Roman Polanski was arrested Switzerland last month. Some people believe that he should still be institutionally punished for the crimes he was convicted of, while other people do not.  Fair enough.

Sexual assault cases are tricky.  I guess all law is technically tricky, but sexual assault cases are extremely challenging.  The issue of sexual assault deals with taboo; the way the law approaches it is rife with old-fashioned myths about the roles of women, their expected behaviour, and their power relations with men.

The thing about being raped, that gets so easily overlooked, is that it destroys people.  Yes, you will get a harsher sentence for murdering someone, but a dead person doesn’t have to live the rest of his or her life with feelings of self-loathing, guilt, loneliness, and being misunderstood.  I am not saying that rape is “better or worse” than murder, but I’m trying to put this into perspective for people who look at violent crimes as though they can rationally be graded in severity.

Now that Roman Polanski has been arrested, the victim of the crime is being harassed incessantly by the media. According to reports, more than 500 requests for interviews/comments have been made since the arrest. That’s more than 15 calls per day.  Those numbers, of course, don’t include e-mails, random appearances at the victim’s workplace or home.  I’ll bet everybody who shares the victim’s name has been contacted by several interns from media companies, who have been requested by their employers to track her down on Facebook and see if she has something to say.

This type of harassment can cause the victim to experience something called “revictimization”.  If you don’t know what that is, google it and come back later.

So you know what a really difficult part of being raped is?  This may be surprising, but it’s not the sex itself; a lot of people look at rape as a “sex” thing, but it’s about control.  The worst part about being raped, at least from my personal experience as a rape victim, is the loss of control.  Some people find this notion wishy-washy, but you really do lose fucking control over yourself. It’s no fun.

Do you know what it’s like to no longer feel like you have control over your body? Over what you do with it, and what goes in it, and who you let into your life?  Do you know what it’s like to go from being a teenage girl, to an asexual creature who looks at every man like he is a threat, and is repulsed by being touched in the most harmless manner?  And then do you know what it’s like to live in a world that blames the victim for being subject to what I just described?  To not be able to talk about it with friends, because it makes them uncomfortable, because the issue is so taboo?

And do you know what it’s like to have to repeat your story over and over again to cops, to attorneys — in front of the person who did it to you? And you repeat the “story” so many times that it no longer feels like your story was even yours to begin with.  So not only did you lose control over your physical being, but the recollections of your past — an abstract part of self that only you once knew — are taken away as well, and left to other people to decide what they mean?

So imagine that.  So which experience is worse? The act itself? The aftermath and the way society approaches the issue? Or the knowledge that unless something drastic changes in the policy and perception, the act and society’s approach will forever be a see-saw of revictimization?

Does this mean victims shouldn’t go to court, because they should know better that they’ll experience further harm?  No.  It shouldn’t be like that.  More victims of crime WOULD go to court if there wasn’t such a risk of being told they were liars, sluts, deserving, and useless.

In an article on CNN.com, the victim (in an interview well before the arrest) discusses how she was treated by the press after the rape, and after the trial.  It’s tragic.

And so the victim wants the case to be thrown out.  Why? Because it’s causing her further harm.  Because the media is causing her harm, and the state is causing her harm.  Not Roman Polanski; society.  You.  Everyone who keeps clicking on those stories and googling her name, and encouraging the press to sacrifice this woman to the crops, like in that South Park episode.  The Attorney General says the charges can’t be dropped for legal reasons, but that’s bullshit.  Since when did criminal courts care about rape victims?

As the victim said, in her interview with CNN:

“The one thing that bothers me is that what happened to me in 1977 happens to girls every day, yet people are interested in me because Mr. Polanski is a celebrity.”

And if you couldn’t figure out why the subject of this post was in that particular order when you started reading, maybe you will have a better idea.

I was sitting in class, staring at an elderly man who had enrolled in the course, when I became full of fear and anxiety.

All I could think about was the idea that, unless I die young, I won’t always be the person who I recognize myself as.

There was a time in my life when almost everything that mattered, or defined me positively, was lost or taken away, through no choice of my own. I was young, and it was not a happy time.

And so, I started my life over, when virtually nothing was left; I was reborn at 21. (By reborn I absolutely do not mean in a religious manner.)

