How to vote

You can vote any way you want to.

You can vote for the party that best reflects your personal views. You can vote for the party with the coolest logo. You can vote for the party best able to beat the party you detest.

You can vote for the person! You can vote for the person who is best qualified (whatever that means). You can vote for your friend, just because she's your friend!

You can flip a coin. You can choose the alphabetically first candidate. You can draw a happy face in all the circles. You can spoil your ballot. You can even refuse it! (Go up to the poll clerk, take your ballot, then say "I refuse it!". They will count it as refused.)

It's up to you. Don't let anyone tell you there's a right way to vote. You don't have to vote your heart. You don't have to be practical and choose the lesser of two evils.

Still, the act of voting has consequences. Happily, these are small for any one voter. (Nobody is going to blame me personally for Bob Rae. Or, maybe they'll blame me, but they won't sue me.)

Still, let's consider. Suppose on the ballot are three names: Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth May, and Adolf Hitler. You definitely prefer Elizabeth May to Margaret Thatcher, and this Hitler guy just freaks you out -- who would vote for that idiot? But to your surprise and horror, he has been endorsed by major newspapers, and a couple of polls have come out putting him in the lead! The sensible people prefer Margaret Thatcher, and you find Elizabeth May standing all by herself on a street corner handing out pamphlets which nobody will take.

Under these conditions, which, except for the anachronism, are not at all fanciful, it would be irrational and indeed immoral not to vote strategically -- that is, to vote for Margaret Thatcher when you prefer Elizabeth May. There is simply no question. (There are practical problems of judging who in fact would best be able to beat Hitler, but no moral ones.)

Let's consider the opposite case, again three names: Elizabeth May, and two brothers, Tweedledum, and Tweedledee (of the Tweedledumlicans and Tweedledeemocrats, as they were known in my youth). Tweedledum and Tweedledee are identical but insist they are different. They are both boring, unimaginative, and not especially competent. But people love them.

Then, by all means, vote for Elizabeth May. Hope that enough people are encouraged by your example to join you and maybe there will be a surprise. Even if she loses, it may give a salutary scare to the brothers. One of them may start listening. He may steal your ideas, but that's okay. And there's always next time.

Now I am sorry I brought Hitler into this! It rather overweights the argument. Let it stand. But let's try substituting George Bush for Hitler. Bush is an idiot. Thatcher was at least competent. Thatcher might be preferable to Bush, but could I bring myself to vote for her? I don't know that I could, even though I want to prove it is the rational, the prudential thing to do. I might prefer to watch the shambles unfold, and feel smugly that I was right: Elizabeth could not have been worse. This is complicated.

Anyway. This is a roundabout way of imploring any voters who might read this (and who detest Harper) to please, please, please, DON'T let him have a majority. If the votes shifted in sufficient numbers we might see a parliament of almost the same composition as the last. And that would vex Mr. Harper no end -- we might see the proverbial heads exploding. That would be something worth voting for!

How embarassing ...

I got a ride home from fellow board members of the MTSpace. I said: that's my house, ahead, with the light on. He drove right past and stopped at the next house that had a criminal-deterring, energy-inefficient, very bright light on, and a bright blue Conservative sign. I was too embarrassed to say anything. I got out and walked back to my house. I hope people don't start talking about me.

I am reminded of years ago, when I worked at an insurance company, and I accepted a ride home from the fat, cigar-chewing, caricature of a capitalist Vice-President of Data Processing, and with mounting apprehension realized I would have to direct him to the house with the bright orange N.D.P. sign. (It never occurred to me to get him to drop me off in front of a house without a sign, or with that of a more respectable political party.) I thanked him cheerfully for the ride, but if there'd been a pentacle on the door, he would not have looked more stricken. People did talk about me, I'm convinced.

My Compass

This Magazine has a link to a test where you can determine your political orientation.

Here, supposedly, are the major Canadian political parties.



And here am I:



"An anarchist? Give me a cigarette."

