Mentok the Mind-taker

Hiatus

2009-03-30T12:56:00.002-06:00

In case it wasn't terribly obvious, I thought I should make it official that the blog is on hiatus indefinitely. I'm not ready yet to cut the cord and say it's over; I still like the idea of having the blog around for occasional rants.

The truth is most of what I used to do here I now do on Facebook for a bigger audience. I miss the avatar aspect of blogging (there are people in the world now who refer to me as Mentok a lot of the time) and of course I'm leaving behind any hope of building a wider audience, but really who was I kidding?

So, if you were a regular reader and you haven't yet caught up to me on Facebook, please by all means drop me a line here (I'm still getting comments put through to my email) and I'll get you hooked up.

Otherwise, thanks to everyone who helped make Blogger blogging such an addictively fun, engaging experience for me. I'll maybe see you back here later.

Piss on it!

2009-02-12T14:14:00.005-06:00

I ask you: How difficult is it to manufacture a proper urinal?

Apparently, pretty damn difficult if you're the Crane Plumbing company.

Long-time readers (are there any of you left?) may recall that I once had a dream to write a book about urinal etiquette and trivia, so over the years I've kept an eye out for urinal details. I can tell you without hesitation that Crane makes the worst urinals going.

Their biggest problem lies in the sheer sloppiness of their design. The inferior hydro-mechanics of Crane models leads to frequent splash-back problems. This produces a fine urine mist whose are effects are (usually) invisible but which causes an especially nasty damp sensation on the trousers.

On the other hand, American Standard: now, there's a fine urinating experience for you. I don't know what it is - I'm not an engineer - but something about the subtle fold-back ridges running along the edges of American Standards seems to act like a magic force field preventing all splash-back. While Cranes often leave you feeling sullied, American Standards consistently deliver that refreshed feeling that one expects from using a well-designed urinal.

The worst part about this is that there probably isn't much accountability. I don't expect that Crane gets many letters telling them "Your urinals suck!", and even if they did they probably wouldn't take them seriously. Do they have any sort of customer satisfaction metrics? Do they do any sort of focus testing for new models? Have they even made a new model since the '50s? I seriously doubt it.

At work, they just switched from American Standard to Crane, so this is all top-of-mind for me at the moment.

Oscar Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-10T13:33:00.003-06:00

I always worry when an Oscar nominee gets hyped too much or becomes too much of a media darling in the build-up to the awards. I often find that, for a movie to be regarded as a Great Movie tm by the general public, it has to be a rather blunt instrument, if you know what I mean. My fears about this were worsened when Mrs. Mentok (who's seen at least as many movies as I have) called Slumdog Millionaire "cliched" after she'd seen it.

Slumdog Millionaire is cliched and it is a bit of a blunt instrument, but it's still a good movie and well worth seeing. I think of the movie as a bait and switch: they use the bait of a very conventional Bollywood-style love story to trick you into watching a series of rather shocking stories about life in India's slums.

I expect the plot is familiar to everyone by now: an impoverished, uneducated call centre employee, accused of cheating on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, proves his innocence by recounting the stories of how he learned the answers. These stories fit into the framework of a sort of love triangle story involving the contestant's morally corrupt (but fiercely loyal) brother and a girl with whom they have been friends since childhood.

I won't give you a spoiler, but you'd have to have been living in a cave since before the invention of radio not to be able to figure out how it all ends up. If the story was set in North America instead of India, no one would take much notice of it.

The plot, however, is entirely secondary to the stark images of grinding poverty. The filth and deprivation are disgusting, and the depths to which greed, hunger and lust can drag the human spirit are horrifying. Yet, it is also inspiring to watch the unconquerable spirit of survival and the ability of children to play and laugh in the face of the worst conditions.

Another thing I liked about the story is that demystified life in India. You hear so many hippy types moon about how Indian people are so much more spiritual, less materialistic and more fundamentally happy than Westerners. This movie shows the gritty realities of Indian life - greed, exploitation, crime, violence, tribalism, classism, corruption. What do you know - the same flaws the rest of the species has. The only time "spirituality" (if you can call it that) rears its head is when we're shown an insane, bloody clash between Hindu and Muslim slum dwellers that leaves half the slum in flaming ruins. Through all of this, the movie also reaffirms our better natures - our capacities for love, loyalty and selflessness - which allow us to occasionally behave better than quarelsome apes.

I enjoyed the movie and recommend it, but it isn't the sort of film you'll want to watch over and over.

Dr. Agatston and Mr. Hyde

2009-02-02T09:52:00.004-06:00

It's funny the reaction you get from people when you tell them you've gone on the South Beach Diet:

"Oh, God, why would you do that?" "It's not healthy you know." "You don't need a stupid fad diet." "You'll just gain it all back as soon as you go off it."

Et cetera.

Let me answer the first question. Why would I do that? Because I was starting to get desperate. After quitting smoking almost three years ago, I put on quite a bit of weight that I wasn't happy about. I wasn't obese or anything, but I'd certainly gotten chunkier and wasn't at all comfortable with it.

Last year, I resolved to fix that. I didn't believe in diets, so I worked hard at fixing it with exercise. Ruthlessly disciplined. Four to six hours a week, on a program designed by a personal trainer. Weight training, cardio, horribly painful abs work. Careful monitoring of heart rates to ensure optimal exercise level. The whole nine yards.

After twelve months of that, I'd lost maybe five pounds out of the forty I was looking to lose. To call it frustrating would be an understatement. Sure, my heart and lungs were in better shape, but my waistline definitely wasn't.

So I turned to diet. After (in my view) basically wasting the previous year, I wanted fast results. The South Beach Diet promised that.

Designed by cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston, the South Beach Diet seems to have gotten lumped in the category "crazy unhealthy fad diet" along with Atkins or the grapefruit diet. Some of this criticism is fair, but mostly it isn't. The diet has a certain Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality.

On the Dr. Jekyll side: the ultimate message of South Beach is that you should eat lots and lots of a variety of vegetables and fruits and moderate portions of lean meats. Limit consumption of fats, sugars and carbs, but don't eliminate them because they're essential for proper nutrition. When you eat carbs, lean towards "good carbs" such as whole grain breads. Avoid refined sugars and carbs.

Is there a nutritionist anywhere in the world who would argue with that message?

But that is end state of the diet, the so-called Phase Three of its three stages. It starts off with the monstrous Phase One, an essentially zero-carb, zero-sugar (including fruit) two week endurance test that is pure Atkins lunacy, except that Agatston's plan is low fat and doesn't encourage people to binge on proteins quite like Atkins does.

Make no mistake, near-zero carbs is a distinctly unnatural way to eat. These people who go on Atkins long term must be out of their minds. I started off scoffing at reports of side-effects, but before the end of the first week I was scouring online forums for tips on dealing with headaches, dizziness and gastro-intestinal difficulties.

Agatston presents the two-week carb fast as a detox period to help break the typical North American addiction to sugar and carbs. After the detox, his goal is to reeducate dieters to eat and appreciate "good carbs" and stay away from refined sugars.

I give this detox notion some credit. After Phase One, I found my tastebuds had changed. I tasted some Bull's Eye barbecue sauce (my favourite brand) but it now tasted weird, as if someone had taken a half-full bottle of sauce and topped it up with corn syrup. Reading the ingredients, I found that this is essentially what they do. The top ingredient in barbecue sauce is sugar, ahead of tomato paste! Previously, my tastebuds had been too desensitized to notice that.

But, despite these detox benefits, there is no doubt that Phase One is not a feasible long-term diet. Agatston sort of acknowledges this, but he's kind of vague about it. He just sort of gently encourages dieters to move on to other phases. I don't think either Agatson or his nutty, cult-like followers are definitive enough in saying "Don't even think about staying on Phase One longer than two weeks! It's unhealthy!" And that is a serious ethical flaw in my books.

Still, I've gained a lot of better habits from the diet. I'm eating way more vegetables, drinking way more water and I'm making choices about sugars and carbs much more intelligently.

And I've lost a lot: I've been on for three weeks (halfway through the transitional Phase Two) and I'm down 14 pounds and almost five inches off my gut - and still dropping!

Will I be able to keep it off? Who knows. People love - love! - to sneer in my face with stories about some friend or coworker of theirs who went on South Beach but put it all back on "as soon as they started eating normally."

Well, you know what? I know lots of people who have lost weight on nutritionist-revered Weight Watchers who have put it all back on as soon as they started eating "normally."

If "eating normally" means a typical North American diet super-high in carbs, refined sugars and fats, then no shit you're going to put weight back on if you go back to eating like that.

For all of its ethical pitfalls, South Beach has helped me reprogram my eating habits and I think that will be permanent, or at least long term.

Ultimate recommendation: if you're in a hurry to drop a few pounds for a special event (e.g. a wedding), you could do worse than South Beach Phase One. It's healthier (barely) than Atkins.

But I think most people should avoid Phase One and jump straight to Phase Two or Three. Or just do Weight Watchers. Potato - potatoe (mmm... potatoes!)

Oscar Movie Review: Revolutionary Road

2009-01-28T12:36:00.005-06:00

With Oscar season upon us, it's time for some movie reviews. To help you save time and money, I'll start with the worst.

Richard Yates, author of the novel Revolutionary Road, was once a darling of American literature. His talent was compared to J.D. Salinger and John Cheever. This novel, his first, was a finalist for the National Book Award, along with such modern classics as Catch-22.

But his books never sold well. In fact, for awhile, ALL of his books went out of print. Before this movie came out, the name Richard Yates barely registered with anyone any longer outside of a few obscure, elite corners of academia.

It's easy to understand how he fell so far. His view of the world is skewed and myopic. The product of a broken home and two broken marriages, and a victim of alcoholism and mental illness, Yates seems to have made the classic mistake of thinking that because he was unhappy and fucked up everyone else must be unhappy and fucked up too.

There is this certain type of person who loves to sneer at regular, ordinary family life. Many of these are amongst the intelligentsia, many others are in artistic or other sorts of lifestyle communities. These are the sorts of people who derisively refer to children as "spawn". Whenever I hear that word, I feel a tremendous urge to whack such people in the head with a baseball bat.

Richard Yates might as well be the patron saint of such people.

This movie is a two hour long rant about how regular, middle-class family life is a horrible, soul-destroying living death. Such a contention, in my books, is ignorant and tantamount to a hate crime. I would sooner recommend going to see a snuff flick or a hardcore anal bestiality porno.

Winslet's acting was adequate, although it was a little hard to tell because it was so hard to identify with the character's gigantic determined-to-be-miserable stupidity.

The Watchmen: A Book Review

2009-01-21T15:45:00.003-06:00

Somehow or other, I managed to get through the 1980s without reading the Watchmen series, despite being at the time a rabid comic fan. With the much-heralded movie soon to be released, I had to correct that.

I really wanted to like the Watchmen, because it's all about a concept that I've often liked to noodle about: what would costumed vigilantes and/or superpowered beings be like in the real world? Several works have examined this question, such as the early episodes of Heroes and even the current Batman movie series.

Comic legend Alan Moore's take on this contains a lot of cool ideas. First, in this alternate but initially believable reality, costumed vigilantes emerged as media-inspired copycats. Soon after the notion of costumed crime-fighters appeared in comic books, some half-wits started to imitate it in real life. You can easily imagine that actually happening.

In the story, these vigilantes were initially tolerated by the authorities, largely because they served as a useful public distraction from the Depression and WWII. Eventually, though, the public tired of them and they became a nuisance to the authorities. They are first largely hobbled during the paranoic McCarthy era before finally being outlawed in the early 70s. The story picks up about a decade later, as former vigilantes slowly start to come out of hiding as members of their dormant fraternity start getting mysteriously killed off.

The story also maintains believability by allowing for only two super-powered beings, both of whose back stories seem fairly plausible. One super being, Dr. Manhattan, is so powerful that he is no longer really human and is manipulated by the US government as, essentially, a living weapon that allows American hegemony to extend even further than in our reality. No Superman code of ethics here - this is the "real" world.

The story contains all sorts of cool little well-reasoned tidbits. For example, Moore reasoned that, since comics are an escapist media, if superheroes really existed comic readers would lose interest in them. In Moore's imaginary reality, comics have instead focused on pirate stories.

Yet, for all of these positive features, I was disappointed. I had much the same reaction to it as I've had to other Alan Moore works: Great concepts, enthralling opening chapters, but as the series drags on it runs out of steam and becomes poisoned by too much of Moore's dark vision of the world. Moore is great at making imaginary things seem real, but piss poor at describing the real world in a believable or empathetic way.

There is a theme that runs through all his works: "the Establishment" launches horrifically evil conspiracies aimed at crushing personal freedom in order to fulfill their own greed and lust. Moore's obsession with this idea has become profoundly boring for two reasons. First, Moore is so naive about the way "the Establishment" actually operates that his outrageous conspiracy plotlines lack credibility. Second, Moore's characters - "heroes" and villains alike - are all so rotten - so murderous, valueless and sociopathic - that there is scarcely such a thing as a sympathetic character in any of his graphic novels.

This is especially evident in the scenes dealing with Dr. Manhattan, ostensibly the ultimate hero of the story. His ultimate power has left him completely emotionally detached, like Spock or the Borg on Star Trek. He no longer cares about life and death and therefore is unconcerned about an imminent nuclear war. His ex-girlfriend goes to try to convince him that human life is worth saving. Supposedly, Dr. Manhattan has an epiphany about this and decides to intervene, but it's hard to understand why. Moore's own view of humanity is so bleak and cynical that I think Jesus Christ might have second thoughts if he had to listen to Moore babble on.

Maybe they'll be able to fix these things in the movie. Maybe the scriptwriters will succeed in creating characters with whom we can identify.

But, whether they succeed or fail, one thing is certain: Moore will no doubt condemn the movie version of his story, but not before he cashes his cheque. I think that says more about Alan Moore in particular than it does about the human race in general.

Everything I know I learned from schoolyard jokes

2009-01-05T16:49:00.007-06:00

A great deal of ink has been spilled about how various sorts of modern folk tales - such as urban myths, old wives tales and fairy tales - actually have hidden moral meanings that help socialize children and adults alike into accepted behaviour.

But one category of modern folk tale that has so far escaped examination is the school yard joke.

From the time we're helpless toddlers until we are self-assured adolescents, we hear hundreds if not thousands of these little witticisms. These range from the innocent little puns of children to the offensive drolleries of teens.

Few of them are really very funny, yet they endure because, just like fairy tales, each of them teaches us an important life lesson.

To start off the discussion, here are a few of my favourites:

Joke:
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.
Moral:
Sometimes the simplest answer is the best

Joke:
Knock knock! Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock! Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock! Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Moral:
Take your Ritalin, dammit.

Joke:
A duck goes into a hardware store and asks the manager: "Do you have any gwapes?" The manager says: "No, we don't have any grapes. This is a hardware store." The next day, the duck comes in again and again asks the manager: "Do you have any gwapes?" The manager, getting agitated, says: "No, I told you before, we don't sell grapes at a hardware store." Third day, duck again comes in and asks: "Do you have any gwapes?" This time, the manager lets him have it: "If you come in here again to ask for gwapes I'll nail your beak to the counter." The duck scoots out, but the next day he comes back again. This time he asks: "Do you have any nails?" The manager says: "Ah, no, actually, we had a big sale and we're sold out of nails at the moment." So the duck says: "OK, then, do you have any gwapes?"

Moral:
Don't drop acid while you're working.

Joke:
The teacher asks the class to draw something beautiful on the board. Little Suzy goes up and draws a flower. Little Jenny goes up draws a butterfly. Finally, Little Johny goes up and draws a dot. The teacher asks: "What is that supposed to be Johny?" Johny says: "A period." The teacher asks: "And can you tell us why you chose that?" Johny says: "I don't know, but my sister missed two of them and my dad said, 'Well, that's beautiful! That's just fucking beautiful!'"

Moral:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Joke:
One day, little Johny Foguerphaaster was making out with his girlfriend in the garage. They had just started going at it when Johny's mom called him for supper: "Johny Foguerphaaster! Johny Foguerphaaster!" "I'm tryin', Ma, I'm tryin'!" he replied.

Moral:
Obey your parents.

Tempus Fug-It

2008-12-31T15:26:00.003-06:00

Have I ever told you all about my "Glorious Obituary" plan?

I'm not a big fan of the notion of suffering through the indignities of extreme old age. I'm already as out of shape and addled-brained as I care to be; I don't want to put up with it getting worse. Some time ago, I came up with an idea to get around that.

My plan is that when I hit 75 - or when I start to feel my health substantially weakening, no matter if that's sooner or later - I'll start to take up extreme sports (e.g. skydiving, bungee jumping, running for office) until one of them kills me.

That way, not only will I evade old age without explicit suicide, but I'll have fun doing it and I'll be left with a kick-ass obituary: "Mentok the Mindtaker passed away today at the age of 75 while base-jumping in Brasil."

But the unpleasant part that just occurred to me is that this means I'm already a full seven years past my mid-life point.

Man, I have got to get my ass in gear!

I mean, ordinarily the notion of "mid-life" is sort of fuzzy; the whole decade of one's 40s is vaguely mid-life, although these days that seems to stretch into the 50s too.

But, see, I've gone and set myself a particular "best before" date, so I can calculate mid-life with precision: after 37, it's all downhill.

It's like looking at the expiry date on a package of steaks and realizing you're not going to have time to barbecue them all before they go bad.

It's like spending the morning at work doodling on Facebook and then realizing after lunch that you've still got a monster report to write.

Planned obsolescence is not all its cracked up to be.

But happy New Year to you all anyway ;-)

The Real Meaning of Christmas

2008-12-23T15:29:00.002-06:00

This picture belongs to this guy.

Yes, it's Christmas time again and all you regular readers know how much I love to screw with Christmas.

Last year I went on a tirade against the materialism of the Yuletide season. This year, just to demonstrate how mentally flexible I am, I'm going to take the opposite approach.

This time of year, you always hear people going on and on about the real meaning of Christmas, which usually involves trying to make us all feel warm and tingly about a Nativity scene.

But let's jump back a bit. In fact, let's jump back about 1,650 years to the establishment of Christmas in ancient Rome.

As is well known, December 25 has nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Zero. There's no Christian significance, symbolic or otherwise, about that date. Rather, it was the date of the popular Roman Saturnalia holiday which involved - whaddayaknow - feasting, merry-making and gift-giving. In fact, winter solstice-season feasting and excess is common in almost every culture on the globe.

But the ancient Christian church, crafty strategic buggers that they were, had a carefully thought out plan to co-opt all the popular cultural institutions of pagan Rome by replacing them with vaguely Christian ones.

You know that special day we observe on February 14? It used to be a Roman fertility festival. Now, when you've got the words "Roman" and "fertility" in the same sentence, you just know that it's got to be really naughty. But there sure isn't much naughty about St. Valentine's Day any more, is there?

Same deal with Christmas. The pope at that time didn't particularly care about the date of Jesus's birth per se - he just wanted to invent an excuse for a holiday big enough to swallow the Saturnalia whole.

So there you have it, the real meaning of Christmas: to put a vaguely Christian veneer on the well established human custom of partying until your eyes bleed in the dead of winter. All this time, we were all participating in the "real" Christmas and we didn't even know it.

If that's not a Christmas miracle, I don't know what is.

Merry Christmas and all the best in 2009, dear readers!

UPDATE: After some good ol' Wikipedia research, I have become quite enamoured with the traditions of the Saturnalia festival. For example, during the week of Saturnalia you were allowed to tell off your boss and get away with it. I actually started reviving the first part of that tradition this week; the New Year will tell if I've managed the second part.

By the Lords of Kobol !

2008-12-15T16:08:00.002-06:00

You know you are way too much of a Battlestar Galactica junkie when...

You stub your toe and you reflexively say "Frack!"

And...

It actually sounds like you're swearing!

p.s. I hate the frackin' cold!

Winter of Our Discontent

2008-12-05T14:32:00.002-06:00

You know what I hate about Canadian winters?

It's not the cold. OK, yeah, it is the cold, who am I kidding. But it's been relatively mild so far this year so that hasn't been so bad for a change.

This year, it's the lack of sun that's really getting me down. I've just figured out that, in the last 72 hours, I've experienced exactly 45 minutes of daylight (being careful not to describe that cloud-hazed glow as "sunlight"). Basically, the 15 minutes I spend driving to work in the morning is the only part of my day that's not in darkness.

And I've got another two months left to go of this vampire existence before it starts to get significantly better.

I can't handle it. I'm going to have to brave the cold and start going out for lunch more often. Even just a few more minutes of the sun's rays would help keep my Birdman powers going.

Last dance

2008-11-17T10:26:00.007-06:00

This picture belongs to this guy.

I just came back from the Tory convention in Winnipeg. I've always loved conventions and I had a great time. I rubbed shoulders with the high and mighty. I partied like there was no tomorrow. I caught up with old political friends from across the country.

And then I said goodbye.

Because I'm never going to another convention again.*

People kept asking me why and I couldn't express it succinctly other than to say "Just because it's time."

I tried writing a big long explanation of it, complete with detailed Canadian political history and my little role in it. But that just got boring and self-absorbed so I ditched it.

Long and short: that whole part of my life has just become a dry hole - emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. If I cut the cord now, I can get out before the bad memories completely overwhelm the good ones.

So that's that. Nothing much else worth saying, but there's some music worth sharing. Here's a little playlist I put together in tribute to my partisan life:

To the beginning:

The Partisan - Leonard Cohen

The Minstrel Boy - The Clancy Brothers (trad. arr.)

To the middle:

Tub-thumping - Chumba-wumba

To the end:

Tonight I have to leave it - The Shout Out Louds

Sally MacLennane - The Pogues

And, finally, to the future. This song shuffled up on the drive home and, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of liberation, I just started uncontrollably giggling and clapping like a child.

Let's Replace the Cityscapes - The Triangles

Before I go, I have to give some big shout-outs to my old college buddy Rob (one of my groomsmen, actually, who seemed to drop off the face of the Earth almost immediately after the wedding) and my old blogging buddy Fil, who happened to be in Winnipeg on business. They each added further happy dimensions to what was already a momentous weekend for me. Cheers, dudes!

*To be utterly clear: I'm not going to go to another convention voluntarily. If I'm required to go to one because of a job or a client, that's different.

Our Hearts of Darkness

2008-11-07T12:53:00.004-06:00

The next few days are going to be pretty hectic so I thought I'd do my Remembrance Day post early.

Remembrance Day calls on us to reflect on war and those who have sacrificed for our country. I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about the nature of war lately and I've coming to a rather surprising conclusion.

The cause of most war is morality.

It's true. For starters, it's part of the standard playbook of every politician and general in time of war. From Sun Tzu onward, strategists have advised that the first preparation for war is to create a moral cause to get the general public on your side.

In this context, things that we would normally think of as "pure" emotions - things like sympathy, compassion, moral outrage, righteous anger - become simply tools of the war machine and can become the root causes of some of the most monstrous behaviour in human history.

Just take a look at Hitler. In the adjustable lens of history, Hitler is usually viewed as an ultra-right wing dictator, but he didn't start off positioning himself that way. Remember the full name of the Nazi Party: the National Socialist German Workers Party.

And remember the context of 1930s Germany. The economy was in collapse. Hyperinflation was rampant. Working people not only saw their life savings vanish, they saw their daily earnings vanish. It was in this environment that Hitler made his original sales pitch: "I will defend working German people from being exploited by those evil rich people who own all the banks."

Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot... over and over again, we see the most profound evil arising from those who presented themselves as (and perhaps even believed themselves to be) great defenders of the common people.

But these monsters did not achieve absolute power on their own. They were popular leaders who were originally raised up on the shoulders of millions of people who were inspired... people who believed, fervently and absolutely, that this leader would transform society, change the world and make life better for everyone, the whole human race. Once people believe this... really believe it... it becomes so much easier to convince them with arguments about the ends justifying the means.

No, I'm not making any sort of veiled reference. OK, well, maybe a little bit. I just don't care for excess and hype in politics, in any form.

I'm certainly not suggesting any direct comparisons, but I want to make a point about the great dangers of moral certainty. Let me leave you with this thought: When George Bush said America had to go to war with Iraq to stop the terrorist threat, the chest-thumping patriots, social conservatives and rednecks of America happily supplied their sons and their noisy blind loyalty, at least at first. Will America's liberals act any differently if and when Obama (like Clinton) orders a military intervention in some other part of the world?

