Don't dream it's over...

The ridiculousness of the "war on terror" is equaled only by the amazing fact people are losing this fictional war in their own heads.

Bringing a bottle of cologne on a plane is suspicious; fine.

Multiple specialized identification are required at borders; sure.

But evacuating an oil rig because a 23 year old girl recounted a dream about a bomb is downright scary.

If the girl were to have a dream that Abe Lincoln came to her and told her to run for president, would her co-workers vote for her? No. But a dream about a bomb on the deck of the rig suddenly hits home because the idea that it could happen at any time is fully seeded in the minds of the public.

Our western world is so terrified of everything lately. In those moments between work and rest there's a thought rattling around, seemingly confirming the existence of monsters under the bed. The truly funny part is the monster isn't under the bed at all, it's in the minds of the public. Which doesn't make it any more real, but does make it much more dangerous.

This war on terror has become so embedded in people's heads they're becoming superstitious of each other's mental monsters. What started as one person's dream became the wide-spread fear of premonition. A dream became a story which then became a rumour and suddenly the military is involved, trying to find this poor girl's Id in the form of an explosive device.

All they found was a monster under the bed.

And on top of it all she gets brought in for questioning because of her dreams.

The public has to learn to keep their irrationalities in check. Yes, working on an oil rig is probably boring as hell. So is an office. Or an industrial plant. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Turning your brain off to make a tedious, eight hour shift more manageable is understandable. But remember to turn the damn thing back ON every now and then.

Because the monster in your head is just like every other monster; it loves the dark.

Rowling in the dough...

J.K. Rowling is suing a publisher for trying to print a Harry Potter lexicon without her permission. I would be a little pissed off too if I were worth a billion dollars and someone was trying to cash in on my only good idea.

And even though Rowling has no actual chance of winning the suit, she's going to fight the good fight anyway because she was planning to write her own Harry Potter encyclopedia. Even though she encouraged the fan-created website which spawned the idea for the soon-to-be-published lexicon.

I guess it's okay to contribute to the Harry Potter universe as long as you're not getting paid for it.

And what's not to like about it?

An epic story of a young boy with glasses and a scar on his head from England, destined to be the greatest magician the world has ever known. And with his trusty pet owl, Tim Hunter will escape his family troubles and leave his ordinary life behind in search of a grand destiny.

Tim Hunter? Sorry, I mean Harry Potter.

I get confused sometimes. See, the same year the idea for Harry Potter suddenly (magically?) formed in Rowling's mind, there was a brand new comic called The Books of Magic on the shelves. And as you can see, it's hard to get the two plots confused.

Ah well, my mistake.

Anyway it must really suck to have someone take your idea, make money off of it and get away scott-free.

You know, I really hope J.K. stands for "JUST KIDDING!" because this whole lawsuit situation is laughable.

Picture this...

The bidding is officially open to cities across Canada and the National Portrait Gallery could be coming to a city near you.

And apparently the City of Ottawa is pretty pissed off.

A few city councilors in Ottawa seem to think that our capital has cornered the market on national institutions and have called for other cities to boycott bidding on the gallery even though the federal government decided to let them duke it out between themselves.

Well... bicker it out would be more accurate.

In the red corner...
The Dynamic Duo.
The Wallet of the Country and the Centre of the Universe;
Ottawa - defending its supposed birthright of national heritage - and her newest ally in supporting the boycott; Toronto (who really just wanted to jump on a bandwagon/fight a cause/talk, and hell, doesn't have the space for another gallery anyway, and really? Portraits? Pfft...)

In the blue corner...
The Challengers.
The Fabulous Five;
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and Halifax are ready to stand up to the Ontarian powerhouses and make a grab for Canada's newest gem.

Only one can come out on top and walk away with all of Canada's portraits valued at an estimated grand total of $WHO-GIVES-A-SHIT^.00.

You know, maybe Ottawa could take the millions of dollars it would spend on another national heritage institution and invest it in the artists who are still alive and trying to make a living in this city.

Hate and humanity...

Henry Rollins once told me via YouTube that I had to find my ember of rage and use it for civil good. He, like myself, believes that hate and rage can benefit humanity when used as a motivator for what you believe in.

I believe in hate and all the good that can come from it.

But in order to utilize hate for the right cause depends on a matter of perspective which I feel many people don't have for various reasons.

It comes down to a matter of people versus humans, and there's a huge difference between the two.