I am disappointed

On Saturday, I read in the Star that Elizabeth May was supporting strategic voting. This struck me as such a radical departure for a leader of a party, as such a noble gesture, that I would have considered voting for her party, except of course that she was urging me not to.

Now I find out that she never meant to say that! Like any other party leader, she wants your vote, even if it is a waste to give it her. Her party is more important to her than her cause.

Look on the bright side ...

... the good guys are beating the bad guys!!

CPC 40%
Lib 21%
NDP 21%
Green 7%

Good Guys: 21 + 21 +7 = 49%
Bad Guys: 40%

(Angus Reid Poll)

Now if we could only get them to shoot in the same direction.

Transport at Nuit Blanche

Transport will be at Nuit Blanche in Toronto, Oct 4th. Isabella and Carlo will be baby-sitting it, along with other members of the technical posse. (You can see a clip from it here.) I don't know if I'll go -- the idea of staying up all night, or even past midnight, fills me with dread. I hate driving in on the 401 (I lose hairs every time). And now Greyhound -- you could get your head cut off! I would like to live on a desolate island but with treacherous waters about, that would discourage, or better, wreck, approaching speed boats, especially personal watercraft such as Stockwell Day piloted. A cannon would be nice. (This was my favorite part of Les Vampires -- Satanas, the replacement Grand Vampire, had a personal cannon, with which he bombarded a night-club where Irma Vep was having an intimate dinner with her new lover, Moreno, who to tell the truth had hypnotized her, the dog.)

The Pathetic Sharks

I only got up nerve to buy one copy of Viz when I was working in London in 1989, but the Pathetic Sharks live in my memory as a powerful metaphor than can be applied in many situations in life.

Here is how they are described in the Wikipedia article:

Each of the Pathetic Sharks is extremely vain and childish, each one jockeying for superiority over the others based on some trivial ability or petty accomplishment which the other three denigrate, while challenging each other's political correctness and other credentials.

...

In each of their strips, the Pathetic Sharks show up to interrupt some form of social activity among humans, causing the people to flee in terror ... until the pathetic bitchery and whining among the Sharks prompts one person to announce "These sharks are crap!" or something similar. The Pathetic Sharks never accomplish anything.

The sharks swim into my consciousness with the federal election. I might compare the Liberal party to the sharks, but that would be unkind. Really, it is the Liberal Party, the New Democrats and the Greens who are the sharks! (I'm not sure about the B.Q. -- it may further their strategic goals to make the opposition pathetic.) I'm thinking this because Harper has left enough blood in the water over the past year, but so far, "these sharks are crap!"

Fact Check

Stephen Harper has said that the Liberal's proposed carbon tax would plunge the country into a catastrophic recession, and threaten national unity.

He neglected to mention it would also create millions of tiny black holes that would quickly consume the Earth, destroying forever his hopes for a majority government.

Fifteen Theses on the Federal Election

On Parties:

1. I was born into the New Democratic Party, as the child of an electrician from the Red Clyde and a CCF'er from Hamilton. But I am not married to it.
2. I do not hate the Liberal Party. I am often disappointed in it.
3. I am perhaps closest in sympathy to the platform of the Green Party, but can't see supporting a party even more marginal than my own.
4. I detest the Conservative Party in its present incarnation, but marvel that I did not detest it any less when it was more moderate. I suppose it's in the blood.
5. I did an online quiz once to determine which party I should vote for. I came out as a Bloc Quebecois supporter.

On Personalities:

1. Jack Layton. I have only heard him a couple of times on radio but he came across to me as somewhat smarmy. (But this is a Canadian failing. Think of Colin Mochry apologizing.) I wished he wouldn't feel the need to inject "hardworking Canadians" (or some such phrase) into even an answer on Afghanistan. And yet I agreed with him.
   