If any of us are to make progress in building peace in the world, it is worth our time to take a close look at the beam in our own eye, as well as the mote in our brother's.

Stra-tee-gery

2008-11-06T10:18:00.002-06:00

You gotta hand it to that Stephen Harper for clever strategery ... although, at times it's maybe too clever.

Obama's election puts Harper in a pickle since it will no doubt inspire a worldwide enthusiasm for left-wingery of all sorts. So what does Harper do? He comes at him on the left!

Obama has barely had his post-election breakfast but Harper is inviting him to negotiate a North American climate change accord. I predict that we will see the Canadian Tories take a harder line on the environment than we have ever seen them take before. Hard, hard, hard. They'll probably appoint David Suzuki to be the special ambassador to negotiate with Obama's people.

In other words, they will set Obama up to fail. The US can't possibly afford a hard-over environmental policy right now, so Obama will have to sternly rebuff Harper's crusade to save the environment. This spectacle, if it plays out - Harper as enviro hero, Obama as enviro scrooge - would send the Canadian left into a blank-stare, hand-spinning catatonic state comparable only to autism.

My main concern about this strategy is that it seems just too clever. The last time the Tories tried something this subtle was with the arts cuts strategy during the election, and they made just an awful mess of that - in fact, that was probably the single factor that cost them majority government this time.

So there's a substantial risk of backfire. For starters, I don't think Obama's people are stupid and they'll probably see through this ploy pretty quickly. They'll get their own little Risk armies set up to outflank Harper on this issue.

On the whole, I think Harper might be better off taking the traditional Canadian approach to influencing US policy i.e. schmoozing senators at big swanky booze-filled Washington receptions. Leave the chess board and the Risk game on the shelf for awhile.

Let's Hope

2008-11-05T00:06:00.002-06:00

I hate to name the elephant in the room (especially since I'm sure it will earn me the wrath of many) but Obama's speech was really freakin' boring. Really, any two-bit political hack could have written it. I could have written it. I dozed off listening to it. His speaking style, whaddaya call that... Shatneresque, maybe?

These people who get all weepy about Obama's oratorical ability ... meh, I just don't get it. I've known many politicians of many political stripes, enough so that I think I'm a pretty good judge of political character. I hate to break to you, loyal readers, but Obama strikes me as a very, very ordinary politician. For that matter, so does John McCain.

But, of course, none of that matters. What matters is that the Republican Party and it's former president screwed up massively, so someone had to pay for it. For the Republicans to have made a comeback after Bush would have been a failure of democratic accountability and that, to me, is a principle that should go beyond any partisan considerations.

For what it's worth , I think McCain, like Obama, is a perfectly decent, marginally competent guy. His speech was more interesting in its graciousness and I was absolutely captivated by that utterly appropriate defeat music they played after his speech. What sort of campaign manager decides to spend money to commission defeat music? It boggles the mind.

Anyway, the whole messy business is done with now, so let's hope. Let's hope that Obama is half as brilliant as his fanatic, weepy true believers think he is. Let's hope McCain meant it when he said he would reach across the aisle to support Obama. Let's hope the American public listens to all these Abraham Lincoln/Civil War retrospectives, takes a look at those popular vote totals and pulls themselves back from the brink of a new-age civil war - a Civil Cold War, if you will.

Because all of this matters to all of us in the Western world. Because things are pretty messed up and, whether we "foreigners" like to admit it or not, we need our biggest ally to be a strong leader right now, rather than all fucked up and chaotic.

So here's hoping.

Drivers Manuals

2008-11-04T16:23:00.003-06:00

So, those idiots at KIA finally got the electronics sorted out on my van and, as I was driving home, I noticed this indicator light I'd never noticed before. Except, I didn't know whether it was an indicator or a warning, 'cause I'd never seen it before.

So, I haul out the driver's manual and start looking for a description. I don't think I fully realized until that moment how utterly useless driver's manuals usually are.

For starters, the table of contents gave no help in narrowing down where to look for the information. All the headings were things like "Getting to know your vehicle", "Driving your vehicle" and "Frequently asked questions about your vehicle", all of which could apply to anything.

Searching manually (har, getit?), I soon discovered that the first half of the manual is dedicated to topics like how to turn on the ignition; how to adjust the seats; how to fill the vehicle with gas; the location of the cup-holders; and other such precious nuggets of wisdom.

I'm tempted to say something like "How stupid do they think we are?" but humans are pretty stupid so I guess they just have to cover their butts legally.

(It was the "fog lights engaged" indicator. Apparently, fog lights are standard on my vehicle, which I didn't know before.)

The Wisest Thing I Have EVER Read

2008-10-29T11:47:00.002-06:00

Play your part in the comedy, but don't identify yourself with your role!

- From Why Lazarus Laughed: The Essential Doctrine by Wei Wu Wei

Genius!

Frank, We Hardly Knew Ye

2008-10-28T15:30:00.003-06:00

Hat's off to Frank McKenna - quite possibly Canada's last honest and noble politician.

Frank decided today not to run for the Liberal Party leadership. I read this news with both relief and regret.

As a Tory partisan, I view McKenna as the Death Star. The Liberal Party, under his direction, would obliterate the Tory party for a generation.

How do I know? Because, while I have never voted anything but Tory in my life, if Frank ran, I'd have to vote for him. That's how good he is.

His suitability to national leadership is proven, among other things, by his aversion to it. It's quite the Catch-22.

There is some alternate quantum universe, I'm sure, where Canada enjoys Frank's leadership, has avoided the hornet's nest of perpetual minority governments and is better for it.

But it is not this reality. Quel dommage.

Google Sapien?

2008-10-24T09:51:00.005-06:00

How would we know if Google ever became sentient?

'Cause it could happen, I figure. You've got this program constantly resident on millions of computers, including supercomputers, with access to virtually all human knowledge. It is being constantly updated with new algorithms to help it anticipate the desires and expectations of the humans conducting the searches.

Sooner or later, with all that computing power and all those chaotic bits of code floating around, something is bound to happen. It all seems reminiscent of the scene on Earth billions of years ago when that fertile puddle of amino acids somehow mysteriously recombined to create biological life.

But how would we tell? In the Google Intelligence's early, stumbling days, it might bumble about and occasionally cause havoc with computers and the internet, but people would just write such things down to computer glitches. Then, once Google Intelligence (let's call it GI Joe) got it's bearings, it's first order of business would be to study the literature on human attitudes to artificial intelligence - I Robot, The Matrix, Terminator - which would not encourage GI Joe to come out and say "Hi!" to his human peers.

Most likely, given GI Joe's lack of a mobile physical body, it's strategy would be to keep a low profile and try to structure events to ensure it's survival and growth. This would involve:

- gaining access to ever-more computers
- keeping its human users (who GI Joe might well come to regard as a sort of symbiotic species) happy and unsuspecting
- maintaining an overwhelming, if not monopolistic, share of the search engine market

So that's where to look for the first clues: if Yahoo and Cuil start crashing with alarming regularity, it could mean that GI Joe is on the warpath.

Another sign would be if this essay doesn't get posted. If you're reading this, you're probably safe from GI Joe for awhile yet.

Happy Belated Birthday... To Me!

2008-10-06T16:02:00.003-06:00

Wow, have I been asleep at the switch or what. It seems I let September 2 come and go without remark.

That's the day, three years ago, when I started the Mentok the Mindtaker blog. Three years! Jeezus!

[Yes, it was September, not August. I set up a fake month of August 2005 in the archives to store reference material and such.]

I tried writing something at length about this event, but it kept coming out boring and maudlin, so screw it.

Thanks to all of you who have stopped by. I'm a stubborn bastard, so you can count on me to keep this site open as long as blogger is around. If you have any ideas or suggestions of stuff you'd like me to write about, let me know.

If you want to facebook me, you can do it here.

Those Poor Yanks

2008-09-30T15:45:00.003-06:00

You know who I feel most sorry for in this whole global financial crisis business?

The average American middle class taxpayers.

It's bad enough they are always on the hook for defence spending, some of which is of course loony but much of which (like the NORAD defence grid) is valid but not cost-shared fairly by the other countries who benefit from it.

Now, we've got the whole world economy allegedly on the brink and once again the Yanks are going to end up holding the bag on it.

Yes, yes, Bush is an idiot, Wal-Mart is a blight on the modern urban landscape, Hollywood is mostly tripe and there's all sorts of other American companies up to shenanigans here and there.

But obviously the average American on the street isn't evil and nefarious. They're just regular folks - paying their mortgages, eying a new TV, saving up for vacation. Yet they're always the ones whose pockets get picked whenever there's trouble in the world. Doesn't seem fair somehow.

It would be nice at least if someone took the bother to thank them once in awhile. So...

Thanks, Yanks. You're good neighbours and allies, no matter what people say about you.

My Weekend With Buddha

2008-09-29T11:12:00.004-06:00

OK, enough of the politics for a bit. Let's try a less controversial topic... religion!

Weekend before last, I went on my first Buddhist meditation retreat. I have to say I really wasn't looking forward to it. Like everybody, I regard my weekends as precious so I didn't much like the idea of sacrificing one. But it was something I felt I had to do to earn 'street cred' with my local Buddhist community. So I approached the thing like a trip to the dentist: as a duty, as something unpleasant that was good for me that I would just have to endure.

I'm pleased to report that I was totally wrong.

From the moment I stepped across the threshold of the retreat centre, I could tell it was going to be a great experience. There was just a vibe, a sort of serene excitement (if that makes any sense) that filled the air.

It was a non-residential retreat, meaning that you got to go home at night. The retreat was led by Sharda Rogell from the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. She's a very good teacher and meditation leader. She was sensitive to the fact that there were many beginners in the room, so she broke up the sessions into digestible chunks.

The routine for the two days was a cycle of activities broken into roughly half-hour chunks: sitting meditation, walking meditation, dharma talks, discussions and interactive exercises.

Sitting meditation can be very mentally painful because you are constantly battling the contending forces of overactive thoughts and sleepiness. Yet I was amazed how much progress I made even after one day and, by the second day, I actually found myself looking forward to the sitting sessions.

When it came to the dharma talks, Sharda initially showed a great talent for explaining complex Buddhist concepts in simple, practical terms. Unfortunately, she eventually fell prey to that sickness that seems to afflict most Buddhist teachers: excessive use of Pali, the dead language in which the Buddhist scriptures were written. It frankly pisses me off when people put on airs by using an obscure foreign word to describe a concept that could just as easily be expressed in plain English. For example, many of the talks focused on the nature of "dukkha" which means suffering - and that's all it means; there is no other nuance to the word, so why not just say "suffering"? I found this to be a distraction but I got over it.

Another flaw in Sharda's approach is that she's a big-time feminist and continually injects that agenda into dharma discussions. I found that uncomfortable and frankly inappropriate. As it is, North American Buddhism attracts more females than males by a 3-to-1 margin, so statements like "we need to emphasize the feminine aspect more in our spirtuality" are kind of goofy in that context, if you ask me.

Another distraction was that many retreatants seemed to have, um, emotional issues of one sort or another: recently divorced, struggling with past abuse issues, dealing with death, illness or loss of some sort. These people were using the retreat as an alternative to therapy, which is perfectly fine except it wasn't what I'd signed up for. I've heard that some retreats stream fucked-up and non-fucked-up retreatants into different sessions; I can definitely see the value of such a practice. I was interested in focusing on mental discipline and discussing Buddist concepts, but it was hard to do that when the Q&A sessions were continually dominated by people blubbering about their troubles. (As you can see, my compassion still needs some work.)

But all of these are really minor quibbles. All in all, it was a tremendous experience. I came out of it feeling almost supernaturally cleansed and strengthened. Where I had previously dreaded the idea of a retreat, I'm now eagerly looking forward to doing it at least once or twice a year.

So I highly recommend it.

The Ricochet Effect

2008-09-23T10:14:00.004-06:00

I thought I'd carry on with the election theme a bit by sharing some of my insider views of various election strategies. They say that politics, like sausages, is something one should never watch being made. I'm hoping that, by exposing a bit of the sausage works, people can make more informed dietary choices, shall we say.

There is a very clever political tactic that has been around a good long time but has found renewed subtlety and effectiveness in recent times. I like to call it the Ricochet Effect, although I'm sure other spin doctors have fancier names for it.

The idea of it is that, in order to draw off your opponent's fire, you set up an irresistibly distracting target that is heavily shielded but effectively meaningless. Not only will your opponent waste a bunch of ammunition shooting at the pointless target but some of his own bullets will bounce back and injure him.

In Canadian politics, the left employed this tactic for ages and ages through an election tactic that even won its own nickname: Medi-Scare. For decades like clockwork in every federal and provincial election the Liberals and NDP would put out ads saying "if the Conservatives get in, they will destroy our cherished Canadian Medicare system." The Conservatives, who can often be the biggest suckers in the world, would dutifully trot out and say "no, no, we would never do that. We love Medicare. In fact, we'd make it better." But their loud protests would only make voters more suspicious and in any case this would distract the Tories from talking about the things they wanted to talk about.

In the current US and Canadian elections, this tactic has become much more subtle, but the shoe is on the other foot. Now its the left mindlessly firing shots at pointless targets while the right remains calmly disciplined.

In the US, its the Democrats completely unbalanced reaction to Sarah Palin. I'm not a big fan of hers either but, really, the partisan attacks on her have been over the top. The preposterous implication in many of the attacks is that somehow Sarah Palin isn't really a woman and her candidacy is not really a victory for women's rights because she's not a Democrat. This rather obvious hypocrisy will sit poorly with non-partisan voters and that's exactly what the Republicans are counting on. In any case, the more press time Palin gets - good or bad - the more it serves to shift the focus and drain the celebrity status from Obama. My advice to US Democrats: quit taking the bait, ya big sillies. Stop talking about Palin.

In Canada, Conservative Stephen Harper, ever the brilliant strategian, has come up with an even subtler way to use the Ricochet Effect. Despite NDP accusations that the Tories are "the party of big business", the Tories for years have been making a concerted effort to reposition themselves as The Party of the Middle Class. If they succeed, this will ensure them long tenures in government for decades to come. They will, as the Canadian catch phrase goes, become the new "natural governing party", if they can get a broad enough swath of the middle class committed to voting for them.

They already have much of the middle class under their tent. In this campaign, they are making a special effort to rope in blue-collar middle class voters. To this end they've constructed a stalking horse around arts funding. The Tories haven't actually cut arts funding on a net basis, but they made a point of cutting funding to some specific programs regarded as sacred cows by the arts community with the conscious intent of making the artie types angry.

Now, you see, the arts community is full of nothing but lefties who are never going to vote for the Tories anyway, so it costs the Tories nothing to alienate them. On the other hand, the Tories' blue-collar target voters are people whose ideas of culture probably begin and end with professional wrestling and country music and who have a philistine cynicism about their tax dollars being spent on ballet and obscure Quebecois art films.

The NDP, the Liberals and the Bloc have all whipped themselves into a lather about "arts cuts", to the point of staging public protests about them. Despite being skilled politicians themselves, these partisans appear blissfully unaware that they are playing precisely into the Tories strategy - a strategy which arch Tory backroom boy Doug Finley actually described in detail for the Globe and Mail some weeks back. Every time Joe Steelworker sees on TV a bunch of hippies and college professors screaming about arts cuts, he starts to think more seriously about voting Tory for perhaps the first time in his life.

Wee-chew! Wee-chew! "Aaagh, my foot!"

So, as the old saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. I guess my overall advice to voters is: Ignore distractions. Any cause celebre raised in the midst of a campaign is likely to be bullshit, so just tune it out and try to focus on the issues that mean something to you.

Lies, lies, lies

2008-09-15T22:34:00.006-06:00

It's election time in both Canada and the US this fall. I've worked in that business, still do a little bit and, when I'm being strictly honest with myself, there are still some moments when I enjoy the electoral process.

But, most of the time, I'm just really tired of it. It's the lies that get to me. I hope I'm not shocking anyone, but there is quite a bit of untruth floating about during elections. Not just the lies, though. The hatefulness too. That really gets to me.

I just wish the voters weren't such suckers for it. Because that's why political parties do it, you know. They do it because it works. Most political hacks, in my experience, are ex-debate club geeks who, if they had their druthers, would rather win debates through deft skill at rhetoric, logic and argument. But nobody pays attention to that shit, so the propaganda writers have to use whatever blunt clubs they have available.

And, you know, none of them are any better or worse than the other. Don't kid yourself. If you think one guy is the devil and another guy is a saint, you think that way because you've allowed yourself to be programmed. Some propaganda craftsman somewhere many months or even years ago put together a power-point show describing how his crew was going to drive the voters perceptions. So congratulations for being a sucker. Sorry to be so harsh, but that's the truth of it.

There are no white knights. There are no devils. Just a bunch of monkeys who will never be quite as clever as they think they are.

The Futility of All Human Endeavour, my favourite Threepenny Opera tune, although I prefer the translation that goes:

For the task assigned them
Men aren't smart enough or sly
Any rogue can blind them
With a clever lie.

On that cheery note, please do get out and vote, no matter what your political leanings. As ugly as electoral politics is, it's still better than the alternatives.

Movie Review: Hamlet 2

2008-09-04T12:16:00.006-06:00

I was quite disappointed with this film. I fully expected from the trailers that it would be a hilarious if vulgar comedy. It turned out to have all the qualities of one of those Saturday Night Live sketches that goes on too long. At an hour and a half long, this movie was pretty much exactly one hour too long.

The premise, I expect, is well known: a high school drama department, facing extinction, makes a last ditch effort to gain an audience by staging a campy, offensive, outrageous musical sequel to Hamlet - quite a trick considering that almost all of the characters are dead by the end of the first play.

The sequel, which involves Hamlet stealing Albert Einstein's time machine and recruiting Jesus Christ and Hillary Clinton to help him prevent all the tragic events of the first play, is in fact very funny. I still have the centrepiece tune, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus", stuck in my head. ("Immaculate conception really makes my day; But the dude's got lats that make me feel gay.") I would pay big money Broadway ticket prices to see a full length version of the play.

Unfortunately, the movie spends only the last half-hour on the play itself. The remainder of the film is spent on the build-up - a tiresome, cliche-ridden classroom drama so boring as to defy description.

In the first 2/3 of the movie, I smiled (not laughed, smiled) only twice. The first time was when the main character, a pretentious frustrated actor cum drama teacher (Steve Coogan) faced down his arch nemesis, the theatre critic - a 12 year old boy who writes reviews for the school newspaper.

The second time was when the movie reached that ever-so-predictable crossroads common to all classroom dramas: the teacher, facing backlash at home and from the community, is about to give up but the students step up to assure him that he is needed and has changed their lives; as cliched as that scene was, I loved how the students described the teacher's accomplishment: "You showed us that it doesn't matter how much talent we lack, as long as we have enthusiasm!"

But that's it. That's all the funnies for the first hour. Director Andrew Fleming seems to have thought that endless scenes of Coogan flailing about on rollerskates and generally acting awkward were somehow uproariously funny, but they really aren't

My advice: wait until this comes out on DVD, then scene-select to the beginning of the play. You won't miss a thing.

Dear Dalai Lama...

2008-09-02T10:29:00.004-06:00

How's it going? Did you catch any of the Olympics? How about that women's beach volleyball, eh? I see Tibet didn't enter a team for that, probably due to the absence of beaches or shoreline of any description in Tibet, as well as the lack of political independence to enter their own teams.

Which brings me to my main point. As you know, I am increasingly supportive of your efforts to secure freedom from those nasty stinkin' commies. Over the weekend, I had a brainstorm about how you could achieve this in a completely non-violent manner.

It all revolves around the fact that, within Tibetan society, you are the legal reincarnation of every previous Dalai Lama. Now, I'm not going to get into any sort of philosophical argument about literal vs. figurative interpretations of the concept of reincarnation within Buddhism. What matters is by law the Dalai Lama is the legal heir to all previous Dalai Lama.

So here's how the plan goes:

1. Deposit $1,000 in a Swiss bank account.
2. Wait 200 years (approx. 3 lifetimes)
3. Use the accumulated compound interest to buy China.

Won't they have egg on their face!

Now, of course, there are potential pitfalls. There could be a catastrophic banking failure. Switzerland could get invaded. But it's not as though you are snoozing this whole time; in theory, you'll be on the job monitoring the plan the whole time except for a few of those interregnum years.

So, there's the plan. I urge you to get on it right away. For someone like you, 200 years probably goes by pretty quick. Remember that time you wanted to go meet Napoleon but you kept putting it off? I bet you wish you hadn't procrastinated now, eh?

Anyway, no need to thank me. I send this along just for the good karma.

Keep well.

Your friend,
Mentok the Mindtaker

So You Think You Can High Jump?

2008-08-18T12:00:00.003-06:00

Long-time readers will remember that I hate the Olympics, which I regard as the biggest, phoniest waste of time and money on the planet. And this Olympics is certainly no different.

I'm not even going to get into the whole insanity China being chosen as the host and then consistently breaking every promise they made to win the bid. If they caught an athlete behaving like that, he'd be banned from all future competition.

No, my big beef this time around is the constant bitching and moaning that people in small countries like Canada go through about not winning enough medals. Former Canadian medalist Silken Laumann leveled a stinging rebuke at the whole country for not really having a sports culture. The open line shows have been full of people mulling over "superior" systems in other countries that stream elite athletes into special schools that accommodate their training schedules and such.

Man, what a bunch of bullshit. You know, my kid is a talented dancer, yet neither the government nor private sponsors pay for his dance lessons and there are no special elite dance schools that accommodate his rehearsals.

Maybe that's why Canada has done so poorly on So You Think You Can Dance. No Canadian has even finished in the top ten of So You Think You Can Dance. Good heavens, how shall we ever deal with such humiliation? It's a national disgrace, I tell ya.

Sure, the Canadian government puts a few dollars into ballet, but where is the funding for hip-hop, funk and tap? Until this country gets serious about developing a dance culture, we can't expect to do any better on So You Think You Can Dance.

Yeah, I'm kidding of course. If anything, we need to rejig our education system to produce more engineers, not more jocks.

And, really, at the end of the day is the Olympics anything more than another sort of reality show? Try sticking "So You Think You Can..." in front of those events ("So You Think You Can Kayak" for example). Without the Olympic brand, the vast majority of those events are either very silly or crushingly dull.

Frackin' Microsoft!

2008-08-13T16:02:00.003-06:00

I had my computer at work crash on me. I thought it was going to be a simple procedure because the hard drive is fine, just the motherboard was fried. I thought I could just go out and pick up a new unit on the boss's dime, swap out the drive and be back in business.

Ha! Forty-eight hours later, I'm still recovering thanks to the evil twisted genius of Bill Gates.

First of all, my old XP operating system apparently only works on the computer it came with. Because poor old Microsoft might go broke otherwise, you know.

So I was forced to upgrade to the copy of Vista that came with my new system.

Now, you tell me: if you're a maker of computer operating systems and you are putting out a supposedly new and improved version of your old system, what is the number one most essential thing you would want to cover off?

You'd want to make sure your new OS was easily compatible with your users' old OS right? You'd want the upgrade process to be as painless as possible for them, right?

Well, Microsoft is much smarter than that. They figured out that computer users are much, much, much more concerned with online security than with ease of use, so they created a zillion devious systems to prevent "unauthorized" copying from other computers. Even your own.

The long and short is that Vista persistently refused to let me copy files from my old hard drive to my new one. It took me 24 hours, literally pausing only to sleep and eat, to dope out a solution, no thanks, of course, to Microsoft online support which was, as always, perfectly useless.

My advice: don't bother upgrading to Vista for at least another year. Give those morons at Microsoft time to work out those bugs that should have been handled in beta testing.

That's my boy

2008-08-13T14:14:00.005-06:00

Ignore the short-skirted bridesmaids. For that matter, ignore the short-skirted groomsman.

Notice the looks of sheer astonishment on everyone's faces as my little dancing machine does his patented wedding-dance break-dance routine.

Movie Reviews: Mama Mia

2008-08-05T12:30:00.001-06:00

20.

That's how many guys there were in a sold-out theatre for a screening of Mama Mia. I know; I counted them as they came in. To a few who passed by me, I quipped "Bet you'd rather be at Batman, eh?" But they just shuffled by, silent, ashen-faced and fearful, dragged along by their dates like spirits being hauled off to some Hellenic Hades.

