Sunday, October 29, 2006

This is a link!!!!

I will need a date for this event brought to you by Spacing magazine (a seasonal must-read for anyone who loves this city of ours) and Eye Weekly:

"The Political Party, an event that brings together Toronto's leading mayoral candidates. Mayor David Miller and challenger Jane Pitfield will outline their visions for Toronto's public spaces and face pointed questions from our panel of John Lorinc (urban affairs journalist for Toronto Life, Globe and Mail, Spacing Votes), Ed Keenan (Eye Weekly City editor), and Dale Duncan (Spacing managing editor).

Following the mayoral event will be an old-fashioned rock n' roll show with special musical guests (we're keeping that underwraps to be suspense!). Stick around to mingle with the candidates, dance to the tunes of our DJ, and chat about the upcoming election."

yes, dammit! i'll fight!

I wonder if it isn't time to quit blaming the politicians when nothing happens. Common Election campaign sign slogans I encountered today "It's time for change." As if a new mayor or even a new council will change anything. The problem is us. We are none of us Activists, and only a small percentage of us Citizens, rather we are mostly Consumers. The problem is that this city is crying out for activists - which is just at the very least, speaking the eff up. Ask these guys - why the fuck didn't you fill in the bike survey? for crying out loud why the hell should i vote for you? or discuss these things with each other? or even more, join a group that lobbies for bike path development, or the protection of public space, or the integration of the green bin into apartment dwellings or something you're passionate about. or maybe run for council, school trustee or even mayor yourself? do you know how easy it is? just check out this site who runs this town? started by dave meslin, the founder of the toronto public space committee. Let's get passionate! This city is not just a bunch of grids where we work and go home to watch tv. it is a living organism and it could be thriving so much more if we weren't choking it to death on car fumes and apathy.

okay, now i feel better.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

fight the good fight???

...or just give in to the inevitable? We are becoming a society willing to give up citizenship and community more and more as we become not just consumers, but Consumers.

below is a quote (which includes a sub-quote) from The Reinvention of Work by Matthew Fox, which I am reading for my Work & Life class in school.

"Czechoslovakian playwright and former president Vaclav Havel warns fo the spiritual disease engendered by a consumer culture--one in which a "desparate substitute for living" is represented as human life:

'In the interest of the smooth management of society, then, society's attention is deliberately divererted from itself, that is, from social concerns. By nailing a man's whole attention to the floor of his mere consumer interests, it is hoped to render him incapable of appreciating the ever-increasing degree of his spiritual, political and moral degradation.'

Life becomes "reduced to a a hunt for consumer goods," and freedom becomes trivialized to mean "a chance freely to choose which washin machine or refrigerator {one} wants to buy." Consumer bliss has the effect of diverting people's energy away from the community to the self... Clearly the price the community pays for consumerism is very steep."

I don't really think i need to add anything right now, besides I need to eat or i may faint.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Caledonia

TEMPERS FLARE!!

so reads the headline of the toronto Sun today. the last time I blogged about the Caledonia Standoff, I just cut & pasted an article from somewhere else. this time it's my own words.

i'm riding the bus home from school today, and beside me lies today's sun, and the subheading catches my eye. It turns out that 500 people decided to protest the Native Occupation of a subdivision that is on disputed land. Two superficial and subtly biased paragraphs into the article I feel the anger welling up in me... the ignorance and bigotry still horrifies me. How can this be??? In Canada, for heaven's sake. These people were attempting to cross the barrier into the disputed parts, and were barred by the OPP. This is an old dispute, 200 years of social injustice, and these people are angry because they are being inconvenienced. The Sun would tell you they live in fear. If they are in fear, it's because someone told them to be, they are being manipulated. Natives would not hurt these people. The Natives are the victims of violence and the threat of it.

The residents are upset because they bought a home. The businesses are upset because they are losing revenue. And I don't disagree that the whole thing sucks. But why don't they care that there is a genuine land claim that needs to be considered here and that the land was being sold from under the feet of the six nations people? Why don't they care that if the natives hadn't taken this action their claim would have been nullified, much like the land claims of the past? Why don't they care about what's right? Why aren't they concerned about the possibility of people being hurt or killed like in Oka or Ipperwash?

The Toronto Sun is affiliated with Canoe Live's website and there was a balloon at the bottom of the article telling me to voice my opinion online, so I did. I am not sure if my comment is posted yet, but here's the link if you want to go have a say too.

thanks.