2. When I first heard of Stephane Dion running for the Liberal leadership, part of me, remembering his Letters to Quebec, thought he'd be an upright, intellectually courageous leader, and part of me thought he'd be "a beautiful loser". I'm more inclined to the later assessment but we will see. I think he suffers from an academic impairment, always imagining a criticism to what he's about to say, and trying to head it off. This leads him to destroy his best lines.
3. I have no opinion of Elizabeth May.
4. Stephen Harper strikes me as someone who made his mind up years ago, and is just wearied and exasperated that most people don't agree with him. He sounds like a husband telling his wife for the thousandth time (because she just doesn't get it) that you need to do X to get Y. He doesn't even consider that she might be right, he has been telling her for so long. Since she is obviously incapable of reason, he puts on a cardigan and talks to her as to a child.
   
5. I love Gilles Duceppe's accent!

On Policies:

1. Carbon tax or cap-and-trade, whatever, just get something going. Putting a cost on carbon will be good for cities, because cities are good at saving energy. Canada is good at cities. And cities are good for innovation. Cities are good for culture.
   
2. I want a foreign policy based on morality, that is to say, against war as an instrument of policy. The whole neoconservative thrust has been to relegitimize war. Mr. Harper is for war when it advances the interests of an ally, against it when it doesn't. I think we need to aim higher than that.
   
3. I don't want the Armed Forces to be made a fetish, or the core of the Canadian Identity. They do a job, that's all.
4. I think funding culture is important, just like R&D in science and technology.
5. Oh, there's probably much more I should have an opinion on, and maybe I do.
   

recycled joke

Q. Why can Stephen Harper never be circumcised?
A. Because there's no end to the prick.

This joke came floating up from the unconscious today (with the name "Nixon" instead of "Harper") as I looked at the front page of the Star. Really, there is something Nixonian about Harper -- needy, resentful, devious -- and no end to him. Putting a cardigan on him doesn't change his essential nature.

Hamlet

Italian visitor, an actress, did not have much English but wanted to see it anyway. She reported that she did not get much of the text, but knew the story, had seen much of the Kenneth Branagh movie, and was able to follow the action. She thought there were not enough pauses, silences -- very acute, indeed, and I agree, but the company must have thought "we've got a lot of shit to get through, people, pick up the pace or we're here until midnight!" She also thought the Ophelia was unusual, and she was, rather an "odd girl" instead of a super-feminine girly-girl. I liked the show better in row D to the side rather than in row L more to the centre, where we had seen in first time. I had a harder time hearing everything at L, but Hamlet was pretty clear in both seats, and Claudius hard to understand. I am growing to like the Festival Theatre, as long as they don't have that balcony and post in the middle, but I still don't like all the steps, and it is just too damned big.

Extras Needed

Looking for extras (male and female) for TRANSPORT, a multi-media project prototyped at the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab.

This is a non-paying engagement as the project is low-budget. However, if you take part, you will be invited to a post-production party, and your name will appear in the credits.

Filming takes place August 18 to August 22, 2008 between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM. To take part, show up at 9:00 AM or 11:30 AM at Studio #6, Globe Studios. You can take part any or all days, as many hours as you are able to. All you have to do is sit on a GRT bus chartered for filming, and take occasional direction.


Place:

Studio # 6
Globe Studios
141 Whitney Place
Kitchener ON
N2G 1X8

519-576-3338
519-503-1489


isabella.stefanescu@gmail.com

Oriza Hirata

Went to the Japan Foundation in Toronto last night to hear a lecture by playwright Oriza Hirata, author of Tokyo Notes, Ronin Office Ladies and other plays, on the development of modern theatre in Japan. The lecture was in Japanese with English interpretation: a paragraph in Japanese followed by a paragraph in English; laughter by the Japanese speakers followed at an interval by laughter from the English speakers (but not always). So it went rather slowly, with the history covered from the late nineteenth century only up to the post-war period, and then some disconnected and more abstract reflections on Japanese theatre in the nineties.