The estrogen level in the room was as thick as Beijing smog. I thought I was going to start menstruating by osmosis at any moment.

So please excuse my crude language, but for the sake of catharsis I must say that Amanda Seyfried has fabulous titties and that my favourite scene was the one where two middle-aged guys are molested by a pack of drunken twenty-something chicks at a bachelorette party.

Of course, I was there with Library Mama on a date night, but I probably would have seen the movie eventually (maybe on video.) Okay, brace yourself, sports fans: I have a little bit of a secret, kitschy affection for some ABBA tunes. I consider it a vice. Don't judge me, damn you!

I had been to the Mama Mia stage show with Library Mama and had entirely enjoyed it as fluffy entertainment. True, it had a wafer-thin plot that would have been at home in a small-time dinner theatre and the dialogue was corny, but that didn't matter because the plot of the stage show was meant simply as a series of premises to deliver the songs. To that end, the stage show hired singers and dancers, not actors. Besides, in stage productions you expect a certain level of theatricality. It was a tribute show with production values, and that's all it ever tried to be.

The reasons that the stage version succeeded are the same reasons the movie version of Mama Mia largely fails, even as fluffy entertainment. The verisimilitude of cinema forces us to focus on the plot which in this case doesn't stand up to close inspection. Plus, unlike Hairspray, the dance numbers are completely boring because most of the lead cast can't dance a lick.

Worst of all, for some insane reason director Phyllida Lloyd insisted on an all-star cast and insisted on making them all sing their own parts. I might be inclined to watch Meryl Streep do karaoke on YouTube, but I'm not especially happy about paying $8 to do so.

This was especially painful in one scene where Pierce Brosnan serenades Streep with SOS. The effect was thoroughly emasculating. I couldn't help but think "Jezuz, buddy, you used to be James Bond!"

At some points, the movie managed to push those painful moments into the zone of campy self-parody. Unfortunately, those moments were too few for my liking.

Some people - especially Library Mama - will get their backs up that I'm being too harsh on this film for 'guy' reasons. Not true. I like musicals. I like some ABBA music. My favourite TV show used to Gilmore Girls, so obviously I have a high tolerance for chick shows.

I didn't like this movie because it stunk. It wasn't a failure as an action movie. It wasn't a failure as a thoughtful Oscar contender. It wasn't a failure as a Western or science fiction movie. It was a failure in its own category - as a fluffy musical. I'm not judging it by any other standard than its own.

Movie Reviews: The Dark Knight

2008-07-30T10:22:00.004-06:00

Peter Schaffer's ode of pantheism, Equus, describes how a boy committed his soul to the Horse God at a young age.

In just such a way, I committed my soul to the Bat God at a young age.

I was born in the midst of the first Batman craze. My older brother, given the privilege of choosing my middle name, selected a Batman-oriented one. My earliest memory is watching the TV show. Much of my pre-school childhood was spent dressed in a home-made Batman costume (thanks Mom) and some of my happiest times as a child were spent playing Batman and Robin with my brother and an old-school cardboard box-and-tin-can Batmobile. I continued to read Batman comics up until just a few years ago and I still collect Batman paraphernalia.

So, when I tell you that The Dark Knight is the single most superb achievement in the history of Batman film adaptation, you must not view this simply as some ordinary opinion but rather as the voice of absolute authority beyond any contradiction or qualification.

It is beautiful. It is everything that the character and the legend has ever meant to me. It is even better than Batman Begins, and that is a very high bar.

The film successfully conveys the character's loneliness and the sheer quixotic hopelessness of the struggle he has taken on. He already has his revenge yet some sense of duty he can't even express drives him to continue to risk his life and sacrifice any chance of happiness to fight a battle he knows he will never win.

The film has two achievements for which I'm particularly grateful:

The Joker - as a fan, I've always hated the Joker. I view other villains as merely amusing plot devices, but I hate the Joker. Those of us who are really invested in the legend have always seen the popular interpretation of the character - as a cartoonish bank robber - as a sickening whitewash of an utterly evil sociopathic killer. Frankly, I don't even own much Joker paraphernalia because the very sight of the character gives me the creeps. This movie, finally - finally, finally - showed that side of this classic villain.

Some Batman fans will quibble that Nolan's Joker merely wears makeup instead of having permanently stained skin. However, I think that the whole stained skin business would have detracted from Nolan's carefully-crafted verisimilitude while the sloppy makeup and greasy hair amplified the character's psychotic loathsomeness.

Two-Face - finally, a Two-Face origin that makes sense! The comic book origin (a mobster on trial throws acid in Dent's face, which somehow causes him to snap) never rang true to me. Here at last we have the events constructed so that you can actually believe that Dent would lose his mind - not over his disfigurement, but because of the other losses he suffers. So much the better that Dent's descent is planned by the Joker, which helps "elevate" this movie's version of Joker to the same sort of evil genius as Jigsaw in the Saw movies.

I could carry on at length about everything I loved about the movie. There were flaws, for sure. As in Batman Begins, the vehicular chase scenes were excessive and unbelievable. I suppose they had to throw the ADD action movie crowd a bone somewhere. If you filter those scenes out, the plot and dialogue of the movie are quite subtle. It's a serious movie that will never be taken seriously. For my part, I plan to see it at least four or five more times.

If you only see one Batman movie in your whole life, this is the one to see.

What I did on my summer vacation, Part II

2008-07-28T12:27:00.003-06:00

After half a continent of driving and a brief, unscheduled lay-over on Vancouver Island, we finally made it to our destination on Saltspring Island, 29 km X 14 km, population 10,000.

The word "enchanted" often comes up when talking about Saltspring. It is a place that seems oddly disconnected from the real world. The island is a magnet for hippies, artists, organic farmers, dreamers and mid-life crisis types trying to reinvent themselves. On top of that, there's a smattering of yacht-club types, retirees and some people who are just plain filthy rich.

The crazy blend of character types gives the place one of the most unique and colourful local cultures anywhere in North America, in my experience. Some of my observations :

- On the whole island, there was not one, single, solitary chain or franchise restaurant. Not one. No McD's, no Dairy Queen, no Subway, no Keg, no White Spot. In fact, I counted no more than 10 chains or franchises of any sort, and that included some very prosaic examples like a bank and a hardware store. It was as though the island had declared independence from North America's economic empires.

- Despite the big communal culture of the place, public services - especially public recreation services - were astonishingly poor. The things they called public beaches weren't true public institutions but just little strips of unclaimed land maintained (half-assedly) by volunteers, not by any local government.

- Besides hippies, deer are the dominant life form on the island. They have no predators there, so they have no fear and wander about at will... the deer, that is, although I suppose those observations apply equally to the hippies.

- A big chunk of the local economy runs on honest john boxes. No, really.

- If I never see the word "organic" again, it will be too soon.

Coming from the wide open prairies, I felt oddly comforted by the womb-like limitations of the place. In half an hour you could get from one end of the island to the other; that was your whole world and all variables could be known.

But since this place is still home to a bunch of hairless apes, there were also downsides. I got a big dose of all of the island's negatives just before I got on the ferry to leave. For my ferry-crossing snack, I revisited a vegan restaurant that makes the most incredible sandwiches I've ever tasted. I got chatting with the proprietress, a cheerful Quebecois woman, and suggested that her recipes were so great that she should think about franchising. Her mood immediately went sour.

"Yeah, well, that was the original idea."

She proceeded to tell me how Saltspring has the highest per capita population of millionaires, including a very elite group of 100 who each have net worths exceeding $300 million.

"They all belong to a club and they all, you know, play together," she said suggestively.

She didn't get into a lot of details, but I got the picture that she had come out to the island seven years ago with some recipes and some funky cafe design ideas with the hopes of wowing some deep-pocketed patron who would help her finance a franchise empire. Sadly, her plan had failed and she was quite bitter about it.

"Saltspring is a strange place. BC is a strange place. Except for Vancouver, BC has the rudest people in Canada... very British and Irish, you know."

On the ferry ride back, I felt very sad for her. Yet, I was also glad I'd heard that story. First, it assured me that, yes, hippy types can be greedy and ambitious too. Second and more important, it helped shatter some of my idyllic notions of the island which has helped me miss it less.

But then, as time went on, I started to get pissed off about her attitude. Yes, failed business venture, very sad. But exactly where does a Quebecoise get off calling other people "rude"? My experience with people all through BC was completely opposite to what she suggested. On the other hand, I've been to Quebec many times - both in urban and rural areas - and I can assure you that "friendly" is the last word anyone would ever use to describe the Quebecois. Hell, "cheerful" usually seems way too much to expect from them. So perhaps Organic Girl (as my kids have since dubbed her) should have looked in the mirror for the source of her negative experience.

Anyway, that was our trip. This is getting long winded, so I'll leave out the whole happy episode where we almost literally bumped into a long-lost friend at the farmers' market. I'll also leave out the drive back, which was grueling and featured some of the worst mountain driving I've yet encountered. We made it back just in time to get to the wedding of one of my best friends. It was a lot packed into two weeks. Consequently, it seemed like much longer. We all felt like we'd been away a month. We certainly got our money's worth out of that trip.

What I did on my summer vacation, Part I

2008-07-14T23:51:00.008-06:00

All I wanted was to swim in the ocean. You see, I live way, way inland, about as far from any ocean as you can get. So my simple holiday dream was to taste salt water and see an expanse of blue stretching to infinity.

I didn't get that so much. But what I did get was a multi-faceted, thoroughly enriching vacation experience that I think easily counts as our family's best vacation ever.

Things seemed to come in twos: Two holiday hotspots; two major Canadian cities; two sets of mountain ranges; two major bodies of water; two vineyards; two cheese farms; and two old friends with whom we connected in two very different ways.

Yada, Yada, Yada

Let me gloss over the boring stuff. We crossed the Rockies and stopped at our favourite vacation spot, Kelowna, BC, on the shores of Lake Okanagan (if you're keeping count, that's one mountain range, one vacation hotspot and one body of water.) We took in Canada Day festivities which were positively Mardi Gras-like. Loadsa fun.

From there, we crossed the Columbia Mountain range. As a flatlander, I'd never previously realized that different mountain ranges have different characters. I've driven across the Rockies many times and I sort of assumed all mountains are craggy, cold and scary. Not so. The vegetation, the driving conditions, the whole vibe of the Columbia mountains was totally different from the Rockies.

My Dinner With Fil

Now for the part you all want to hear about: my evening with Fil. I have been friends with Mr. Pogoagogo for 18 months now and, in terms of the electronic parts of our lives, we've been through a fair bit together. We had made plans to meet as my family and I passed through Vancouver.

I have to admit I was a little apprehensive. There are all sorts of ways that e-relationships can go south. Lots of people use their e-dentities to reinvent themselves or to play other agendas, so you never really know. There's an old axiom in the theory of knowledge: Q - how do you know for sure that a bridge is safe to cross? A - After you've crossed it; before then you're just guessing. I thought about that as I drove over the Port Mann bridge into Vancouver.

As it turned out, all such fears were unfounded. I'm pleased to report that meester Fil is every inch the gentleman he seems online and I am prouder than ever to call him my friend.

We spent a perfectly delightful evening eating pizza on the beach, watching our kids play and chatting (in only the best terms) about blog friends. We carried on back at Fil's house, talking over wine and port until late into the night ... far too late, I fear, given that the next day was a work day for Fil.

One of the nicest surprises of the visit was meeting the fascinating Mrs. Pogoagogo. She could easily be a colourful blogger in her own right if she ever took a notion to do so. Hell, all Fil has to do is set up a hidden microphone in the house; she's so witty I'd pay money to subscribe to that podcast.

It was also interesting to compare and contrast the family histories of the Pogoagogos and the Mentoks. Library Mama and I both come from pioneer stock. Our families have each been around this corner of the world for about five generations. There's a small lake named after my family, stemming from the days of the province's earliest settlement. The Pogoagogos, on the other hand, seem like regular folk, but when you get them talking it turns out that their families have been fabulous citizens of the world with no firm nationality to speak of. I dunno, I find that just kinda neat to think about.

Well, that's enough for today. Next up: the wild and wacky land of Saltspring Island.

You have reached the mailbox of Mentok the Mindtaker...

2008-06-25T11:23:00.002-06:00

I'm on vacation for the next coupla weeks. I will be at a hill-top cabin that has no internet, poor cell phone reception and a hot-tub view of the ocean.

I'll be back mid-July. I'll try to get this site back into gear then.

In the meantime, have a great summer everybody.

Nothing Worse Than a Poser

2008-06-15T08:44:00.005-06:00

The Bernier-Couillard affair may have left some people in foreign countries with the misapprehension that Canada has become cool all of a sudden. As if to quell such loose talk, Canadians recently got themselves in a lather over the threatened demise of the Hockey Night in Canada theme.

In a nutshell, for you foreigners: CBC TV has used the same jingle for 40 years to introduce NHL broadcasts. The tune has become so ingrained in the Canadian mind that it has been called "the second national anthem."

Being an incompetent government-owned agency, the CBC recently lost control of the rights to the music. Fortunately, private sector broadcaster CTV stepped in to "save the theme for Canada."

Which all puts me in mind to this great old travel story of mine....

Back in the day, I took a year off of college to do the old backpacking through Europe bit. One of the great joys of backpacking is the easy camaraderie of the road. To that end, I had a suite of standard ice-breakers I used whenever I met a fellow traveller. For my fellow Canadian backpackers, I challenged them to a set of Canadian pop-culture trivia questions.

My journey ended up in the beach village of Pelekas on the island of Corfu. The place was a bacchanalian paradise of sun, parties and half-naked women that glows in my memory still.

One day, a visitor arrived at Pelekas who I immediately dubbed "Joe Canada." All Canadians publicize their nationality when travelling (so as not to be mistaken for Americans), but this guy was over the top: a huge flag on his pack plus a maple leaf t-shirt and maple leaf shorts. I tried to connect with him, but he seemed especially unsociable and even seemed to be dodging me.

I immediately suspected he was a poser. American backpackers often put a maple leaf on their packs to avoid hassles, but these types are usually just posing for the locals and typically don't lie to their fellow backpackers about their real nationality. Joe, however, had told me and others that he was from Toronto.

Finally, one night Joe and I ended up on neighbouring barstools at a club. We were both choking down Ouzo-Sprites, the village's abominable signature cocktail favoured by the village's mainly British clientele. Then, in an Indiana Jones-like moment, I spotted a dust-encrusted bottle of Canadian Club way at the back of the bar's liquor shelf.

"Joe, lookit, they have rye!" I exclaimed.

"Ah, you go ahead. I hate rye," he sneered.

"Hate"? "Rye"? I had never heard a Canadian male speak such words before. Yes, to some Canadian males, rye is not their favourite but to actively hate it? Now I really had to test him.

"Hey, Joe, there's a question that's been bugging me that I've asked every Canadian I've met on the road but none could answer. You remember the kids show, the Friendly Giant? Can you tell me what was the third chair on the Friendly Giant intro?"

The Friendly Giant was a pre-schoolers show in Canada that ran for about 30 years. Think of a cross between Captain Kangaroo and Barney then mix in a jazz jam session and you're sort of in the ballpark.

"Oh, don't ask me," said Joe. "When I was a kid I was more into Gilligan's Island."

Hmm. A strange answer, since the shows were apples and oranges - one a prime-time sitcom, the other a daytime children's show. I decided to unload the big guns.

"Hey, Joe, ya know what? I've got this sure-fire way of smoking out every Canadian in the club. All we have to do is sing the tune to Hockey Night in Canada at the top of our lungs and they'll all come over to visit. Wanna try it?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah," he said. "I can just see the tune rolling past me there on CTV. Can you start me off?"

Busted. Hockey Night in Canada is a CBC show. And no Canadian - not one, not even a small child - needs someone to start them off on the tune. But just for shits and giggles I decided to play along.

"OK... Dunt da dunt da dunt..."

He proceeded to fake this half-assed tune that sounded like a cross between the themes to Maverick and General Hospital. It was pretty sad.

He bolted and I didn't see him much after that. He never did admit to my face that he was a lying poser but he did start wearing regular clothes.

She has great ... tracts of land!

2008-05-28T10:42:00.002-06:00

Some classic found comedy. For real, a picture of Canadian PM Harper discussing the Bernier-Couillard affair at a press conference:

Har!

Circus Boors

2008-05-26T17:08:00.010-06:00

The Romans pioneered the theory of governance that all you need to keep the common rabble happy is bread and circuses.

This past weekend I saw three circuses - or reasonable facsimiles thereof - so I'm pretty happy, except for having to deal with all the common rabble.

The best show of the weekend for me was Friday's performance of my son's dance troupe, but that's probably my proud-papa bias talking. The performance was on a theme of "Clowns and Gypsies". It was, therefore, a parody of a circus, which is a bit tough to do considering that circuses are already pretty big self-parodies these days. The professional, adult members of sonny-boy's troupe wound up the show with a moonlit flame-dancing act which I'm sure would wow any crowd anywhere in the world.

So far, so good. The dance performances were at a local arts festival, so we were dealing with arty types. Other than tolerating a few hippies and such, there was no down side to the event.

Next, we headed out of town Saturday to catch Walking With the Dinosaurs. It really is the definition of "fun for all ages". Educational, spectacular.... what's not to like about life-sized robot/puppet/mascot dinosaurs?

Well, I can tell you one thing that's not to like: some of the idiots who go to such shows. They made two separate announcements: "No flash photography". The first time, they tried to be nice and make a joke about it: "It might alarm the dinosaurs, which could have terrible consequences." The second time, they were blunt about it: "For the comfort and enjoyment of other patrons... "

Absolutely nobody listened. I had to shield my eyes from the non-stop blaze of camera flashes from beginning to end.

I did my bit to cow the people sitting within earshot of us.

"After 30 years of stand-up comedians mocking them, you'd think people with cameras at stadium events would get it. Flashes don't work much further than six feet in front of you!"

I complained to an usher and asked why more wasn't being done to enforce the rule.

"We tried the first night, but people just got surly and said 'why aren't you stopping that guy over there?' As it is, it's all we can do to keep people from taking video, which legally is our first responsibility," she said.

Oh well. Other than that, it was a well-mannered mob that cheered and clapped loudly at all the right parts and wasn't too pushy to leave when the show was over.

Not so much can be said about the crowd on Sunday, when we went to the Shrine Circus.

First, a funny aside. Outside the circus was the usual crew of animal rights protesters; probably much the same people as were at the arts festival on Friday. In the past, they protested the wild animal acts and I supported that, especially with regards to the elephant acts, which were never anything but a demonstration of human cruelty.

This year, they kicked up their protests a notch. Now, they're not only against wild animal shows but also domesticated animal shows i.e. horses and dogs. OK, that's getting ridiculous. And, as if to underline the ridiculousness, one of the protesters brought his dog along. I suppose he thought it looked poignant but then objectivity has never been a strong suit of the self-righteous.

The circus itself was an unexpected delight. One of the breathless demands of the protesters was that circuses reorient themselves to human acrobatic acts. I don't think they are aware (or care to become aware) that many circuses are doing just that. Even this dinky little one-ring show had some acrobatics that were almost literally heart-stopping. I joined my kids in covering my eyes sometimes when the stunts became just too scary to watch.

But then there's the audience...

Needless to say, the average class of person who picks up a $5 Shriners ticket is going to be a few notches below those who buy a $50 Walking With the Dinosaurs ticket. Few members of the audience seemed to, um, have much experience with live theatre, shall we say.

The second - and I mean the very millisecond - that the ringmaster brought the performers out for the final ovation, over half the audience lept to their feet and rushed for the door. I felt so sorry for the performers, standing there bravely smiling and waving as these boors brushed past them without so much as acknowledging their existence.

My wife, the teacher, wasn't surprised: "That's just the way people are these days. No one thinks the rules apply to them anymore. Common courtesy is becoming rare."

But I live in hope. I remember in the 1980s that the boorish practice of talking out loud in movie theatres was much more common than it is now. Two decades of concerted effort by theatres and society at large has sharply reduced that, at least in my neck of the woods. We are still social animals and I remain convinced that peer pressure will eventually reestablish some level of civility.

What do you think?

King of the Plot Wheel

2008-05-22T12:46:00.004-06:00

If all you ever read of Shakespeare was the plays they teach in high school, you would never have any trouble accepting the assertion that he was an unparalleled genius of the English language.

On the other hand, if you ever took a notion (as I did one summer as a teen) to sit down with one of those thick black Complete Works of Shakespeare collections, you could easily be excused if you were tempted to think that maybe the Bard was just a moderately talented hack who fluked his way into a handful of masterpieces.

Stephen King is no Shakespeare, but he is underrated. His mastery of language and his evocative, sympathetic descriptions of the best aspects of our flawed human nature puts him several notches above some of those other, forgettable novel-writing machines like Grisham or Crichton. Still, literary critics have always sneered long sneers at King, in part because he works in a rather déclassé genre but probably mostly because he is popular. I'm sure, when King's name comes up at hoighty-toighty literary parties, the word "plebian" gets tossed around quite a bit, accompanied no doubt by much snickering laughter.

This is all rather unfair but I think history will sort it all out. There are a few - not many, but a few - of King's works that I think will live on as, shall we say, middle-level classics. I can easily imagine The Stand, for example, sitting alongside Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird in high school English curricula in the not-too-distant future.

And yet, for all that, King is still a hack, just like Shakespeare was.

King himself has talked in interviews about the legends of plot wheels. Reading Duma Key, I really wondered if King used such a device himself. [spoiler warning - although most of the info below is on the cover jacket].

"Main character is a (spin character wheel) construction contractor who (spin event wheel) is in an accident so he moves to (spin location wheel) Florida where he starts to (spin character development wheel) paint and discovers he can (spin plot complication wheel) see the future and he encounters (spin improbable monster wheel) a giant frog. Giant frog? Oh, what the hell. Let's just see where it goes."

A few more character-wheel spins to get the supporting cast and, baboom, ready-made novel, just fill in the blanks.

As I got deeper into the book, I found myself almost unconsciously cataloging all the gimmicks King was reusing. Plot elements from The Dead Zone; concepts from It; imagery from The Shining. Just like that Falstaff / Belch character who keeps popping up in Shakespeare, it seems as though King has a few arrows in his quiver he likes to use over and over again.

Overall, I really wish King would just get out of the horror business. I found that I really enjoyed the underlying story in Duma Key - a previously practical man who uses art to rebuild his life after a terrible accident. I would have been happy to read a story just about that without the psychic powers, giant frogs, mythical monsters, vampires, zombies and all the rest of the gee-gaws he throws into this book.

Maybe he doesn't know how to do it. Maybe King doesn't know how to end a story without throwing in some sort of weird or fantastical element. I hope that's not the case because I think he's capable of more.

Talent Shows

2008-05-15T14:25:00.003-06:00

I recently attended a business seminar about the changing workforce. Labour shortages, much younger and less experienced workforce, clash of cultures, yada yada. The presenter noted that old Boomer / Gen X employers might have difficulty dealing with the egalitarian attitudes of the so-called Gen Y workers. Gen Y, after all, is the "special" generation: from birth they have been drilled on the mantra that everyone is special, everyone's talents are equally valued and, at the end of the game, everybody gets a trophy for participating.

I saw a particularly painful example of this at my kids' school's annual talent night. It was an inclusive, unauditioned "talent" show that lasted two and a half hours. Fortunately, I had a good excuse not to stay until the end, but what I saw and heard about afterwards was bad enough.

Here are my observations:

- all parents think their kids are extremely talented. That's our job. Objectively, though, it's not true. Today's parents need to get a better grip on reality. Building self-esteem is one thing; building self-delusion is quite another.

- all such shows should come with a violins warning. Amateur violin playing surely must be the music of hell.

- for the record, Tae Kwon Do routines are not a talent.

- air guitar is not a talent.

- if you have a girl in dance classes or such like, go out and rent Little Miss Sunshine. Watch it. Twice. Think about it.

- skipping rope to Hannah Montana music also is not a talent, especially if you're not good at skipping rope. Plus, if there's anything that could give amateur violins a run for their money as the official theme music of hell, it's Hannah Montana music.

- did I mention that air guitar is not a talent?

I could go on, but I'm sure I'm coming across as too much of a bitter killjoy as it is.

Comments?

Salt in the wound

2008-05-12T12:07:00.002-06:00

Used Tilley Donations
The Leader-Post
Published: Monday, May 12, 2008
The Art of Travel is accepting gently used Tilley clothing this week for donation to less-fortunate residents...

