Learn your causes...

It's time once again to jump on the cancer boat!

The SS Carcinogen leaves port soon. Destination: your wallet.

Every now and then the media feels the need to give back in the form of a giant, money-making benefit bazaar geared towards making you feel guilty enough to give away your cash to a vague cause. This time it's Stand Up 2 Cancer.

No, I'm not pro-cancer. But cancer is just such a broad topic and I'd really like to see where the money actually goes. If it goes to breast cancer, then that's alright. I love those things. But nevertheless, whenever a giant conglomerate of celebrity faces start tugging on my heartstrings for a little bit of money, I feel that I might be better off by either slapping their hands away or maybe just devouring their children with some Frank's Red Hot. Maybe I could create some sort of weapon that gives them cancer of the face to make them too ugly to be on TV pandering for my paycheck instead of entertaining, informing or educating me.

Besides... didn't Canada already find the cure for cancer?

From the University of Alberta DCA website, updated March 15, 2007:

"Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors."

Amazing! And how long did it take to create this wonderdrug, DCA?

"Scientists and doctors have used DCA for decades to treat children with inborn errors of metabolism due to mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondria, the energy producing units in cells, have been connected with cancer since the 1930s, when researchers first noticed that these organelles dysfunction when cancer is present."

Wait, so DCA has been around for that long, but it's got to be super expensive, hard to produce and worthy of major media network theatrics, right?

"DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule."

But it must be hard to administer. Something so evil as cancer must take some pretty strenuous treatments. Is it injected directly into the tumors? Is there a big DCA submersion unit? Does it involve some sort of enema?

"Another encouraging thing about DCA is that, being so small (much like this font), it is easily absorbed in the body, and, after oral intake, it can reach areas in the body that other drugs cannot, making it possible to treat brain cancers, for example."

So why is this cheap, effective, simple drug which doesn't even have an aftertaste not being talked about more often?

Oh right... because DCA has been around so long it's unpatentable. It can be produced and sold for next to nothing and would end up taking millions of donated dollars for research not to mention government funding and current drug treatments for cancer out of the hands of pharmaceutical companies.

The U of A is starting clinical trials soon and could still use some help. Don't give your money to celebrities putting on a show with an enormous price tag. Give it to the people like Dr. Michelakis who do real work.

Blackouts and styrofoam...

I came home last night to a bedroom full of styrofoam pellets. My bed was covered with the stuff. Same with my floor, my bookcase and all the clothes in my closet.

I live at a place which used to be called The Four Holes. Each building was a hole and in many ways, still is. The buildings were bought out and renovated by The Butera Group. All the addicts, hustlers, pimps, prostitutes and welfare recipients were cast aside, the rent was jacked up to prices which would be more fitting of a downtown loft and they got away with it because it's near the college. Yet they have a policy now where they don't rent out to students, which makes no sense to me.

I always make references to "purfume on a pig" when I talk about these apartments because that's exactly what was done to them. Gussied up with mass purchases designed to give the illusion of the upper-middle class. Just because one of my livingroom walls is painted plum, apparently that's supposed to mean something.

Every time a bus drives past my apartment the pig flexes and shudders. The sides of these builings are the only parts that show the pig for what it is. Giant stress cracks creep up the sides of the buildings like the makeup line on an aging stripper still trying to pass off as 25. But the life she's lived is obvious. It shows below the neck.

The old yellow brick of The Four Holes is being ingeniously covered up with styrofoam. Magical enough to make the buildings look solid, but cheap enough not to make any sort of difference whatsoever.

This is how I came to an apartment full of styrofoam. Right now the contractors have finished glueing the foam to the sides of my building and are sanding it down so that the lines between the boards doesn't look so obvious. My parking lot is covered in little styrofoam pellets and it blows around the neighbourhood like snow that never melts.

It got through my cheap bedroom windows and I spent my Friday night cleaning it up. This morning I'm dealing with the sounds of hammer drills, electric sanders and pounding on the walls of my apartment. The hammer drills actually make my room vibrate if they're close enough.