Some days I feel like I’m 10 years old, but also middle aged, but I look like a teenager.

I remember how when I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine being 18 — 20. I knew I would grow up, but the future was so far away. I would lie in bed, trying to stay as still as possible, hoping that I would actually get frozen in limbo, and not have to experience the terrifying ordeal of being old and become the face of imminent death. I think of how I’m 25 now, and 40 is still 15 years away. The time it took to reach 25 will have to pass all over again — my whole life span, until I reach 50. Terrifying?

And reading historical texts, in that class, where the elderly man sat, from over a thousand years ago reinforces how insignificant and useless angst is, when one day I will turn to dust and cease to be, whether or not I was momentarily pained over the notion of one day no longer being a hip, young thing.

“And I do not see how I can get out of asking this question: Does it matter to anyone or anything that all these peepholes were closed so suddenly? Since all the property is undamaged, has the world lost anything it loved?” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, Deadeye Dick

Qualities found ?)

-a need to justify opening a bottle of cheap wine when your co-conspirator has to bail due to a hangover

-watching 50 horror and sci-fi movies in chronological order, with the goal of aggregating some (as yet) unknown data related to… horror and sci-fi movies. (quasi-academics don’t do things for fun)

oh! in keeping on the subject of quasi-academics, such as myself, somebody needs to write a book titled something like “Relationship Advice for Academics: love lessons for those who are not as socially inept as pure-bred geeks, but still lack the proper social skills to form a loving relationship with something other than an abstract idea”

A person is not an abstract idea, technically.. But don’t let me go there.

Tip 1:

I don’t know what tip #1 is.

Which is why someone needs to be commissioned to write this.  The person should either be a refugee of academia, or a hack who is really, really good at pursuading overly-critical minded, individualistic, self-obsessed douche bag knowitalls that their words and advice will actually work.

Perhaps the description of characteristics possessed by said “douche bag”, who needs to be convinced by the latter hack, are the negative qualities that keep “overly-critical minded, individualistic, self-obsessed douche bag knowitalls” from being able to have a relationship.
OH SNAP.  My qualities which have disbarred me from ever having a real boyfriend have allowed me to determine the problem! The difference between myself, and the hack, is that the hack would most likely have some sort of practical suggestions; whereas, I am still waiting for the hack to give me a simple answer that I have made too complex to find.

OH SNAP.  I just wroke the geekery version of what, I guess, is the lame-ass Shakespearean/Kieregarard-y bullcrap rhetorical question of what the poet, Haddaway once asked: “WHAT IS LOVE”?

This morning while riding the Skytrain, I glimped over my a woman’s shoulder, and the some words on her Metro transit “newspaper” caught my eyes: “Province accepting applications for enhanced identification”. I thought “right on; it finally happened.”  Then, the sub-header caught my eyes: “SHOPPING IN SEATTLE IS ABOUT TO GET EASIER”.

My brain exploded a little bit on the inside.  I’m sorry.  Let’s take a step back here: “Shopping in Seattle is about to get easier”.  This is a newspaper article announcing the introducting of a new form of identification, that uses some a Radio Frequency Identity Chip to simplify the Canada – U.S. border crossing, by transmitting your information to the border guard as you approach.   Fair enough, but I don’t think I even need to explain the implications of this type of technology attached to a personal I.D.  This isn’t new technology; it’s been around for decades, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that as well as being used to simplify a transaction, there is some creepy big brother/panopticism stuff going on here.

And the best thing the newspaper can say is “SHOPPING IN SEATTLE IS ABOUT TO GET EASIER”??? That is the selling point for a new form of identification, replete with accesible, yet encrypted personal data?

These cards are not mandatory, but who is to say that identification with this type of technology may not become mandatory in Canada in the future?  Plenty of concern has been expressed about privacy issues: These privacy issues aren’t just about what governments may do with our information — as a “Western” citizen, who has grown up in a digital age (excuse the cliché), I have mild “Big Brother hysteria” fatigue, because the notion of personal information being aggregated with that of others’ for political/security/surveillance etc. purposes has become a moot point.  The other concern, that comes with this stuff is the issue of data mining, or the data getting into the wrong person/group’s hands.

But that’s not a big deal, because the upside to all this is that SHOPPING IN SEATTLE IS ABOUT TO GET EASIER!!!!

