Issue 4, Volume 1Friday, June 24, 2011
Our On The Streets photo comes from 99th avenue and 104th street, overlooking the Palisades building. I got soaked getting the image, but it was a good descriptor of how the weather was over this past week. I started to feel after a while like I was in Vancouver. Note that lack of vitamin D makes you go crazy.
Canadians: Where are our priorities at?
I can't help but talk about this, and even though it was a week and a half ago, I don't think it should be dismissed. Now, everyone is on to talking about the Boston Bruin's $156,000 bar tab (yeah if you charge $100,000 for one bottle of wine, and $300 per bottle of bacardi that costs me ten times less at liquor depot that's an easy bill to run up), but the black mark of what happened in Vancouver still resonates.
Do we have nothing real to riot about?
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what happened in Vancouver just about a week ago, and although it's a black mark on Canada, I think we need to look into the situation more in depth. Why does a 'safe' big city like Vancouver need to do something like this? Why did we do it in Edmonton in the summer of 2006? Why did we do it here for Canada Day celibrations in prior years? Would Vancouverites have rioted if we screwed up in the Olympics? I came up with a few possible answers.
1) Our Priorities Are Messed Up
Canadians are actually that dumb that they'll riot over a hockey game, but not over, say, 150% tuition increases, or the payoff of medical staff by government officials. These should be things that have us burning cop cars in the street. Instead we accept that governments have scandals, and if we're lucky, 30% of us will go to the polls and expect change; the rest of us will sit on our fat asses and watch hockey, and then get pissed off when our team doesn't win. Then we'll go out and burn cop cars. Seriously?
2) We Are Secretly Oppressed
I've heard the idea that 'Vancouver would have rioted either way' - whether they one or lost - from more than a few people. The environment was there to begin with, like putting gas and matches in reach of an arsonist. Is it that we're too polite to ever effectually express our disdain for regular political events, that we need a big, faceless event like a hockey game where it is acceptable to gather in the street to start a riot? We actually need permission to come on down to a big event where authorities already expect that we will riot to actually have a riot and get our frustrations out? Think about it for a second...it's almost like we wait for permission to riot to go and do it, and if it's a hockey game, we don't have to get too upset and the riot doesn't have to last too long, because after all it's just a hockey game. Maybe there are tons of things we'd like to riot about but don't because we are just too damned nice. Just like G8, they give us a place to riot and a time, and we'll go there and riot at whatever they let us riot at. But if they aren't setting up an area that's cordoned off and policed to riot in, we're not going to coordinate one ourselves.
3) We Are A Culture Of Violent People And Unpatriotic
I've heard Vancouver be called a 'soulless city devoid of culture' and the 'most depressing place to live in the world.' Now if it rains all the time, maybe people aren't getting their vitamin D. But maybe it's something else. They talk about 'a few individuals who were down there to riot and nothing else.' After viewing the notorious video of the guy who tries to put a stop to the breaking of windows, and gets gang beat by about 7 people, some people just walking by joining in, I have a problem accepting that. I think there were a lot more violent people that could have done a lot worse. I think the problem comes from a lack of patriotism and national identity from our citizens. When I think back to grade school, I always think about how we were tought that Canada was a cultural mosaic and that we valued other people's cultures, rather than the Melting Pot of the United States, which looked to assimilate all individuals to become Americans. However, I'm not sure this is the best thing. Of course it is great to remember your roots, but I believe the cultural mosaic theory has its' inherent problems. Imagine you emigrate here, to be told that you are now a Canadian, but as a Canadian you are to hold on to your previous culture. So you do, but you don't live there. And in doing so, you never really feel Canadian. Imagine you were born here and told to be proud of your roots, and being Canadian meant doing that. Where is our national identity of being Canadian? I feel like it's been blanded. This kind of thinking eventually makes everyone an individual less so a part of a group to the point where everyone can only really care or think about themselves. National identity and patriotism allows at least for you to care about your fellow man in that, no matter who he is, he is a Canadian as you are. (And sorry, I'm not trying to be mysoginistic in using 'he' and 'fellow man' - it's just an expression)
Ultimately, yeah it's a black eye, but we all need to continue questioning why this happened, and what is at the root of the destructive behaviour, rather than saying, "it wasn't that wide spread, it was contained, facebook will bring all the rioters who commited crimes to light, and it'll all be good again."
Great, but what about the underlying socioeconomic issues that caused this in the first place?
Bad Dean, Worse University
I figured that these news items weren't really enough to be seperated, so I'll speak at each one by one. First of all, let's talk about University of Alberta faculty of Medicine Dean Philip Baker, who plagerized his speech to the graduating class. That is first class stupidity. Lazy is one thing; he could give the same speech to every graduating class. No big deal. You technically can plagerize yourself, but that wouldn't be the case here (see the Red Hot Chili Peppers v. Themselves - Alan Cross Episode #whatever). What can I tell you about this man that doesn't wreak of arrogance. The University buttered it up when they indicated he was a, "practising obstatrition and a renown researcher of pregnancy complications." You know, I work at a rental car agency, washing cars. I think I'm a, "master detailer and expert in trends in automotive sales in various markets" you know because I ponder why we buy some cars for the fleet and not others. The way in which this guy was a practicing OB was allegedly to waltz in to the OR maybe once every two weeks, demand he was taking charge, not scrub in properly, and then butcher the procedure. He apparently treated all staff as if they were beneath him. Talk about letting it go to your head.
