A bold move.

If you find yourself living in the new arctic called Southern Ontario, then you're now witnessing the seasons first bitter blast of winter. I know that by complaining I'm likely emasculating myself, but it really is rather cold out there. Saying -9˚C with a windchill that drops that number by an additional 10˚ is too cold is certainly a defensible position. The bewildering concept here is that we, as Canadians, live with this every single year for approximately four months or more. And every year, the majority of us will also grumble about season with the oft heard utterance of "I hate winter." I too am undeniably guilty of this treason. After my endless gripe while out and about today, my thoughts couldn't help but begin a focus on the immigrants to this country; more notably those from warmer climates.
On more than one occasion, I've witnessed someone else experiencing snow and ice for the first time. You can literally feel their excitement (especially after they've thrown a snowball at you). How long does it take for the seething hatred to consume them? I'm reminded of a bit of humour I read called "Diary of a Snow Shoveler". An excerpt below:

December 12 - The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

...

December 20 - Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the horrid stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Stupid snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.

more

I imagine the entirety of the above sums things up pretty well. As someone who has lived without the harshness of winter, I can only begin to fathom what goes though the minds of our new residents. What a horrible trade-off for the experience of Canadian life.

Procrastinating in the Name of Writing Exercises

It appears that despite being nearly a decade removed from college, I still maintain the same study habits I did back then. That is to say that I procrastinate like a mo-fo. Back in the day (I make myself feel old when I say that), if it wasn't due until Friday, chances are it was completed at 4 or 5 in the morning on that very Friday. If I had essays due every night that week, then I did and essay a night for the entire week. That's how I rolled, and it managed to serve me well every time--consistently pulling off A's and B's. Sure it might mean sleep deprived, caffeine induced hallucinations and outbursts of random laughter, but the results were always there. The only time I got a C was when I tried to be responsible about my essay writing and work on it a week before it was due. My lesson was learned and I quickly went back to my prior habits.
So now I'm supposedly a responsible adult who's trying to achieve a highly elusive degree. I crave it. I've been thirsty for it for years. The only problem is that I have no hard deadlines for my assignments. The only actual deadline I have is the course end date. Without those deadlines, I have trouble settling down and actually getting work done. Setting personal deadlines ultimately means nothing to me. Complicating the matter is that no matter how awesome I may be (and that's pretty damn awesome), I can't complete an entire courseload in one coffee filled evening. I still manage to find something else to occupy my time, such as cleaning, or writing for a blog.
I truly commend the abilities of those who can work and do correspondence programs at the same time. I'm hoping to develop this dedicative skill where I too can put everything aside and focus on what I need to-- but it's hard. Procrastination's in my nature, and as the everlasting cliché goes; old habits die hard. Start dying already.

One other thing--curiousity is getting the best of me. If you actually read my blogs please be so kind as to comment on this one with a "read it" and your name. If you read it on Facebook, leave a comment there. If you read it from the main site, please leave a comment there. I want to know if my messages of procrastination are actually reaching the populace.

Losing the Fight of Freedom

A Canadian election has come and gone. The news this week wasn't so much that the Conservatives improved their representation in the house of commons, but more that the role of our citizenry in selecting our Parliament's members had continued to decrease. Voter turnout was estimated at 59%. I pulled the following quote from Reuters:

"There was either general apathy toward the candidates or a degree of voter fatigue as this was the third Canadian election since 2004," said Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

I'm not a statistician, nor do I have a degree, but my feeling is that the issue here is a little more towards Column A. With more than half of Canadians being over the age of 35, I would be willing to put my chips on which age group didn't vote.
When I cast my ballot, I took a look at those around me, which made me shockingly young at the age of 30. The majority of those I saw were old enough to have been a part of, or experienced the effects of WWII. The people whose families, friends, and relatives fought to protect our freedoms and democracy are the ones who are continuing to vote. Meanwhile, we have a generation of voters who have become apathetic towards the entire process.
The idea behind democracy is that we, the people, all have a say in who leads us and what ideals it is we as a nation would like to pursue. In this day and age, however, the younger generations feel as though our wants and wishes don't really matter to our politicians. There's nothing that really engages them in a way that makes them feel like their voices are being heard. Democracy only works when ideas are exchanged, and the people are included in the actual decision processes of our country.
It's easy to understand where the apathy comes from. Between the ideas that all politicians are liars and that no matter who you vote for, nothing really changes, it could be rather difficult to motivate yourself to go to the polls. I voted because I felt it was my responsibility as a Canadian to do so, knowing that thousands of people died protecting these ideals. However, not everyone of my ilk or younger will ever understand that. Obviously there's a problem in our system of politics and unless we can nail down the problem and find it's solution, I fear Canada may one day move towards a totalitarian state.

