It's not easy being green...

The green party gets a lot of flack. Sometimes, it's even from themselves.

Martin Hyde is my riding's Green Party candidate and I already know that I'm not going to vote for him. Not because I think that he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning or that I don't like the Green Party, but because he's already convinced himself that he won't win.

"While I stand little chance of winning a seat in this election, that isn’t stopping me from running Green."

This defeatist mentality is not a very good way to inspire confidence in a population. Especially when you're trying to get them to like you.

When I first looked at his website, Hyde had written something to the extent of "I'm not a political person..." Why in the world would anyone then enter politics?

He might say that he's in it to support his party. More likely he'd say that he's in it to make the world a better place. But the real reason he's running for the Green Party is because, hell... someone's got to. Why not Martin Hyde?

This lame attitude of running a local campaign by promoting a federal party's entire platform is not the way things should work. If I vote for a Green representative, I don't want him to think of Kyoto. I want him to tell me what he will do to make my neighbourhood more green and what we as individual citizens can do to help out based on the party platform.

I want my representative to be involved in my community and not be just another hack.

I want a person who's ultimate reason for running is more than just a shrug and a sigh.

"[Martin Hyde] is running in this election so that those in his riding who are concerned about environmental issues have a Green candidate to vote for. Currently in Ontario, because we are not able to vote directly for a party but are only able to do so by voting for a local candidate, a party must run a candidate in every riding if all voters across the province are to be heard."

So please, just throw me whoever works for you, Green Party. It doesn't matter if they give a fuck or not. They stand little chance of winning anyway, right?

Clearer answers...

Things are never explained as good as they should be. Especially when it's a politician trying to explain it. Hope this helps people to make a decision.

Wherefore art thou, Lynn Hamilton...

I'm disappointed in you, Lynn.

You said you'd give the other candidates a "run for their money." But you're late for the race! I know, I know. It was a hell of a party, wasn't it. You need some time to recuperate from all that celebrating. But this great team you put together can't make a basic website?

I don't need anything fancy, Lynn.

No one cares to watch you mingle with kids and old folks to sway a vote. Or try to bash anybody. I just want to know what you're about. What makes you tick. And why I should give a shit that you're running (or napping, whichever.)

Don't get me wrong, Lynn. I grew up on the NDP. I've voted NDP a few times. And I have a soft spot in my heart for Jackie-Boy's cute little mustache. I won't ignore the NDP like most people will. I appreciate you.

But they'll keep ignoring you if you don't start moving your ass!

I had the hardest time tracking you down. Are you avoiding me? The NDP homepage had no contact info for you and I was forced to contact some stranger to get your e-mail address. To think, Lynn. A stranger at NDP HQ is between us. This shouldn't be happening.

He told me you were busy setting up your campaign office. You don't have to clean house for me, Lynn. I don't need a red carpet. I just want to know what matters to you. Maybe those same things will matter to me too.

We don't have long, Lynn. Less than a month before I have to choose who I'm taking to the prom and I'm narrowing it down.

Don't let me down.

Daydreaming...

One of my favourite fantasies as a kid was to think about waking up and finding no one else on Earth. I could do anything I wanted, and even though it was a scary dream (and a little morbid in retrospect) I never thought about the dangers of living in a world alone. Never thought about how I would survive. I'd just wander around watching vines grow over neighbourhoods and read and hang out.

Alan Weisman has released a book called The World Without Us which explores just this idea. What if people disappeared spontaneously, leaving everything behind? I find the basics of this idea fascinating and a little bit solemn. But I'm glad to see my fantasy is still alive and well for some people.

The scarier dream for me was the bomb, but that was more of a distant reality. I grew up afraid of the bomb because my mother was afraid of it too. She would tell me the story of the time she was in Florida with my grandfather when the Cuban Missile Crisis started. They were trying to get back to Canada as fast as they could and she watched the pleasant, rolling hills along the American highway slide open revealing the military silos and their nuclear payloads.

I think that's when the bomb became real for my mother.

It became real for me when the front page of the Windsor Star printed a map from a declassified government document created during the Cold War. It showed what could happen if Detroit (which I knew was a nuclear target) were bombed in two situations. One, a nuclear explosion of a relatively high yield. The other situation was a bombing by three tactical nukes of lower yield.

I believe that if I were at home during the large nuclear strike, I would have had a 40% chance of survival. Well, as long as I didn't burn to death, suffocate, starve or shit my liver out. If I were downtown during a strike I'd likely die instantly. ("Instantly" was used rather vaguely, it sounded more like a goal than a likelihood).

The reason why these are both so drilled into my head is that the reality of the bomb killed my fantasy of a humanless Earth.

I remember hearing a story years ago about what would happen to the planet if people just disappeared, and it became apparent that we're here to stay. At least for the time being.

Inside a United States government installation is a key (at least there used to be). And this key wasn't turned to launch the bombs, it was turned to stop them from launching. Every 12 or 24 hours, this key had to be turned.

The way it worked was that if the Soviets, or anyone else bombed the states to the point where no one was alive (or at least alive enough to give the order to turn the key), then the rockets would launch on their own, destroying the Soviets. If someone were alive to turn the key, then there was still peace.

If people suddenly disappeared, then every country with nuclear capabilities could potentially release their payloads simultaneously. It was estimated that within a week of humanity's departure, all the oceans would be vaporized and the Earth would be a molten, bubbling lava pit.