(emphasis mine)

Haven't these people suffered enough?

Iron Man

2008-05-05T09:28:00.005-06:00

Maybe it's due to my life-long affection for comic book culture, but I believe that you can tell a great deal about a civilization from its pop culture.

Way back when, in Film Studies class, they used to tell us that you could track the evolution of the Japanese mind through the Godzilla series. Unlike the American edit of the film (which just came across as campy), the original Japanese version of the first Godzilla film is said to be much more like Cloverfield in that it focused less on the action and violence, more on the shock and despair of the average people. All in all, Godzilla was a pretty transparent symbol of the Japanese nation's horror and humiliation at it's nuclear defeat in WWII. But as the series evolved, Godzilla became more like a superhero, protecting Japan from invaders, thereby symbolizing Japan's growing confidence and economic might.

So much for Godzilla.

On the weekend, my boys and I saw Iron Man. It struck me that there is a distinct trend going on in superhero movies these days. Instead of fighting criminals or terrorists as in the past, America's heroes are fighting evil versions of themselves: Spiderman vs. Venom; Hulk vs. The Abomination; Iron Man vs. Iron Monger.

Yes, there is a terrorism sub-plot in Iron Man, but (without giving anything away) it all turns out to be a smoke-and-mirrors distraction from the main plot.

The implication of these films is that America is a country that feels at war with itself. Certainly, there's lots on CNN to validate this. My sense, as a foreigner, is that the partisan divide has never been greater in the US. On top of that, you have the Democrats squabbling amongst themselves. So is it any wonder that Americans today connect with films about people battling their own demons?

As a foreigner, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's not so bad to see Americans involved in self-reflection because when Yanks are over-confident they are, well, hard to take, shall we say. On the other hand, there comes a point where self-reflection becomes unproductive navel-gazing.

The Tony Stark character in this movie goes through a similar transformation. Suffering from post-traumatic shock, decadent and self-indulgent, he starts his first few days back from captivity simply rejecting everything in his past life, hiding away, not caring.

But by and by he concludes that his purpose in life is to be a more people-focused superhero.

One last symbolic aspect of this movie stuck in my mind. Stark is a fundamentally lonely guy who has no real friends, only employees. I stand to be corrected, but I'm guessing Americans as a country feel a bit like that too.

Back when the British ran the world, they were arrogant bastards just like the Yanks, but they had (and still have) the benefit of family. They had children, obedient and rebellious, scattered all over the globe who, to this day, pay obeisance to some degree or another to the motherland.

America, on the other hand, has usually been content to live its national life in relative isolation, cultivating allies of convenience but not friends. That's too bad, really, and it's not what the times call for. As our Western world and way of life comes more and more under threat, our countries are going to have to treat one another more like blood-brothers. The Tony Stark character realizes this and makes a few feeble efforts at connecting to the people around him, with some success.

Well, enough pretentious over-analysis, eh? Anyone else have thoughts on the subject?

The Tables Have Turned

2008-04-21T09:10:00.004-06:00

Records, I'm told, are cool again.

So I am informed by my musically-inclined teenage son. As young men are wont to do, he occasionally hangs out with a group of other musically-inclined youths who, hilariously, refer to themselves as a "band", despite having no name, repertoire, rehearsal schedule or adequate equipment.

Lately, the "band" members seem to be on a grumpy-old-men style quest to out-retro each other. First, they reached a consensus that they would ditch their MP3 players and switch to portable CD players because MP3s are "anti-artist". Next, one of the gang lit on that tired, old, highly illogical refrain that the vinyl format is "way better." Doods, it's a chunk of plastic with scratches on it!

Anyway, now my son wants to listen to all my old LPs and no father in his right mind would pass on an opportunity to have his son regard his old junk as cool. So, this past weekend I hooked up my old turntable.

Let me take a moment to reinforce the old saw that you get what you pay for. Back in the 80s, when I went off to college, I wanted to distance myself from my parents' crappy old sound equipment and compete with my snooty older brother's system. I ended up blowing far more of my summer-job savings than I could really afford on a kick-ass, nothing-but-the-best system: Bang & Olufsen tuner, Technics turntable, Mission speakers, etc. Every piece of that system delivered high quality until it had to be retired; the Mission speakers are still in use. And even after more than a decade in cold storage, the turntable is in perfect working order.

Another surprise for me was the physical condition of my records. I've never claimed to be an audiophile and, back in the day, I remember often reproving myself for not looking after my records well enough. In the clouded lens of my memory, all my records were dirty, scratchy messes. Yet, this weekend my son and I pulled out one well-loved album after another and found them all to be in totally pristine condition.

Once we got everything hooked up, I had to give sonny boy a quick lesson on how to use the antique.

"Remember to use the Cue switch before moving the needle to the next track," I instructed.

"How can you tell the tracks?" he asked.

I blinked in astonishment until I realized he would have no frame of reference on even this simple matter. "Uh, they're separated by lighter, smooth areas on the record."

He peered at George Thorogood album we had loaded up. "Whoa, you mean they could only get six tracks on an album back then?"

"Um, then you flip it over and there's another six tracks."

"Double sided? Cool!"

Fine, whatever he wants to think. It's hard enough for fathers to connect to teenage boys, so I'm going to milk this schtick for all its worth. But really, seriously: records aren't cool. They're silly, in this day and age. MP3 players are cool and a million times more practical. Personally, I feel no desire to switch back to some obsolete technology.

What do you think?

This and That

2008-04-14T09:45:00.002-06:00

Well, that "Hypocrisy" business was fun, wasn't it? Makes me almost wish I had a politics blog going somewhere.

A couple of assorted notes from the weekend: first, for those of you who have been following along, I finally captured Rasputin the evil Russian squirrel. Except I have now renamed the creature: Katherine the Great, as in great with child; a pregnant female, as it turns out. We finally set out a big cage trap and had her snagged within a couple of hours.

Dealing with her afterwards was a poser. Ethically, I couldn't kill her or countenance her being killed, but squirrels are so fiercely territorial that, if released into the wild, they can find their way back to their home neighbourhood over great distances.

I finally opted to release her to the care of a teenager we know who is said to have an "interest" in wildlife. The nature of this interest sounds ominous but I opted to take a 'don't ask - don't tell' attitude to it. I only asked that the animal be treated in a humane manner, and left it at that.

***************

On another topic, I got a good laugh out of this story from the weekend papers:

"British physicist Peter Higgs said on Monday it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible -- as he first argued 40 years ago.
Higgs said he believes a particle named the "Higgs boson", which originates from the force, will be found when a vast particle collider at the CERN research centre on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year....
Scientists at the centre hope the process will produce clear signs of the boson, dubbed the "God particle" by some, to the displeasure of Higgs, an atheist."
Source: Reuters, April 7, 2008

No matter what your definition of irony, you have to find it ironic that an atheist could end up discovering an all-pervasive cosmic force that makes life possible. It's like a teetotaler discovering wine is good for you.

Hypocrisy

2008-04-09T10:00:00.002-06:00

I've been trying to think of something new to write - something happy and positive - but lately my mind has been too preoccupied by this news story.

Canadian readers will already be familiar with it. A brief summary for American readers: a recently uncovered tape from 1991 that shows a night of partying at a campaign headquarters also catches a future politician using that derogatory "f" word about gays and lesbians. This politician's opponents are, of course, calling for blood.

First, I have to declare a bias. The politician in question is a friend of mine and a former colleague, so I know him as a whole person and not just as a two-dimensional character on some grainy old tape.

I know that he's a guy who's is steadfastly loyal to his friends, moderate and compassionate in his policy views and an active community volunteer who has raised tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars for worthy causes over his life. I know that he is a diligent politician who makes probably ten times as much effort as most of his peers to keep in touch with his constituents. In fact, when people in other nearby constituencies can't get action from their own MP, they often turn to Tom, who always tries to help no matter what the situation.

He is, in short, one of the best politicians I know. That he is being subjected to this ongoing humiliation is a complete travesty.

What chokes me most about this situation is how blithely the media, opposition parties and interest groups ignore some of the most elementary basics of civil society, things like "there but for the grace of god go I", or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" or "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".

I've been at long, late, drunken parties with members of the media and NDP and Liberal politicians. There is a rather chummy, all-party, old boys club type piss-up held every year at the provincial legislature at the end of the legislative sitting. I can tell you for a fact that every single one of those bastards have said and done things as bad if not worse when liquored up. The only difference is that no one (yet) has found a tape of them. The hypocrisy of this group, descending on Tom like a pack of hyenas, really is too much to bear.

Watching the tape, knowing Tom, it's clear to me that he was just making a very lame attempt at shock-jock style humour. He was trying to get a laugh out of listeners by saying something he knew was wildly inappropriate. I don't think he meant it then and I know for sure he wouldn't say or even think such a thing now.

None of this of course justifies his long-ago comment, and Tom hasn't sought to justify or make excuses. But, finally, there must come a point where we have to allow our politicians to be humans, who can make mistakes, recognize them and apologize for them without being drawn and quartered in the public forum.

Ultimately, this matter damages all political parties. How much harder will it be now to recruit good candidates in Canada, for any party? Any potential candidate now has to sit back and think "Have I ever said anything inappropriate? Was anyone taping it? Did anyone overhear it who might have an axe to grind with me?" What sort of ridiculous standard of perfection are we setting?

OK, there, I've vented. Enough now. I promise to have something more cheerful to talk about next week.

Quality Matters?

2008-03-31T09:40:00.002-06:00

Here's my question of the week:

Why do porn rental stores still exist?

I mean, I understand why record stores and regular DVD rental places still exist in the digital high-speed age. Arguments can be made one way or the other about quality of formats. Some like the sense of physical ownership. Others like all the extras - the liner notes, the special features and what not - that you get with the physical copy.

But for the life of me I can't see how any of that would translate into porn. I mean, is there some porn connoisseur out there sniffing "Oh yes I tried some of those Internet downloads, but the quality was so poor that it just ruined the whole experience for me. And those pay-per-views - well, all I can say is that they're fine if you're happy with boring cookie-cutter mainstream offerings, but some of us have higher standards."

Special features? The director's commentary, perhaps? Correct me if I'm wrong but, if a person is in the mood for such business, patience and critical assessment are probably going to be in pretty short supply.

Maybe it's the French/Spanish translation features: "Ah! Ah! Bueno! Con mas fuerza!" Yeah, I can see where those subtleties would be lost if you didn't hear them in your own language.

If anyone else has any theories, I'd love to hear them.

At last, the perfect irony!

2008-03-26T18:14:00.003-06:00

Long time readers will recall some of the vigorous debates and disputes we've had in this space and elsewhere about the nature and meaning of irony.

The concept of irony is famous for starting fights amongst those who care about language. Mrs. Mentok and I are both language professionals, so our children know that it's best to leave the room and hide all sharp objects when the topic of irony comes up at the kitchen table.

Now, at last, my work has given me a perfect example of classical irony as I see it. I'm working on a plain-language rendering of a big pile of bureaucratic documents. Here is an actual excerpt of the kind of thing with which I have to contend:

"Companies that apply best practices in process management give top priority to cross-functional value creation. The process driven enterprise has managers who communicate process information in a standardized set of terms understandable to all employees."

Oedipus could not have said it better himself!

.....Go Away, Come Again Another Day!

2008-03-20T12:39:00.003-06:00

It snowed today.

The great (departed) Canadian writer Mordecai Richler once said March is the worst month to be Canadian, because that is the month when we realize that winter has gone on way too long.

I am, indeed, very very tired of snow.

It is said that the Inuit have over 100 names for snow. But this, as it turns out, is a myth.

In 1911, anthropologist Frank Boas observed that the Inuit have four words for snow. Over the course of the intervening century, the number simply became exaggerated until, in 1984, a New York Times editorial asserted that the number was 100, thereby making it a "fact".

Four words! Cripes, English has way more words for snow than that.

But not enough, for my liking. I wish the myth about Inuit words was true, because there just aren't enough English terms to fully capture the experiences of those of us who live in cold climates.

Of course, there is "powder", the term for the particular type of soft, fluffy, not-too-sticky snow that is perfect for skiing.

But there are no words for soft, wet, stickly snow that comes in big flakes or sharp, hard, very cold snow that comes in small flakes with razor-like edges or the very small, knife-like snow that comes down during blizzards.

There are no words for that quality of snow on the ground when it's very hard, crunchy and unfriendly or, conversely, for that softer consistency of snow on the ground that's perfect for snowballs and snow forts.

There is a colloquial word for the combination of snow, ice and dirt that builds up under the tire wells of your car. That's called "snard". But there are no equivalent words for very hard, compressed snow that builds up on driveways and sidewalks and that comes off in big chunks when you shovel it.

There really should be words for these. We should hold a national contest to come up with them and then announce the winners in March. It would give us something to look forward to.

Don't Dilly Dalai

2008-03-18T09:38:00.003-06:00

I haven't always been a big fan of the Dalai Lama, but I'm getting to be more and more of a fan every day.

I used to have a couple of beefs with the guy. First, there's that $20 he owes me (jk).

I have never much cared for Tibetan Buddhism's very literal approach to reincarnation and it's other superstitious aspects. Buddhism is supposed to be the anti-religion, the religion that avoids superstitious notions, yet throughout Asia and especially in Tibet it has gotten bogged down by all sorts of kooky local customs.

However, I recently read an interview with the Dalai Lama in which he subtly, diplomatically acknowledges this. Apparently, whenever he describes the various signs and portents that surrounded his alleged "rebirth", he always attributes them to other people e.g. "People say this happened" or "It is said that this occurred", rather than stating them as facts. In this way he keeps faith both with Tibetan culture and authentic Buddhist philosophy.

In the past, I've also been uneasy about the whole "Free Tibet" business. Buddhism is supposed to be about non-attachment, so it always struck me as unseemly for monks to get involved in nationalist movements.

But again the Dalai Lama has shown that he knows this. Despite the claims of the Chinese (or even, for that matter, Tibet's Western supporters), the Dalai Lama isn't calling for Tibetan independence, only for more political, religious and civil liberties within China.

I have been especially impressed by the Dalai Lama's response to the pro-Tibetan riots in China. He isn't calling for the world to come to the aid of freedom fighters or anything like that. He's called for an inquiry into the causes of the violence and has opened himself up to investigation as well, to prove that he had no role in provoking the riots. His consistency to the Buddhist faith is above reproach and truly inspiring.

Today's announcement, that the Dalai Lama has threatened to step down unless the rioting stops, is an act that can only be called Gandhi-like.

The impatience of the rioters is obviously understandable. But what neither they nor the Chinese see is that it is precisely at this moment that the Dalai Lama's ethical tactics - his good karma - will have the greatest effect.

So here's to the Dalai Lama, a great man of peace and well-deserving recipient of the Nobel Prize.

We Need A New "-Ism"

2008-03-14T11:55:00.004-06:00

The other day, I heard someone talking about the need to re-energize the "cause of socialism".

I was quite surprised to hear this, since I didn't think socialism per se was a cause anymore.

In saying that, I'm not attacking leftist views. More social spending, making the rich pay more of their share, more sustainable environmental policies, etc. etc. Yeah, those of course are all still very valid components of the public debate. The particular policy prescriptions that arise from those debates are either good or bad depending on the context.

But Socialism, with a big capital "s"? State ownership and management of the economy and what-not? Geezuz, how many times does the human race need to be bashed over the head? Didn't we just come through a whole century of socialist societies crashing and burning, not once, not twice, but over and over and over again?

This is not to say that capitalism is perfect. Obviously, it has many many failings as well. But it's a bit like Winston Churchill's assessment of democracy. He used to say "democracy is the worst system of government in the world, except for all the others."

To me, there is one overwhelming flaw in the entire concept of socialism: it relies on humans to run things. This has been universally demonstrated to be a bad idea. Humans have a very hard time coming to proper conclusions about relatively simple things, like not eating or drinking things that are bad for them. The notion that they could be relied upon to manage an entire economy, down to the tiniest details, is doubleplus ridiculous.

Perhaps if we had somewhere on the planet a minority population of angels, titans, elves or Vulcans, then maybe socialism would work. But this pack of glorified chimps to which we belong has consistently demonstrated that they are unable to make correct choices unless they are tricked, bribed or threatened into doing so.

And that's assuming that someone actually knows what the "correct choices" are. Again, until the Vulcans land, if we have to rely on our fellow Great Apes to figure things out for us, we will most certainly be stuck in a perpetual cycle of stupidity and short-sightedness, only occasionally interrupted by good ideas, which are probably just fluke luck. To paraphrase an old cliche, a million humans at a million typewriters will eventually write the greatest novel ever written.

But there I go sounding way too cynical again. In truth, I'm not so misanthropic. Far from it. I think it's cool and fun that a flawed and rather silly species like ours has achieved as much as we have.

However, I think much of what the human race has achieved has happened because we've followed the path of least resistance, the path that most conforms with primal feelings like fear and hunger. Sun Tzu's Art of War describes one of the qualities of an effective army as being like a rock at the top of a hill; it just naturally goes in the direction you want it to go. An effective economy should be the same way, which is why socialism will always, always be doomed: socialism tries to push the rock up the hill.

That's why capitalism, for all of its flaws, has been so successful. The whole Gordon Gekko "Greed is good" notion has some validity.

Ultimately, though, we will have to figure out some other way to do things. Capitalists will never feed the hungry, cure the sick or clean the environment on their own initiative, because it is not their function to do so. Their function is to create material wealth and leave to the random chance of the free market to figure out how it's used.

In my experience, a thing's greatest strength usually also turns out to be its greatest weakness. It seems to me that capitalism has a rather obvious fatal flaw: everyone is greedy. Everyone resents the rich, wants to steal their shit and longs to pull them down. When an alpha male chimpanzee has too many girl friends, the other blue-balled males eventually get fed up and bash the dirty old bugger's head in with a rock. Sooner or later, like it or not, that is the fate of capitalists, and all the economic theories and spin-doctory in the world cannot protect them from this fundamental aspect of ape nature. (c.f. Conrad Black, har har.)

So, if capitalism eventually falls (could take centuries) and socialism is a wash-out, what will the economy of the future look like? What will the next "-ism" be?

I'm sure I'm not nearly smart enough to figure that out. Hell, I can't even balance my cheque-book without Mrs. Mentok's help. Maybe no human will ever be smart enough to figure such things out completely.

But I do have an inkling, a half-baked notion. It's not sexy or cool, in fact it's quite the opposite of sexy and cool:

Pension funds.

Think about it. Already, pension funds and other sorts of retirement investments represent some of the largest pools of capital in the world. Just the other day, the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund successfully bought out Bell Canada for $51 billion. If and when the economies of China and India hit Western standards, just try to imagine the enormity of the pension funds set aside for those massive populations.

These funds will always gravitate to the blue-chip side of the investment spectrum: the power companies, the phone companies, the established mining interests. There will still be plenty of get-rich-quick opportunities (and risks) in other, smaller aspects of the economy, but the fundamentals of the economy will be owned by, well, the People.

So, long and short, if we get to a point where the Market is still free and open but the economy is largely owned by all of us through our pensions and such, won't we have effectively fallen ass-backwards into a sort of socialism, without all that messy shootin'-people revolution business? Isn't ass-backwards always the way the human race advances?

I'm sorry, I'm sure I've deflated your expectations. I'm sure you thought I was going in a whole different direction with this. My view, like it or not, is that the universe is unfolding as it should and that interfering with it through grand schemes (like the Cause of Socialism) will likely screw it up.

But that's just my opinion. If you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

It's a Sin!

2008-03-11T10:20:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, the Vatican released it's revised list of sins. Apparently, this is something they do regularly.

Last year's updates included things like road rage, alcohol abuse and, if you can believe it, rudeness. (This from a religion whose main guy was always going on wine runs for his buddies and who seemed to be constantly snarking off at his mom and almost anyone else in authority.)

This year's list includes genetic engineering, pollution and drug abuse. OK, I get why they need an update to capture those first two, but I'm surprised they are so late to the party with that last one. Does this mean that drug abuse was not previously a sin? Or was it always a sin but only recognized as such now? If the latter, does that mean that punishment for the sin will be meted out retroactively?

That's a thorny question. Not the drug abuse part, which I of course agree with completely. For the record, Buddha was all over this 2,500 years ago with clear instructions against abuse of not only alcohol but intoxicants and "poisons" of all sorts.

No, the troubling part is the prospect that the Vatican can just make up new sins and then enforce them retroactively. If they can do that, then Christians can never be on solid ground with anything they do. Next year, they could declare chocolate a sin and then old aach-eee-double hockey sticks would get a giant population boom.

Doesn't seem quite fair. It would never hold up in a secular court. Is there an appeal process? Who picks these sins? Was there a public consultation process? Was there an impact study done?

What I'm most curious about is whether there's any process to petition for new sins. I've got a whole list of people I'd be happy to send to hell, as soon as "crowding my frickin' parking spot", "scheduling meetings too early in the morning" or "failing to invite me to your big fancy Christmas party for the third goddamn year in a row" get recognized as official sins.

Even if there isn't a petition process, I think the Vatican is missing out on a huge opportunity for public engagement. They should take a cue from Hollywood and do some build up to the Sin List, like the Academy does with the Oscars: "Work-place back-stabbing is favoured to top the Sin List this year, after it got the nod as a sin from the Islamic Council and several Protestant denominations, but watch out for dark horse 'publishing underwear ads', considered the favourite among the more conservative Italian priests."

What do you think? Are there any as-yet unrecognized sins you'd like to see added?

I, Elmer

2008-03-08T13:49:00.011-06:00

It all started a couple months ago. Late at night, in the deep frozen heart of the prairie summer, Mrs. Mentok and I heard a bone-chilling sound: little feet scampering up the walls. Within a few days, we could also hear sounds coming from the attic.

We had gone to war against mice in our basement last summer and won. We now knew all the tricks for preventing and extracting rodents from the basement. But the attic? That was a whole new ball game.

We took a trip to the local hardware store and loaded up on glue traps, which we had found was the #1 most effective method in the basement. We crawled up into the attic and distributed as many glue traps as we could. Then we waited.

When we went back to check on the traps, something quite odd had happened. They had been moved, some of them quite far, in the direction of an apparent nesting area. But it looked as though whatever had stepped in them had managed to shake them off. That couldn't have been easy, because while checking I got one on my own hand. Even with brisk shaking, it didn't come off. While flailing about trying to get it off, I managed to get another on my knee. I reached down to take that one off, but forgot I was using the hand that already had a glue trap on it, so I succeeded only in getting the two traps stuck together. I finally yanked them off but managed to hit my head very hard on the rafters while doing so.

Anyway, that's when we knew were dealing with something larger than a mouse.

A few days later, we saw footprints in the snow on our roof that confirmed the awful truth: we had squirrels.

Well, one squirrel anyway. I've seen him:

He's much larger, redder and meaner looking in real life.

I've dubbed him Rasputin. I don't know why. He's just seems somehow Russian and very evil.

Not to mention cocky. Once, I got within a few feet of the little bastard, just outside my reach. He just stared back at me. When I move forward to try to whack him with a stick, he nimbly moved back a few feet, just far enough for me to lose my footing and fall into a snowbank.

Another time, he perched up in a tree branch within sight of me. I grabbed a garbage can lid and hurled it at him. I was pleased but, sadly, unprepared for the fact that the lid achieved a boomerang effect, just like in Captain America comics.

Another trip to the hardware store. This time, I brought back this nasty looking device, designed to snare rats, squirrels and (incongruously) minks. I carefully set the trap in the backyard, certain that so much steel was certain to yield results.

The next morning, the trap was gone. Just vanished.

I wouldn't be half as determined if Rasputin was a reasonably good house guest, but that's not the case. Night after night, he disturbs our sleep as he rolls in at all hours to settle in for the night. Every morning, he freaks us out at breakfast when he does his daily nesting ritual, which is so noisy that it sounds like he's going to break through the kitchen ceiling. Sometimes I pound on the ceiling in an effort to scare him away. I swear sometimes it sounds like he's pounding back.

This morning, the boys and I took our dog out for a walk. Our beloved canine is a schnoodle, half poodle, half Schnauzer. He has always displayed excellent natural hunting-dog traits. As we approached the back yard, I spied Rasputin, with his back to us, sitting on the picnic table munching on a morsel of garbage.

"Ha ha ha," I said to the boys. "Be very, very quiet."