This brings me to a little aside: I watched a piece on TED a few weeks ago hosted by James Howard Kunstler that discusses suburbia, his concerns.  It’s amusing.  He was featured in “The End of Suburbia”, which I discussed a few weeks ago as well, and he definitely could be seen as a fear mongerer, but the talk had some merit.  Anyway,  sub-header about shopping in Seattle made me think of this clip on TED:  towards the end, Mr. Kunstler says something along the lines of “one of the problems [with suburbanization going out of control, sustainability being a joke, and the world becoming a global Frankenstein] is that we call ourselves ‘consumers’” .  People have to stop thinking of themselves as consumers and start thinking of themselves as people who have more value than just consumption machines: built to work to consume to work to consume.

I purchased a blender last week.  I purchased it so that I could make healthy food, from scratch, instead of paying 6$ for a styrofoam takeout container of soup for lunch during the week (I do it occasionally, but a part of me dies inside every time…).   I already made my own soup, but I didn’t have anything to blend it up super quickly.  I made this purchase because it was something useful, that I could not fashion myself out of belongings I pick up off the ground, and in the long run, it actually saves me money (not much time, because making soup takes a while) and makes me less dependent on other people to eat the food I would prefer to eat. “NOT SO!” says the cardboard box whence the blender came! The cardboard box announced to me that the blender is for “the fashion conscious consumer”.

Knock Knock?

Who the fuck buys a blender for its aesthetic value?

Who’s there?

The same people who get excited about losing another ounce of privacy if it will make their shopping trip to Seattle easier.

I just read an online article titled “Why it’s okay for newspapers to die”. It reassures that, “[t]he loss of print newspapers is akin to the loss of the horse and buggy.” In other words, the only thing about the news that is going to change is that it will be online, instead of printed on paper.  This argument is rather technologically determinist; the author of the column makes no effort to hide this when she refers to “creative destruction”, which is basically what happens when you pair technological determinism with a laissez-faire economy (read: globalization).  I have to disagree with the comparison to the “horse and buggy” for a few reasons.

First of all, there is a big difference between people switching from horse and buggies to cars, and the Internet going online.  For one thing, when people switched from the horse and buggy to the automobile, they were merely switching forms of transportation.

I could really go out on a limb and argue that the shift from horse and buggy to automobile was helped plant the seeds for the demise of a print industry, but that would be getting a little out there.  Still, consider this little summary of suburbanization etc. 101 :  the invention of the automobile initially allowed for wealthy citizens to live in suburbs and commute to work.  This reduced urban density, somewhat.  After World War 2, when there was a great deal of wealth in Canada and the United States, a great deal of people could afford to live out in the suburbs.  There was a huge boom; lots of people could buy cars.  Communication was increasingly shifting away from being “face-to-face” and turning into something that required other forms of technology, such as the telephone.  Luckily, thanks to transportation and young boys with paper routes, newspapers could still be distributed across these large urban areas, and people could still get their news, even if they lived quite far from the centre of the city.  Exciting! Oh yes, and population density decreased further.

I’m not going to get into economics and infrastructure development, cause that’s boring….  Anyway…  If you couldn’t already figure it out, the spatial diffusion of people certainly influenced the way communications technology was developed and used.  There were new needs, so there were new solutions.  Complimenting this change was the new phenomena of media mergers, buyouts and vertical/horizontal integration.  I’m not going to get into this either, because this is my blog, and not a scholarly research paper.  This publication by the Parliament of Canada is helpful if you would like to know who owns what in Canadian media, however.

[If you don't find irony in me blogging about the death of print media, just wait till I touch on the "blogger" problem.  If you can't wait: THIS IS JUST A BLOG; DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, AND DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING I WRITE UNTIL YOU FIND YOUR PRIMARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION.  If you are interested in the topics of infrastructure development, technological determinism, the evolution of the mass media, or anything else I am referring to and don't have access to a good pool of information, I will be happy to provide you with some good sources of information.  Otherwise, I'm not getting into it.  Additionally, if you would do not agree with some of the facts that I claim.]

Fast forward to now, and you will find a combination of a few problems: a very large amount of the media controlled by a few companies, consolidation of resources [i.e. less reporters, but just as many/more newspapers and magazines], a less diverse group of stakeholders, and the competition of the internet.

