Blog: Articles filed under rant

For the second time this year, anti-gay group Westboro Baptist Church is planning to come to Canada to stage a protest, and people want to put a stop to it.

Every time this sort of controversy comes up in the news, I have to stop and consider it carefully. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Section 2) guarantees us the following basic rights:

1. freedom of conscience and religion;
2. freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
3. freedom of peaceful assembly; and
4. freedom of association

At the same time, however, we also have legislation in place to protect people from hate-crimes and hate-speech. So the question is, do anti-gay groups like the Westboro Baptist Church violate this anti-hate legislation? And regardless of this first question, are we violating their rights to freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, and freedom of association? Freedom of peaceful assembly is a separate issue—whether or not this group is “peaceful” is subject to debate altogether, and I would probably say that they are not.

I like to pride myself in being open-minded enough to truly believe in free speech for everyone, even if I think they are idiots. Yes, I will fight for your right to say something, even if I disagree with what you want to say. Yet when we enter controversial territory where the freedom of expression can be abused in order to hurt other people this admirable sentiment is put to the test.

So my answer is no, this group should not be allowed entry to Canada. Their goals and actions are appalling. I understand that some people find homosexuality morally objectionable. I even understand if some people believe that gay people’s souls are in peril of eternal damnation and they should repent now to be saved (I don’t believe that, but I can understand how others might). However, there is a large gap between holding an anti-gay opinion and inciting hatred of gays.

If you did not follow the link at the beginning of this post, stop now to read the article or at least look at the included image. Check out the signs that the leader of the group was carrying at a protest in 1999—look at the one on the right: “God hates fags.”

I did go to church as a child, and that’s not the Christianity I was taught. I’ve been under this impression that the Christian God loves everyone, and that if one repents, one will be saved.

Theocratical dogma on homosexuality aside, consider how this reflects one’s religion! Islam has often received criticism as of late because of the actions of a minority, those radicals who form Muslim terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. That is a concrete example of how the actions of a minority can harm the reputation of the entire religion. Likewise, Fred Phelps’ church shames his religion. I’m well aware that Christianity in general does not burn people at the stake anymore, but if all I knew about it came from that article and that disturbing image, I might jump to that conclusion.

Returning the sign for a moment, notice the pejorative term for gays. This is exactly the same as the dehumanising labels applied to minorities we oppressed and hated throughout history—some of which are still regarded with such shame and disdain that they are not repeated on television before the watershed hour. We pride ourselves so often on having “moved forward” and having put racism, anti-Semitism, and the like behind us, closing those chapters and contenting ourselves to teach them in history classes with various degrees of accuracy.

We haven’t moved forward. We’ve just switched targets for the time being, like a bored kid with BB gun.

We haven’t moved forward, and we won’t move forward until we stop trying to make people feel ashamed of who they are, until we stop teaching other people that it’s OK to hate somebody simply because they are different from oneself. ’Cause guess what? You are different from them. And what if they started oppressing you? Yeah, you wouldn’t like that too much, eh?

Sadly, those people who believe that inciting hatred is fine tend to do it because they believe they have some form of objective justice on their side (usually “God”, but sometimes it’s just personal conviction). They believe that they can do it to other people because they are right and others are wrong. And that’s the point where a government should step in, to protect innocent people from those would abuse our great freedoms for ignominious ends.

Back in June, my friend blogged about people showing off their Wikismarts to him. I envy him, because on the other side of the coin, there seems to be a plethora of people with zero initiative.

You know who I‘m talking about. The people who seem to have no filter in their brain and ask you every question that bubbles up to the murky surface of their minds, even if the current discussion has nothing to do with the question. These people regularly lurk on message boards and in IRC channels, just waiting to begin asking questions that would be better answered by a trip over to Wikipedia than waiting for someone else to prepare a (probably inaccurate) explanation.

