driven opulence in a society where we have box stores that have more inventory than could possibly meet the demand for the product in that area. "Great Selection" for you and I creates product dumping in 18 months in Bolivia.

I am not going to pretend that anyone understands it - hell, even Sex in the City made fun of it - but what is it about shoes that make so many people turn into Imelda Marcos? Even my niece (age 12) is fascinated by shoes - and has more shoes now than I have- and her feet are still growing. My mother has two closets full of shoes. My dad has less than ten pairs. The dog, however, loves shoes and treats them as a dietary supplement. After he ruins a pair, however, you can't even try to force him to gnaw on the other shoe in the pair. Poodles are, of course, quite selective.

In my lifetime I have lived with six women - one of whom was my partner, five of whom were random roommates. Without exception, they all had loads of shoes which dominated the front hall closets. With my former live-in, I didn't ask for half the shoes she had accumulated during the relationship when she left. With all of them - the most daunting part of any morning seemed to be picking the shoes that went with that outfit.

I don't think it is a sexist generalization. I think shoes are a lower priority for men than they are is for women. When you ask a woman what is the first thing she notices about a guy - many of them will say "their shoes." It may come as a surprise that very few men give a hoot about what a women is wearing, let alone on her feet.

But why keep them? I have owned lots of shoes- I wear them, and then I throw them out. I suppose the simple econometrics of shoe purchases suggest that women to which I refer will never "wear out" a pair of shoes - assuming there is some balance in the way they wear them.

Or so you would think. Buried deep in the closet is the boxes of unopened shoes. The shoes that haven't even been worn yet. The shoes that don't break down into the environment. There are more pairs of unworn shoes in the closets of my friends who are women then there are shoes in the closets of my friends who are men.

I don't know why people care so much about shoes. I think that they are literally the things we use to walk comfortably. Ironically, so many of these shoes are dreadfully uncomfortable. And yet people buy them - in the vain hope that a few inches of height will add the confidence required to smash that glass ceiling. Poppycock. The Finance Minister gets new shoes when he releases the budget- and trust me- they don't make him taller.

As I tossed the two bags of shoes into my truck, I started thinking about the math. Far be it for me to judge any one's purchasing decisions - I have spent over $40,000 on alcohol in the last five years and over $20,000 on cigarettes in the past ten - with little to show for it beyond a bloated liver, a raspy voice and a litany of great memories I will never get back - but at a $50.00 a pair, having two hundred pairs of shoes can become an expensive proposition very quickly. And, as if they were only $50.00 a pair. HAH.

The only thing more absurd than owning that many pairs of shoes is trying to justify why you own that many pairs. Except I can do it - no problem

1) Golf One - They are black and match half my outfits
2) Golf Two - They are white with Purple/Yellow and match the other half of my outfits
3) Golf Three- they are heavy duty rain shoes
4) Curling One - They are the only shoes I have designed for curling
5) Nike Sneakers - I wear them for my new found love of running ( as you might imagine, they are still quite new)
6) Bostonian Brown - I wear them with Brown Suits (so to speak)
7) Bostonian Black - I wear them with Black Suits
8) Moores cheapy Brown - I wear them semi-casually with jeans and brown pants
9) Moores cheapy Black - I wear them semi-casually with black pants
10) Brown slip-ons - I wear them when I don't feel like wearing my nice brown shoes
11) My winter boots - I wear them in the snow
12) My white soled, white runners - I wear them for squash and volleyball
13) My sandals- I wear them ALL THE TIME. They smell and should be replaced ASAP.

And that is it. Even I could get rid of at least four or six pairs. Along with a lot of my other clothes, mind you. Maybe we should all have a giant charity collection? With everyone limiting themselves to 20 pairs of shoes?