The awesome David Byrne (yes, that David Byrne) wrote a nice entry in his online journal, expressing his concern about the decline of the newspaper institution.  David Byrne echoes what I have to say about blogs, which is that:

“Blogs and Internet news sites can’t fill the gap, as they don’t have the resources to sustain a team of reporters working and digging into a story — sometimes for months before anything sees the light of day.”

These blogs are at least secondary sources of information, for the most part, and often link to other news sites, which link to news feeds, and so on.  Just look at what I’m writing.

Another problem with moving a newspaper from print to online the format in which the different stories are presented.   Go most online news sites and you will see the “most popular” list of stories (Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, etc.).  My completely scientific and untested opinion is going to suggest that these articles are more likely to be read than the others.  I am also going to suggest that being online is distracting; unlike sitting down and reading a newspaper, where you don’t have many other prominent sources of stimulation, reading an online newspaper puts the reader in a position to stray away from what he or she was initially planning to read.  The reader also may skip out on the shorter pieces, which can often be found tucked in with the larger stories, because there is the opportunity is not there in the same way for the eye to pass over the “smaller” headline.

Back to this horse and buggy issue: with the exception of the clown car, I do not recall reading of any sort of widespread consolidation of passengers as they left behind their horses and buggies: if there had been four buggies, all which could seat four people, the 16 of these people did not all pool together and hop into one sedan.  Yes — there were buses, but mass transportation had long existed, in the form of the boat and the train; I’m only talking about private, individual transportation.  What is happening to the media, is in some sense, an information clown car — dozens of newspapers being piled into one source of information.

CanWest is a media clown car that would make a real troupe of clowns jump for their money.  CanWest owns a frightening amount of Canadian media, and you can also find a lot of interesting research articles from over the years discussing what this means in the world of communications and democracy.

CanWest is also experiencing some MAJOR financial problems.  There have been reports that CanWest may sell some of their newspapers, magazines or television stations to other buyers; but, realistically, who would those buyers be?

The biggest question of all, however, is: what would it mean for the Canadian public if all of the newspapers printed by CanWest ceased to print, and went online?  What would happen if CanWest, as unreliable as it is, ceased to exist and we were left with only skeletons of an industry?

The title of this blog post is the name of a  film that I watched in my Urban Geography course this evening.  As far as I know, I’ve been living under a rock and everyone else has known about this documentary (made in 2004) except for me.  I had always been disenchanted by the Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth/Oil Oil Oil conspiracy stuff that has been going on for the last many years.  It’s not that I am ignorant, or against it — I just haven’t been too interested in getting all militant and obsessed about oil as some people have.  Anyway…

We watched this film in class. I would recommend people view “The Depletion of Oil and the Collapse of the American Dream”, not because I agree or disagree with its content, but because it had some thought provoking qualities.   The most impressive part about the documentary was just how prophetic it was.  Several scientists and academics make some predictions, which at the time seem unbelieveable to a global society so uneducated about what keeps their livelihoods from falling apart; and these predictions, for the most part, occurred — often, impressively, at the dates predicted.

People make predictions all the time.  I think when most predictions turn out to be fact, people are mildly entertained, or just neutral, or unaware.  Other times, obviously, the predictions are incorrect.  What stands out about what these people claimed would happen, is that they were predicting the equivilent of an apocalypse.  The inability to satisfy an overwhelming and exponential “need” for oil, for consumption, for a chaos theory kind of mob-mentality, consuming behaviour, means the death of a life that recent generations [from certain countries] feel entitled to, and inevitably leads to the loss of social cohesion and norms.  Most of the speakers in this film didn’t go so far as to predict a dissolution of any sort of social contract, but they do insinuate it.

So, pretty crazy stuff.

What I did take issue with, is that this film is, as can be expected, one-sided.  Obviously a film that is attempting to plead, intelligently, to the public, and to the slightly-above-layman audience that it needs to collectively WAKE THE FUCK UP and change if you want your children to see tomorrow is not going to present a lot of counter-arguments.  Fair enough.  I think anyone intelligent enough to watch this film (it’s pretty easy to follow, but not for Cletus) with an open mind can understand that it is one sided, and has a clear agenda.