It was interesting how he grounded the history of modern theatre in the material and political conditions of Meiji-era Japan. The goals of the government were 1) to become economically and militarily strong 2) to reverse the unequal treaties concluded with imperial powers. So education was emphasized, and art education as far as it furthered the goals. Music was encouraged because you could march to it, and fine art because you could draw maps! Moreover music and art could be used to impress the Westerners that Japan was civilized, and worthy of being treated as an equal.

But there was no purpose for theatre. It didn't make better soldiers (probably the contrary). Also, it was used by the democracy movement to communicate with the illiterate peasants, and so came to have a left-wing association. (Which persists to this day -- Hirata had parents who wouldn't allow their kids to study drama with him because they were afraid it would turn them into communists. Unlike a North American parent who would be afraid it would make them gay.)

Reparations from China allowed Japan to sent students to study in the West, and this included some students of art and music, but not theatre. It was left to the next generation, the children of the nouveau riche, (who became rich from industrial development and also the colonization of Korea) to import modern theatre to Japan. That is, they went to France and did what interested them instead of studying.The first modern theatre was founded by an expat who went to France with a load of money to live there for years, but came back after the great Kanto earthquake because he was worried about his parents. So he used the load of money to open a modern theatre.

The productions in the theatre were imitative of how things were done in Europe, so much so, that actors wore false noses and blond wigs. Yikes!

Then came the rise of Fascism and the war and occupation. Post-war theatre tended to be dominated by the left-wingers who'd been imprisoned, and Hirata said they were kind, and wise, and noble people who wrote very boring plays. (I had the impression that Hirata wanted to give a lecture: How Japanese Theatre Failed.)

At this point the lecture became rather more disconnected and also I might have been disconnected a little as well. The drive in from Waterloo was dreadful and navigating Bloor and Yonge to find parking was confusing. A young woman crossing the street diagonally (I've never seen such a thing) gave me a languid finger because I was trying to turn where she was. We hadn't done laundry in a while so I was wearing my Aikido T-shirt with "Aikido" in Kanji, which I was concealing with my fleece, as I did not want to draw attention to myself. Anyway -- where was I -- many more interesting and disconnected observations from Mr. Hirata but I shall conclude here as I have things to do!

Call for Actors

Looking for actors (male and female) for TRANSPORT, a multi-media project prototyped at the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab. Here in Waterloo Region we will film 5 vignette-style stories of encounters on GRT buses. The aim is to show that interesting life happens in public transport, and that buses are places of adventure, romance and poetry. Filming will take place August 18 to August 22, 2008.

This is a one-day paid engagement for a low budget multi-media project.

Audition Dates & Times

1st session: Sunday, August 17 9:00 am - 1:00pm
2nd session: Sunday, August 17 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm
3rd session: Monday, August 18 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Place:

Studio # 6
Globe Studios
141 Whitney Place
Kitchener ON
N2G 1X8

519-576-3338
519-503-1489


Requirements:

Please e-mail photo and a resume to:

isabella.stefanescu@gmail.com

No text is required in preparation for the auditions.

www.translucence.ca/transport

The Decalogue I

Got out Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue from GenX and watched the first episode of ten. Pretty grim. And it strikes me that in a series of movies based on the ten commandments there will not be many opportunities for comic relief. The first commandment (I had to look this up) is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and the protagonist in the episode has rather too much pride in his ability to calculate (he has a computer running DOS) and, boy, does he have it coming from a jealous God. (This makes it sound more like an episode of The Twilight Zone than it is, but there is that aspect.)

A commandment is a problematic subject for a movie because it has no moral content. The bad consequences of breaching a commandment aren't inherent in it, they come from outside, from it being commanded. The commandment might as well be "Don't step on the white line." One approach to adapting it is to naturalize it, to put it into the world as an instance of wisdom of a conditional form. Instead of "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" something like "Don't stay with your head up your ass, because you'll miss things!". (In comparison, you have the Eric Rohmer movies based on proverbs such as "He who has two women loses his soul, he who has two houses loses his mind.") And maybe that is the source of ambiguity in the Kieslowski movie, in that we live simultaneously in a world of practical reason, and in a world of irrational forces. Or maybe there is no ambiguity. I will have to see where he goes with it. Nine hours to go!

