The Million Word Year

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Archive for category World

News : Latest news in eggs

Aug 30

Posted by MegaWordMan in Odd, World | 1 Comment

According to this article, the egg industry is now blaming the victims of their tainted eggs for not cooking their eggs for long enough.

Really, egg people? REALLY? Here’s the quote :

“Consumers that were sickened reportedly all ate eggs that were not properly or thoroughly cooked. Eggs need to be cooked so that the whites and yolks are firm (not runny), which should kill any bacteria,” says Mitch Head, spokesman for the United Egg Producers.

REALLY, Egg Guy Mitch “Egg” Head? Over 1400 people have gotten sick from your damned eggs. You are saying every single one of them undercooked their eggs? You are sure of that, so sure that you are willing to risk the worst kind of PR, the blaming-the-victim kind?

And all my life, some people have been eating their eggs runny and this is the first time I have heard that this was a horrible risky thing that no sane person should ever do. Are you saying all those times I quite thoroughly enjoyed a soft-boiled egg and toast to dip in, I was risking my very life, and somehow this information just never got to…. anybody?

And the thing is, you have already recalled the eggs, so you are as much as admitting the eggs are at fault. If you thought you were blameless, you should have refused to recall. Now if you have already recalled millions of eggs, it looks like you are two-faced and playing the martyr. This is a very bad reaction
to being caught in public with egg on your face. (Sorry. Had to do it. All stories about this egg thing have got to have at least one egg related put or reference. I am serious. A man came while I was typing this and told me. He was very scary. I’m a little freaked out right now. )

Taking the blame is not fun. There is always the urge to try to weasel out of it, to deflect blame, to refuse to take responsibility for your actions or your mistakes.

But when the public is mad at your industry, there is nothing worse you can do than to try to shift the blame in such a patently transparent and unconvincing manner. It just makes people much angrier, and shifts this from an “oops”, which the public is likely to forgive (after all, mistakes happens, and people do love their eggs, they are unlikely to just stop eating them) into a big “fuck you” to the very people you need to placate, and fast. Not smart.

Honestly, it is wise to take the blame even when you are not entirely sure you are entirely at fault. People will be more likely to forgive and forget, and might even take your side if you show sufficient contrition. This blaming the victim shit is public relations suicide.

So ignore the farmers egging you on, come out of your hard shell, and wise up before you REALLY lay an egg and hurt your whole industry.

(The scary guy made me do that. He is still looking at me. Who let this guy in here, anyhow?)

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World : The Sun nails a Nazi

Aug 30

Posted by MegaWordMan in World | 1 Comment

Well, as much as I normally cordially loathe The London Sun for their blatant yellow journalism, screechingly shrill editorial voice, and a writing style that makes me want to find the person who wrote that smarmy pile of crap and whack them about with a good solid umbrella…. I have to admit, they done good.

There are times when having the morals and restraint of baying hounds out for blood actually turns out to be useful for something other than making the lives of famous people miserable, and in this case, that thing is hunting down escaped Nazis.

Sure, they are only doing it for the lurid headline and cheap feeling of moral superiority, but regardless of their motives, they did a good thing.

I am normally a person who adds a fair bit of mercy to his hot cups of justice. I dislike the punitive mindset strongly, I do not think justice and vengeance are ever the same thing, and I think the justice system’s main job is finding out the truth and putting people who have identified themselves as dangerous someplace where they can do less harm, not punishment or revenge. Just protection.

But there can be no escape from crimes against humanity. I do not care how old, how feeble, how contrite, how mournful, how photogenic, or how exemplary this Nazi is, he needs to go to jail for his crimes. The message has to be firmly reinforced that for some things, there is no statute of limitations, no loopholes, no time off for good behaviour. You will never be safe, never be able to relax, never be able to know, for sure, that the authorities will not show up tomorrow morning and take you away from your friends and your family and the life you have built and make your shame known to the world when they take you to court and make you face your crimes, and pay the price.

This is one of those rare cases where I think keeping the person alive is more cruel, but more just, than execution. Their terrible crimes should be listed right next to their faces on every newspaper and television news program in the world so that everyone knows what they did, and then they should be left to rot in prison so they can know the shame for as long as possible.

So the old guy is 88. So what? The people he killed are still dead. That has not changed.