While trying to routinely go through my Saturday morning amidst the clatter, I came across this story about a celebration of the 5th anniversary of the blackout which shut down a huge chunk of the eastern seaboard.

I've always said we should reenact that event once a year and force people to actually join their community.

I'm not a fan of activist groups for the most part, but this new one out of Toronto called The Public Squares seems to have a cool idea.

"Five years ago the lights went out on some 100 million people. We spilled out of our home-box, work-box, shopping and car boxes. We stepped away from computers, microwaves and TV's. The streets became our living rooms as we shared the good company of friends and strangers alike. We rediscovered the power and vitality of the commons. Last night's temporary reclamation of Bloor & Spadina is a festive demonstration of how our city could evolve. The streets and avenues are the veins and arteries of the city. Great intersections like this one are vital organs where people are drawn to work, eat, play and commune. This connection of citizens creates a livable city in a way that an easy left turn never will. See for yourself how this thousand square feet of pavement can better serve us all. 'Get out of your box and into the square.' - the Public Squares"

After I'm finished Day 2 of cleaning my apartment of styrofoam, I think I might just get out and enjoy my community for a while.

Just a man...

You know, if he wasn't such a terrible president, I bet Georgie would be a pretty fun guy to hang out with.

Freedom of digitalization...

I've been trying to keep up with Canada's new DMCA bill (C-61) but it's difficult. Almost any time I read or hear about it there's so much jargon and I don't have the patience to deal with it or filter through it.

I have never had C-61 explained to me in a reasonable way, but I don't have to be a politician to know that this bill is absolutely ridiculous and needs a lot of work and a lot of input from Canadians.

A very good friend of mine wrote Brian Masse, MP for Windsor West, with both standard and very unique concerns about Bill C-61:

"...for someones mp3, video and whatever collections, one can't really tell. For example I have a ADC membership from Apple that enables me to download software, thus I may not have discs, or ever will have discs but the copy is perfectly legal. But how will I prove that at the border? or my mp3 collection that I have had for years based off of cd's that I have owned in the past and may no longer own today? It is all fuzzy and not sound to do this, and in the end looks like a waste of time and clogging our legal system.

"Secondly, I work in the realm of internet security and I typically have materials that are used to attack websites, but I am on the protective end, so I have or try to have what the offenders are using in order to be proficient.

"So for me this is a scary thought because I could be fined for legally possessing material, and in the end being fined and potentially having my hardware and data destroyed in a needless search, let alone the privacy infringement and trade secret material I may have at any given time."

Masse wrote back with some very interesting things to say:

"Recent reports confirming that the government is in secret meetings to negotiate the terms of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is yet another example of the way this government is allowing U.S. corporate interests to lead Canada around by the nose. These secret ACTA talks in Geneva are likely to result in treating children who trade songs for their iPods like members of international counterfeiting rings; institutionalize the mandatory snooping of personal Internet use; legislate the seizure of personal computers at the border to search for copyrighted materials; and make it easier to use heavy-handed lawsuits against individuals as a tool to prevent file-sharing.

"Unfortunately, the government has completely ignored calls to bring forward reasonable copyright legislation. In fact, this bill is worse than originally feared. There is no evidence of an attempt to strike any reasonable balance that would protect either artists or consumers. Instead, we are faced with a full capitulation to the U.S. corporate lobby that will pave the way for the criminalization of perfectly reasonable behaviour (like format shifting of most legally purchased content)."

I'm still trying to learn more about Bill C-61. It could very well be the most important piece of legislation Canada has seen since the Charter.

Read up on the subject and if you feel strongly about it, take Brian Masse's advice:

"I would strongly encourage you to stay active in this fight by putting the heat on the Ministers of Industry and Heritage, the Prime Minister, and the leaders of the other opposition parties. Whether you call, write, email, or all of the above, your participation will be important to making our opposition to this bill impossible to ignore."

Thanks, Mark.

Club whitey...

Every now and then, someone is going to utter a line that seems borderline racist and it usually sounds something like; "Why does every other group other than white men have advocacy groups and clubs?"