Thief of Bagdad

Watched the 1940 Thief of Bagdad (a new release from Criterion) last night. Story rickety, songs naf, and Ahmad seemed a very English idea of a deposed monarch, rather as if the Duke of Windsor had been released in the desert wearing only his underpants. Abu (the thief of the title) cute but I wonder if having him turned into a dog and licking hands showed sufficient cultural sensitivity. A lot of dialog on the order of "Speak up, O toothless one!" There is a genie, a flying carpet, pointy shoes, scimitars, etc. Ho hum.

And then there is the Silver Maid:

Strategic Incompetence of Dion

I despair of Dion's understanding of political strategy. You don't float trial balloons (i.e. the carbon tax) if you are in opposition! If you're the government, you can do that. You can send out a Royal Commission, whatever, spend months on talking about it and then come out with a policy. But not in opposition against a ruthless and cynical government with a massive war-chest. They can use TV ads to fill in the gaps while you're just looking at the gaps.

Moreover, do give your supporters some talking points! I am appalled by the level of understanding of the implications of a carbon tax on the Liberal blogs I've been reading. In particular, the statement that a natural price increase is the same as an increase in taxes. Wrong! Go back to Econ 101! Read your David Ricardo!

Next, a carbon tax is essentially the same as a cap-and-trade system! And even frigging John McCain is in favour of a cap-and-trade system! So the politically saleable policy is cap-and-trade even if carbon tax is better. You can say Obama, McCain are doing it, why not you Mr. Harper?

Or to take another tack, American conservatives are in favour of the carbon tax! All right -- Andrew Sullivan is. Libertarians are. Still. Principled conservatives are in favour of it. Unlike the unscrupulous crew who govern us.

How can Stephen Harper be allowed to remain Prime Minister?

I can't see how to escape the conclusion that Stephen Harper lied to the House of Commons.

In the Commons, on February 28, he is asked about "the bribe". He says he's looked into it and there's nothing to "the story".

In the Zytaruk tape, which subsequently was released, he is asked about a million dollar insurance policy and he says he doesn't know the details, didn't forbid it, but didn't think it would work. He is quite aware of a proposal to Cadman involving financial compensation.

Any way to construct his statements as truthful would seem to involve a torture of language.

How can Stephen Harper be allowed to remain Prime Minister?


Commons Debates
February 28, 2008

Hon. Stéphane Dion (Leader of the Opposition, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, Chuck Cadman was a man of great integrity but now we
learn that the Conservative Party tried to bribe him and that the
Prime Minister was aware of it. Mr. Cadman could not be bought.

Standing Order 23(1) states:
The offer of any money or other advantage to any Member of this House, for the
promoting of any matter whatsoever depending or to be transacted in Parliament, is a high crime and misdemeanour, and tends to the subversion of the Constitution

What was the Prime Minister thinking?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr.
Speaker, as I said earlier, this story was raised with me two and a half
years ago. I looked into it. There is absolutely no truth in it.

From the Zytaruk interview:

Zytaruk: "I mean, there was an insurance policy for a million dollars. Do you know anything about that?"

Harper: "I don't know the details. I know that there were discussions, uh, this is not for publication?"

Zytaruk: "This (inaudible) for the book. Not for the newspaper. This is for the book."

Harper: "Um, I don't know the details. I can tell you that I had told the individuals, I mean, they wanted to do it. But I told them they were wasting their time. I said Chuck had made up his mind, he was going to vote with the Liberals and I knew why and I respected the decision. But they were just, they were convinced there was, there were financial issues. There may or may not have been, but I said that's not, you know, I mean, I, that's not going to change."

Zytaruk: "You said (inaudible) beforehand and stuff? It wasn't even a party guy, or maybe some friends, if it was people actually in the party?"