Pragmatically speaking, I have no idea if the thought of being pursued for their entire lives by the police of the entire world will ever cause someone to decide against committing a crime against humanity. As I understand it, these things generally happen in the heat of the moment, or from the influence of a system gone completely insane, and often the real motive for doing what you are told, even when it is a horrible crime and you know it, is the desire not to be the next one to die. Fascist regimes are notoriously conformist, and I can understand how someone might do terrible things out of a combination of the fear of consequences and the urge to conform.

But crimes against humanity transcend that. There has to be some kind of accounting for them, no matter how long it takes, if for no other reason than to be the public response, the active arm of the public’s reaction to these crimes.

People have to believe that there are some things you just plain cannot get away with.

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World : What not to bring to a papal visit

Aug 29

Posted by MegaWordMan in Odd, World | 1 Comment

OK, it is completely understandable that the Pope does not want there to be any vuvuzelas around when he does his next world tour. The things are damned irritating and if I was the Pope, the freaking Pope, I would hold fast that one of the privileges of my exalted position, let along my exalted age, would be that I don’t have to put up with morons making a sound like angry bees on the march everywhere I go.

I mean, show some respect people.

But that is not what really brought my attention to this story. It was this line here. Emphasis mine.

They join alcohol, barbecues, gazebos and candles on the “do not bring” list.

Excuse me, you want to run that by me again. Gazebos? GAZEBOS? Are people bringing their own gazebo to events these days? Has this become a problem somehow? Is there worldwide trend of people holding wild gazebo keggers at public event these days?

No really, it’s great, it’s like a tailgate party crossed with a garden party from the 20′s. We all get dressed up in straw hats and spats, there’s a brass band and a barbershop quartet, and it’s nothing but Dixie, Dixie, Dixie all day long! All the flappers and soda jerks and streetcar drivers will be there!

I mean, seriously, Pope Palpatine. Gazebos? How did that even get on the list? Did it just seem to go with the rest of the words somehow? Did you maybe have a Senior Moment and forget exactly what a gazebo was but thought it sounded like something bad so you put it in there just in case? I have always thought the word “gazebo” sounded like some exotic African animal. Maybe it’s what you get when you cross a gazelle with a zebra. Or zebro.

Or is this actually you showing a little papal humour and slipping something in there just to see if we are paying attention? If I was Pope, I would totally do things like that. Slip something about the Holiness of raspberry flavoured bubble gum into some thick, boring Papal document and see if anyone notices.

I mean, check out the entry for gazebo on the Wiki.

A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal, in parks, gardens, and spacious public areas. Gazebos are freestanding or attached to a garden wall, roofed, and open on all sides; they provide shade, shelter, ornamental features in a landscape, and a place to rest. Some gazebos in public parks are large enough to serve as bandstands or rain shelters.

As an aside, I just have to mention how much I love the Internet. That is an extremely well written, informative, and descriptive definition of a gazebo. And I got it just by typing the word into the Wiki search box. That makes me happy.

Anyhow, back to my point : THIS is what you are worried about on your tour, Pope Nicer Than He Looks? Open-sided pavilion structures? This is a public menace to put alongside alcohol, vuvuzelas, and barbecues? What country of the world is so magnificently refined and relaxed that their biggest problem is kids and their damned gazebos? I want to go there! Maybe not to live, but I bet a visit would be very nice.

And did you know that in banning gazebos, you are also, according to Wiki, banning “pagodas, pavilions, kiosks, belvederes, follies, alambras, pergolas, and rotundas”? Are you sure you want to be known as the Pope who banned alambras? Are you sure you even know what the hell all those things are? Because I sure don’t. What the hell is a pergola?

Now I want to make posters that have the Pope’s image and a picture of a gazebo with a slash through it and slogans like “Pope Benedict says ‘Kids, if someone offers you a gazebo, just say no!’” or “Gazebo? I don’t think so!” or “Have you talked to your teenager about gazebos?”

I mean seriously, Benedict. Gazebos?

What the fuck, man?

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World : Killer squid on the rise

Aug 29

Posted by MegaWordMan in Science, World | 1 Comment

There a frightening story over on express.co.uk about the rise of giant killer squid through some of the richest fishing grounds in the world.