There’s no excuse, really. Most browsers come with search forms built into the browser chrome itself. Even if not, Google (or one’s favourite search engine) is a single page-load away. There is no excuse to derail an existing conversation by asking for someone to explain what the topic of the conversation is all about. Go find out, come back, and show off those Wikismarts.

This isn’t much more than a short rant. It just flusters me, because I applaud those people’s curiosity, but I deplore their lack of initiative in an age where information access is literally at people’s fingertips.

Last updated Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 11:57 PM

We all do it. A celebrity—actor, athlete, whoever—appears on our television screen and tells us to do something, to support some cause, to buy a product. Because, you know, they use the product or support that cause, so we should too.

When that happens, I just like to remind myself that these are the same types of people whom we vilify for leading immoral, hedonistic lifestyles of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. We condemn these people for those actions and then turn around and succumb to marketing ploys that appeal to our admiration of these same people.

It’s just another facet of our wonderful brain that we‘re able to reconcile such contradictory value judgements.

Anyway, I have to go purchase more things that a celebrity tells me will change my life because it changed theirs too. And they’d never lie to me for money, right?

For a moment today, I was almost able to forget that it was Halloween. Not that I have anything against Halloween. In its present incarnation it’s a charming way for kids to dress up, express their imagination, and of course, collect as much Canada as they can. And really, if you can’t count on candy in a democratic society, then what is my government doing with all those tax dollars?

Somewhere between this year and last, however, I’ve lost my connection to the Halloween spirit. It might have fallen between the couch cushions—I’ll check when I get home. I haven’t trick-or-treated in a couple of years, and I don’t do the party thing. So there’s not a lot for me to do for Halloween. I‘d dress up, but I don’t have many costume ideas, and I‘m too lazy to put effort into creating an excellent costume. I do admire those who take the time. On campus here we’ve got someone dressed up like Waldo (as in Where’s Waldo?) and a pair of carebears. Occasionally I worry that this lack of Halloween participation is a sign I’m losing my will to be imaginative and expressive and am slowly turning into a boring, practical person.

/me pauses to look at blog posts. Yeah. Riiiight. Not likely.

Let’s face it. Halloween is about the candy. I can buy as much candy as I went whenever I want, so Halloween has lost its lustre. I’ll probably stay home tonight and give out candy. Maybe I’ll put a scary movie on and watch that while I wait for kids to show up at the door. That’s vaguely Halloweenish, right?

Just wait for Christmas….

As I‘ve said previously, I’m tired of the repetitive fearmongering being done in the name of our “global warming” crusade. It’s another example of herd mentality exacerbating a crisis that it is supposed to be solving. Last century it was nuclear weapons, this century it’s global warming.

Well wake up people, and stop being so selfish! After all, we are not the only planet in this universe. There are many other planets out there that are heating up. In fact, I’ve “discovered” a dangerous new phenomenon that must be stopped! Universal warming.

Here’s how it goes. We constantly produce information. Information is useless without transmission; it only becomes usable when conveyed from one state to another (i.e., from person to person). Transmitting information requires energy. As energy is used, entropy in the system increases. To demonstrate, take talking for example. If you talk about something, you are transmitting information. This means you are increasing the net entropy of the universe. Everything you do increases entropy, unfortunately.

Why is entropy bad? Because entropy is the tendency of a system toward increasing disorder. As entropy increases, the amount of usable energy declines. Eventually we’ll suffer the heat-death of the universe and the end of all life as we know it!

This is a serious problem. If the universe ends, then Paris Hilton won’t be able to make any more movies, which means she’ll have to get a real job. We must all work together as a community to decrease the Earth’s universal footprint. The fate of reality depends on it1 My first recommendation is that Al Gore create a new documentary entitled An Incomprehensible Truth. That would be the best way to further spread this information to as many people as possible.

Let’s get on this, people!

Please, when you come to Canada, change your money. It isn’t that hard, and it will save me some headaches.