We can't leave this planet, Mr. Weisman.

We're holding it hostage.

Motor city blues...

I recently just returned from a trip back home to Windsor, Ontario and I have a new game for anyone visiting my home town.

Find one residential street which doesn't have a house for sale somewhere on it.

If people find this game too difficult they can change the rules a bit like I had to and find a single block on a street which doesn't have a house for sale.

Windsor is a blue-collar town. It survives by the Big Three (GM, Chrysler and Ford) and we all know how well North American car makers are doing. The huge auto industry supports tool & die shops, feeder plants and trucking companies. Windsor makes parts for cars, quality controls those parts and assembles them all together so that everything is ready to drive right out the door.

Windsor has always been running on three-shift cycles. Keeping the minivans and cars rolling out the door 24/7. Everyone knows what a swing shift is. Everyone has a parent or uncle on the line. Everyone knows what TPT means and if it described you and you were young, you were the envy of all your friends.

Going to high school at Walkerville, everyone knew that you had to burn rubber home after school. It was essential to beat GM's shift change whistle and avoid the daily parade of greasy workers, lazily moseying towards the parking lot on the other side of Kildare.

I never realised how bad it was until I returned home.

Everyone has their own theories for why North America's auto industry is failing;

The unions.

Some line workers make the same wage as a good (or bad) mechanic and lots of people who don't work directly for the Big Three feel that the unions became too powerful and greedy. Working at a plant meant great benefits and very good money, if you could put up with the work.

The unions also became very lax. There's always stories of guys on the line being drunk or stoned or asleep on the job. Workers getting a dozen verbal warnings about substance abuse on the job but never getting written reprimands. For a union worker to get fired he has to kill someone while on the clock. And it would have to be another union worker on a higher rung of the ladder.

The city.

Ever since 9/11 the border to Detroit has been swamped. There's been big money dumped into plans of dumping bigger money into a new border corridor designed to help the industry and in true Windsor fashion, it's going nowhere quick.

Windsor has a history of making terrific, eventual promises with the worst plans ever.

Product.

It all comes down to putting out a product and Windsor is getting it's ass kicked in every direction. Products are manufactured terribly for the $30+/hour the Big Three are paying to get them made. This bumps up the price for the finished product and no one wants to pay $20,000 for a Vibe when they can get a Kia Rio for under 14k.

The CAW and workers have to get off their high horses and make some sacrifices that should have been made decades ago. City officials have got to get off their asses to help the people that elected them and act more like the leaders they're supposed to be.

Windsor doesn't have to die. But a minivan won't save it this time and Windsor will never be like it was when I was a kid.

At least the thousands of laid off workers that don't move to Calgary can stay busy by trying to keep Hiram Walker's in business.

Nostalgia is just feeling homesick when you're already home.

Fucking hippies...

I don't hate all hippies. But I certainly hate the one's that smoke pot all day, hold drum circles in the rain, and preach about how we should never cut down a single tree again. Ever.

They're wrong and ignorant, and no amount Ben Harper or John Lennon listening is going to change things.

I haven't always hated hippies. I blame Thunder Bay for that. Lakehead University, where I spent two years has what I would call a large, hippie population. Hardcore hippies are some of the most useless people on Earth. With all their talk of bettering the environment they sure waste a lot. Animal rights are great as long as they can keep wearing leather sandals and wool socks in the winter.

I made up my mind on hippies when I talked to a hardcore hippie who was proudly sporting a genuine tiger's tooth as a necklace. Then she ran into the woods barefoot to squish her toes in the mud. Way to go, eco-warrior.

This video on The Hour, shows a new type of filthy hippie; the "Freegan". A freegan is a person who eats trash. The freegan slogan is "We won't buy your crap, but we'll eat your scrap."

All disgust aside for a moment, freegans could bring a lot of awareness to the issue that people toss away decent food all the time. As Hillary Doyle says, "You'd be shocked by the good stuff that is thrown out in people's trash."

But in true hippie fashion, they don't eat garbage to prove a point, they do it because it's a perverted form of ego-masturbation.

Want to be a freegan? Why not GROW your own food? Even better, start a city community of back-yard farmers and trade. It might work better for community awareness instead of half-assing it and scavenging. Hippies can be so short-sighted.

This Toronto couple, also on The Hour, has a much more reasonable approach to being eco-friendly and they don't seem interested in just saving a buck for pot and video games. Sarah McGaughey's interest in integrating more in their community is commendable and Kyle Glover's opening comment was very realistic and frightening.

Frightening because if we were all forced to throw our garbage in our own backyards, we'd probably have pot-head freegans hopping our fences, starting drum circles and eating our perfectly good trash.

Goddam hippies!

Gandhi was a jerk...

Okay, maybe he wasn't. I happen to really like Gandhi too. Who doesn't? But Mahatma was far from perfect, so here's a little story...

Ghandi's wife died of pneumonia. Before she died, everyone (including their son) was begging Gandhi to let her use penicillin to combat the infection but he refused to allow it. Said it was up to God to do with her life what he will.

Eventually she died from the pneumonia and Gandhi said that God was testing him.

That's not what makes him a jerk though.

What makes him a jerk is that later, Gandhi himself contacted malaria. He suffered for a few weeks stating again that his life was in God's hands and refused treatment.

But praying didn't fight the disease which I guess changed his mind and he started the treatment. In a little while, he was all better.

Even great humans are still only human.