These squid are Humboldt squid, otherwise known as jumbo squid, jumbo flying squid (!), or “Diablo Rojo”, the Red Devil. According to a href=”http://express.co.uk”>express.co.uk about the the story, they are highly intelligent, they are voracious predators, they eat practically anything in their path, they quite possible coordinate their hunting of fish via communicating with each other via their pigment shifting skin, and oh yeah, they have started attacking human beings.

Oh, and they live in giant shoals of up to twelve hundred individual giant killer freaking squid.

As global warming heats up the oceans of the world, these squid are ranging farther north than usual, and encountering nice big supplies of fish to eat, allowing them to multiply rapidly and come into contact with human beings. They do not seem to like us much.

Former US special forces diver Scott Cassell has put his life on the line to study the squid. He too has been attacked.

He said: “Within five minutes my right shoulder had been pulled out of its socket. I had 30 big marks on my head and throat and one squid hit me so hard I saw stars. They then grabbed on to me and pulled me down so fast that I could not equalise and I ruptured my eardrum.

How is it they were able to do all that damage within seconds to a tough, battle hardened ex special forces guy like that?

Turns out they are kind of scary.

Marine biologists wear chain-mail to protect themselves from creatures that can measure 8ft, weigh 100lb and carry an armoury of more than 40,000 fearsome teeth along two “attack” tentacles.

The creatures have another eight “legs” for grasping and swimming and can reach speeds of more than 15mph.

Holy Killer Calamari, Batman! Eight feet long, 40K teeth, fast, intelligent, and hunt in packs of over a thousand. To hell with Sharktopus, this is like some horrible mixture of shark, squid, dolphin, and piranha.

I am not so worried about the world’s fish stocks. I am worried about the world’s human stocks! What happens when they figure out our fishing boats are full of fish? And our cruise ships are full of tangy, tasty old people and enough food to feed a hundred armies with tapeworm?

I am only half joking. Many squid species have turned out to be surprisingly, even frighteningly intelligent. They are, after all, predators with complex and adaptable grasping capacities, like us, and there are certain theories that say that it is object manipulation and tool use that fuels intelligence in evolution, at least until the point of developing language. Oh wait, they have that too, maybe.

And being squid, they might just be able to do pretty good on land as well as in the water. There have been squid in zoos and aquaria which have figured out how to open their tanks and have gone wandering around, snacking on the other sea critters and getting around like sea ninjas. Water, air, it’s all the same to them. They can be extremely clever.

I don’t know if our friends the Diablos Rojos are that smart, but if they hunt in packs and communicate via pigment changes, odds are pretty damn good.

Sooner or later, they will come for us, and we need a plan now.

I think I have a solution that is as elegant as it is simple and devastatingly effective.

We just have to ask ourselves a simple question : “How do they taste?”

If we learn to eat these fuckers and enjoy it, there will not be a problem with them devastating our fish stocks, because they will become part of our fish stocks. A group of 1000 of them, at 100 pounds each? Why, that is 100,000 pounds of wild calamari just waiting for the forces of capitalism to find and exploit with its usual ruthless efficiency.

We could turn a problem into an asset pretty fast, and we human beings are quite intelligent and voracious predators ourselves. There has not been a species yet that got the better of us when we put our minds, and more importantly our stomachs and our wallets, into controlling them.

Let’s just hope that the Humboldt squid have not yet figure out how to use the Internet, or I am a dead man just for suggesting this.

Just in case, to all my readers : if I am found gnawed and tentacled to death, remember, IT WAS NOT SUICIDE. It was El Diablos Rojas! AVENGE ME!

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World : Tiger cub found in luggage

Aug 27

Posted by MegaWordMan in World | 1 Comment

I have to admit, it was a clever idea.

A Thai woman was caught trying to smuggle a real live sedated tiger cub into Iran by hiding it in a suitcase full of stuffed animals.

A despicable act, granted, seeing as it is part of the highly destructive underground trade in tigers which is decimating their numbers in the wild from poaching, but at least on the surface of it, the idea of smuggling a baby animal by putting it in with stuffed animals is kind of clever.

Fortunately for the baby tiger and unfortunately for the as yet unnamed Thai woman smuggling it, the authorities saw her struggling with a bag that was too heavy for her, and decided to X-ray her luggage.

I can only imagine that the moments between the authorities taking her luggage and them busting her for smuggling were very, very long ones for our lady smuggler.