Being a good person doesn't necessarily mean you're a good human. The perspective of a single person has a tendency to be obtuse. We all know people who are the centre of their own universe where nothing outside their sphere of influence (or perspective) matters. They can be a good person, or a bad person. But they are usually very bad humans.

Genghis Kahn could be deemed a bad person based on his track record of violence, but take into account the fact that he was uniting people and building a society rich in culture and religion. He would stop his subjects randomly in the streets to discuss philosophy and he treated them well.

Taking into consideration his ruthless military tactics, Genghis may have been a bad person, but he was a great human because believed in a world that was bigger than himself.

A good human has a sense of community and empathy for those around him. And though they don't always make the right decisions, they learn from their mistakes.

Good humans don't live in their tiny little bubbles, oblivious to the needs and functions of the world around them; because good humans understand that their actions and their decisions affect that world outside in ways that have the potential to be uplifting and beautiful, or absolutely catastrophic.

I love good humans. But I hate people; with all their shortsightedness, ignorance, stagnation, and complete disregard for a world that's larger than themselves.

Poke your head outside your tiny little bubble and see just how insignificant you really are.

Checkup...

"How tall are you and how much do you weigh?" my doctor asked me as he pulled a ratty paper disk out of his white coat.

"Six-one, six-two? Two-sixty last I checked about a year ago."

"Hmm..." He's sporting a goatee now which makes him look a lot like Peter Gabriel. This comforts me.

"Is that a BMI chart?"

My doc looks at me out the corner of his eye, "... Yup."

"I don't trust those things."

I'm not a fat guy. I'm a big guy.

There was a documentary on Discovery years ago about Roman gladiators. One part of the program described a gladiator's diet which consisted of mostly broth, wheat and barley and the occasional meat.

The common Hollywoodized perception of a gladiator was shown on the left side of the screen:

A still shot of Russel Crowe; rippling muscles glistening with sweat and blood, his sword and shield triumphantly raised, standing in the middle of the Colosseum and roaring behind his scary, customized helmet.

On the right was a composite sketch of what anthropologists and historians agreed a gladiator would really look like:

Me.
Shirtless.
Wooden shield in one hand.
Chewed-up sword in the other.
Looking VERY unimpressed with the artist.

I felt proud to be a genetic throwback. My body was designed for two things; extreme physical labour and brutally killing other people in combat. I'm a front-line farmer. "45th generation Roman."

A thousand years ago I'd have been a celebrity. Rich, young, noble-women would have paid my manager good money for me to "entertain" them.

Today, Dr. Gabriel is telling me that I'm between level I and level II obesity.

"It's not the most technical device," he said, holding up his little, paper, fat-calculator. "But it gives me a rough idea."

He slid the disk around.

"If I take your height and put it at a healthy weight, according to the BMI, you should weigh 180 lbs."

"Doc, if I ever weigh 180 lbs, I'll be right back here talking to you."

"Yup. And we'll get that tapeworm out of you ASAP."

Franco-fascism...

Are we in Canada anymore?

Wait... I forgot. Quebec isn't a part of Canada now, it's a nation within a nation. But if Quebec starts a kind of cultural cleansing, would Canada intervene?

Well, if you ask me, we better keep an eye open.

I think Gilles Duceppe is losing it and unless you're a Catholic francophone, your rights in Quebec might be getting trampled.

According to the Montreal Gazette, the Bloc wants to restrict non-Catholic clothing and symbols and is hinting that if you're an immigrant who doesn't speak french, you might not be eligible to vote.

"We shouldn't turn ourselves into the Taliban and demolish all the buddhas of Quebec," said Duceppe. "We're not going to stop listening to Mozart's Requiem because it was written for a mass. All that is part of the heritage of humanity and of Quebec."

I'm not seeing very much humanity here. I might be out of my head, but I'm seeing the beginning of something else;

fas·cism [fash-iz-uhm]:

• A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Here's the full article from the Gazette.

Powder keg...

John Wisely, a staff writer for the Detroit Free Press wrote a pretty scary article in the Nov. 18 issue of the Free Press.

But really, how bad can it be?

Well if you haven't heard, a man named John Horn in Pasadena, Texas killed two, hispanic men with his shotgun while on the phone with a 911 operator. The internet is flooded with debate on whether he's a hero or a vigilante.

And now...

Type "black panther party john horn" into google and the first two links are a white supremacy group's site.

Is this really an issue of race, or is there a bigger picture? The States deserves to be watched very closely in the coming years.