What we are.

I was out for a brief walk by myself yesterday to purchase some milk. After acquiring said goods, I made an impulse stop at an Anime Otaku store which is right across the road. I wandered the isles, and regardless of the feeling I was being supervised by their staff (apparently I must look like a liberator of overpriced goods), I simply didn't feel the need to make a purchase.
I remember a time in my not too distant past when I was very much a consumer. I was the very model of impulse buyer. Whether it was DVD's, novelties, figurines, CD's, video games, etc., I would drop ridiculous amounts of money on, for lack of better term, 'useless shit.'
During a bit of a rough financial time at the beginning of the century, I came to a brief conclusion that all I needed to keep me happy in a materialistic sense is a computer (with solid internet connection), and music. This is important because when you fast forward to the present, this truth still holds true. I've gotten to the point in my life where I look at the murchandise that advertisers and mega-conglomerates insist that I need, all I see is crap that just ways me down. I do not help the economy grow.
I believe that for most, it's truly difficult to really understand exactly how much of a consmer and target market that they are. Something that is an even more interesting phenomenom is that people will spend real world dollars to buy virtual goods. A good example would be in Second Life™, a virtual world that aims to create what it's name suggests. In this world people take the form of avatars, and will buy land, clothes, novelties and other digital goods. Although there are ways to make money within this life simulator, there are many who will just buy "Linden Dollars" to make their purchases instead.
Another good example is what started off being a simple instant messenger in China called QQ. A similar deal applies here, where it's users will spend real money to buy the QQ currency in order to give their IM avatars clothing, backgrounds, as well as spend this currency to participate in games and other activities.
It's rather disturbing that we as a consumer culture are no longer happy enough to buy physical, tangable objects. Now, we have turned to worlds of make believe to spend money as well. Is there something seriously wrong with us?

End of Weekend Blues

It's funny how it never seems to get any easier. It confounds my sleepy brain that I must go through the process of back to work anxiety every Sunday.
I think I would go through this same cycle no matter what job/position I held. Is it laziness, or something so much more profound?

Wary of the Chrome

As it's not available for OSX yet, I naturally haven't given Google's entry into the web browser market a shot. However, catching the below warning from CNet in regards to Chrome's Terms of Service agreement, I'm not sure I want to.

2. Although you retain any copyrights to content you own and use in the browser, Google says it has a right to display some of your content, in conjunction with promoting its services. Here's their exact wording.

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."

If you wish to read more of CNet's warnings, you can check them out here.

Something burning?

Thanks to the folks at CTV, I was able to enjoy the DNC coverage as brought to us by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show all in one sitting. As per the norm, it was filled with some good satirical laughs and underlying education. They were showing a clip of the DNC's surprise "special guest", Barack Obama, and as he spoke I expected him to end his dialogue with "If you can sm-e-e-e-e-e-ll, what Barack-- is-- cookin'." If you listen to him speak, he sounds like a somewhat subdued Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock).

With that new image in my head, I don't know if I can take anything he says seriously ever again.

Let's Wax Political

I took the time to listen to Obama's acceptance speech in the wee small hours of Friday morning. I must admit that I was rather moved by the words the first time I heard them. If it wasn't clear previously that this man was a wordsmith, his DNC speech should be the only indicator you need. Listening to words, it would almost make you excited to be an American. Almost.
Later on, once reality had set it, I remembered that despite his ability to inspire people with words, Barack Obama is still a politician. He makes politician promises, he flip-flops, and has proven to be less than the savior the media make him out to be. He is not the human incarnation of "hope." He is, however, not another incarnation of Bush. Despite his recent actions and words to the contrary, I don't believe John McCain is another Bush either--he's just pandering to the Republican faithful.
Speaking of pandering--McCain's choice for VP. An obvious ploy--but strangely I think many of the Hillary faithful will go for it. Many have said they'd vote McCain or not at all. How opportunistic! His choice just bothers me. It's like the kid who starts selling Lemonade on the street. It doesn't take long before the kid across the street does the same thing, trying to capitalize on the ideas of someone else. I bet if Obama was feeling suicidal and chose Hillary, Palin wouldn't have even been graced with a second thought. Then again, I just may be cynical.