It's stupid, but in some way, I understand it.

The initial reaction is to say; Listen. Whitey's been in power over most (practically ALL) of the western world for centuries. Whitey has a tendency to be short-sighted and unapologetic. Basically, Whitey fucks shit up. A lot.

And that's easy to say when the entire path of the modern world has been blazed by rich white men. But rich black men, or rich white women, or rich Chinese people wouldn't escape the same pitfalls of humanity which brought us to this point in time. I refuse to believe that skin tone and gender make people that different.

Immediately after the notion of a club or group of white men is proposed, images of the private country club with a giant sign out front - "No Jews or Blacks" - springs to mind. The only women and foreigners allowed past the gates are the ones who fold napkins and wash dishes while the White Male Club smokes cigars and devours $40 club sandwiches. Whitey's sit and discuss which currency makes the best toilet paper and how many strippers they could fuck in a weekend.

But that's the fear. The fear of the old times and the fear of a stereotype which seem to me, were just a symptom of a dead culture trying to create a new one which satisfied their inadequacies. If there's one thing rich white folks are good at it's pretending the world is A-ok just by measuring their slice of the pie.

I offer up a different vision for a White Male Club:

Factory workers, miners and mechanics sitting around a patio, drinking beer and eating hot dogs. No real threat to anything but their dying organs and discussing the same things as people of other races; how badly Whitey fucked shit up.

These are basically my family reunions, except women are invited to join in. And my Syrian relatives. And my black roommate. And basically anyone else who wants to drink beer and eat hot dogs, we're pretty easy going.

The notion of establishing an official Club Whitey is always met with that same fear of the old stereotypes, but there's already unofficial clubs all over the world and most of them are just like my family gatherings.

The big secret is that most white people are fine with our secret, backyard hot dog clubs. It's the giant organized white groups that make us nervous and shameful. The ones who always preach heritage and purity of race. Yeah, those motherfuckers. The ones who form demonstrations promoting the establishment of official White Male Clubs.

Those bastards are right that the world is becoming less white, but that's not a bad thing. And it isn't nearly as scary as they make it out to be. Over time, when Asians, Indians and Hispanics populate the world, when everyone in the west celebrates Cinco De Mayo, they'll look at my family reunions and think; "Look at that white club. Drinking beer and eating hot dogs, just like in that documentary."

Maybe I'm wrong and the stereotypes and "white is right" bastards will be long forgotten.

Or maybe they'll be delighted and surprised by how open we are to other people.

Citizen journalists...

I've always been a big fan of the idea that sometimes you have to trick people into doing the right thing.

But sometimes this can turn into mass delusions.

The idea behind "citizen journalism" is fantastic; there's news happening everywhere and always, so go out there and find it. You too can be a reporter/broadcaster/pundit. But it gives a lot of people a false notion that they're finding a purpose instead of just picking up a hobby.

A citizen journalist is just someone who decided to be a normal person and involve themselves in that thing that died sometime in the 90's. What is it? Oh yeah. COMMUNITY.

I'm not getting bent out of shape because I've spent two years of my life studying journalism and plan to do more of the same. I really enjoy the idea of people getting involved in the larger world that surrounds their living rooms.

But citizen journalists?

I just cooked myself a pretty decent dinner that didn't come out of a box so that must mean I'm a citizen chef. And when I clean my kitchen afterwards, maybe then I've magically transformed into a citizen maid.

I guess citizen journalists got the name because it benefits more than just themselves. And it also gives them a larger sense of purpose when they force themselves to look at the world around them.

"I'm not interacting normally with people in my community, I'm a citizen journalist and I've got a job to do!"

It sounds like mental masturbation. What else would you call a job that pays in nothing but feeling better about yourself?

The creation of citizen journalism can tell you a lot about the state of media though. No one trusts or believes journalists. Apparently regular journalists are bottom-feeding attention whores who's only goal is to steal your story, muck about with your words and paint you out to be a bigger dick than you could ever make yourself out to be.