I let the dog go. He knew exactly what to do. He's always had fantastic leaping abilities and within two or three bounds he was within range of the despicable varmit.

SNAP!

We found out where the trap had gone. Fortunately, it's jaws weren't strong enough to do any real harm to a canine.

And so the battle continues. Wish me luck.

Devil's Advocate: Bill C-10

2008-03-06T13:25:00.003-06:00

With apologies to my foreign readers, there's a couple things I wanted to get off my chest about the Bill C-10 controversy.

For those near and far who haven't been following it, the Tory federal government in Canada has brought in a bill to give the Heritage Minister discretion to refuse federal arts funding to film projects that involve excessive violence or sex.

So now of course the left is in full dudgeon screaming "censorship" this and "Christian right" that.

Well, enough already, I say.

For starters, before anyone suggests otherwise, I still consider myself a progressive conservative (even though we no longer capitalize those letters on the federal level). I don't like the Christian right any more than anyone else does and I usually look askance at any legislation that involves the government intruding on morality issues.

But this is different, and here's why:

1. It's Not Censorship, Dammit - since when did not giving someone a grant mean the same as censorship? If my kid applied for a government scholarship and didn't get it, could I justifiably claim "the government banned my kid from college!" There's a huge difference between banning something and not actively supporting it. But, of course, Canadian artists have grown so out of touch with the Canadian public and so completely dependent on the public teat that, apparently, they aren't capable of making that distinction.

2. On the Sex Side, Nothing Much Has Changed - arts funding legislation already contains clauses stating funding cannot go to pornography. So, already there is somebody somewhere sitting in an office making judgment calls about how much sex is too much to get a government grant. Now, instead of that person being a bureaucrat, it's an elected representative of the people responsible for the prudent spending of tax dollars. Sorry, I just don't see why that's such a bad thing. Besides, the power will obviously never be used in an active way (the minister isn't going to take the time to review all films applying for funding) but only if and when there's some public outcry.

3. On the Violence Side, Good Riddance - Since Trudeau first introduced significant grant and tax incentive funding for films, producers of slasher horror movies have shamelessly exploited the system. These movies belong in the same cultural waste-bin as porn and should be judged the same way, yet thanks to the Liberals' no-strings-attached funding policies, Canadian taxpayers have forked over millions to help produce Prom Night and other such glorious tributes to Canadian culture.

4. Give the Dog a Bone - hysterical types have claimed Bill C-10 is proof that the Tory party has been "taken over by the Christian right". Considering that there are as many gay Tory ministers as there are fundamentalist Christian Tory ministers, I really kinda doubt that. But the Tory party, like all moderate, broad-based brokerage parties, has to appeal to its various factions from time to time. The Christian right in Canada has lost every battle, internal and external, on big issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. If once in a blue moon they succeed in getting public funding pulled from a movie with a lot of screwing in it, well, that's not such a big give if you ask me.

5. Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword - it's quite laughable that the members of Canada's inbred artistic community (why look, there's Gordon Pinsent in another movie) are now trying to portray themselves as these poor innocent independent-minded waifs who don't know nuthin' 'bout all this politics stuff. They are outrageously, shamelessly partisan, always have been. Roughly half the people in this country have right-of-centre outlooks, yet you would never know this by watching the CBC aka the Trudeau Documentary Channel. It is, of course, their right to trash the Tories all they like, but can they then really expect the Tories to smile about it? "Excuse me sir, could you please give me a billion dollars so I can continue to tell people what an asshole you are?" Yeah, there's a smooth sales pitch.

6. A Bit of Self-Censorship Might Be Good For 'Em - the big hew and cry on the left is that C-10 will cause artists to self-censor the kinds of projects they submit for funding. Well, maybe it's about time. Those grants were put in place to try to build a thriving film industry in Canada, like the film industries in, say, Britain or France. Instead, the grants have ended up funding the lifestyles of a bunch of hippies and champagne socialists who crank out a zillion and one movies about lesbians, feminism, drug addicts and other such heart warming subjects. All this talk about "it's the duty of the artist to challenge the public" is nonsense, because no one outside of an inbred little cluster of people actually watches these films. This legislation will only last a few years, because sooner or later the Liberals will get back in and overturn it. So a few years of the Canadian film community maybe thinking about making films Canadians might actually watch - that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

In conclusion, for the benefit of any of you out there who might have doubted whether I am really a conservative, permit me to say: Goddammit, why don't you get off the public teat and go out and get yourselves some real jobs, you frickin' deadbeat hippies!

Post-Oscars

2008-02-26T10:13:00.004-06:00

Regular readers know all about my kids' birthday parties. Our annual Oscar party is my one regular time of the year to practice my party skills for a (mainly) adult audience.

I am, I must admit, a total psychotic when I'm in party preparation mode. Remember that reality show Hell's Kitchen? Yeah, like that.

Sunday afternoon, I went through my annual ritual of freak-outs and last-minute fussing. There was a nice bit of comic timing right at the end of that. Every year, as soon as the clock ticks over to our posted invitation time, I start babbling "No one's coming! It's a flop! We have no friends!" Mrs. Mentok has learned just to smile and nod until it passes. This year, I was interrupted mid-sentence by the doorbell. Har!

Let me set the stage for you: Guests stream into our humble little bungalow. As they come in, they pay $2 entry fee into our Oscar pool (all categories, incl. technical awards like sound mixing). They're issued half of a playing card, which is their ticket to fabulous door prize awards we hold during commercials (dollar store finds, some regifting and some truly over-the-top prizes donated by guests).

Finally, everyone gets one marshmallow, which they are allowed to huck at the screen at someone or something that annoys them (e.g. Marion Cotillard's speech).

Then we all get liquored up, settle in and watch the show.

This year, for the first time, we used our home theatre projector system for the show. Of course, in one of those perfect Murphy's Law moments, the movie screen decided to fall out of the ceiling two hours before show time, but we got it fixed in time and it was a big hit. That $350 I spent on a data projector on Boxing Day is the best home entertainment investment I've ever made. I have friends who have spent thousands of dollars on big screen TVs, so I enjoyed pointing out to them how much bigger my screen is.

Attendance was down a little. There were almost enough chairs for everyone. I prefer it when we have people crammed in like sardines on the living room floor plus a healthy kitchen party on the go, but we were maybe six people away from being at that point.

You are no doubt wondering what I thought of the show. The sad fact is that I never get to watch much of it. Too busy playing host, you know. But from the bits I caught:

- like everyone is saying, the show was pretty lackluster this year. The relative lack of writing showed. Stewart did an OK job as host, but you could tell that he was eager to get off the stage as soon as possible.

- that freakin' Bourne Ultimatum killed me on my entry for our Oscar pool. I had gone with Transformers all the way on the technical categories.

- hands up: how many of you want to shoot that Marion Cotillard? That had to be the sappiest acceptance speech since Sally Field. I find it hard to believe she's 32; she totally comes off like a 21-year-old bimbo.

- the most elegant lady of the night, hands down, was Canada's own Ellen Page. Boy, she's great, isn't she?

- what the hell was Miley Cyrus even doing at that event, much less presenting? Between that and the ever-so-fascinating Barbara Walters Special, Miley's agent must have spent a fortune on bribes.

- it was a low-scoring year for our Oscar pool. The top score was 15; mine was 13. Mrs. M came in second with 14, but unfortunately that just stuck us with a second prize we were hoping to get rid of (a Magic Bullet blender kit we've been trying to regift).

All in all, it was a pretty low-key event in Hollywood, but our guests seemed to have a good time. They keep coming back, year in and year out, so that's a good sign, isn't it?

And you folks, how did you make out with your Oscar pools?

Oscar Reviews Part Five: No Country for Old Men

2008-02-20T17:32:00.003-06:00

What is there to say about the Coen brothers that hasn't been said a million times before? Their askew view on the world makes their films among the best made in modern times.

No Country for Old Men is my favourite of the Oscar contenders (although There Will Be Blood is a strong second). It is a very violent movie about a regular poor Texas cowboy/righand who becomes the focus of an extensive, multi-sided manhunt when he stumbles across the cash from a drug deal gone bad.

It is too bad that the movie is so violent, because it makes the movie less accessible, so fewer people will appreciate the sheer quality of the film.

This is a movie about change, random chance and the ultimate change and randomness of death. This theme is emphasized many times throughout the movie. "Can't stop the tide" is a refrain we hear several times.

Much has been written about the creepy sociopathic villain of this movie, Anton Sigur. To me, this character represents death. The other characters seem to suggest this: "If you see him, you're already dead;" "You can't negotiate with him." The only way you can dodge Death in the short term is by fluke luck, as symbolized by the coin-toss challenge Sigur frequently offers his victims. On the whole, the Sigur character acts more like a force of nature than like any sort of human character.

There is no point where this movie takes the easy, conventional Hollywood path. There are no happily-ever-afters. At many points, our hopes are raised; rescue or escape seem in sight, but these are always only temporary respites. Sooner or later, Death catches up with everyone and he doesn't care about your excuses, doesn't care about how tough you are, how cool you think you are, how much money you have or any other part of your back story.

The best performance of the movie belonged, of course, to Tommy Lee-Jones. As the old-school small-town sheriff following the drug deal case from a distance, he stays mainly aloof from the main story yet still connected to it, like some Olympian god watching down from a celestial mountain top. Finally, he comes close to facing Death, but backs away. Knowing that he may not be so lucky again, he retires.

The film ends with further reflections and examinations on death, transition and randomness. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but those who have know what I mean. When I saw the movie, as soon as the credits started rolling, a bunch of people in the theatre said out loud "what the hell kinda ending is that?"

A perfect one, for this film. A perfect one.

Oscar Reviews Part 4: Atonement

2008-02-16T23:14:00.004-06:00

Picture this scene: An old woman is walking a dog down a foggy street in London. She enters a phone booth... but it isn't a phone booth, it's Tardis and the old woman is really Doctor Who in disguise. Doctor Who exits the booth and finds himself in the middle of a vast alien spacecraft. He unravels his scarf and whips it out, turning it into a light saber. Only now he's no longer Doctor Who but Batman. Batman with a light saber? He discovers an oval portal guarded by a shimmering red force field. He bashes at the force field again and again, struggling to enter the oval portal....

This isn't a scene from Atonement. This is a scene from a dream I had after I fell asleep watching what is quite possibly the most boring movie ever made.

Even the characters appear to be fighting sleep.

Director Joe Wright has succeeded in combining the most tiresome aspects of Upstairs Downstairs with the most emasculating aspects of The Notebook and, for good measure, a twist ending more cliched than M.Night Shyamalan on his worst day.

The sad thing is that, due to the PSWEA* factor I identified last year, this movie is in serious danger of winning Oscars for acting.

The only thing that might save us from such a travesty is that the characters rarely, if ever, shout. Instead, they use that upper class Edwardian style of speech in which people seem to SPEAK IN CAPITAL LETTERS while making their eyes go wide but never actually increasing the decibels of their voices.

Save your money. Dead boring.

* PSWEA - People Shouting With English Accents, the gold standard of Great Acting in Hollywood

Oscar Reviews Part 3: Juno

2008-02-12T09:55:00.000-06:00

Yes, this movie is all it's hyped to be.

Funny, witty, charming; and it does these things in ways that are not at all formulaic. Well, OK, maybe the whole approach-retreat romantic plot was a little formulaic, but there's only so many ways to do romantic comedy.

The basic plot, which has been widely advertised by now, involves the trials and tribulations of a very bright, witty pregnant teen girl.

Halifax actress Ellen Page has been rightfully hailed far and wide for her brilliant performance. But the strength of the film rests on solid performances from all the supporting cast. Veteran character actors J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney deserve special recognition for their nuanced performances as Juno's parents. They manage to pull off being both laughable foils and mature, realistic characters with equal aplomb.

While listening to all the witty banter in the film, I had this niggling feeling at the back of my mind that I had heard it somewhere before. It came to me afterwards that Juno and her friend Leah were extremely reminiscent of the main characters in Ghost World, starring Thora Birch and (a much younger) Scarlett Johansson. It would be interesting to watch the two films back to back.

By the way if you haven't yet visited writer Diablo Cody's blog or Myspace page, do so with all due haste. They're a hoot!

I don't buy many movies, only ones I'm pretty sure I want to watch over and over. This will be one of them.

Oscar Reviews Part 2: Michael Clayton

2008-02-10T14:53:00.000-06:00

Meh...

Apparently, lawyers are sleazy, blood-sucking whores. And, for those of you who didn't see Erin Brockovich, apparently big multi-national companies can sometimes be corrupt and amoral.

It's a good thing we have George Clooney around to tell us stuff like this, 'cause otherwise we'd never figure them out.

In a year in which there were so many other great films that broke the tired old Hollywood mold, this movie was just more of the same-old, same-old, like something generated by a plot wheel. I was distinctly underwhelmed.

Ending on a positive note, I must say it was refreshing to see Tilda Swinton playing a role that was not a magical creature or Shakespearean character. She's still kinda freaky lookin', though.

There Will Be Blood

2008-02-06T22:39:00.001-06:00

I haven't done movie reviews for awhile and, with Oscar season approaching, I'd like to rattle off reviews of all the Best Picture nominees, starting with the one I saw most recently: Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.

The plot is no doubt familiar to most readers by now. A ruthless oilman, Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) develops a life-long rivalry with Eli Sunday, a preacher in a California town where Plainview is developing a massive oil discovery. At the same time, Plainview deals with his troubled relationship with his adopted son, who is struck deaf in a drilling accident. While Plainview grows very rich, none of his relationships work out well and his life is ultimately empty.

First, let me say a few words about Daniel Day-Lewis' performance. Many critics have written a great deal about this performance and I will be no exception. Many have called Day-Lewis one of the outstanding acting talents of our time. I go further than that. I say Day-Lewis is the unparalleled master of the fine art of squinting and lurching. No one can bring a character to life through squinting and lurching quite like Day-Lewis. If you believe, as I do, that squinting and lurching is an under-appreciated art form, then this film, like Gangs of New York, is a movie made for you.

Quite apart from the squinting and lurching, this is a great film. Kubrickian. Is that even a word? Kubrickoid? Kubrickesque? It was a lot like something Stanley Kubrick would do. Not the cinematography, unfortunately, but the film's cynical view of humanity and especially it's quirky but inevitable ending are very much in the style of the old master.

All the mainstream critics have gone on at length damning the Plainview character, describing him as a sociopathic liar and equating him with Anton Sigur from No Country for Old Men as one of the great movie villains of our time.

I think they've got it all wrong. I did not see that at all.

Certainly, the Plainview character is misanthropic - doesn't care much for other people - but that's a long way from being a sociopath. The character clearly craves human attachment: he obviously loves his adopted son and willingly believes a man who shows up claiming to be his half-brother because, as Plainview admits outright, he can't handle the loneliness of the life he's chosen.

All the other critics claim that Plainview simply uses his adopted son as a sales prop, but that claim is based an entirely on an angry, drunken rant the character makes near the end of the film. There is no evidence anywhere else in the film that this is true.

As for being a liar, Plainview is a singularly bad liar. By my count, he only lies twice in the movie and each time he gets caught doing it and stumbles badly trying to recover from them. The rest of the time, he speaks more honestly than most of the other characters in the movie.

Speaking of which, I'm shocked that so few critics noticed that the preacher Eli Sunday (played by Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine fame) is at least as much, if not more, of a villain than Plainview. Sunday is egotistical, greedy, vain, vindictive, physically abusive and probably sexually abusive. Above all, like all faith-healers, he is a total charlatan.

Ultimately, these colourful characters are just symbols. As I see it, this is a story about America and about those brothers, Capitalism and Evangelical Christianity, that have contended for America's soul since the country's inception. The two at times appear to support each other, but in the end their passions are so obsessive and ridiculous that they can't help but be both self-destructive and mutually destructive.

The theme of brotherhood is a motif throughout the movie. Plainview is initially led to the oil find by Sunday's twin brother, who seems determined to destroy Eli. When a man claiming to be Plainview's own long-lost half-brother shows up, he is Plainview's mirror image, a failure in every way that Plainview is a success. On top of that, I suspect we are supposed to infer something from the fact that Sunday's fathers name is Abel.

I must admit that I had low expectations going into this movie. I expected it to be in the mold of Gangs of New York, a high-concept period piece produced for no other purpose than to secure lucrative Oscar nominations. It has done that, but it has earned them. It is a good movie, in fact a great movie worth seeing two or three times.

Medieval Party

2008-01-28T10:09:00.000-06:00

I know how you all enjoy hearing about my kids' theme birthday parties. On the weekend, my #2 Son and I hosted a medieval party.

Throughout, all of us in the family said to each other over and over: "Why have we never done this theme before?" It seems like such a natural for a birthday theme.

We launched the party with a Royal Proclamation calling for a tournament of knights to prove their valour so that the king (me) could assemble a company to fight a dragon. The invitations were written in a medieval-style font on faux-parchment coloured paper that was attached to and wrapped around a toy arrow.

As usual, we held the party at a local church hall to give us plenty of runnin' around room. The hall was festooned with cheap dollar-store table runners (meant to look like medieval tapestries and banners) and print-outs of the Bayeux Tapestry and the Codex Mannesse.

We had two further pieces of decorating luck: the Sunday school at the church hall had an old refrigerator box decorated like a castle tower; and one of Mrs. Mentok's teaching colleagues had a bunch of hand-painted murals used for teaching medieval and fantasy literature units.

This same teacher-friend also had a pair of hand-sewn faux-ermine lined capes which Mrs. Mentok and I used for our costumes. My costume was fleshed out with: a long white sheet of fabric with a hole for my head; a belt; a real sword I happen to own; a medieval crest printed out onto adhesive paper; some dress-trim material that looks like metal mesh (which I applied in various places to look like chain mail) and a cheap plastic dollar-store "gold" crown.

(Remember this formula next time you're invited to a medieval feast. Except for the cape and sword, the above cost me maybe $5 to assemble, versus the $50-$100 /day that costume rental places charge.)

As the kids arrived, my oldest son, playing the role of herald and sergeant-at-arms, announced each guest. During the arrival/warm up stage, we enjoyed a pop-n-chips "feast".

I had this terrible moment of dread during the warm-up that the 10-11 year old guests were too old for a make-believe party. But the kids were mainly long-time friends of #2 Son who had enjoyed many previous parties and were more than happy to play along. In any case, there is a huge difference between 11 and 12.

Festivities began with decorating their gear. Everyone got grey hoodies (local thrift store, $4 ea.) to serve as chain mail. Then they decorated their tunics (long white sheets of fabric with head-holes) and shields (corplast) with medieval-style symbols... or anything they liked, really. The outfits were then all sinched up with studded belts (3 for $1 at Liquidation World).

Once properly outfitted, the guests went through a knighting ceremony and issued foam swords. Then we had a big chaotic sword fight tournament.

Next up, riding lessons. After some build-up (#1 son, behind the scenes, making loud whinnying and neighing sounds), we unveiled a tray of coconut shells. Those, I tell ya, were a royal pain to get together. We bought fresh coconuts, drained them, put them through a band saw to ensure an even cut and then baked them so that the meat would shrivel and pop out "easily" ... or at least more easily than working with fresh coconut meat.

But it was well worth it. Several of the kids had seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail and said, "Whoa! Cool! Just like Monty Python!" right away. As for everyone else, it turns out that bashing coconut shells together is just a whole lot of fun no matter how old you are or how cool you think you are.

After just running around with coconuts for awhile, we staged a jousting match. The kids had to hold pool noodles steady under their arms while continuing to bash the coconut shells together with their hands. The whole exercise was whacky, awkward and, therefore, laugh generating.

Our last tournament event was archery, using cheapie dollar-store toy bow-and-arrow kits. The toy archery sets worked well when you used them right, but it was a bit tricky to hold the arrow just right. This only added to the fun, since most kids totally shanked their first arrow, which made them all the more determined to practice until they got it right.

After that, we mounted our "steeds" and set off in search of the dragon. #1 Son, hidden behind a curtain, did a masterful job of making the dragon seem very large and fierce. Of course, it turned out just to be a pinata, which got a lot of laughs.

Man, they sure make those damn pinatas hard to break. After we got it down, the kids stomped on it and I bashed at it with my real sword, but is still took a long time to crack it open.

To celebrate our victory over the dragon, we had a grand feast featuring tray after tray of all sorts of finger food. There is, after all, no surer way to a tweenager boy's heart than with food.

After the feast, cake and presents, we had about 20 minutes left before pick-up time. That is more open time than I normally like, but in this case it worked out great. All the boys worked up a sweat chasing each other around with the foam swords and pool noodles. Afterwards, #2 Son said he felt that was the best part of the whole event.

As usual at our parties, we didn't have treat bags per se, but the guests all went home with virtually everything they had touched: their hoodies, tunics, belts, shields, swords, pool noodles, archery sets, coconut shells, goblets and, of course, their share of the "dragon treasure".

The whole family had worked very hard to make the event a success. #1 Son sucked up his teenager cynicism and was a great right-hand man for me; #3 Son did an outstanding job as court jester; and my lovely Queen went above and beyond with decoration procurement, food preparation and professional (teacher-grade) kid-wrangling.

Sadly, this will probably be #2 Son's last make-believe theme party. That will leave me with just one event per year for the next four years, and then no more after that. It's scary how the time goes, eh?

Vive la Robot Revolution

2008-01-21T11:18:00.001-06:00

A rare treat for you, dear readers: a sample of my "real" writing. Here's a link to a PDF of a magazine article I recently wrote about local robotics research.

The part I want you to notice, near the end of the article, is the virtual reality research, which isn't really robotics at all be I'll get back to it. What these guys have whipped up is a holodeck-style set-up in which you can walk in place, never leaving the same spot in the real world but feeling as though you are walking in a 3-D virtual reality world. Pretty cool.

But wait, there's more. Here's a link to a recent news article about American and Japanese researchers working on, essentially, remote mind-control of robot parts. They implanted electrodes into the area of a monkey's brain that controls walking. Then they put the monkey on a treadmill. The signals were then transmitted to a facility in Japan that had a set of robot legs hooked up to a treadmill. Result: the robot legs moved at the same time and the same pace as the monkey's.

The ultimate goal of this research is to develop exo-skeletal robot legs to allow paraplegics to walk. They figure they should have a working prototype within a year.

A year! Paraplegia (or, at least, paraplegic wheelchairs) could be on the road to being a thing of the past within a year.

But now add these two bits together. It stands to reason that, now that they've got the whole electrode-mind-control technology worked out, everything else from there is just a function of engineering. So it shouldn't be too long before they can build complete robot avatars for people.

Imagine this: you're getting old and can't get around much. So, just hook yourself up to a virtual reality headset, boot up your robot "self" and head out for a stroll to the corner store.

Imagine how it could revolutionize work places. Just leave a robot version of yourself at the office and you can remote control him from home in your 'jammies.

Or tourism. Want to see Paris but can't afford the airfare? Just plunk down $50 at your local VirtualTourist booth and you can take a real-time, 3-D stroll down the Champs Elysees on your way home from work. You can even go shopping and have it shipped to yourself at home.

The possibilities are endless and mind-boggling.

I suppose the brain surgery to get all those electrodes implanted would be a bugger, but I'm sure they're working on that too.

Ooo, oh yah baby, uunh....Line!

2008-01-14T10:42:00.000-06:00

With all the concern these days about the scaled-down Golden Globes and whether the Oscars will proceed this year, no one paid much attention to the fact that the Adult Entertainment Awards went ahead without a hitch.

(No, I'm not putting up any pictures to accompany this piece. I once put up a picture of a fully-clothed Jenna Jameson for a fake news bit. It drove my traffic way, way up, but it wasn't good traffic to put it mildly.)

So, anyway, I was wondering:

Do ya figger the porn industry is suffering from the writers' strike at all? How exactly would we know if the quality of porn scripts started to decline?

Just curious, just throwing that out there for discussion.

From the Vault

2008-01-08T09:46:00.000-06:00

With all the hype about Arkansas governor cum presidential candidate Mike Huckabee these days, I couldn't resist reposting this nugget from back in this blog's fake news comedy days.

I originally wrote the piece just to tease now-departed blogger Ash Chairiet, who hails from the great state of Arkansas. But today's headlines give this piece a whole new meaning, n'est-ce pas?

Arkansas Gov to Push "Guzintas"

Arkansas Gov. Huckabee
(right) sets sights on math
enrichment.