Thunder Bay is close to the border, so we get frequent American visitors to the art gallery. For some reason, they believe it’s fine to just hand us American money. Canada’s just the 51st state anyway, right? I know that when I go to the States, I don’t flash my Canadian cash all around the place. I trade my money in for your pallid green bills.

Our cash register is not a hi-tech computer with a flat panel display and a high speed Internet connection. It’s a box with lights and a few buttons. The exchange rate is currently set to about 62 American cents for every Canadian dollar, and our boss has to change it manually. I honestly don’t even know how to do the conversion on the machine (there’s a button, but I’m never sure when to push it during the transaction…).

So please, take it from someone who has to deal with your cash. I’ll be happier if you change it to Canadian money. Our bills are shiny and colourful—you’ll like them as souvenirs. And if I’m happier, it means I’ll be nicer to you. And if I’m nicer to you, you’ll be happier. Welcome to the circle of life.

Often you’ll read one critic or intellectual or another say something along the lines of how Hollywood is destroying the movie industry, creating cheap flicks at the expense of “art” and “culture”. And as much as I am sometimes tempted to agree with this cynical evaluation of our entertainment industry, I can’t bring myself to jump on that bandwagon. I just can’t.

I have observed that more movies are “packaged” these days. What are “packaged” movies? Well, these are the hits that look and feel like the director simply sent in a form from a mail-order catalogue—he or she filled out the title and main characters, and the company sent back a pre-packaged movie: special effects, music, etc. Movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and—especially with its third installment—Spider-Man are packaged blockbusters.

Are packaged movies inherently evil? Does it make a movie bad? Of course not. I like each of those three movie series above—although none of them are particularly spectacular—but they aren’t moving and they aren’t cathartic. And sometimes you need that. Sometimes you don’t need a purging; you just need some action, some humour, and some explosions. The only reservation I carry is that it’s too reflective of certain negative aspects of our society—namely, this increasing dependence on pre-packaged items, like food, that we just buy in bulk at a grocery store.

There are the “indie” films, complete with festivals, to attempt to carry on the art-form that Hollywood has—so some say—left behind. The problem with this phenomenon is not its goals, but rather, its demographic. The people who go to film festivals are precisely the type of people who like the films at film festivals. Which brings us to the hilt of the matter: the audience. Do people really want art? Or do they want entertainment?

The answer has and always will be both, and this is why I can’t endorse those pessimistic and pretentious pundits who pretend to put-down Hollywood. I’m going to use Shakespeare as an example. Take King Lear, for instance. King Lear is one of my favourite plays and one of Shakespeare’s best. It has pithy intellectual themes, and as a tragedy, is carefully written to move us to pity and compassion for the terrible tribulations of the hero, Lear, and his descent into madness. But Shakespeare was no fool. His plays weren’t wildly successful just because of these themes—they were successful because they were also entertaining. King Lear has humour aplenty—ribald or otherwise—and that’s why it has endured 400 years’ worth of Eberts. If the jokes seem stale (or you just can’t get them), it isn’t because they’re silly. They just get lost in translation; the language differences over the past four centuries make Shakespeare a tad hard to understand at times.

Yet I digress. Shakespeare and his ilk knew something about how to get a crowd’s attention, and how to leave a part of their work with the crowd when the play was done. That’s why the movie industry isn’t in “decline”. This perception of decline is just a misinterpretation of the charts. We‘re changing all right, but we’re always changing—it’s what culture does. It’s a reaction to the last two decades of increasing technological development. Technology affects movies faster than it does stage or books (and to a degree, music) because of the visual nature of the medium; advanced technology means advanced movie-making techniques. Technology has developed more in the past two decades than it has in the past century. And it shows no signs of plateauing, so we have to be ready for more change.

Culture is dead. Long live culture!

The Visa credit card company is always trying to give us free stuff. Think about it: “win what you buy”? That grocery contest? We all know that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The glorious capitalist system was founded on such a principle. So if Visa is giving away things for free, then they are violating the very foundation of free-market economy.