Despite my contentions of the race for the White House, I kind of wish the Canadian fall election (you know it's coming) would be this interesting.

Sweet merciful crap.

Apparently blogging for academic purposes lays too much of a responsibility on me to say smart things. Will I ever learn? I'm much too lazy to commit to such an ongoing venture.

I miss blogging for the sake of blogging. I also miss the blogs of friends. I think I began the domino effect when I stopped blogging in July of '07. Next to fall was Ross' blog, which was followed by Grindy's and Daejin's as well (not in that particular order).

Something that helps you re-examine things is knowing a lot of people much younger than you. By much younger at this stage of my life, I'll accept anybody 25 and younger. Ah, yes. 25. That point in your life when you start questioning whether you've made the right choices for yourself. The last hurrah of youth. A time when there's still a glimmer of hope that you might accomplish something really cool.
To the point. I had commented on how my drinking box of creative juice had been emptied and squeezed with not a drop to be had in either it's confines, or it's straw. I think I (greatly) paraphrased that last sentence. The comment I heard in return was something simple, along the lines of just "keep on writing." Well, duh. I already knew that. That had to have been around a month ago, showing me once again that I don't know diddly.

I'm not trying to be twenty-five again. Despite my best efforts, I'm continually learning the impossibilities of recapturing anything that had to do with that time. Instead, I'm taking the ball and bringing it to a new field where no rules have been established. Let's see where this all takes me this time.

Summing Up Almost My Entire Opinion

If my last piece seemed like I was very much pro-Beijing and anit-Tibet, I offer to you this great essay written by Will over at Imagethief,which pretty much describes my overall opinion of the entire matter, presented in more words than I was willing to write at the moment.

Further Reading:

Tibet and the Trouble With Unassailable National Myths http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2008/03/19/the-trouble-with-china-s-communication-about-tibet.aspx">http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2008/03/19/the-trouble-with-china-s-communication-about-tibet.aspx

All too Eager to Judge

The current state-of-affairs in Tibet certainly has my attention. In all fairness, I do have somewhat of a vested interest in the area, so any big news out of the fourth largest country grabs me by the eyelids and earlobes. When peaceful protests started on March 14th, I immediately knew this was going to get worse, nay, a lot worse. If you live in China, you know that protesting without government approval is a big no-no. This is an unfortunate law that I don't particularly agree with, but rules are rules. If you intend to break the rules, then you must be prepared for the retaliation breaking the rules might bring. Beijing isn't known for holding back the heavy hand, and when the protests expanded and intensified, I expected two things: retaliated violence and a biased Western-ideological outcry. An outcry, although not wholly wrong, but misguided by an overall ignorance about the centuries old relationships and history from that region.

A recent article from The International Herold Tribune stated in it's headline "Tibet Policy Hurting China's Image Internationally." This is hardly a shock when given the whole six countries that they polled. Specifically, these countries were the United States, France, Britain, South Korea, Indonesia, and India. Although the poll is likely accurate for their regions, if those surveyed were further aware of their own biases that have been generated by the global economy and or media, and were also further educated on the history of Tibet, this poll would likely have a somewhat different outcome.

From the three Western countries surveyed, 60-80% were critical of Beijing's handling of Tibet. It's no secret that many Western countries want to hate China. Due to it's cheap labor and poor environmental practices, China is a fantastic place for companies to have their products made. This has made for some incredible profits for a lot of companies, meanwhile many blue collar jobs have been lost in once industry rich areas in the west. While China's economy is seen booming, once high paying western factory jobs have been replaced with low wage temporary line work, or jobs within the service sector. This has dismayed many powerful unions and organizations which now blame China for many of their misfortunes. This is similar to the hate that many union workers had when immigration started surging in western areas which meant, according to floor workers, less jobs for the people born there. With a lot of our products produced in China, this has given enormous amounts of soft power to the Chinese and a lot of pro-western groups oppose and fear it. The Asian countries surveyed had a lot more mixed results, particularly Indonesia and India where approximately 50% and 35% of people were critical about the handling of the situation. This is also not wholly surprising when these two areas have either less grievances, or a stronger desire to become allies with their Northern neighbour. When you're not already angry with someone, you're likely more willing to forgive them.