And regular journalists are so tremendously terrible at it that ordinary people are jumping in to take over what has apparently become a completely incompetent industry.

What's worse is that citizen journalists are almost needed. The people we ultimately work for are not happy with the quality of work we're putting out there.

Every reporter I've ever met has had the same "live to work" philosophy. I've been told again and again that if I don't absolutely love the job I'll never make it.

Ten years ago a City Hall reporter would write roughly 150 stories a year. Plenty of time to look at a story and tell it right while still building relationships with your sources. Today, city beat journalists are told to act as if their deadline is NOW for every story they write (which has increased to about 350 stories a year.)

I've conducted interviews that were so rushed there was no way I could come off as anything but a complete leech. This is no way to run any type of news organization.

But there are rules and guidelines for journalism that citizens can't just make up, just as someone couldn't simply pick up a hammer and some lumber, call themselves a citizen contractor and go build a house thinking it would pass code.

By far my biggest beef with the giant, veiny erection calling itself citizen journalism is that people are mind-fucking themselves into thinking their doing a job when they should have always been out there talking to people, hearing new opinions, thinking for themselves and integrating into a society thus helping to create that long-lost thing known as a culture.

We need less citizen journalists and more plain citizens.

Jack of all trades...

I love Batman.

I was thinking of just leaving this post as that one sentence but then I thought that might be a little weird, so let me explain why.

Cruising through the series of tubes that make up the Interweb, I came across a list of 75 things every man should be able to do and I felt a strange combination of fascination and resentment. But I couldn't stop reading it.

Because a small part of me felt that this list might know something I didn't know about being a man. I wanted to size myself up against the list to see just how manly I was.

And then I realized I was being a complete tool.

There's a lack of zen in North America causing the youth to believe they have to be the best at everything and I blame me. I mean the media. So... me.

Anyway, being constantly bombarded by information in today's wacky world of infotainment there's an endless variety of figures to look up to and it's hard to choose just one. Sports figures, intellectuals, inventors, musicians. The list is endless, but it's also inevitably hopeless.

The giant list of potential heroes creates a giant bubble of confusion in young minds. No one knows who to look up to. Ask someone who their hero is. ONE hero and I bet you'll get a blank stare for one of two reasons:

They either can't filter through the grotesque, Facebook-sized list of names in their heads,

Or the names got lost in the database somewhere and the person has no one they really look up to and identify with.

Another alienating effect of having too many heroes or no heroes at all is being over or underwhelmed by the many facets of life. With too many heroes it's easy to have the need to be the best at everything to keep up with and compare yourself to the heroic figures in your head and with no heroes at all, well, that's just disasterous.

No one is going to be the best at everything, no matter how hard they try and the more people I see trying to be the best at everything, the more frustrated I get with a society that breeds sterility.

This is the same reason why I hate Superman.

He's the most boring character ever created and he only perpetuates the myth that people should try to be great at everything. He's the strongest, fastest, invulnerableist AND the bastard has laser eyes. Just in case.

Choose one thing you're good at and become awesome at it. Don't set your sights so high that they're unachievable. I want to live in a world where people specialize in different skills and don't try to know everything about everything.

But isn't Batman just the opposite of what I described? Kind of, but not really. He's a tricky third option for people with no real-life heroes to relate to.

In every Batman story I've ever read he gets the shit kicked out of him to the point where he's near death but somehow manages to squeeze through. He doesn't always save the day. He's not always right. He's just a guy with a neurosis and a boat-load of cash doing whatever it is he does.

His great skill is adapting, and that's made him a perfect for today's world of information bombardment.

In the comic world super-powers mirror the people with great abilities in our world. Batman has had to contend against superheroes with nothing more than his ingenuity and he's done it successfully.

Batman doesn't have a list of 75 things he needs to know about being Batman. He started by just beating the snot out of criminals and it all snowballed from there.

I don't need to know how to "recite one poem from memory" or "be brand loyal to at least one product" to be a man. I'm just going to focus at being the best at beating up criminals and I'll deal with the rest as it comes.