Is Visa in league with the terrorists? It wouldn’t surprise me: working away at our morals from the inside. It’s of course the only logical conclusion.

You might argue that Visa only uses these contests as promotional ventures to encourage spending through the Visa credit card. Quite frankly I think such detractors from my logical argument simply harbour sympathies for Visa and other communist conspirators!

I’m glad I’ve exposed this plot to shake the very pillars of prosperity before it went too far.

I must say, I seem to lack a lot of the basic social knowledge required to survive in the modern world. One must wonder why the Sierra Club hasn’t blacklisted me yet.

My former English teacher, Ms. Sukalo, is in town for Easter this week (she now teaches in New York, so I don’t get to see her often). Myself and a bunch of friends finally got to see her today; we met for coffee (well, I had iced lemonade) and caught up, talked, etc. ‘Twas quite fun. Afterward, I had to drive my friend Cortney home. She lives in Kakabeka, so this basically entails driving along a single road until we got to Kakabeka, dropping her off, then turning around and going back home.

Driving in the dark is scary because it’s so hard to see. Driving on the highway is scary because you‘re moving at speeds humans aren’t, technically, supposed to be using. So, combine driving in the dark on the highway and you’ll get an activity that I don’t like very much. Suffice it to say, I think that it’s crazy to hurtle around in a large metal object at dangerous speeds while similar large metal objects careen toward you at similar speeds. It’s a recipe for disaster if I ever saw one.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the title of this post or the anecdote I actually wish to relate. So, if you came here looking for something pithy about shopping and instead found a rant about driving, got fed up with my duplicity and told your assistant to screen the rest of the post, then this is the part where your assistant should call you back to read the rest of the post. Seriously.

What, you don’t have an assistant? You mean, you’ve actually read the entire part of my post thus far? Wow. You’re a trooper. Give yourself a pat on the back. No, go on; I mean it. There we go.

So anyway, my dad calls me on my way home and asks me to pick up a 9 V battery for the smoke alarm. As I come back into town, I stop at Shopper’s Drug Mart for the battery. And I couldn’t find it.

I swear, there must be some sort of innate “shopping logic” that people possess which allow them to navigate through large stores and find what they need, and I must lack it. The moment I enter any sort of store that has “aisles” and whatnot, I immediately get lost. The shelves loom over me like a badly-imagined post-apocalyptic sci-fi urban wasteland. The products that I want never seem to fall under any of the neat little categorical signs perilously suspended over each aisle on what may or may not be regulation fishing line. And of course, this late at night the store is on the graveyard shift, so there’s no handy employee around to ask where the batteries are.

So I left Shoppers without any batteries and went to Safeway. Safeway is larger than Shoppers, although they have more descriptive labels and a larger staff. I still couldn’t find the batteries. My brain was trying its best to send signals to my “shopping cortex”, but the nerves just weren’t firing. I have absolutely no clue how to find anything in a store—I don’t even have the sense to grab a basket or a cart; I just load my arms up and waddle toward the checkout.

Luckily one of the staff directed me to where the batteries are hidden—er, I mean, stored—and I grabbed two 9 V batteries, as well as some jellybeans. A little reward for a hard day’s work, after all. I paid and left.

That’s my story. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing before a computer virus took over your Internet browser and forced you to read this. I am going to drink my tea, maybe eat a few more jellybeans, and go to sleep.

Beware the shopping logic. Those who have it take it for granted. Those who don’t, like me, feel like misfits in this strange consumer-driven world, where what you buy says so much about who you are. Does that feel right?

I’ve already blogged about the indecency with which people have treated global warming. This is not a repeat, but an addendum.

Society loves to make a big deal out of issues that are silly and don’t really matter, like gay marriage or what colour of underwear Britney Spears purchases. If we didn’t draw so much attention to them, guess what: they wouldn’t affect our lives that much. Yes, shocking.

