Thursday, June 25, 2009

RIP Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon

So Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon are dead. It's sort of strange in a way, because I hadn't even realized Michael was aging (strange, I know). Ed McMahon seemed too old to die. Farrah Fawcett finally succumbed to cancer. I didn't even know she had cancer.

I think to a certain extent we (certainly I do) see someone at a certain age and it's hard to register that they will not remain at that age. I've always thought of him as a guy in his 30's. He died at 50. That's quite removed from what I thought of him, though of course, completely irrational. Like, I always see my father as a man of almost 50. Of course, only this year he celebrated his 48th! It's strange how our perception of something or someone almost stagnates once it's set. Think about people you knew in high school and see now, 10 years later, and they've lost weight, or become famous, or still live in their parents' basement, and unless they stayed within your expectations of what they'd become, you're surprised.

When I lived in Israel I lived in a kibbutz. For those not in the know, it's basically a communist little village where a couple hundred people live and work. Taxes are exceptionally high, but everything is provided for (we had a big house with a huge backyard and DELICIOUS meals 3 times a day with the best cheesecake I've ever had!). I'd recently gotten in touch with an old friend from there, and everything has changed. They sold the factory where most of the residents worked and from where they got most of the funding for that cheesecake. So most of the people I knew moved away, the people left are daydreaming about moving away, and this image I have of what it used to be is dead and buried along with Mr. Jackson.

I suppose that's a good thing. Things need to change, and I for one hate for things to stagnate. At the same time, it's often hard to let go of those images you have of something. It's a way to hang on to a memory of good days, and a way to remember people and things that have passed on, but at the end of the day, things move on, and so must we.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

ANC wins South Africa elections


Shockingly. Led by corruption-fraught Jacob Zuma, the ANC took yet another majority government win in the recent elections.

I might be looking at it from a too Western perspective, but in my mind, if the leader of a party has been accused of racketeering, fraud, bribes (which he has not been acquitted from) as well as accusations of rape and sex with a woman who is HIV+ without a condom, among other issues, this would not be the man I'd want running my country. Between his endless racist comments about white people (including devoted anti-apartheid activist and leader of the opposition, Helen Zille), his comments on gay and lesbian couples (especially when compared to his endless affairs and marriages - who is the real disgrace?), support of that psycho Mugabe (claiming that the blacks of Zimbabwe like the guy!), etc etc etc. I could go on.

Is it just a matter of voting for the party that kicked out the whites? Because they did that 15 years ago, perhaps it's time for a new accomplishment. On the other hand, Zille has been chosen to be Mayor of the Year 2008 for her work in reinventing Cape Town as a safe city with much government housing (which is the responsibility of the state to provide) and the highest literacy rate in Africa. I get that there used to be apartheid, and I get that the wounds to that will probably never quite heal. But it's a democracy now! Vote for the person who is working to make SA better!! Rather than spending their time taking care of their 5 wives, 18 children, and bailing out their friends from jail. All I've been able to hear from supporters is that he used to be very active during apartheid (40 years ago), and that because he's Zulu, he understands all black people. Excuse me if I (a) don't care what he did 40 years ago if that's his last achievement, and (b) assume that there's a bit more to black culture and history than one guy. I couldn't say I understand all white people, could I?

Why don't people just try to learn about each other? Learning is fun! I don't know. I really don't. All I know is - I'm pissed.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Sikhs in the US fight for their religious rights

I'd like to think that I live in a country which tolerates diversity. We proclaim it on all the tourism brochures for sure. It seems that when it comes to religious tolerance, we are once again ahead of our southern counter parts. Sikhs are now fighting the US army on a requirement for them to remove their religious headgear and shave their beards (huge no no). I find this strange, as we've already resolved this issue a while ago.

Funnily enough, one of my profs is a leftenant in the Canadian army, and he says the way they've dealt with Sikhs who want to serve their country is kind of weird. First off, because they won't shave the beard (which is sort of a safety hazard in that the gas mask won't fit right), they have to wax it. A lot. Until it's slippery enough that the gas mask will fit on it and the wax creates a solid seal. Unfortunately the issue with the turbans are a bit more complex because they really need to be able to fit into a helmet, and for the most part they've had to figure it out for themselves, but I think there's a market for that - military grade helmets that fit over turbans, hijabs, and other religious headgear that can't be removed. Mark my words - I'd invest in a company like that. My guess is that the Canadian military would have to set up a contract with them and just watch the money pour in.