Harper: "No, no, they were legitimately representing the party. I said don't press him. I mean, you have this theory that it's, you know, financial insecurity and, you know, just, you know, if that's what you're saying, make that case but don't press it. I don't think, my view was, my view had been for two or three weeks preceding it, was that Chuck was not going to force an election. I just, we had all kinds of our guys were calling him, and trying to persuade him, I mean, but I just had concluded that's where he stood and respected that."

Zytaruk: "Thank you for that. And when (inaudible)."

Harper: "But the, uh, the offer to Chuck was that it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election."

Zytaruk: "Oh, OK."

Harper: "OK? That's my understanding of what they were talking about."

Zytaruk: "But, the thing is, though, you made it clear you weren't big on the idea in the first place?"

Harper: "Well, I just thought Chuck had made up his mind, in my own view ..."

Zytaruk: "Oh, okay. So, it's not like, he's like, (inaudible)."

Harper: "I talked to Chuck myself. I talked to (inaudible). You know, I talked to him, oh, two or three weeks before that, and then several weeks before that. I mean, you know, I kind of had a sense of where he was going."

Zytaruk: "Well, thank you very much."

And a representative exchange from the February 29th debates:

Hon. Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the
government attacks the word of Mrs. Cadman, but her story is
consistent. It is confirmed by her daughter and by the Prime
Minister's own words.
In an interview taped in 2005 he was asked explicitly about the
insurance offer. He did not deny it. In fact, he confirmed an offer was
made. He confirmed it was about “financial insecurity”, not about a
nomination. He told Conservative officials to “make the case to Mr.
Cadman”.
Did the Prime Minister know that would be an indictable offence
under the Criminal Code?

Mr. James Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of
Public Works and Government Services and for the Pacific
Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics, CPC): Mr.
Speaker, the member for Wascana is, as usual, misrepresenting what
the then leader of the opposition did say.
The member for Wascana was not at the meeting. Three people
were at the meeting. All three people said that no offer was made.
My colleague does not have to take my word for it. On a
nationally televised interview on Global, on May 21, 2005, in
answer to the question “Did he offer you a deal?”, Chuck Cadman
said “No, absolutely nothing. There was never any deal offered"

Baron of Arizona

Watched. Interestingly, Vincent Price's character gets six years in prison, just like Conrad Black. But hard labour, and after narrowly escaping a lynching.

Why we fight

Why is there so little discussion in Canada of the death sentence for blasphemy given to Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh, an Afghan journalist who printed off an article on women's rights from the Internet? Or is this just my impression?

I've searched the Globe & Mail and only find a couple of news articles. (I've tried searching for "afghan journalist death sentence" as well as alternate spellings of Kambakhsh.) I don't find Christie Blatchford, Defender of the Troops, weighing in on this, or Margaret Wente, Scourge of the Saracens (and of Polar Bears etc. but that's not pertinent.) Or for that matter Rick Salutin, who in his Friday column makes some sharp observations on Hillary Clinton's pantsuits.

Much the same in the Star, and the National Post. Maybe the commentary is just well hidden.

And yet it would seem to be very relevant to "our mission" in Afghanistan.

After all, a casual reader might get the impression that Canadian troops are fighting and dying to defend an Islamic Republic against Islamic insurgents. And wonder why they couldn't be left to sort things out between themselves, if they were more or less agreed on the outcome.

Of course, this would be a misconception, and I'm sure our punditry have chosen to ignore this case as it would unnecessarily confuse the Canadian people. Our prime minister has complained that we don't get what's at stake. And we might not get it even worse.

(It's quite possible I am missing something. Maybe there are fierce arguments raging through the mediasphere even as I type this. It's just I haven't noticed. I need to get hit in the head, like this. Good news, the Afghan Senate has withdrawn their support for the death sentence! Checks and balances! The system works!)

Update: No relevant questions in Hansard as far as I can tell. What do we pay these people for?