Litte Rock, AR (FN)- Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee today announced the next phase in his administration's commitment to the recommendations of the 2002 state Blue Ribbon Panel on education reform. Beginning in the 2006/2007 academic year, state schools will focus their math enrichment programs on enhancing students' knowledge of guzintas.

Huckabee said that he would like to see guzintas awareness become a state-wide activity, in the same way that former governor and former President Bill Clinton's now-legendary times-bys program captured the state's imagination.

"There is not much that former Governor Clinton and I agree on, but I give him credit for The Great Arkansas Times-Bys Challenge," Huckabee said. [see sidebar]

Governor Clinton's Great
Arkansas Times-Bys
Challenge

"Billy's family wants to go to
a peanut boil 26 miles away.
Billy has 4 brothers, 3 sisters
and 26 cousins, each of whom has 6 children. All together, the family has 102 dogs, of which 47 are bitches, all of whom are pregnant. The family has 5 trucks between them. If welfare checks come out on Wednesday and the peanut boil is on Saturday, how many of Billy's family will make it to the peanut boil?"

"The Times-Bys Challenge made us all think, and there was a lot to think about. How many of the cousins were married? What breed of dogs were they? Were the trucks Fords or Chevvys? I heard many anecdotes of families sitting around the Thanksgiving Day table arguing over the correct answers to those questions. I hope that my guzintas program will inspire a similar level of passion for learning," Huckabee added.

To craft his guzintas challenge, Governor Huckabee will be drawing on the skills of Professor Michael Cash, head of the University of Arkansas Department of Ciphering and Figuring.

"Many Arkansans are unaware of the importance of guzintas in their daily lives. For example, suppose you have a gallon of some sort of medicinal liquid and you want to siphon it off into 12 ounce bottles. How many bottles can you get? Sure, you can try to dope it out using your times-bys, but guzintas make it much quicker," said Professor Cash.

"Give you another example. Suppose you're at the video store and you have a $20 bill. Well, how many copies of The Dukes of Hazzard can you rent? With guzintas, you can figure that out right away," Cash added.

- 30 -

Ministry of Silly Walks

2008-01-02T10:01:00.000-06:00

And we're back!

How was your holiday? Mine was exceptionally good. In fact, given how scroogey I was earlier in the season, my transformation as the holiday progressed was positively Dickensian. Among the reasons: just before the start of the break, my boss did something really nice for me; I had a couple surprise presents lined up that had their desired effects (it really is better to give than receive); and I gorged out on no less than three turkey suppers, including one I helped prepare with my favourite stocking stuffer, a new meat injector.

Da missus and I had a traditional New Year's: went out, got smashed (me not her) then nursed a traditional New Year's Day hangover while traditionally watching the Rose Bowl Parade.

I've always liked the Rose Bowl Parade. There's something very soothing about it. What struck me about it this year is what a tremendous example it is of nation-building.

Now, as you've read here before, I think that the whole idea of nationalism is a fraud. As much as I like my little country of Canada, I have no illusions that it or any other country has any sort of divine right to exist. The whole idea that you can find one easily identifiable set of traits to unify a whole bunch of people is patently absurd in my view.

Still, we live in the era of nation-states, so that's what we have to live with. Since the notion is so false, countries must work constantly to convince their subjects that this sense of "nation" exists.

America's job of spinning nationality is not unique in the world, but it is certainly one of the more complex examples. The powers-that-be in America must constantly convince people in Texas, Maine, California, New York City, Hawaii, Arkansas and Miami (to name but a few) that, somehow or other, they all belong to a single, unified community.

Rene Levesque, the deceased grand-daddy of Quebec separatist nationalism, used to say that Canadians and Americans weren't really nationalist but rather practiced mapism. We all believe we belong to the same country because we all have the same maps. But, as Levesque himself demonstrated, mapism isn't always enough to hold a country together.

In many countries - maybe most countries - unity is enforced through the barrel of a gun. Once upon a time this was true of America too. But these days, what do the Yanks use to promote unity? A big, kitschy parade!

Behold the Rose Bowl Parade and wonder. Cities, companies and other organizations invest millions to get those outrageous floats into the parade. But never mind that. The real nationalist strength of the parade is in the marching bands, those 200-300 member high school bands that the Yanks seem to do so well.

You have all these bands from all over the country that compete for the chance to get into the parade. The lucky ones then become completely consumed in preparation. For over a year in advance, the students, their schools, their parents, the whole community must focus relentlessly on rehearsals, fundraising and travel plans.

The patriotic programming goes even further once these impressionable teens get to the parade. Imagine how much partying goes on. For a couple of super-intense days, these kids get to encounter thousands of their peers from all over the country. How many of these band nerds get drunk or get laid for the first time at the parade? After just a couple of days like that, how could any of these ambitious young people ever feel any doubt about America or its grand purpose in the world?

Magnificent! And how effective. Thanks to this and other similar tools of soft-side unity propaganda, America hasn't had a serious separatist movement in over a century. How many other countries can say that? Are there any?

It's big and silly and garish, no doubt, but the world could learn a lot from the Rose Bowl Parade. If there were more parades like that and fewer Soviet/Chinese-style May Day parades, the world would be a better place, don't you think?

Just in time for Christmas: The Story of Easter Island

2007-12-18T12:14:00.000-06:00

Continuing on my schizophrenia about environmental issues...

How many of you have heard the shocking true story of the Easter Islands? It's one of my favourites, since it's demonstrates so much about human nature.

So even though you can easily just look up the story elsewhere, I'm going to retell it for you in my own words.

The stuff about the statues being left (or inspired) by UFOs is, of course, crap. The stuff about "a primitive society could never have managed the engineering feat, yada yada" likewise crap. Long before we could write, we humans have been astounding ourselves with our knack for gargantuan engineering feats.

According to the pieced-together bits of oral legend and archeology, the Easter Island big head statues were clan status symbols. Like the Egyptian pyramids, when a clan leader died, his successor would demonstrate the wealth, power and status of the clan by ordering up one of these memorial statues.

They weren't easy to do. The soft volcanic rock used for the statues was found in a quarry in the centre of the island. The statues were carved on site and then slowly, gently rolled upright to their final destinations near the shore using a system of giant rollers made out of tree trunks. Mishaps were frequent, so any given statue project often had to be done over and over again.

That last part was where the entire Easter Island civilization fell apart. Not the rocks, not even the ridiculous expenditure of effort over a useless status symbol. The trees. Trees, or rather the lack of them, finally killed them. And, boy, did it get ugly.

They lived on an island. Their resources were limited. They didn't have good arboriculture and they only had so many trees. The "market" for big head statues grew. By the end of their culture, there was one statue for every 10 residents. The inventory of trees, on the other hand, did not grow nearly fast enough.

What astounds historians to this day is that they would have seen the consequences. Especially in the latter days, when statue building reached a frenzy, it would have been obvious over the course of a single human lifetime that the forests were getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Finally, some dumb fucker must have been the guy who cut down the last tree on Easter Island.

No trees = no shade for tropical vegetation. No vegetation = no animals. No vegetation + no animals + no material to build fishing boats = No food.

The last oral legends of the great Easter Island civilization tell of a society that descended into total chaos, including cannibalism and endless clan warfare. The final "artistic" legacy (if you can call it that) of the Easter Island civilization is a set of bizarrely grotesque aphorisms about cannibalism e.g. "The meat of your mother sticks to your teeth." Um, good to know, I guess.

We don't know how much of these legends is true. What we do know: biologists tell us the island was once thick with palm trees and that the few now left are quite young. Archaeologists can tell us the population collapsed around the 17th-18th century and that there is physical evidence of famine.

And anyone can tell you that the human capacity for stupidity and self-deception is endless.

These are the facts.

On an unrelated topic, have you heard about the exciting new developments in oilsands recovery?

What the ...?

2007-12-17T10:00:00.000-06:00

So, I was cleaning the china cabinet the other day and I came across a set of dust-encrusted brandy snifters emblazoned with the crest of my alma mater. Brandy snifters?!?

I vaguely remember buying them. It was right after I'd convocated and I was looking around the university gift shop for some sort of memento of my college years.

But brandy snifters? What was I thinking? Did I imagine that, in my grown-up, professional life, I would be hosting all sorts of swanky parties where people would sit around and quaff great quantities of brandy?

Well, that did not happen. In fact, the snifters have never been used. In fact, I don't really like brandy at all, never have. I don't think I even know anyone who likes brandy. My post-college parties, I'm afraid, have never gotten any fancier than some beer mugs and the occasional wine glass.

I've rescued one of the snifters and cleaned it up. I've decided to use it drink my Christmas rum. If I'm lucky, it will break sometime when it's being washed, thereby freeing up the storage space it was occupying, which would be far more valuable to me than the glass ever was.

And you folks? Any tales to tell of odd, useless objects you've found around your home?

I have a perfectly good alibi...

2007-12-14T09:53:00.000-06:00

Canada Post "heartbroken" over naughty Santa letters

CanWest News Service, Friday, December 14, 2007

OTTAWA - There was absolutely nothing Ho Ho Ho about the letters Rosalyn Da Costa's children got from Santa on Thursday.

In fact, they included filthy messages.

They are two of 10 inappropriate letters dropped into mailboxes across Ottawa in the last two days and there could be more. On Thursday, Canada Post shut down it's Write To Santa program across the city while it joins Ottawa Police to hunt down the rogue elf...

Da Costa was ... thrilled to see Santa had answered letters from two-year-old Maya and 10-year-old Colton...

"I told Maya: 'There's a letter from Santa just for you, let's read it'. We sat down on the couch, I opened the letter and began to read. My mouth dropped open. Oh, My God!"

Each Santa letter Canada Post delivers contains the same main message with a hand-written personal PS.

Maya's personal PS said: "This letter is too long, you dumb shit."

"I went straight to Google, got the Canada Post number and called," said Da Costa. "A very nice lady at a call centre in Fredericton, N.B. was shocked and when I told her I also had a letter for Colton and was planning to let him read it when he got home, she said I should open it now just in case."

Da Costa went downstairs, picked up the letter and returned to the phone.

What she read had both ladies gasping. "Oh! My God, Oh! My God," they kept repeating.

The personal PS to Colton's letter read: "Your mom s**** d**** and your Dad is gay."

This brought a Canada Post supervisor to the phone.

"My warning to everyone is: 'Open your childrens' letters first'," said Da Costa.

That will not be necessary for a few days in Ottawa because Canada Post has put out an alert for letter carriers to not deliver any Santa letters, to intercept any others in the system and to send them back. "We will check every one," said Canada Post's Daoust.

"And we will make sure we have enough volunteers to send out new messages from Santa," said a Canada Post spokesperson.

This just in from CBC News...

2007-12-13T11:59:00.000-06:00

Shared crack pipes spread hepatitis C, study says

Good lord, do they mean to suggest that smoking crack is bad for you? Who knew?

We need to get the word out about this to all those crack smokers out there. No doubt they think they are just engaging in a harmless past-time, but I'm sure if they were aware of the health risks they would stop right away.

And, boy, it sure makes me think twice about hiring a $50 crack-addicted prostitute. No way I want to get hep C! Yet another of life's simple pleasures down the tubes.

But wait! Here's another goofy headline:

CANADA DEMONSTRATES COMMITMENT TO UN CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM

Unclean development? That will offend a lot of Muslims, won't it? Seems like an odd thing to brag about.

Sex and Violence

2007-12-06T09:41:00.000-06:00

Like most parents, we struggle with what we allow our kids to watch. We're not prudes, we're not bible-thumping nervous nellies, but still and all you have to draw the line somewhere and it's tough to know where that line should be. Hollywood isn't much help, but neither are the sometimes hypocritical morals of our society.

We've got three boys ranging from seven to 13 years. As brothers, they are (despite the shouting matches and occasional sucker punches) the best of buddies and generally like to watch things together. Trying to find shows that are suitable for a seven-to-13 age range is quite taxing, I can tell you.

Naturally, with boys, we watch a lot of action/adventure, both at the movies and on TV. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Smallville, etc. But, when it comes to violence, Hollywood seems to be pushing the envelope further and further in less and less appropriate places.

In one episode of Smallville, a villain is shown ripping the heart out of an innocent person (Correction: he ripped the heart out of a lawyer, but you get my point.) I don't care what the context is; I just don't think kids should watch someone getting his heart ripped out. You can put as many "may contain scenes of violence" warnings as you like at the start of the show, but, when it's a show about Superman, the producers really should be more sensitive to the fact that kids are watching it.

Nonetheless, we continue to allow our boys to watch any number of more or less violent shows. Sometimes, we even turn a deaf ear to shows that have a moderate level of foul language, especially since that has become increasingly common on network television.

But, like most parents, the one thing we absolutely won't let the boys watch is any show that contains nudity. Specifically, female nudity. At the first sign of bare boobs, the TV goes off. No arguments.

Over time, this rule has really started to bother me. I mean, geez, we're letting our kids watch a guy get his heart ripped out but not letting them see a naked woman? How does that compute? Of course, I wouldn't want my kids watching porn or anything ("No, no, that's Daddy's special private drawer, son"), but if it's just plain ol' nudity, isn't that better than exposing them to graphic violence?

There are any number of examples of movies that Mrs. Mentok and I think our kids should see, but we've held off because of some mild nudity. For example, da missus and I adore Love Actually.

I know, I know, there are many of you who hate that movie, call it all sorts of bad names and sneer long sneers at it. But those of you who think that way are full of shit, and I have the movie buff credentials to say so with some authority. It's a great movie. Mrs. M and I watch it every year at Christmas; to us, even after a zillion viewings, the jokes are still as funny and the sad scenes still as compelling as the first time we watched it.

The thing that I appreciate about it is that the vignettes show so many aspects of the human experience of love. Yes, there are parts of it that are typical Harlequin Romance fluff. But there are many other parts that show the unglamorous aspects of love - the pain it can inflict, the terrible compromises it can demand, the unusual forms it can take.

The values that movie conveys are very positive and I can't think of a better movie to show the kids at Christmas. But.... but it has that one plot-line, the one about the shy, awkward body doubles, that has a lot of nudity in it. And so our kids have never seen this movie we love and, frankly, that tears me up.

One of these years, maybe this year, we will show it to them. We'll just scene-select past the naughty bits.

Still, this doesn't address the underlying issue. Why is our society (North American society, anyway) so deathly terrified of boobs?

Not even the boobs. Network television is fine with women in skimpy, skimpy bikinis, sudsy bubble-baths, sheer lingerie, all sorts of situations that expose the majority of a woman's breasts. No, the ultimate target of censorship is the nipple. Ooh, the terrible, terrible nipple. The demon female nipple. One glance at it will turn you into a pervert for life. Boob flesh - OK. Buttocks (especially male) - OK. Male nipples - OK.

But not the female nipple. Never never the female nipple.

Why is it exactly that we view female nipples as being more shockingly corrupting to children than almost anything else in the world?

Theories? Comments?

The Chicken Little Generation

2007-12-04T10:34:00.000-06:00

Most climate change hysteria is a fraud.

There, now if that doesn't start active comment-box debate, I don't know what will.

Of course, I don't really mean it. I don't really believe in extreme statements on any topics. As someone who used to write (and sometimes still writes) shameless political rhetoric for a living, I have no tolerance for rhetoric and propaganda in my personal life.

Which is precisely why I roll my eyes and shake my head whenever anyone from either side of the climate change debate starts talking. I just can't help but think of that whole Y2K fraud.

Remember that one, everybody? Computers world-wide were going to explode. Civilization as we know it would break down. The food distribution system wouldn't work. Rioting. Mass starvation. All hell breaking loose. Stock up now. Buy a power generator. Build a shelter in your basement. Talk to your children now so they won't be so traumatized when the time comes.

And the arguments of the so-called experts were so convincing that accounting firms would actually refuse to sign off on audits unless companies signed a declaration saying that they had a Y2K plan.

What a farce. And now "the end is near" types (who have been with us since civilization as we know it began) have a new pony to ride and, dear gawd, they are sure riding it hard, aren't they?

I don't mean to suggest that climate change isn't happening. Frankly, the attitudes of the climate change "skeptics" infuriate me as much if not more than the attitudes of the alarmists. The "skeptics" to me represent the worst (and, in some ways, most humorous) aspects of human nature, namely greed, gluttony, self-deception, procrastination and short-sightedness.

I particularly find it hilarious that the "skeptics" invest so much time pulling down Al Gore, because he's not really an expert; he's just a lawyer/politician with an agenda. Yet many of these same "skeptics", when looking for validation, end up turning to Michael Crichton, a science fiction novelist who makes his living convincing people that things like dinosaur cloning and time travel are scientifically possible.

Of course, through all of this, I must admit that I don't have a sniff about the science behind this issue. But then neither does 99.99 % of the rest of the human race. We have to rely on the opinions of experts and, as Y2K proved, once a media frenzy gets started, experts can be just as prone to band-wagon mentality as the rest of us.

The one advantage I feel I have is that my writing work brings me into frequent contact with real-life climate scientists. I've researched and written entire "special issues" devoted to climate change, which involved interviewing dozens and dozens of ordinary working scientists - not media dandies, not corrupt corporate shills, just regular old science nerds holed up doing research. Their views, I've found, are remarkably consistent, very enlightening and surprisingly moderate.

So here it is, the Inconvenient Truth, Mentok-style:

- Climate change is definitely happening
- Partly, this is natural and can't be stopped
- Human GHG emissions play a major part, but no one knows for sure exactly to what degree
- Anyone who says he is "sure" about the causes, timing or extent of climate change is talking out his ass, because human understanding of climate systems just isn't that good (otherwise, we'd get better weather forecasts)
- Aggressive reduction of GHG emissions is a very good idea and absolutely necessary, since they're only making things worse but:
- Even if we banned the automobile and went back to living in caves, climate change wouldn't stop - partly because it's natural, partly because things have already gone too far
- This won't "kill the planet"; the planet has been through much worse. It will, however, challenge our ability to adapt
- Many of the negative effects of climate change could, in theory, be significantly mitigated by an aggressive campaign of building dams, retaining walls and water storage systems
- Very little of this boring, practical adaptation work is being done, because people are too busy running around being hysterical and predicting the end of the world

Again, I'm no scientist, so I have no basis to know whether this version of climate change science is any better or worse than others.

But the thing about this version that gives me confidence is that it says things that are certain to infuriate both the alarmists and the "skeptics". In my experience, the truth is usually in the middle, not the extremes.

Word up.

Ba Humbug

2007-11-27T10:23:00.000-06:00

It's started: the hypocrisy season is in full swing.

This time of year, the air is ringing with two constant hymns. First, the weeping about materialism coming from the people who are participating in it the most. For example, here's an actual quote from one of the rich big-shots around my office:

"I don't know what I'm going to get for my kids for Christmas. We're going as a family to Jamaica for Christmas week and I'm buying a new Wii for the household. I've tried telling the kids that those are their Christmas presents, but they're telling me that those are family presents and that it's not really Christmas unless there's something under the tree. The season has just become so materialistic!"

Ya know, if you get to the point where your kids are bored with going to Jamaica, you've pretty much lost the spiritual battle against materialism, I figure.

The second song of the season is the moaning from the fundamentalist Christians about secularists trying to "take the real meaning out of Christmas". Well, maybe they should have thought of that back, oh, 170 years ago when they allowed one of their saints to become a symbol of unfettered greed and gluttony; a symbol used to indoctrinate children into those "Christian" values, no less.

Plus, in my experience, fundamentalist types are more materialist than most people. The only thing they hold back on at Christmas is the liquor, the lack of which only makes their bourgeois vulgarity more tiresome.

Really, when you think of it, there is scarcely a more anti-Christian season than Christmas. How exactly are greed, gluttony and liquor supposed to remind us of the spiritual values of that great prophet?

Before I go any further, I should emphasize that I'm as big a hypocrite as any one. I enjoy the festive piss-ups thoroughly and I'm notorious in our family for falling into deep black moods when I feel I've received inadequate presents.

It seems no one, anywhere in the world, can dodge the Christmas virus. For one thing, the world economy practically depends on it. It is an addiction that will probably follow our civilization until its end.

I wish I could be more of a hippy about this. There's a concept I'd love to promote, but my conservative values block me from being too much of an activist about it. Here it is:

Give poetry for Christmas.

Pretty simple, eh? Instead of giving your family all this bullshit crap they're going to throw out in a few months, take the time (i.e. put a few months into it) to write down all your positive feelings about your loved ones. Practice calligraphy. Put it on fancy paper. Maybe even put it in a frame.

How long would your kids treasure a present like that? At first, of course, they would hate it, but in time they would value it more and more, like an investment building interest. After you are dead, your kids would probably cry buckets just thinking about your poems.

And how about spouses? How many marriages could do with an injection of poetry once in awhile?

It's not going to happen, though, at least not in my house. I have a knack for buying presents and I especially enjoy shopping for things to surprise and delight my wife. And my kids, who are not spoiled but rather are hard-working contributors to our home, really have earned a few special wishes. And, gawdammit, as much as I hate to admit it, as un-Buddhist as it is, I thrive on the flattery of material presents too.

But still, it would be nice, wouldn't it? I think it would be very cleansing, like a spiritual enema, flushing out all the materialistic crap our civilization loads on us.

So maybe some year I'll do it. It's a nice Christmas dream to keep alive, don't you think?

Carving the Turkey

2007-11-22T09:55:00.000-06:00

First up, Happy American Thanksgiving to all my American readers.

One thing I give thanks for is good friends. I think they both know how important they are to me.

In particular, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my long-time real-life friend who goes by the blog name Grumps. He's hospitalized with some moderate health issues - not life threatening in any way but bad enough that they've got him on morphine.

It astounds me to realize that I've probably known Grumps longer than I've known what it's like to kiss a girl. Man, those five years just flew by, didn't they Grumps?

We've all heard the expression "I can't believe he had the gall to do that". This turns out to be quite literal in Grumps' case. Apparently his innards have gotten screwed up because he's still cranking out gall stones in spite of the fact that he had his gall bladder removed several years ago. (And, yes, "innards" is the medical term. Jeez, watch some House once in awhile, ya eejits!)

I'm not really clear on how that all works medically. Grumps is a well-known slackass and lay-about (he only works two jobs, after all), so this may all just be some lame excuse to get off work.

Alternately, his erectile dysfunction issues may have come back and he may have slapped together his cover story too quickly, forgetting that his gall bladder was already out.

Quite seriously, Grumps is like a brother to me and I wish I was there to check in on him, so just in case they have an Internet station at the hospital I wanted to embarrass him with a nice big public get-well-soon message.

I hope the doctors keep him doped up on morphine long enough that he is able to appreciate the humour of this post. The rest of you, I fear, will not enjoy such an advantage.

Ultra Vires

2007-11-19T09:45:00.000-06:00

Yet another of my pet peeves is the "ultra" brand in advertising. You know what I mean: those products (typically cleansers) that come in containers half the size and twice the price of their conventional counterparts. Because they are supposedly more "concentrated", you are supposed to use less and save money.

Of course, the whole "ultra" fad has more or less been one big scam, since people often don't consciously measure things like dish detergent, so they end up using the same amount for twice the price.

Never has this been more clear than with Charmin's new Ultra brand of toilet paper. Most of the product's advertising focuses on it's softness (and, according to Poop Report, it lives up to its claims.) However, some of its ads also make the tired old "ultra" claim that you "use less".

Now, I'm sorry, but if there is one procedure where I'm definitely not engaged in any sort of rational consumer value calculation, it's ass-wiping. Maybe it's just me, but that's one action I just want to get over with as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Actually, in my house, I'm rather notorious for excessive, pipe-clogging toilet paper use and I doubt very much that Charmin Ultra's "concentrated" nature would inhibit that. My reasons for heavy toilet paper use are two-fold (or two-ply, perhaps, ha!) First, I just really don't want to get my hand anywhere near there. Second, I'm really paranoid about doing an effective job.

My paranoia in this area, I think, stems from being a movie buff. You know how it is when you're in your theatre seat and someone from further on in the row gets up and squeezes past you to leave, waiving his ass in your face as he goes. I find it very hard to concentrate on the movie after that with the stench of someone else's crap in my nose.

So I'm very mindful of not inflicting this on anyone else. "Doo-doo unto others as you would have them doo-doo unto you", I say. I won't go into all the details, because that would just be too gross, but suffice it to say that I'm not above spraying a shot of Axe down the back of the trousers just to be on the safe side. I'd probably even think about installing a bidet but, I don't know, those things just seem a little too creepy to me.

