Dead-lines...

I work at one of those jobs where more is never enough and I'm on the giving end. I could spend 10 hours a day there and still it doesn't seem that everything would get done.

Almost every day is a race from an office chair working on computers that barely work with programs that can make Bill O'Reilly look reasonable.

Every week I get one writing assignment and every week I get so excited to work on it. To write.

And then I write.

With the already short amount of time at work, I never really get to have fun writing. I paste together bits of news releases and wikipedia into a sort of mosaic of information with no real direction or purpose. Nothing I'm very interested in anyway.

When I have to write something I'm not interested in, or spend most of my time staring at the clock waiting for the deadline instead of focusing on how cool this information could be if I weren't so distracted, that's when I feel bad about what my final product will be.

Luckily for me, or not depending on how you look at it, there's not much of a bar to raise in terms of writing for a bunch of American geriatrics who would probably get offended if I included words like nipple, underwear, poop, bum, Obama or moist.

Whenever I work with information I don't necessarily care about on an already stressed timeline, I turn into a monkey packing shit together like it's going to save my life.

Remember Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters when he was using his fork to frantically plaster a mountain of mashed potatoes on his plate? And he looked at his wife and said; "This means something."

I'm him.

And sometimes it's just so hard to convince myself that this means something.

Plasticity...

Since I'm on the subject of causes...

I had no idea there was a mass of swirling plastic in the ocean that weighs about 7 million tons. Can't we charter some fishing boats to net some of that shit? We could even make it a tourist attraction.

What bothers me most is the organization responsible for promoting this mess. The Algalita Marine Research Foundation's mission is: "to let the world know about the giant plastic soup we have found in the Central Pacific Gyre and other marine locations so that something can be done to halt this increasing problem before it becomes worse than it already is."

But other than yelling "IT'S OVER HERE!" there doesn't seem to be much more to the job.

The "education" section of their site does nothing but inform you that plastics are bad for the ocean. And for anywhere from $10-$25, you can also buy a DVD that will probably also tell you that plastics are bad for the ocean.

I guess they're living up to their mission; let everyone know about it and let someone else deal with it.

I've always thought of ways to reduce my dependency on plastic. And while there's lots of organizations and people out there who will lecture you on the known hazards of everything plastic, it's quite hard to find any real advice on what to do about it other than "stop using plastic grocery bags!"

So there's step one; get some of those new, reusable grocery bags that are made of -- FUCK! Recycled plastic! What was wrong with hemp?

Okay, so it could be worse, at least we're being smarter about it, but I still think we could do more. What ever happened to glass, tin and paper products?

Thankfully, there's a website called Life Without Plastic and although the colour scheme looks like a cross between baby vomit and the Toxic Avenger, it's got to have some helpful hints, right?

No. It's a store. And it sells stainless steel water bottles with (you guessed it) plastic caps.

Google "no plastic" and a few sites pop up. The first is Change Everything.ca, a collection of blogs written by people who want to change one big thing in their lives. The link takes you to some blog about a person who's trying to give up all plastics. Great idea, but who wants to read through 2 years of personal blog entries to make a quick list to incorporate into their lives?

Two more links to the same blog by "EnviroGirl" and the rest are news articles about plastic bags and then what looks to be an LSD inspired YouTube video. I'm not linking to that.

This is ridiculous. A few other searches rewarded me with more shops, a plastics manufacturing company, and some site called Greenopolis, "...the first 'green,' interactive, collaborative, educational website to bring together communities, environmental organizations, universities, foundations and corporations to reward individuals for making incremental positive environmental changes."

If it's so educational why can't I find any easily accessible tips to reducing my dependency on plastic? If you think "green" means "I'm a better person than you are" then Greenopolis might just be the right place for you.

As for me, if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. I'm making my own advice on reducing my plastic consumption.

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.