I am sick and tired of pundits on both sides of this issue blowing it out of proportion. Yes, global warming exists. Sure, maybe humans are contributing. Go ahead and debate the significance of our contribution as much as you want. The major source of controversy, it seems, are the efforts to curb our greenhouse gas emissions; some groups believe that these efforts are wastes of time. Well consider this: so what if humans don’t have an effect on global warming? Does this mean that not curbing our greenhouse gas emissions will help more than curbing them will? I am not a climatologist—or even an economist for that matter—but even if we don’t have a significant impact on global warming, I would think that lessening our dependency on fossil fuels would be good, both for the environment and the chequebook.

But of course since I don’t take an extremist stance on one side of the issue or the other, my opinion obviously isn’t going to catch on. I’ll fade back into relative obscurity now while our leaders continue to overcompensate for their shortcomings by posturing for the paparazzi.

Perfectly valid scientific theories have the unfortunate tendency to become conflated and overladen with inaccurate information after becoming generally accepted public fact.

Let me start off, however, with a few disclaimers. I do believe that the “global warming phenomenon” exists to a quantifiable degree, that the Earth’s temperature is slowly rising, that humans are contributing to it (although not necessarily as much as some claim, but probably more than most would like to admit) with our dependency on fossil fuels, and that it does pose a threat to the future of our species.

Up here in Canada we’re experiencing an unusually mild winter. As a result, the term “global warming” has become one of the decade’s top buzzwords: words that people use even though they don’t actually apply. It’s liked “Web 2.0”. It’s a term that at one time had a valid definition, but the public has seized upon it, gutted it mercilessly, and taken it so far out of context that it no longer means anything at all. The same is happening to global warming. Once a fine scientific theory, people are blowing it out of proportion.

“Oh my God, he’s gone conservative!” you start screaming at me. “How dare you say that global warming isn’t a threat?!”

Yeah … uh … right. Whatever you say. The fact remains that both sides are throwing “global warming” about as a keyword without really treating it with any respect. And you know what? Global warming called. It demands its dignity back.

Ah, Canada. The wonderful thing about Canadian politics is that it’s been the same thing for the past 139 years. Quebec is still whining about becoming a nation.

The problem comes down, as it usually does, to semantics. That’s probably one of the ugliest words in the English language. Semantics. People debating over the definition of words. I don’t think it’s coincidence that it rhymes with pedantic.

For those asleep, let me wake you up. Our Great and Mighty Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested that Quebec be recognised as a nation within Canada. As you might expect, this did not go over well with the Bloc. It definitely threw the Liberals through a loop, however—they apparently did not see this one coming.

Now I will admit that my first reaction was this: That’s stupid! Quebec isn’t a nation! Look, either you‘re nation or you’re not, and Quebec isn’t a nation.

But some part of me knew I was wrong, or at least suspected it. So I trundled over to Wikipedia and looked up what a nation actually was, because believe it or not, but I didn’t know—and I doubt many people do know the difference between nation and country. I draw your attention to the ambiguity in usage section.

After reading the article, I’ve changed my opinion. Quebec certainly does fit the definition of a nation; it has a very distinct and rich culture that has existed throughout all of Canada’s history; the Québécois are indeed a people. If more people understood what the definition of a nation was, maybe this wouldn’t be such an issue.

Now as if that wasn’t shocking, I will now make the revelation that I particularly agree with Stephen Harper on this issue! At least, this is what I think: Quebec should be nation, since it fits the definition. It should not, however, be politically independent from Canada. In other words, Quebec is not a sovereign country. I like you, Quebec. Why go?

The issue of Quebec sovereignty, unfortunately, is hard to separate from the issue of Quebec nationalism. Nationalism is a really complicated concept that causes a lot of inconveniences on any side of the debates. I respect that Quebec has a strong culture, but I don’t think that it would benefit either the rest of Canada or Quebec for Quebec to become its own country. Look at Nunavut: the Inuit have their own culture too (well, okay, what’s left of it after we suppressed it for a century or so…), but should they separate? No. Politically, we are stronger as a cohesive body. Canada has always been a country that is supportive of multiculturalism—we are a country of many nations. I’m rather proud of that.