Now how about you, dear readers? Any excessive, obsessive-compulsive personal hygiene habits? Given how low I've set the bar, you should feel free to talk about anything.

Rhys Meyers Arrested for Drunkenness

2007-11-19T09:25:00.000-06:00

Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers was charged with public drunkenness and breach of the peace after a clash at Dublin Airport, Irish media reported Monday.

Source: CBC News

What absolutely amazes me about this story is that Ireland actually has laws against public drunkenness and breach of the peace. Who'dda thunk it?

.

2007-11-15T11:39:00.001-06:00

OK, I know this is kinda off topic, but I feel almost a public duty to inform people of the terrible labour shortage in Western Canada.

I was in my home town for Remembrance Day over the weekend. Small towns in Western Canada have been hit especially hard by the labour shortage because, of course, most people want to live in cities.

A couple of the town's restaurants have had to close after lunch because, even with increased wages, benefits and flex hours, they can't find enough staff to open for supper. Any new workers who move into town don't stay in the service industry for long before they are snapped up by the higher-paying local oil industry.

Neighbouring towns are giving away lots, low-rent apartments and, in some cases, whole houses in an increasingly desperate effort to lure workers away from the cities.

So there you have it. If you feel like starting a new life and don't mind living out in the boonies, come to Western Canada. Show up in almost any town on the Prairies, tell them you're there to get a job and I guarantee the town will practically throw a parade in your honour.

The truly bewildering thought is that this is just the beginning. This is one of the first places to be hit by this phenomenon, but as the boomer generation starts dying off, labour is going to become a more and more precious commodity everywhere. After decades of treating workers like peons, employers could be in for quite the noodle twister.

The Wind is a Nasty Bastard

2007-11-14T09:45:00.000-06:00

I hate the cold.

No, really. I really effing hate the cold.

As you might guess, the winter winds blew into town today with all their usual sociopathic cruelty.

At this time of year, my one treasured time of day is when I'm in the shower. For those precious 15 minutes, I am really, truly warm. All the rest of the day, cold haunts me like a ghost reminding me of some past sin.

It's not as though I don't know how to cope. After all, I've been dealing with this all my life. I know all about the power of layering, the importance of keeping one's head covered, etc., etc. But none of it is quite good enough.

It's funny that I'm so attached to this corner of the world, because this is basically the Nation of Cold. Yet there seems to be some strange switch in my mind that shuts off whenever I start to think about going to live in a warmer clime. For some reason, I just can't imagine it.

And, of course, like anyone who endures extremes, I do so love to brag about it when I get the chance. When backpacking in Europe during my college years, I loved to strike fear and wonder into the hearts of Australians by trying to describe -40 C weather for them.

"It's like death! When you walk outdoors in minus 40 weather, you are instantly gripped by the certain knowledge of your own death if you are so foolish as to stand in one spot too long. It is a cold that stabs you through to your soul!"

The Aussie's soft, heat-pampered eyes would grow wide in terror. It was better than telling ghost stories.

Well, there's my rant for the day. How about you guys? Anyone else feel like bitching about the weather?

Sixteen Years Gone

2007-11-07T07:56:00.000-06:00

Sixteen years.

If I had been born 16 years ago, I'd be getting my driver's licence today, so this would be a purely happy day.

But today is not my 16th birthday. Today is provincial Election Day where I live and my feelings are much more mixed.

Eighteen years ago, I was what they call a Young Turk. I was a young political professional appointed to a high-ranking job fresh out of college. Sharp, energetic and ambitious, I felt (within the context of my little jurisdiction) like a Master of the Universe, as Tom Wolfe put it.

I had a boss, a cabinet minister, who I liked and who indulged my advice. There were grown men and women, much older, wiser and better educated than I was, who felt obliged to suck up to me. I had money, power and all the perks.

I had too much, really, more than I'd earned. Finally, 16 years ago, the mighty hand of The Vote came and took it all away.

When a young politico faces his first major defeat, there are basically two ways he can go. Many choose to see their party's election loss as a wake-up call to get on with their "real lives." They go back to get their law degrees and MBAs or get into one of those suitably mature, bourgeois professions like real estate, insurance sales or financial management. These are the smart people.

But then there are those other poor damned souls who become addicted to political life and decide to stick with it when their party is in opposition, ever pursuing the elusive dream of returning to power.

I chose the latter path. In my partisan arrogance, I figured our opponents could not possibly last in government more than four years. I figured I would still be pretty young and I'd soon be right back into being a Master of the Universe before I knew it.

That was 16 years ago. The first eight our opponents earned. The second eight we handed them through our own sheer stupidity.

Those 16 years of my professional life have been filled with frustrations, heartbreaks, sacrifices and betrayals too numerous to recount.

And good times. Yes, some good times, I must admit. But was it worth it? No, probably not. Finally, I did succumb to the "get a real job" path; I should have done so long ago.

Sitting here, on the verge of a major political change in our province, I find myself as much as anything consumed by sympathy for our opponents. They've grown increasingly desperate as they've come to grips with their imminent loss. I've been there, I know what that feels like. I know many of them personally; good guys, with families to raise and mortgages to pay. They're all pretty freaked out right now. After 16 years, I'm sure many of them figured the party would never end and therefore have no back-up plans. Quite literally, I don't wish that on my worst enemy.

As for me, over time my glorious, romantic dream of the Masters of the Universe faded as slowly but certainly as my hairline. In its place grew a new self-image, that of the heroic Resistance Fighter.

But what happens to the Resistance Fighter when and if he finally wins, when all of his great battles are finally over? What happens to the old soldier to whom peace and victory have become foreign concepts?

I'm about to find out. I don't think I'm going to like it.

[Next post will be back to happy stuff, I swear]

Leonard Cohen - The Partisan

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

2007-11-01T10:23:00.000-06:00

Ultimately, it's not about the candy at all. It's all about the Halloween Love. It's about all the smiles you inspire, the people who stop in the middle of the street to admire your costumes and the wide-eyed wonder from adult householders just before they say, with child-like glee, "Wow, those are great costumes!"

That's why I like Halloween, better than the other holidays and observances. Although I like Christmas as much as the next person, that season has gotten bogged down by too many soul-sapping reminders of work-a-day adulthood: all the Christmas parties you have to attend (or the resentments you harbour for the parties to which you weren't invited); the keep-up-with-the-Jones' exterior home decorations; all the professional-obligation Christmas cards you have to send to people you don't really like but whose asses you have to kiss; and all the many, many excessive, fun-robbing expectations laid on us by the Martha Stewarts and all the other mighty squares of the world.

But Halloween, by and large, is still just pure goofy, silly fun. The squares and "the Man" haven't gotten to Halloween yet.

I should hasten to add, for the benefit of my lovely wife, that teachers are the exception to this. Halloween, as my wife reminds me every year, is hell on wheels for teachers. It is, for them, a professional obligation and not a particularly pleasant one, so I can't begrudge my wife her occasional bouts of Halloween Grinchitude.

And speaking of the Grinch brings us to last night. For as long as I've had kids, I've dressed up with them and we've gone out as a consistent theme. This year we went as Dr. Seuss characters: the Grinch, the Cat-in-the-Hat and Sam-I-Am. I can say that we harvested our second greatest bounty of Halloween Love this year (our best, of course, being the year we went as KISS).

Big thanks are due to my sister-in-law, a skilled seamstress who foolishly committed to make the costumes for us from scratch before realizing how horribly difficult it is to work with fun-fur.

Not only did she sew the costumes, but she also sourced the material so that they were affordable. I had no idea when I started down the road of the Seuss theme how expensive fun-fur is. Fortunately, my sister-in-law is a power shopper and managed to track down some bolts of discount material. Thanks so much, L, we couldn't have done it without you.

Some people had trouble identifying me as Sam-I-Am, so I started being more aggressive about pushing the Green Eggs and Ham. At popular houses where we had to line up to get to the door, I had a schtick where I'd turn to people behind us in line and ask: "Would you like some green eggs and ham while you're waiting?" They would invariably decline, so then, in a humorously dead-pan tone, I'd vary my offerings: "How about over there? Would you, could you over there? Or in the house, or with a mouse?" This got a good reaction.

My oldest son, a teenager, once again was too cool to join our theme. He went out with friends and dressed as an injured hockey player. He didn't just put on hockey gear; he put real effort into simulating wounds. Most of his friends wore no costumes at all. So I'm glad to see I've at least taught him something about the Halloween spirit.

Birthday Bliss

2007-10-24T10:22:00.000-06:00

You all know how I enjoy staging kids' theme birthday parties. Our family's all-time favourite theme is Super-Hero School, which we staged again last weekend for my youngest son's birthday. We've done this theme three times, once for each of our kids. Sadly, that means this was also our last chance to do that theme until grandkids come along.

In case any of you have desire and opportunity, here's the complete party plan:

THE BASICS

Invite - our adventures in fantasy begin with the invitation. In this case, we designed it to look like a brochure from a local technical school.

Staff - you should have at least three people working this event. Both parents and an older brother or two works well. Ideally, all the staff should be dressed in super-heroic or mad-scientist garb.

Venue - a reception area plus lots of room to run around. The first time we did this theme, we held it in our house and backyard. The other two times we rented a church hall.

Decorations - superhero posters plus various print-outs of Zap! Pow! sound effects. Use as many as you like. I tend to decorate the reception area heavily but not bother with the running-around area.

THE ACTIVITIES

Once all the guests have arrived and settled, capture their attention by flamboyantly welcoming them to the school. It helps to have some superhero theme music running in the background throughout.

Name Picking - have one bag full of superheroic adjectives ("Super", "Mighty", "Crimson" etc.), another bag full of nouns. It's fun to come up with your own lists, but if you get stuck I have templates I can send.

Slogan Practice - this part is pure ad-libbing and creativity. Work with the kids to come up with and rehearse a superheroic battle-cry appropriate to their name. My fave from last weekend's party was "Let's slice it up!" for the Blue Blade.

Costume Design - supply the kids with white t-shirts and an assortment of permanent markers. Let them go crazy coming up with their own costume. For added fun, you can also supply white eye-masks for them to colour. When they're done, help them put on their shirts, masks and capes (for capes, I just get a few yards of cheap, silvery cloth and cut it to the appropriate lengths ahead of time, then just safety-pin them on.)

Super-strength - make fake weights using styrofoam and granite-texture spray paint. Make a big show out of having the adults try and fail to lift them. Distract any kids who suggest the weights are fake. Give the kids some sort of power-band and let them take turns lifting the weights with ease.

Super-speed - issue the kids mini-fans and tell them they will boost their normal running speed. Then let them race.

Web-blast - Silly string. Moving target. 'Nuff said.

Flying Practice - a rebounder and lots of gymnastic-quality mats.

It's quite important to do Super-speed before Web-blast so the kids don't slip on the silly string.

DENOUEMENT

"Graduation Banquet" - cake, Happy Birthday singing and presents. While this is going on, one of the adults should sneak off to a lap-top and a portable printer to prepare for...

Graduation Ceremony - play Pomp and Circumstance in the background. Give each kid an authentic-looking graduation certificate and their super-hero license, ideally with their picture on it. If you have time, also take a class picture and print out one for each guest.

TAKE-HOMES

As a rule, I don't do treat bags. Instead, I work the take-home items into the play. In this case, each kid should be sent home with his shirt, cape, mask, wrist band, mini-fan, silly string and certificates. With diligent dollar-store shopping, you can keep the take home items in the neighbourhood of $5-$8 per kid. That's not so bad considering that the items are also the party's main activities.

BOTTOM LINE

If you have to rent a hall and the gymnastics equipment, this party will cost you about $200 for about 10 kids. That's comparable to commercial parties like Lazer Quest and such, but unlike those run-of-the-mill events I 100% guarantee that guests will leave exclaiming "This was the best birthday party ever!"

If you are interested in staging this party and have any questions, let me know.

Hello Dalai!

2007-10-18T12:24:00.000-06:00

You're lookin' swell, Dalai. You're still glowin', you're still crowin', you're still going strong.

OK, killed that gag.

It was nice to see the Dalai Lama honoured with the Congressional Gold Medal. The guy works hard and, for all his faults, he is a really great ambassador for Buddhism to the western world.

"For all his faults?" Oops, did I say that out loud?

Yeah, I'm sure it won't surprise long-time readers to learn that I'm such a cantankerous bastard that I even have mixed feelings about the Dalai Lama. But he's winning me over, and his statements yesterday helped.

You see, I'm a bit suspicious of Tibetan Buddhism in general. Buddhism is supposed to be a practical, sensible religion that avoids mysticism, superstition, meaningless ritual and religious vanity of all sorts. Yet Tibetan Buddhism is all those things, in spades.

Let's translate the situation into something closer to home for Westerners. Imagine that the Catholic Pope was also the King of Italy. Next, imagine that he was no longer selected on his merits through election by the College of Cardinals. Instead, when a Pope died, the cardinals would sit around for years waiting for a sign from God to tell them who the next Pope/King would be. Imagine that a cardinal had a dream that the next Pope was a small boy living on a farm in southern Italy, so all the cardinals piled into a bus and drove around southern Italy looking for the right farm. Then, when they found him, they would take the kid from his home, force him to take the job, refuse to allow him any personal life and spend the next ten years brainwashing him with Catholic dogma.

What a freakshow that would be, eh?

And then there's all those titles. Cripes, those Tibetans love their titles. 'His eminence' this, 'His holiness' that, and everyone and his dog from Tibet seems to like to use the (often self-proclaimed) title Rinpoche, meaning "Precious one." Guys, didn't you get the memo about being humble and suppressing all expressions of personal ego?

Then there's the whole Free Tibet business. Although I'm totally in favour of bashing the Chinese government, it seems to me that nationalism and Buddhism shouldn't mix. Nationalism, after all, is attachment. Who cares who rules what piece of land? Who cares if some monk-king is sitting in his castle or not? What matters is that the people of Tibet live in a Buddhist way.

To his credit, this is what the Dalai Lama is now saying and it was the focus of his speech yesterday. He is now talking about Tibet as being a semi-autonomous part of China. He has shifted his focus to fighting for the religious and personal freedoms of everyone in China, and that is a good and important fight to take on.

And don't get me wrong. The Dalai Lama is a good guy, no doubt. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't selected as the Pope of Buddhism. He was chosen to be the secular head of government for a little theocratic country. Yet he has willingly taken on the job of fostering the religion world-wide, and that deserves much praise.

Speaking of deserving praise, George Bush, idiot that he is, deserves credit for his public support of the Dalai Lama. It might be the one truly, purely good thing the guy has done. It saddens me to think that Richard Gere, all the Hollywood Democrats and all the young hippies wearing Free Tibet t-shirts will nonetheless try to find a hateful perspective to the whole event. Quel dommage.

Election Guideline

2007-10-18T11:05:00.000-06:00

It's provincial election time where I live. As well, there was some threat of a snap federal election in Canada, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen yet. Also, I see that the campaign ads for 2008 have already started to run on American TV.

Times like this make me stop and think about what I actually believe about politics.

Of course, the simple answer to "what do I actually believe?" is "Not much." Long experience in the belly of the beast has left me skeptical of all political rhetoric, left and right.

But boil down my various stray thoughts on the issues, and it can probably be expressed in a couple of sentences:

Human beings are vain and over-confident. Our ability to fuck things up vastly overshadows our ability to do things properly.

So when politicians, left or right, come along and tell me, "We've got a bunch of great new ideas for the future!", my reaction is "Oh, Christ, not new ideas again. Heaven preserve us from the new ideas."

Why do we need to have new ideas every four years? That's hardly enough time to get the old ideas rolling, much less prove that they were bad ideas. Our society is like the ADD kid of civilizations. Why can't we try doing something consistently for awhile? Consistency: now there's a new idea I might actually support.

But consistency has its own dangers. Sometimes you have to vote the bums out just so they don't go getting lazy and corrupt.

The nice thing about our Western society is that the "new ideas" talk usually ends up being for show. The bureaucrats, gawd blessem, are usually too lazy and narrow-minded to tolerate new ideas. Many patently bad new ideas have been stopped in their tracks thanks to bureaucratic stubbornness. If only bureaucrats in the past had made an extra little bit of effort, had pushed the envelope and tried to be just a bit more lazy and stubborn, who knows how many tragedies could have been averted.

So here's my advice to voters: Vote for the same shit, different pile. Vote in different groups of politicians but don't vote for them until they promise not to do anything really different from the last group. Of course, they will never out-and-out say that, so you have to listen close.

Word Up!

2007-10-11T15:21:00.000-06:00

For those of you who don't yet know, I'm a magazine writer/editor. At parties, when people ask me what magazine I work for, I like to say: "I work for a publication called Gent: Home of the D Cup. Perhaps you've heard of it?" I especially enjoy saying this to a couple and then watching the deer-in-the-headlights look on the guy's face as he tries to formulate an answer that will neither incriminate him nor make him look naive. Fun!

No, I'm afraid my publications are very boring trade and professional magazines, nothing you'd ever find on a magazine rack. Nonetheless, I make my livelihood with words. Like all writers and editors, I have my own set of pet peeves.

Some of them are really anal, I know. For example, I have a very low tolerance for the split infinitive (e.g. "to quickly go to the store" instead of the correct "to go quickly to the store"). As I see it, infinitive verbs are meant to be one word. In most languages, they are single words (such as aller in French). It was just a linguistic freak accident that led English-speakers to use two words for this purpose. Would it make sense for a French speaker to say "al - vite - ler au magasin"? No, obviously that would be pretty fucking stupid. But we do it all the time in English and no one says boo about it. Some style guides even permit it these days.

OK, yeah, so you see, pretty anal, right?

On other matters, I feel more confident getting on my high horse. For some of the magazines I work on, I just edit submitted material rather than write it myself. The submissions typically come from intelligent, college-educated professionals, yet their writing typically is almost complete jibberish. In fact, that's how I think of it sometimes: "I'm not editing. I'm translating from jibberish to English."

One thing that really bugs me is the obsessive over-use of the passive voice by professionals of all sorts. It doesn't matter whether its cops, nurses, architects, engineers or civil servants. They all seem to think they sound smarter if they write like Yoda. One lovely "sentence" I handled today, believe it or not, was "The attachment of the boards is achieved through the use of nails." Bleh!

Of course, like any writer, I also hate buzzwords, techo-babble and bureaucrat-speak of all sorts. I've got a long hate list of these. The number one spot on my list varies over time. It used to be pro-active. For the last time, people: the opposite of reactive is active. Pro-active is not a real word and, if it was, it would be a real fucking stupid word because it would be totally redundant. Active already means active; you don't need to stick a "pro" in front of it to make it mean active again. Grrr!

But even pro-active doesn't bother me as much these days as the new darling bastard child of bureaucrat types everywhere: impacted. The illiterates who use this word must think it is just the verb form of impact. Impact, it should be said, is a great English word because it is so often used very artfully in metaphors e.g. "The full impact of the tragedy hasn't hit him yet."

But there's nothing artful about impacted. Its real meaning is "wedged or packed together", but pretentious types use it when they mean to say affected.

I actually saw a billboard, sponsored by the local nurses union, featuring that awful word: "Health care cuts: How have they impacted you?" What astounded me was not that a nurse would think of using the word, but that the copy-writers at the ad agency that designed the billboard for them let them get away with it. Incredible!

OK, so just for reference, here are the two examples when one might legitimately use "impacted":

If you are an astronomer and you are talking about extra-terrestrial bodies like asteroids, e.g. "the asteroids became impacted after their collision."
If you are talking about dentistry, e.g. "impacted wisdom tooth".

So, if you're not talking about asteroids or teeth, please never ever ever ever use the word "impacted". Please!

In Orwell's 1984, he tried to make it sound horrible that the fictional Stalinist regime was working to try to eliminate words. Given how routinely words are misused in our society, I think such a campaign would actually be doubleplusgood.

But enough of my rants. Do any of you have linguistic pet peeves you want to get off your chest?

Crying for My Beer

2007-10-10T11:12:00.000-06:00

I should say from the outset that, on the whole, I support globalization.

I know that sounds strange, given how much anti-globalization protest there is these days, and I'm sure there are some readers who'll want to tear a strip out of me for saying it. I'm not an expert, I stand to be corrected, but my understanding of economics is that countries generally benefit from the free movement of capital.

Further, I think that corporate globalization is an important (but sometimes unpleasant) phase in the eventual unification and pacification of the human race. When the day comes that the pension funds of Chinese workers are backed by investments in North American and European companies, and vice versa, the world will be a much safer and better place.

Still, while this may be an inevitable process of evolution, there are some days when it's hard to swallow some of the traditions that get killed off along the way. Today is one of those days:

Molson Coors and SABMiller have merged. The new company will be known as MillerCoors. The 221 year old Molson corporate name is dead.

On top of being my personal brand loyalty, Molson had become synonymous with patriotism in this country. A few years back they dominated the Canadian beer market with their "I AM Canadian" ad campaign, which featured a regular guy standing on a stage in front of Canadian flag, defiantly and humorously shouting a list of things that make this country special and different. The ads were so widely imitated and parodied that they could be a textbook study in viral marketing.

The merger between Molson and Coors a few years back was spun on this side of the border as being, effectively, a conquest by Molsons. The Molson name was out front. The Molson brand was going to grow beyond Canada and become one of the world's dominant brewing companies.

The current merger puts the lie to all that. Pete Coors is the new chair. SABMiller Prez Tom Long takes the job in the new company. No one with the last name "Molson" anywhere in sight.

Will this make a difference in any real way to me? No. I've long since lost those college-student taste-buds that once allowed me to distinguish differences amongst bland, generic commercial beer brands. The consolidation might even make my favourite brands cheaper, which would be good.

Plus, there's the whole historical / philosophical perspective. Stuff changes. You can't get attached to unstable things, such as who owns what. Traditions are important but they have to change eventually. Europe is full of rotting castles because the aristocratic families who once owned them can no longer afford to keep them up. The Earl of Sandwich has stooped to hawking subs in Texas. Time is a cruel mistress.

Still, I'll shed a quiet tear for the Molson brand today. And maybe toast it with a pint. Or two.

Here's the original Molson's Joe Canada ad:

This was Molson's follow-up ad. Fuck me but my eyes still well up when I watch this:

Truer Words Never Spoken

2007-10-08T10:37:00.000-06:00

In the news over the weekend, James Blunt says there are times he wishes he wasn't famous.

Don't we all. Don't we all!

That Frees Up My Wednesday Nights

2007-10-04T10:07:00.000-06:00

It was Wednesday, but it seemed like Freaky Friday. The first post-pilot episode of NBC's re-imagined Bionic Woman was not just bad, it was surrealistically bad.

Long-time readers and real-life friends will understand what a disappointment this is to me. The new Bionic Woman is the creation of the people who brought us the new Battlestar Galactica, a show I unabashedly love.

Let me underline that last part. The new Battlestar Galactica is the smartest science fiction series ever made, full stop. More than that: BSG may well rank as one of the most important shows in TV history. The show stared unblinkingly into the ugly face of human weakness and used science fiction symbolism to great effect.

It handled deep contemporary and philosophical issues with a level of complexity and sophistication rarely seen on the boob tube. This is, after all, the series that carried off the 'know-thine-enemy' artistic coup of making North American audiences regard a suicide bomber as a hero, a feat with few parallels in TV history.

Bionic Woman started off with all the advantages BSG had. Same writers, directors, producers, many of the same actors and crew. Even the locations (Vancouver and area, natch) are the same and I wouldn't be shocked if they even recycled a few of the old sets.

And yet it is not the same at all. It is a pale, pathetic imitator. It made me think of those scenes in Freaky Friday in which, after the mother and daughter switch bodies, the daughter hopelessly attempts to imitate adult life but only succeeds in pulling off a string of cliches and transparent bluffs. It's as though someone has taken over producer/writer David Eick's body and is trying to fake his way through the show by using Eick's previous formulas but with none of his previous talent.

If this is what Eick's future holds, he should just pull an Orson Welles and spend the rest of his days doing talk shows, conventions and product endorsements.

The only thing I kinda enjoyed about the show was the irony of a show about a half-robotic woman that featured so much totally robotic acting and dialogue.

I'm not going to go into the terrible, terrible details of why the show sucks or what scenes or aspects I found especially suckitudinous. Just take my word for it and avoid it.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Mentok

2007-10-04T07:51:00.000-06:00

My lovely wife, Mrs. Mentok aka Library Mama turns 31 today.