The point is though, that the Canadian forces have made genuine efforts to make the military as open to people of varying backgrounds as possible. There are Imams and Rabbis as well as priests, and not only Catholic or protestant. Especially with enrollment in the US being as low as it is, and demand being as high as it is, being accommodating to, oh I don't know, the 2.4 million American Muslims?? (Pew Research Center 2007) Depending on how religious they are, they will most certainly not encourage all male orgies and defeat in battle and Armageddon that have apparently taken over whenever a gay soldier comes out.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Mild Upward distraction...

OK, so this is not a regular post, because it really has nothing newsworthy in it. This is just a little vent, about a little movie I saw, so if that doesn't interest you, feel free to disregard.

I recently saw Pixar's new movie "Up". Now, my bias - I love all Pixar movies. I think the people who work on it are both genius and mad, and every single movie they've made is amazing. (I wish I was being paid to say that.)

So I went into Up with some pretty high expectations. Pretty high. And I was blown away. It was so much more than I could have expected. It was clever, and gut-bustingly funny, and heart-breakingly touching, and offered some very wise social commentary on some of our more disregarded groups (e.g. the elderly and kids with neglectful parents) in such a heart warming way, all the while being incredibly entertaining and non-stop action.

If you like Pixar, you will love this movie. If you don't like this movie, then you need to get checked out.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Pandemic!!!

RUUUN!!!!

Now, thanks to Mr. Gates, this is my third (and hopefully last) attempt at making this post over the last 2 days. So this is both my understanding of this ridiculous situation when it became public quietly last night.

So far, the only real movement I've seen in the mass media on this, fairly significant move by the WHO, has been by my university, which has vowed to offer as many hand sanitizing stations as possible.

Wonderful. Thanks. You guys are always looking out for me.

What's truly amazing is how apathetic the WHO itself is about this move. They have just declared that the whole world is under a global epidemic which cannot be controlled or stopped, and they want to urge people not to panic, because the severity of the illness has not increased - e.g. for most people who get it it's still like getting a bad flu, you're home with a box of tissues and a pint of ice cream, and a week later you're back at work/school/Employment Insurance office.

My question is then, if it's not that big of a deal, and the numbers of people dying from this are not any more than the standard (e.g. the elderly die in greater numbers because complications are more likely, poor people die in greater numbers due to a lack of access to hygienic resources and medicine), what the hell is it doing at level 6? Are we going to declare every flu a pandemic now? The virus hasn't evolved yet, it's almost benign to most people with access to health care and showers, and the WHO is not at all concerned about it, but we're still at stage 6. Is it a political move? I really don't know. Maybe they are genuinely concerned that the virus will indeed evolve and become more dangerous and spread more easily between animals and people, but even then they would still leave it at level 5 until something more interesting happened.

I guess that's why the media doesn't seem to care, but it's unlike them not to make a mountain out of a molehill. I guess we just need to wait for them to figure it out.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Linguists argue over astronaut Armstrong's wording


The world's scientists have come through once again with vital information to help enrich the lives of the citizens of the world. BBC News reported today that linguists from Australia think, but are not sure, that what Neil Armstrong actually said when he first stepped onto the moon was "one small step for a man"

Thank God someone said it. Good thing that people are spending their time arguing about the wording choices here, especially since it makes such a huge difference whether he said "man" or "a man".

Here's some of the nonsense unedited:

Explanations offered for the discrepancy are that perhaps transmission static wiped out the "a" or that Commander Armstrong's Ohio accent meant that his "a's" were spoken softly... To settle the argument, Dr Chris Riley, author of the new Haynes book Apollo 11, An Owner's Manual, and forensic linguist John Olsson carried out the most detailed analysis yet of Neil Armstrong's speech patterns... clearer recordings indicate that there was not room for an "a". A voice print spectrograph clearly shows the "r" in "for" and "m" in "man" running into each other...


And so on and so forth.The best piece of knowledge that has come out of the study was that it seems he was speaking spontaneosly, rather than following a script as previously assumed.

The thing is, that as a world filled with politicians and marketing pros, linguists should have their hands full with analysing what these crooks are saying and how they ought to be interpreted, rather than filling the world with more useless "information".