Good. I hope she has many more long moments in jail to think about what she did. If she is smart, and lucky, she will have enough dirt to spill on who gave her the cub and who was going to get it to reduce her sentence somewhat. But she is still going to jail, and I am happy with that.

On the short list of categories of people for whom I have very little sympathy, poachers rank pretty high, somewhere between “slavers” and “bullies”.

Maybe she is a victim in this. Maybe someone fast-talked her into agreeing to do it, and told her there was no chance of getting caught, she would make money easy, the tiger was going to go to a big farm upstate where it could run free and chase rabbits all day. I don’t know.

And I don’t really care. Sometimes, object lessons are necessary. This is what happens when you traffic in endangered species. Still think it’s worth it?

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World : 600 pound woman leaves apartment for first time in three years

Aug 27

Posted by MegaWordMan in News, World | No Comments

We have all seen the news stories like this one. Some unfortunate soul has succumbed to obesity to the point of not even being mobile any more, and it makes the news because not only has this person become a human freak/medical oddity, but when they finally require hospitalization, generally something extremely like removing a wall from a building and hoisting them down to the ambulance like they were moving a piano is required.

As a life long fattie, I always feel those stories are hitting quite close to home, and my reactions are complex.

My usual first reaction is “Thank God I am not there… yet. ” It’s a sad fact that I cannot guarantee that I will not end up there eventually. I hope not, and I will do what I can to prevent it, but depression, diabetes, and obesity are a hell of a combo.

And the really tragic thing is, I am so sedentary already that I am not that far away from losing mobility. I mean, I can still walk and get around and I am not using a Hoveround yet, but still, when going up a flight of stairs feels like a marathon and just bending over to pick up a pair of socks off the floor gives me a pounding headache that feels like death, I have to wonder how far away I am.

But the other way I react to these stories is to wonder : what the hell are the people in this person’s life thinking? Because you know damn well that you cannot get so fat that you can’t get to the bathroom without leaning on your son without people helping.

That is what gets me. Someone like Umnuayporn cannot get to 600 pounds without people who are going and getting them all the foods that keep them that fat, and I have to wonder what those people think abot their role in enabling all of this.

These people have got to realize that they are part of the problem, that they are slowly killing her by getting her what she asks for. In her case, it’s her sons, so I can understand how hard it is to stand up to your mother. But come on.

If you don’t get her the unhealthy foods, she can’t get them herself. Sure, she acts like she will die without them, and to deny them to her would likely unleash a side of her that nobody wants to see, especially not her children. That is what it is like to deal with an addict.

And make no mistake, she’s an addict, and you are her connection, her dealer. And if you refuse to get her unhealthy food, she will go to pieces trying absolutely anything to get her fix. Guilt, anger, threats, abuse, lies… addicts are incapable of seeing past the next fix and will do whatever it takes to get it. So you will have to be very strong.

She will claim you are trying to starve her. You will have plenty of healthy food for her. She will say you do not love her. You will tell her you love her too much to have her die young because you could not say no to her. She will go from anger to charm to seeming calm like a wild storm. You must stay strong.

Like all addictions, withdrawal will be very hard. But if you are strong enough, you can save her and some day she might even thank you.

She will be forced to ask herself just how badly she wants that bad food. Bad enough to lose weight till she can get it herself? Bad enough to exercise a little? Bad enough to go on a hunger strike for it?

She will eat the healthy food once she gets hungry enough. It might even help her to know what real hunger, as opposed to food craving, is like.

I am not claiming that you can cure her. The best you can hope for is to get her to the point where she is mobile enough to get the food herself. After that, she will be on her own once more.

But if you are the person, or one of the persons, bringing the unhealthy food to a 600 pound person, you have to realize that you are part of the problem and that only you can help them save themselves.

Sometimes, doing what is right by people is a difficult and thankless job.

But if you love them enough, you do it anyway.

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Wow : The Dyatlov Pass Incident

Aug 22

Posted by MegaWordMan in News, World | No Comments

Wow, two amazing Wikipedia finds in one day!

And this one is a lulu. Gape in wonder and enjoy the thrill of the unknown, the mysterious, and the macabre as you learn about the Dyatlov Pass Incident.

The basic story : a group of ten Russians decide to mount an expedition to a remote mountain. After one day, one of them leaves ill.

When they fail to report in when they were supposed to, a search was launched. Eventually, all nine of them would be found dead. Two would have fractured skulls. Two would have fractured ribs.