Okay, this is the last straw. Old Navy, you have gone too far.

For the record, breaking up the word “fashion” into two separate words, “fash” and “on”, in an attempt to make a cute pop-style song for your latest advertising campaign, cannot be described by any of the following adjectives: clever, cute, funny, interesting, effective, original. And many more.

Those commercials with their idiotic repeating refrain of “Get your fash on / fash, fash on” annoy me to no end. I must commend your marketing people in their creation of such an evil slogan. Not only is it stuck in my head, but it is an unacceptable and pathetic slaughtering of the English language. Considering that no one at Old Navy—neither the people who sew your jeans nor the marketing gurus (who speak Weasel)—actually speaks English, this probably should not be surprising. I never said I was surprised; I‘m just outraged.

In fact, I am fairly sure that if such stupid and asinine commercials disappeared from television, crime rate would drop dramatically overnight. I don’t know why the terrorists even bother anymore. Between reality television and commercials the Western world is already going to kill itself before they can manage to sneak a bomb past London officials again.

So Old Navy, no, I am not going to “get my fash on”. I have never, do not, and will never want to “get my fash on”. I don’t even know what “getting my fash on” entails. Stop trying to be cute and go back to finding ways of cutting costs by outsourcing more jobs to another continent.

But do not think that your senseless slaughter of the English language in an unsuccessful attempt at emulating today’s adolescents’ slang will go unnoticed—or unpunished. No, Old Navy, this time you have transgressed past the point of no return. This time you have crossed the line.

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “This means war!”

/me carefully plants evidence in the CIA’s secure database that reveals that Old Navy is manufacturing WMDs and waits for the chaos to ensue.

I‘m not talking about the religious significance, nor what Christmas represents. Nor am I talking about how retail outlets like to turn Christmas into a commercial venture and media circus. That’s been done ad nauseum.

I‘d like to point out that Christmas, however, is quite silly if you think about it. Let’s take this “good will” and “Christmas cheer” idea. We‘re supposed to have extra good will toward people and be extra cheery, eh? Isn’t that admitting that we weren’t as good willed and cheery as we could have been the rest of the year? I maintain that it would be better to be happy and have good will toward people for one’s entire life instead of one month of the year. Really.

And that’s what I dislike about Western culture. Eastern cultures seem to have the right idea. They may seem a bit strict with some things, but they are like that because they constantly appreciate things all the time. Conversely, the West has this weird tendency to go on “binges” of celebrating when they indulge in appreciation of a subject to the excess for a few days/weeks instead of appreciating it year-round. It really underlines a fundamental flaw in this whole materialistic mode of thinking.

That’s just my thoughts on Christmas (not the holiday, the season). It’s silly to be extra cheery because one should be very cheery all year; it’s silly to be extra kind because one should be very kind all year. I think that’s a bit more realistic and probably better for our pysches than enforcing a week of happiness and good will each year during the most depressing season.

Many of you know that Cookie Monster now eats cookies as a “sometimes” food. Now, I am as much against rising child obesity as the next intelligent superluminal particle. It is a problem, especially in developed countries like Canada. But this … this goes too far!

The Christmas season is now upon us, and it has got me thinking (yes! ). Santa really isn’t all that different from Cookie Monster; he’s this jolly old fat man who likes to eat cookies, yet he can still fit down a chimney even after all of that food. It suddenly occurs to me that if society manages to tone down Cookie Monster, then Santa Claus is the next logical target.

Anyone for “slim Santa”? A Santa Claus who advocates eating healthy food? Coca-Cola probably wouldn’t buy into it (you do know what’s in Coke, right? ) but I‘m sure that tons of advocacy groups would have a field day. Slowly we’d see our cultural perceptions of Santa Claus shift from jolly old fat man to young, middle-aged multi-racial male with an average income and mixed religious background.