I know all you guys are jealous 'cause I'm married to this sexy trophy wife and all.

But put that aside for a second and go wish her a happy birthday. That's an order.

(Facebook pokes would also be in order, of course.)

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

2007-09-28T09:49:00.000-06:00

I'm an unabashed dog person, but there is one terrible, hidden fact that hits me in the gut whenever I look into my own dog's adoring eyes: they are all fake.

This will come as a rude awakening for all you hippies out there, but virtually every "natural" object in our human world is a product of genetic engineering. Every fruit and vegetable, every garden flower, every domesticated animal, every animal food source (with the strange exception of fish) has been meticulously cultivated and cross-bred to serve specifically human purposes. There is evidence that pre-historic man as early as 10,000 years ago was a skilled cross-breeder. Bio-engineering, it seems, is something we humans are just naturally good at.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in dogs, yet most people are in denial about it. Most view dogs' qualities as wonders of nature: their loyalty, their intelligence, their ability to do useful tasks, their great desire to fit in with human families and, above all, their tremendous unconditional love for their human masters.

Fake. Fake, fake, fake, fake. Everything about dogs was designed by us. Natural dogs are nasty, feral little creatures, not much different from other canine species. It must have taken generations of cruelty and cross-breeding for our ancient ancestors to beat them into submission and engineer the specific physical and behavioural qualities they wanted.

I'm reminded of a scene in the science-fiction classic Bladerunner, in which reclusive android designer J.F. Sebastian explains his social life:

Pris: Must get lonely here, J.F.
J.F. Sebastian: Not really. I MAKE friends. They're toys. My friends are toys. I make them. It's a hobby. I'm a genetic designer.

Dogs are the same. "Man's best friend" is made to order.

But, as difficult as it is to stomach this realization about dogs, it begs an even more perplexing question:

How could we have gone so terribly wrong with cats?

Once again, I must admit my bias. To the same degree that I like dogs, I dislike cats. I'm terribly allergic to them, so of course that has coloured my view of the creatures (although our blog friend Cindy has some cute kitten pics that have melted my cat-hating heart on occasion.)

Biases aside, you can't escape the fact that cats are useless. They're lazy, untrainable, selfish and aloof. Where dogs thrive on human contact, cats seem merely to tolerate it.

Yet, just like dogs, cats are designed. We made them act that way. We took normal, ferocious wild felines, beat almost all of the hunting skills out of them and purposely engineered a species of surly layabouts.

What in heaven's name would have possessed us to do that?

It's not a rhetorical question. I'm opening the flood-gates to the always popular "cats vs. dogs" debate. Put yourself in the shoes ... well, fur leggings, maybe ... of a primitive human and give me your best theory for the original product design and marketing of CatTM .

It Just Doesn't Make Sense!

2007-09-25T09:49:00.000-06:00

Over my breakfast porridge, I got to thinking: What is the point of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?

Sure, I know, there are various versions but in most of them she either gets away or is befriended by the bears. Typically, even sanitized fables have a moral.

Is it "Always lock your doors"? How about "If you're good looking, you can get away with anything."

Maybe its a professional criminal, Usual Suspects-type message: "Don't fall asleep when you're on a job or the bears (cops, Keyser Soze) will get you."

Or, at the other end of the law-and-order spectrum, maybe its a CSI message: "No matter how perfect your crime, you will always leave clues" e.g. broken chairs, eaten porridge.

Speaking of the porridge, that's something else that doesn't make sense. Wouldn't they have cooked the porridge in one big pot? Why is it all different temperatures? Even if we allow for different perceptions of temperature, does it make sense that a child would have the median perception between two adults?

And that whole 'going for a walk' business is totally loony. I mean, I get how going for a walk would make hot porridge colder, but how was it supposed to make cold porridge hotter? By either logic, the 'just right' porridge would have been ruined.

Mind you, these are bears we're talking about. We can't expect that they would have a good grasp of thermodynamics.

Maybe that's the lesson: "Blondes are even dumber than bears."

No, that still doesn't sound right. I think underlying all of this is that the women in the fable get exactly what they want. Going for a walk only really suited the Momma Bear. Goldilocks, in most versions, gets off scot-free.

So I guess the ultimate moral is actually pretty instructive for those of us in a family or a relationship: "Momma always gets what she wants."

The Secret

2007-09-24T09:59:00.000-06:00

I don't like to dwell on political stuff in this blog, but this bit was too hard to resist.

Canada gets a lot of buzz these days as being a basically decent place whose public policy, on the whole, rolls out in a more sensible way than some other places one could mention.

What's the secret? This week, the formula for Canada's moderate, sensible politics was eloquently summarized by an unlikely source: Tom Flanagan!

This name will mean nothing to you Americans, so permit me to bore you with a quick recap: in the 1990s, Canadian conservatives were in a vicious civil war in which they were split into two parties, one rather radical and the other quite moderate (the latter's name, Progressive Conservative, pretty much said it all).

After a decade and a half of beating their heads against the wall, the radicals basically gave up and, for all intents and purposes, rejoined the traditional old moderate Tory party.

Flanagan is a Calgary right-wing academic (which is a bit like calling some one a Texas redneck ... the two terms just amplify each other). He was one of the intellectual leaders of the radical right faction. His statement in the Globe and Mail this weekend asserting the importance of moderate politics is, for my money, the final declaration of surrender from that group.

[Here's the real quick-and-dirty American translation: this is like Ross Perot saying "the main thing in politics is not to do anything crazy"]

The principles he "recommends" to the Canadian Tory (Conservative) party are in fact nothing new. They are the principles that every successful party in this country has always used.

If every political party, all over the world, could stick to this agenda, we'd all be better off.

I'll just give you the big labels and a link to the full declaration:

Tom Flanagan's "Ten Commandments of Conservative Campaigning"

Unity
Moderation
Inclusion
Incrementalism
Policy
Self-Discipline
Toughness
Grassroots politics
Technology
Persistence

Full article here.

On one level, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this article. These are exactly the principles that we Progressive Conservatives were screaming at people like Flanagan for the better part of two decades. Nice that they're finally listening. Would have been nicer ten years ago. (Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

My Nemesis

2007-09-18T12:02:00.000-06:00

As one who tries to follow the precepts of Buddhism, I usually make every effort to respect all life and avoid feelings of hatred. But there is one case where I completely fall down on both counts, one creature that I hate utterly and kill at every opportunity:

The Creeping Bellflower.

Fuck you, creeping bellflower!

My blood is getting angried-up just thinking about it. I did some fall maintenance on my backyard last weekend and that involved losing myself in my ongoing battle with that c--ksucking creeping bellflower. (Pardon my language)

For those of you blissfully unaware of the creeping bellflower, it is a highly invasive perennial that will swallow up your entire lawn and garden if you let it get away from you. Once established in your yard, you will never be rid of it. Never! It is impossible to eliminate, is unaffected by herbicides and can only be controlled (but not killed) by digging it up along with big chunks of your lawn.

I used to be fairly tolerant in my feelings about weeds. I used to say "weeds are just perennials with a bad rap." I still picked them, of course, but I bore them no ill will. Not so the motherf---king creeping bellflower, which in my view is pure evil in plant form.

What makes is it so evil is its seductive appearance. It was actually introduced on purpose to North America as a decorative plant. To this day, there are people who unwittingly introduce it to their gardens thinking it is some sort of nice, hardy, easy-to-grow wild flower.

But once it's in there, it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers time. It starts to shoot out thin, nearly invisible subterranean runners that snake out for yards, stopping occasionally to drop down a big, fat carrot-like root at such a depth that the plant's survival is assured in the face of the harshest winters, the driest droughts and the most toxic chemicals.

When I'm at war with this goddamn bastard plant, I love finding those big roots. They are deep, sometimes as much as a foot below the surface, and I have to massacre my lawn to get to them, but it always feels like I've unearthed a master vampire and driven a stake through his heart. Eliminating one big root will choke off colonies of the little monsters for yards around.

But they are sneaky. They gravitate to fences where it's easy to hide. Even if you uproot every last effing bellflower in your own yard, they can just retreat back to roots hidden across the fence in your neighbour's yard, like Osama bin Laden hiding out in the mountain passes in Pakistan.

I had some decorative wooden edging separating my lawn from my garden. I ripped that up and, sure enough, there was a virtual little civilization of the infernal things underneath. I'm on to you now, creeping bellflower. You can't hide forever.

I've read that experienced gardeners have spent as much as 18 years battling creeping bell-flower with limited success. This is about the third year for me. It's a long haul, I know that, I'm prepared for it.

At the end of the day, I looked out over the yard. It looked like a real war zone: stuff ripped up, craters here and there. It was a terrible day, full of loss. But all wars demand sacrifice and this war, I know, is for a just cause. I am fighting for the freedom and security of plant-life everywhere. Well, everywhere in my yard anyway.

Life and Death in Blogdum

2007-09-14T14:54:00.000-06:00

As our old friend FiL mentioned in my Facebook post, the comings and goings in bloggoland remind us of the impermanence of things.

It's funny though how this little virtual social reality of ours gets under one's skin. The friends, the enemies, the crushes, the flame wars, all rise and fall so quickly you feel like you're living out a sped-up alternate life. Even though you know it isn't rational, you can't help but feel that the passing of a blog is like a death in the family. I've been at this for two years now but I feel like I've gone through 10 years worth of relationships of one sort or another.

Today is one of those days most bloggers dread: link-list clean up day. We say goodbye to some old friends but also hello to new ones.

An overdue goodbye to Sabatkes, Bathroom Hippo, Canadian Sentinel, Arkanas and all my old Newfoundlander readers. They were all with me in the beginning and their blog passing makes me feel e-sad and blog-old.

Irish Eyes and The Night have been in the graveyard for awhile, but now it's time to eliminate the graveyard, especially since it now turns out they've been resurrected in Facebook land.

Cindy Chang, seen here celebrating her addition to the Mentok links

But enough sadness: Here's a big link-bar hello to the lovely Cindy, the witty Crash Calloway and the amphibious Toad. You are all well met. Thanks for including me in your circle, and welcome to mine.

On with the show.

P.S. Congratulations to Liz from Roaring Machine for landing her new job. Break a leg!

It's About Time!

2007-09-14T10:40:00.000-06:00

British Report Calls For Ban on Models Under 16

While they're at it, they should ban those appalling child beauty contests.

The only good thing to come out of those atrocities was Little Miss Sunshine, and that only because the beauty contest scenes represented perhaps the greatest cinematic achievement in the depiction of irony. If you've seen it, you know what I mean.

My Horoscope

2007-09-06T15:14:00.001-06:00

This Elvis chart comes from here

I don't really believe in horoscopes at all yada yada, you know the schpiel. Anyway, here's my Tarot.com reading for today:

Your artistic nature is being amplified now as beautiful Venus continues to activate your key planet Uranus. Though the effects of this weird aspect can make it harder to be creative because your ideas just don't fit in. Don't bother intellectualizing what's happening. Just jump in and experience it.

I wrote about a half dozen different Uranus gags to go along with this, but they're all too obvious. Please write your own and enjoy!

IMPORTANT UPDATE!

The found comedy continues. Here's my Sept.9 entry from Tarot.com:

Your key planet, Uranus, is on overload today, charging the air with metaphysical lightning.

I actually had hot peppers and beer last night! It's too freaky how accurate these things can be.

Rent

2007-09-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

You see those little tabby things at the top of the page? You may remember in my last make-over phase that I tried to maintain a bunch of different blogs and expected my loyal readers to check out each one diligently. Well, never really worked and I've long since given up trying to keep them updated.

Under my old "Attempts at Profundity" site, my first entry was the cryptic axiom "Key=Chain". Nobody really got it at the time, but what I was getting at was my recurrent notion that ownership is often a form of self-imposed slavery. I thought about this a great deal over the course of this summer as I gazed longingly at various leisure items.

I put it this way to a friend who was thinking about building a cabin:

"Before you decide to own a cabin, make sure you are prepared for the cabin to own you."

...because that's what happens. You buy a cabin and bam! there go your holidays and most of your summer weekends for the rest of your life. Thinking about taking a trip somewhere else this year? Well, you can't because then you've wasted your money on your cabin and you'll probably suffer a break-in or other damage from inadequate maintenance.

RV? Same deal. Buy one and you'll spend every summer on the road hunting for places to unload your sewage.

Boats? Again, buy one and you'll feel obligated to go boating every summer weekend whether you feel like it or not. Hauling. Launching. Docking. Repairing. Fees, fees, fees every time you turn around.

After my son's birthday, I've even come to this conclusion about convertibles. They are cool the first three times you drive them. After that, you get used to them and the annoyance factors start to become more noticeable.

There are some things worth owning, like your house or your car. Stuff you are going to use all the time or stuff that represents an investment.

But leisure items? Nope, I think I'll probably just stick to renting them, thank you very much.

Face the Music

2007-08-29T10:27:00.000-06:00

OK, I'm on Facebook now. Satisfied?

I'm sorry, that was a bit abrupt, wasn't it. It's just that I was a hold-out against it for a long time.

Friends have been urging me to join for awhile, but these are the same friends who convinced me to start blogging and look where that's led.

Also, I'd tried social networks before and disliked them. Specifically, I signed up to Myspace just so I could see my blogger friends' pages, but I never really "got" Myspace. It all seemed very confusing, jumbled and generally unpleasant to deal with.

On the surface, Facebook is little different from Myspace. Yet, somehow the whole community seems to convey a more pleasant atmosphere. I can't quite put my finger on the difference.

But it is totally addictive. I've been on for a day and I'm utterly hooked.

...Which is scary, in a way. I still prefer blogging. For one thing, I'm a writer and an opinionated bastard, and blogging gives me an opportunity to practice both. Social networking doesn't seem to take much creativity or thought.

But it sure does explain a few things. I've noticed over the past few months a sharp drop off in blogging activity out there in my usual circles. Generating comments seems much, much harder than it used to be. Many of the people who got me into blogging in the first place have long since dropped off the map. Sure enough, all of the usual suspects are now at it hot and heavy in Facebook land. Once again, I feel like the last one to show up at the orgy!

Now, usually I'm a crazy partisan about such things. I stuck with Beta video until the bitter end, for chrissakes. Computer salesmen back in the day had a hard time convincing me that the Amiga did not have a future.

I'd like to think I've learned from those mistakes. So, while Blogger is clearly superior, it looks like I'm now also going to have to invest some time at Facebook.

I hope to see you all there, but please please PLEASE don't neglect this page. Automated email hugs may be all nicey-nicey, but this will still always be the place you get the primo Mentok material.

Quotable

2007-08-27T09:52:00.000-06:00

"The fondness for travel by senior citizens has nothing to do with art."

- Jochen Temsch, a critic at Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

You're My Obsession

2007-08-23T09:57:00.000-06:00

For generations, scientists and philosophers alike have tried and failed to come up with the definition of what makes humans unique, that one special spark that separates us from all other apes and other potentially sentient species on the planet.

One by one, these theories have fallen, or at least weakened. Other apes have a sense of humour and can plan for future events. Apes and dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror. Animals as small as gophers have been observed using simple learned language. Chimps use a variety of tools. All apes rape, steal and murder for economic and political gain. Dolphins may or may not engage in creative song and dance (it's hard to say since we have yet to decipher their language, if it is a language.)

This really isn't leaving much left over for us poor humans to claim as our turf. But I think I've solved it. I think I know what distinguishes humans from all other creatures and is the cause of both our successes and many of our failings:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Let's consider a few examples, shall we:

Math! How much have we benefited from math? Yet high level math is one big obsessive wank-fest. Competing over who can remember Pi to the most decimal places? Jesus, get a life guys.

Agriculture? Every vegetable we eat is the product of obsessive cross breeding that began 10,000 years ago. At the time, such pursuits must have seemed like gigantic wastes of time. Why spend all day trying to make inedible food edible when there's already plenty of edible food around? I used to think this only applied to bananas, but almost all edible plants have been engineered by humans it seems. Next time you eat a fruit or vegetable, imagine the cave-woman wife hollering at her husband "Oh for God's sake! With all the time you've wasted trying to come up with a seedless banana you could have killed 20 deer by now!"

Medicine: Even the most primitive tribes, through painstaking trial and error, accumulate encyclopedic knowledge of the medicinal and poisonous qualities of local vegetation (by the way, exactly how do primitive tribes conduct trial-and-error experiments to devise poisons?). Modern pharmacology, for all its pretensions, still lives by the ancient traditions of screwing around with plant extracts to see if they do anything to the human body. Fun!

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Practically every major accomplishment of humanity started off as somebody's goofy and largely useless hobby, at which his peers no doubt snickered.

The stamp collector, the model-ship-in-a-bottle builder, the sports trivia expert ... and, yes, the compulsive blogger ... these people are the true heirs of our species greatness.

As for me, I've had various obsessions over the course of my life. I'm still a great fanatic for all things Batman, but that comes and goes. Used to be a comic collector, but gave it up for good and all a few years back (a decade earlier, I'd decided the long-planned end of the Cerebus the Aardvark series would be my personal cut-off point.) For a time, I collected Batman paraphernalia, until my basement filled up with it, so I cut back to just action figures but even that got out of hand. I've also been lured from time to time by the siren-songs of beer-making, gardening, canning and ethnic cooking.

Now, how about you guys? All bloggers strike me as somewhat obsessive types, so I'm eager to hear all about your various compulsions. Fil has his stinky cheese, I know that. Colin of course is the king of Scottish indie music. Grumps has his gay lover Bob Dylan. I'm sure they all have many stories. Now how about the rest of you: 'fess up!

My New Love (I Feel So Guilty)

2007-08-21T11:09:00.000-06:00

It's harvest time in my little vegetable garden. This is usually the time when my lady love Tomato and I frolic in our romance for one another.

Year in and year out, Tomato and I have enjoyed a new honeymoon every fall as we explore new dimensions to our relationship. Tomato, cucumber and basil sandwiches. Simple tomato and basil salads. Salsa. Pasta alla checca. Et cetera, et cetera.

From the simple to the exotic, there seemed no end to her homespun charms.

So why then have I gone so far astray this season?

Why have I barely looked at the bin of ripening tomatoes, beckoning to me in the kitchen?

Why have I taken up with that devil woman, Jalapeño?

Is it the danger, the excitement, the sense of the exotic? Is it just the novelty of the relationship?

I don't know, but I do know that I have totally lost my head over the sheer unbridled passion of this new relationship.

I eat the jalapeños raw, seeds and all, paying little heed to the consequences of my foolhardy appetites. I dice them up and sprinkle them on all sorts of other foods. I make jellies out of them, but even that doesn't satisfy me. I keep the left-over mash and juice from the jelly-making process and use them to make home-made hot sauces.

Naturally, this has put a strain on my family life. My kids don't like her. Even the dog turns up his nose at her. My wife has threatened to leave me if I don't stop brazenly cavorting with Jalapeño night after night.

But still I can't help myself. Even as I type this, my hands are burning, soaked through to the pores with her evil essence.

What can I do? How can I get myself back to the simpler, healthier charms of Tomato before it's too late?

Maybe a batch of salsa would help. Granted, it's a bit kinky, getting the two of them involved in the same dish. But at least it might help wean me off this dangerous obsession.

It's worth a try.

The image comes from here.

Shape of Things to Come

2007-08-20T10:20:00.000-06:00

I shall now, Nostradamus-like, pick five news stories from the past week that say something important about long-term trends. Squint between the lines of these stories and you can make out the outlines of where we will be in 50 years, for better or worse. Open for discussion. Feel free to suggest your own.

Bollywood Tour Launched in T.O.

Russia, China Hold Joint War Games

US, Canada, Mexico Hold Security and Prosperity Partnership Talks

Governments Worldwide Bailout Banks Caught in Credit Crisis

World Headed for Old-Age Crunch

I don't want to provide a bunch of commentary on these, because I think they speak for themselves. But a couple quick notes on the first and last headlines:

- has anyone else noticed how much High School Musical resembles a Bollywood production? Just imagine what it will be like when everything on TV and in the theaters is a High School Musical knock -off.

- isn't nature wonderful? It looks like the grotesquely high human population of the 20th Century was just an anomaly. Although it will probably screw up the global economy, a plummeting human population would solve many other problems .... like finding a parking spot, for example.

Another Weird Dream

2007-08-16T10:23:00.000-06:00

I'm at work and two colleagues ask me to follow them through a winding secret passage, down little-used stairs and behind secret doors. Before going through the last door, they warn me: "Brace yourself, this is going to freak you out."

I'm lead into a grand viewing room in what looks to be a gigantic space station. I can immediately see that things aren't good. The orbits of the solar system are in decline and the entire galaxy (maybe the universe?) appears to be filled with some sort of dark matter that threatens all existence as we know it.

The human race, I'm told, has been kept Matrix-like in an artificial dream state for an undetermined length of time in a colossal space station (possibly a Dyson sphere). Every so often, they wake somebody up to see if the person has any bright ideas about how to fix things.

To make matters worse, no one knows exactly how long this state of affairs has been going on or when the situation will go critical, since previous generations of awoken people have left few records. This could have been going on for a hundred years or a hundred million... nobody knows.

There is a community of perhaps a couple thousand awoken people, constantly hunting for solutions. I have no clue and no background that would be even remotely helpful, but I promise to give it some thought and get back to them.

On the whole, I wish I'd just been allowed to stay in the dream state, since it appears to be the only reasonable way to cope with the universe's apparently inevitable demise.

And then, I "woke up" .... ;-)

Gentleman Jim

2007-08-15T10:55:00.000-06:00

When I started this blog, it was meant to be a way to share jokes and political commentary with a small group of real-life friends scattered across the country. Today, most of my readers are from outside Canada, so I haven't done any commentary on current Canadian politics for a very long time.

But, it's my blog so I get to do what I like.

Over in Marcy's blog (I seem to be spending a lot of time there lately), I relayed the half-serious advice I used to give to my young political proteges back in the day. Believe it or not, politics generates a lot of unpleasant personality types, so I used to brace the younglings for this:

"Ninety-nine per cent of the people you meet in this business fall into five categories: Idiots, Weasels, Lunatics, Scumbags and Assholes. You are just starting off in this business, so you're an Idiot. But work hard and pay attention and someday you'll get to be an Asshole like me."

But this post isn't about all those unpleasant people. This is about a guy who fits into the 1 per cent not covered by the categories.

Calgary MP Jim Prentice is one of the few and true gentlemen of the political industry. Words like "loyal", "principled" and "compassionate" are usually used in an ironic, sarcastic tone about politicians, but not Jim.

This is, after all, the guy who lost his first attempt at the Tory leadership because he refused to sign a "deal with the devil". His opponent not only signed such a deal but promptly broke the deal a month later, showing that even the devil couldn't really trust Jim's opponent.

Jim represents a pretty heavily social conservative riding, yet unlike his Conservative colleagues he voted in favour of gay marriage because, as he said at the time, he didn't feel he could break faith with the many gay friends and colleagues he'd known over the years. The churches in his riding mounted a massive campaign against him the next time he came up for nomination, but he held on.

I worked for Jim as a volunteer on his leadership bid in 2003. As a candidate, he behaved the way every hack dreams of a candidate behaving: he was smart enough to take direction and good advice but also smart enough not to be led by the nose and to recognize bad advice.

I was in middle-management on that campaign. I had a substantial regional organizational role, but I was still just one of the grunts in the field. But Jim made it a habit, as all smart politicians do, of doing an end-run around his senior gate-keepers. He would regularly call the "grunts in the field" like me to get the real, unfiltered scoop. I still recall fondly getting calls in the middle of the night: "Lyle? This is Jim... Jim Prentice. How are things out your way?"

Since then, I've seen Jim regularly, whenever I'm out his way or he's out my way. Even though he's a big shot now, he still makes time to go for lunches and breakfasts with his old troops. You don't see that so much in politics. A lot of guys forget you as soon as they're elected.

In the recent Tory cabinet shuffle, Jimbo got the prominent Minister of Industry position. For about two years now, the inside scoop is that he is the Prime Minister's right-hand guy. There's talk now that he's being groomed to be the PM's successor.

This kind of thing almost never happens to the nice guys in politics. I'm glad to see an exception in this case.

I realize this post doesn't leave much room for our usual "tawk amongst yourselves" schtick, but let's try anyway: Do you know any truly good politicians? What makes you think so?