And one of them would be missing her tongue.

And there is no official explanation for any of that. The fact that most of them were found in just their underwear, that is not necessarily a mystery. Obviously, they were having a deep woods Victoria’s Secret party and things got out of hand.

Just kidding. There is a well documented phenomenon called paradoxical undressing, where people suffering from hypothermia begin taking off their clothes. In my opinion, this is because their bodies interpret the lack of feeling in their outer skin as “smothering” and think they exposing more skin to the air will fix it. Also, serious tissue damage to the skin can feel like burning. Too hot? Take off clothes.

Now how a group of experienced winter campers all got hypothermia together at the same time and stayed together in a group as part of their response is not clear.

Their tent was ripped open from inside, as well, indicating that someone did not just get cold but went berserk. And they all left the camp of their own accord, on foot. Were they all lounging around in their underwear (must have been some warm tent, as it was -25 Celcius out side of it) and someone said “Hey everybody, race you to the lake!” and they all did it?

That is not entirely implausible, I suppose, especially if they had been drinking.

But then comes the really weird stuff. The fractures…. it’s not just that there was one fatal skull fracture and two fatal chest fractures took the lives of three of the nine dead. Those might happen in any one of a number of ways in a dangerous outdoor environment.

It’s that there was no external sign of injury. No bruising, no abrasions, nothing. Inside, fractures so severe they indicated a level of force normally associated with car crashes. Outside, nothing.

And then there’s the tongue. Where on Earth did that poor woman’s tongue go?

It’s all very X-files, and I love it. I love a good mystery, and this seems like one to me. Nothing in the story is just flat out impossible, but a lot of things do not add up to any simple narrative.

To me, the central mystery is those fractures. Booze and hypothermia might well explain the other six. Similar incidents have been noted in northern countries before. Whole parties of people found dead because the alcohol deadened their sense of cold until it was far too late.

And while the missing tongue is grotesque and terrifying, it is not too hard to imagine that a wild animal helped itself to it, especially if the deceased died with her mouth open.

But those pressure fractures are a real stumper. I can’t imagine how you crack someone’s skull or chest without leaving any marks on the outside. There is no conceivable scenario in my mind where there would not at least be some marks at the point(s) where the pressure was applied. Bruising, contortion, abrasion, something! But nope, nothing. How is this possible?

I have no problem believing that these campers were in their large tent and drank far, far too much, so much that when someone suggested a refreshing jaunt to the lake, they were unabkle to find or work the door of their tent, so they just ripped their way out. And then, in a rush, they all trundle down to the lake, and by the time the cold cuts through the alcohol, they are all too disoriented to find their way back to the camp, although it seems that four of them were at least trying. Alcoho and extreme cold do not mix.

But how that ends with three deaths from mysterious extreme fractures, I do not know.

I do wonder how the one fellow who got sick on the first day and had to leave feels about the whole thing. Does he have survivor’s guilt, compounded by his understandable relief at having not been present at a mysterious fatal incident? Does he wonder, late at night, lying awake in the dark hours of the soul, if they all would still be alive if he had been there? If there was something he could have done to stop this madness from taking over them?

I do not put much stock into sightings of “orange spheres” or high radiation levels or speculations of secret Soviet weapons testing. None of those really resolve any questions and all of them have problems. I am not worried about them.

But I do really want to know what happened to those three people who died of blows so severe that no human being could have done them, yet left no external signs of injury. Could it be some form of extreme air pressure incident? No, those leave other signs, like external hemorrhaging or at least bleeding from ears and nose. What about heavy objects falling? Those bruise too.

We might never know the answers. But I am glad to know that the world is still at least a little more mysterious than we can easily imagine, and that there are still questions we can not yet answer.

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Cute? : Wheelchair Dog Climbs Mountain

Aug 21

Posted by MegaWordMan in News, World | 1 Comment

Forgive me for being a raincloud, but this story of a dog in a wheelchair climbing Mount Washington in New Hampsire in the US of A is not quite as heartwarming as it sounds.

See, when handicapped human beings do amazing things like climb mountains, it is truly an inspiring thing, because they chose to ignore their supposed disabilities and not just live a normal life, but do something the average person would find very difficult, thus proving that any obstacle can be overcome if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.