But this, like a Vancouver riot leaves a black mark on Canada, leaves a mark on the University. How did they get to hire such a prick? In my previous semesters taking nursing courses, we had one lovely practising MN whom the department chose to teach a course at the last minute when they didn't have any alternates to fill the vacancy. What resulted was a woman who was dedicated to teaching her students; but knew nothing of the course. Now that didn't make her a bad nurse, or a bad instructor. If you told me to teach you how the market works, I could tell you, but if I was teaching Econ 101, I'd probably need a brush up on what that course entails at an entry level, or else you'd be like, "what the fuck is this guy talking about?" I know why prices move the way they do, but if I have to show you on a graph, it's going to take me a second to remember that. That's what happened to her. The university, I believe, brought this on themselves. There are lots of qualified, able, and distinguished physicians locally that could take on the role of Dean of Medicine. But we all know, anyone who has a friend that's a grad student, that the university does not hire it's own. So you studied there. So what? Go get a job at another university, because the university does not hire it's own. This strange, unwritten policy has gone on for a very long time. Why they needed to import some stuck-up-to-the-point-of-epic-fail UK import makes NO sense to me whatsoever. But then again, we all know that our beloved U of A, who fell from 3rd to 6th to 37th in the span of 3 years in Maclains university rankings, is going down the shitter. That is unless you count the Engineering departments funded by suncor and syncrude, or anything that Katz is pumping money into now. Thank you third party funding for keeping our university from doing a giant faceplant.
I hate to say I told you so; but the U of A had this coming, and it does make their reputation stink worse than the garbage I just found left in 3 feet of standing water in the cans behind my house. The Dean, well he had it coming too. If you think your shit doesn't stink, soon enough you'll be buried in it.
New Music - AWOLNATION
Took a listen to Awolnation's release Megalithic Symphony this week, to see if the album could live up to the hype of 'Sail' and was pleasantly disappointed. No wait, I was angrily disappointed. Of course, this could happen, right? Now 'Sail' is an amazing track with a very angry lead singer, songwriter, player, and recorder Aaron Bruno. The music is described as Aaron as a type of music for life, something that describes what people feel every day. Unfortunately, most people must feel average or boring. That's the feeling I got from this album. It was average and boring, and I think, poorly put together. 'Sail' is definitely the best single on here. Followed by 'Not Your Fault' and finally 'Burn It Down' - which will be their second single off the album. 'Burn It Down' is a pop-indie-electro-blast with a fast beat and some great chord changes. So what will effectually happen is people who never listen to the whole album will think that Awolnation is great through and through. Really, this album should have been a three song EP made of the songs I indicated above. Awolnation is a far cry from Bruno's other groups; the now defunct Hometown Hero (which was awesome in my opinion) and the still-going Under The Influence Of Giants indie powerhouse. Considering the iTunes iteration of the album had 15 tracks, I'll mark this one out of 10, and give it a 4/10. That's two for sail, and one point for the other two songs I thought were half decent.
I Have No Editor - Ryan Dunn, Boston Bruins
First of all, RIP Ryan Dunn, but Ebert was right. You had a blood alcohol level of something like 0.173. I don't give a rats ass that you were speeding and it was in a porsche. That's not how people die. From speeding porsches. Unless you're James Dean. But people do die when you get behind the wheel at over two times the legal limit. When Bam Margera's family took offense to Ebert saying that "friends don't let friend jackasses drive drunk." they should have instead said, you know what, you're right. It sucks that our friend and beloved is dead (by his own idiocy) but we're sorry. We're sorry that he could have killed you, your family, your girlfriend, your wife, your daughter, your son, your 9 month old child, or whomever else might have been on the road at that time. Jackass goes out with the ultimate jackass move.
And then there's that nasty Boston Bruins' club tab of $156,000 which included a $24,000 gratuity and a $100,000 bottle of Ace - Ace of Spades wine. So really it was more like $32,000 or something, and ultimately the club was overcharging. If I had to pay $300 for a bottle of Bacardi, I'd say to my teammates, "we're out of here, let's hit the liquor barn and then party at Recchi's house!" But really, that sounds like it was a fun night.
Page Art
I went with a 'rain and riots' theme for this week. That's obviously the contrast in the background. I purposely left out the photo of the couple making out, of course, disputed to whether or not it's a photoshop.
Letters To The Editor
Don't be afraid to send me something. I'll publish it and respond to it fairly without flaming you, I promise.
Next Week
-Edmonton firing their road planning and infrastructure crew?
-10 things I love about Canada
-Canada Day edition; expose on patriotism. What does it mean to you? Write in!
-Matthew Good review still coming...
Thanks
Thanks for Reading, and as always, RSS, or repost as many times as you'd like. I'm grateful I've had so much support to have nearly 150 hits at the time of publishing this fourth edition. Thank you to all my friends who read and support my endeavour.
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