On the bright side, this means that the employment industry for mall and department store Santa Clauses will experience an increase in potential employees.

I might just go start a petition to stop this. I would, but Santa Claus and Cookie Monster are both telling me to go eat more cookies.

Subject: Canadian programming is dead.

Dear CBC:

I am an adolescent who enjoys watching much of the CBC’s programming, including the wonderful show CBC News: The Hour. I know this may come as a surprise to you (I mean, you’re governed by the Department of _Heritage_!) but yes, I quite enjoy CBC programming.

Which is one of the reasons that I was extremely disappointed that instead of CBC News: The Hour, I was invited to watch Political Assassinations. Lo and behold, after an entire summer of anticipation, I am forced to wait yet again! Thus, I am urging the CBC to resolve this labour dispute so that we can get back to what you really should be doing, which is providing quality Canadian programming, rather than attempting to satisfy a fictional system based on arbitrarily decided amounts of numbers.

I am quite frankly tired of everything being about money. We have gone, as Canadians, an entire season without hockey for precisely the same reason that we are now facing the worst shortage of Canadian programming in my lifetime. I would not like to see an entire season pass by without CBC News: The Hour.

I had hoped that somewhere out there, deep within the festering bowls of bureaucratic red tape and indolent political sludge, there was a fortress to defend against the polluting tendency for the world to revolve around money, rather than using money (the economic principle being that money should be a means, not an end, as it seems to inevitably be in this modern age). I had hoped to find a heart gilded in gold that would rise above such petty disputes and find an expedient answer to questions that should never have become quandaries in the first place.

I guess I was wrong.

After my school board lets me down, my Minister of Education lets me down, and my laptop lets me down, I started to wonder what would go wrong next. It turns out that was a bad idea.

The CBC is having some labour difficulties right now. Basically, the permanent staff wants the management to hire more permanent staff and decrease the amount of work they contract out. From the management point of view, it’s cheaper to contract work because if they cancel a show, any permanent staff have to find a new job with another show, whereas contractors can just be let go. From the permanent staff’s point of view, it’s a job security issue.

NHL Lockout, anyone? The stupidity quotients on each side are just about right.

My real gripe is that it interferes with something I consider one of the greatest things since sliced bread: CBC News: The Hour. It’s a new show on CBC Newsworld hosted by former MuchMusic host George Stroumboulopolos (I think I spelt that right). You may remember him, he advocated for Tommy Douglas on CBC’s The Greatest Canadian. The show is blatantly targetted at a younger audience (which, for the CBC, is anyone under 65). Although I am not the stereotypical youth (and I doubt the stereotypical youth even knows what channel is the CBC!) I enjoyed the show immensely and couldn’t wait for its premiere tonight.

Only it never happened. After watching Stargate: Atlantis, I flipped channels to CBC Newsworld and found Political Assassinations on instead. That’s when it hit me. The CBC was messing with my show!

I can see a big angry corporation like Fox or (dare I whisper their hallowed name) UPN disrupting their schedule like this, but the CBC?! It’s a government corporation! I expected to be blogging here about political issues, not about my lack of a great news show to follow political issues!

So now I feel like writing an angry email to the CBC, something along the lines of:

Dear CBC Management:

I am a 15-year-old adolescent who enjoys your program (specifically, CBC News: The Hour) and am angered by your insipid quest to save money. I know this may come as a shock, considering that you probably thought you only had an audience of about 10 65-year-olds and a dog outside a TV store window. Well, you were wrong. So give me back my show.

I may or may not decide to make it more or less coherent. And I‘ve no clue if I’m going to send the email … maybe if I could persuade some friends to bombard them with email too… .

That’s right. I’m asking you now, email the CBC’s Negotations Web Site and have your say!

Anyway … down the CBC Management!