But Lucy, the four year old mutt with the paralyzed back legs at the center of this story, is not a person. She is a dog. It did not take courage and determination for her to decide to climb this mountain. It was not her decision. It was her human owner’s decision. Lucy had no choice.

Dogs go where we go. If we decide to walk up the steep road up the side of a mountain, they come with us, because they love us and want to be with us wherever we go. If her owner had decided to stay home and eat Peak Freens and watch Gilmore Girls on DVD, Lucy would have done that too.

It’s not like one morning, Lucy’s owner was woken up by a paw on her shoulder, and Luy looked into her eyes earnest and said “I’m going to do it. I’m going to climb Mount Washinton. It’s time. I know I am ready. I’ve got to do it… not just for you, not just for the kids at the special needs center, not just for my parents and the people back in my home town who look up to me as a role mode… no, I need to do this for myself. To prove to myself that I can. I’m going to do it… and I just hope that I can count on you to do it with me. ” This never happened.

No, Lucy just went with her pack, wherever her Pack Alpha, her human, went, and so honestly, a more accurate if less inspiring headline might well have been “Handicapped Pet Survives Owner’s Dragging Her Up A Mountain For Some Reason. ”

I am not saying Lucy was truly in any danger. Handicapped animals can go on to lead quite robust and active lives, and be quite healthy other than their disability. We had a three legged cat (lost his legs due to birth complications) who got around just fine and lived to a ripe old age (for a cat).

But pretending like this is some sort of brave decision or heroic achievement by the dog is just a bit much for me. What was she going to do? Quit half way up and hail a cab?

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World : Canada versus the world

Aug 1

Posted by MegaWordMan in Canada, World | 2 Comments

This is getting serious. And I am not amused.

According to this news report (please ignore the completely irrelevant photos) Russian “Bear” bombers have been testing Canadian airspace, forcing us to scramble jets to push them back.

This is, of course, just part of the continuing struggle we Canadians face in protecting the sovereignty of our territories up North from Russia, the USA, Sweden, and others who would like to take our lands away now that global warming has made the Northwest Passage a reality and these lands are suddenly worth a hell of a lot of money.

I cannot believe the sheer gall of these bastards in thinking they can just push Canada out of the way and take whatever they want from us. I know that Canada is not exactly a nation feared and respected all over the world for our awesome military might and economic crushing power, but I still find it hard to believe that the global powers of the world are willing to be so blatantly and openly contemptuous of us and our rights in such naked displays of imperialism.

It’s really very simple, powers of the world. Nobody disputed our ownership of these lands before they were useful. We’ve owned them for hundreds of years. Therefore we still own them. Look on the map, that whole area is still marked as part of Canada. We haven’t lost them in war. We haven’t given them away. We haven’t redrawn the map with treaties and negotiations. Absolutely nobody has a claim to these lands besides we Canadians. If you didn’t want them before they became valuable, you can’t suddenly decide you want them now.

Canada owns the lands, the water, and especially all the oil that might well be accessible now that the ice sheets are retreating and the permafrost…. isn’t, any more, in places. If you want it, you’re going to have to pay us for it, and not just shove us out of the way and take it because you’re bigger than us.

I, for one, am completely serious about this and one hundred percent committed. And I think a lot of other Canadians feel the same. I think if the world expects Canada will simply roll over and take it on this like we have on many other things, they are quite wrong. I fully support whatever action is necessary in order to protect what we own. That includes military action. And not just sabre rattling tests of resolve like this deal with the Russian bombers. I’m willing to back this all the way to actual war.

Could Canada win a war against the USA or Russia? No. We’re not a military superpower. We likely would not stand a chance if we had to go it alone, if the other countries of the world turned a blind eye to violence perpetrated against a harmless country like Canada, who has never been anything other than helpful to the world powers and the powers of peace and stability around the world, who entered the fight against Hitler years before the USA and which held together Afghanistan all by ourselves for many years while the other countries abandoned us and the USA went off to waste trillions in Iran, if the countries of the world with whom we have been allied for generations chose to just ignore violence against us as not worth their notice, then no, Canada could not possibly win against a serious superpower like the USA or Russia.

But that does not mean we have to make it easy for them either. It doesn’t mean we will surrender without a fight, without a struggle, without making sure that screwing us over will cost as much in blood and treasure as we possibly can.