There are other things that help feed the negative image that many already had of China. If it's not completely apparent by now, the western media has a large distaste for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). How could a group of so called truth-seeking professionals respect any nation that doesn't allow complete and utter press freedom? Censorship is a dirty word for many in the western world, and directly effects a certain group in people in particular; i.e. the media. Furthering this point is how the media always need an enemy. Kim Jong Il has been pretty quiet overall lately, Iran's president is a much of a raving lunatic as Kim Jong but is struggling to maintain power, Osama is so yesterday, and Sadam Hussein has been hung. Who else is a threat, but the country that makes everything and wants to be a world player? Fear mongering has been the order of the day for quite sometime when it comes to President Hu and the rest of his party. The spin in this regard is way out of control. When was the last time a positive article was written about China? Especially one that made the front page?

Something that seems to go completely under the radar when it comes to Tibet is what the area was like before the CCP started re-enforcing their on-again, off-again rule in the region in 1951. Many have grown up with the slogan "Free Tibet" somewhere in their lives which always seemed to resonate, since freedom is something that the many east of the Pacific enjoy. This immediately conjures up images of a complete suppression of the Tibetan people. What many people don't realize is that before 1951, Tibetans were ruled by their own suppressive Theocratic system. This system had it's own army which had not only fought their own aggressive wars (usually religious based), but was also used to maintain it order and to prevent the escape of the well-to-do leadership's serfs (slaves). Furthermore, this Tibetan leadership had amounted their own significant wealth and land. These historical facts illustrate a portrait of Tibet that is much different than the ideological pacifist, non-materialists image that the Western world has imagined it to be. This ignorance of Tibet's pre-CCP history is a big cloud that if lifted, would give a completely different perspective on the region.

When there's violence in any region, it is a government's responsibility to quell that violence and restore order. Tibet, though disputed, is still regarded as Chinese territory and so the CCP reacted, excessively mind you, to regain control over the region. The west opposes how this was accomplished based on their own ideals, and their media-formed ideas of China and Tibet. Knowing more about yourself and about the whole situation wouldn't likely lead to an agreement with yourself and Beijing's position, however it may make you less critical about how they've handled it knowing what the Tibetan alternative would likely be.

Further Reading:

Friendly Feudalism - http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

Tibet Policy Hurting China's Image - http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/18/europe/EU-GEN-International-Poll-Tibet.php

Tibet Protests Via Youtube - http://ca.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tibet+Protest&search_type=

And so I begin anew.

Writing is something that generally comes naturally to me. Unfortunately, there are humps that I often face when it involves doing it during my free time. There are so many other things I could be doing while sitting in front of my computer other than writing, like IMing people, reading my RSS feeds, visual-media intake, or even Facebook™. Secondly, I often find that I can't keep my thoughts secured in my rusty and full-of-holes noggin. I forget my ideas too easily and thus never get a chance to explore them in writing. Ultimately though, I think I become so engrossed in my own comfort that I just don't feel like it (ie. lazy). It's a shame really, given how many times I've been complimented on things I have written, and how often I've been asked to delicately compose an email due to my penchant for written tactfulness.

To be as forthcoming as possible I'll admit here and now that although participating in the blog format was my inclination, the real reason behind this was the suggestion to keep a writers journal by the kind folks at Athabasca University. "Blogging Because I Should" will be my dump for ideas and thoughts on any range topics that I see happening in the world around me; all in an attempt to keep me writing and thinking. It is not meant to be a source for your entertainment (at least not entirely), and may dive into some politically, socially, or ethically sensitive matters. If you feel as though you need to leave a comment, you're more than welcome, but be warned that I won't actively be trying to stir debate. In short, this will be my idea lab, and not necessarily a list of my firm beliefs on any given topic. Let the games begin.