We Canadians are international nice guys. As such, we’ve taken a lot of crap from the world and not complained about it. But we Canadians do not forget these things. Sometimes it’s the harmless little guy that everyone thinks is a joke, the wimpy little Willie Loman guy who everyone likes but nobody respects, who turns out to be the one guy you should not have messed with when the shit goes down.

Being a Canadian, I’d prefer a peaceful solution to these “disputes”, if you can call it a dispute when someone walks into your house and claims your whole upper floor is theirs. Being Canadian, I’m sure we can reach some sort of compromise where big bad corporations come in and use the North for their own profits and we get our nice fat slice. That’s how Canada has tended to do things in the past, being a country rich in resources but not in cash or power.

But mark my words, we’ll get our percentage and it won’t just be some stupid token one time cash payment to a bunch of hicks who think they won the lottery because some foolish people want to pay them for stuff that we aren’t using anyhow. Those days are gone. The North is worth trillions and we’re going to get a big slice of that. Our attitude will be that we’re letting you into our house, not that we should be glad the big dogs are letting us have anything.

If we play our very excellent cards right, Canada could become a very wealthy and prosperous nation in the future, with both low taxes and a very well funded social services system. After all, the countries of the Middle East seem to do pretty well for themselves, and all they have is oil. We have oil, forests, fisheries, farmland, and damn near anything else you could mention. We should be living large.

But if our resolve fails us and we capitulate like we have done so many times before, Canada, we will once more be standing outside the gates while other people make billions and trillions of dollars off of our resources, on our land, our rightful property, while we stare in and say “Gee, must be nice. ” then go back to the way things were.

It’s Canada’s turn. We’re not giving that up.

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World : UN censors The Gun Sculpture

Jul 25

Posted by MegaWordMan in Arts, Canada, News, World | 1 Comment

There’s a brouhaha brewing over a fairly cool piece of art that’s been on display all over the world, but somehow got changed by someone when it came time to display it at the UN.

Click here for a fairly good picture of the work. I like it, myself. The idea of making an anti-violence statement by melting and fusing a lot of guns, landmines, and other death machines together is not startlingly original, but the execution is, I think, both effective and darkly attractive. The contrast between the cube shape and the dark uniform color with the extremely varied and mechanistic texture, and the way the melting, shredding, and fusion conveys the idea of terrible violence, yet the cube makes it seem like simple compacted trash, makes for a strong effect on the viewer. It manages to covey the feeling of “weapon”, “violence”, and “war” in a terrible and awe inspiring way.

It’s cool art.

But apparently, according to its Canadian sculptors (Edmonton’s Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal), the work is meant to be accompanied by 114 photo panels depicting victims of violence from all over the world. And that’s how it’s been displayed all over the world until now, when at some point after being put on display at the Academic Council of the United Nations in Vienna, the panels were taken down, leaving just the cube itself on display.

The artists are calling this “blatant censorship”, which it is, if uses the broadest possible definition of censorship. But it’s a loaded word and should not be throw around lightly or it begins to lose all meaning.

I’ve not seen the photo panels, but seeing as they depict victims of violence, I am guessing they are pretty unpleasant and depressing. The act of censorship may have been motivated by something as simple as someone at ACUN getting tired of looking at the undoubtedly bloody and horrifying things. That’s not the sort of thing that should happen in the world of art, where we’re all assumed to be grownups who can make up our own mind if we want to see upsetting and terrible things, but it’s not a nefarious attempt by shadowy forces to restrict freedom of speech and enforce a monolithic hegemony of conformity on a helpless and sheeplike public consciousness. It might have been a simple bit of editorializing by some mid-level ACUN flunkie who is now busily fading so hard into the woodwork they’re in danger of becoming wood stain and who is perfectly happy to have all these academic feathers flying as long as none of the blame lands on THEM.

It’s good that we maintain a healthy paranoia about censorship. As I see it, it’s better to be a little too worried about it than not quite worried enough. But I find it exceedingly tiresome when artists and writers shout CENSORSHIP like they’re being raped at gunpoint every time someone dares interfere with their works. We can’t go crying wolf every time we see a puppy. There has to be ways of solving these sorts of dispute without breaking out the big guns and invoking the spirit (if nto the specifics) of Godwin all the time.

Otherwise, when that wolf really does show up, people will just assume it must be just another puppy, and by the time they realize their error, it will be too late.

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