Having said that, I study arts and social sciences.  I consider myself adequately educated in these areas, and can understand concepts.  However, I do not understand much about physical sciences; so, when the scientists in this film say that it takes more energy to create hydrogen power than it does to use it, or that such and such uses up so much oil, or that something is scientifically ineffecient, that isn’t good enough for me.  I would like, at least, a brief background to explain to the uneducated viewer in me: “this is why this is like THIS”.  It is important to recognize your audience, and this film obviously was not made for scientists.  If this film had been made for scientists, I would not have understood half of what was in it (or any of it?)  This film was made for people like me, like the general audience I referred to above, and most of us are not highly educated about these topics.  This film is like “Oil Mear-Mongering 101″, which is why it is so easy to watch.

Bottom few lines: Movie:

-interesting and thought provoking. Check it out!

- freakishly prophetic

- lacked empirical data for the physical scientifically uneducated geek in me.

Good night.

I was talking to some people about a short story I wrote back when I was teenager.  The story was about how I will die.  It stemmed from me telling them that “every time something great happens in my life, I thought ‘wouldn’t it be funny if I died today?’”  Wow.  That is so Vonnegut.  Anyway.  This is a little piece called “Social Anxiety hey hey hey” that I wrote when I was in highschool. Ha  ha ha.  Grammar etc. has not been edited, so that this can be enjoyed in its natural form.  Hilarious.

One day I’m gonna go outta my house and people will be all ‘Oh my god. I recognize you’. And I’ll say ‘what? what are you talking about? When did this happen?’ and it will seem like a horrible joke. [It's like that story I read in grade 9 English about the man who woke up and discovered he was the mayor of his town and didn't know how.]
‘I’d hate to become the people I hate’ I’ll complain. So then I’ll hop in the minivan with my dad and go to Wyoming. And go to Albuquerque and head west. Yeah, ba by. On Route 66. cause we never finished the trip. We only made it to Albuquerque last time. And then we’ll reach the coast. And I’ll be happy cause I made it. Then something disasterous will happen. I’ll be in West Hollywood eating a snocone on Santa Mon ica Boulevarde at a crosswalk. The cross walk will say ‘walk’ and i’ll walk. Then out of nowhere will come a speeding Chrysler that runs a red light and collides with me. Blood, Leora and Snocone all over the ground; All over the windshield. I’ll curse my self as I’m dying ‘I always said I’d die the one time I didn’t jay-walk …’

1. There are a few forms of violence that society has a particularly difficult time dealing with — in court, in the media, in social discussion, etc.  Domestic violence and sex crimes (with the exception of most types of pedophilia, if one excludes the double standards about women who have sexual ‘relationships’ with 13 year old boys vs. men who ‘rape’ their teenage students) are taboo, and that isn’t going to change for a long time.

2. I do not normally follow celebrity gossip; I am so uninterested in it, and don’t care to elaborate.

3. About two weeks ago, pop star Rihanna was allegedly assaulted by her boyfriend, and since then, the media has been having a field day.  I have actually been following the story in a sense; not because I am interested in the specifics of the case, or the dirty details, but because I am both fascinated and disgusted at the way an isolated incident of an alleged act of this type of criminal act has been covered ad nauseum.  I am fascinated about WHY this type of criminal act has been covered ad nauseum.

The story: a man is arrested for allegedly beating his girlfriend.  An arrest is made, and an investigation begins.  Normally, this is all that you would read about in the news, unless the incident was considered extraordinary enough that the story would attract enough readers for advertisers to buy space. Make sure to keep the details gruesome.

Because Rihanna is a celebrity, and her boyfriend is a celebrity, there is no end in coverage of this story.  Go to Google News and you will find THOUSANDS of stories about this.  It is front-page news.

On one hand, it is a positive thing for a topic related to domestic assault being covered, as there is an opportunity for dialogue; on the other hand, because the media is so fascinated with celebrity, and “dishing the dirt” and belittling people with more money or status than us, the whole thing has turned into a sick fetish for reveling in a famous person’s suffering.

You can find plenty of stories that attempt to be objective; showing that there is a problem when society thinks the victim ‘deserved it’, with links to resources for those who need help, or are victims themselves.  These links offset the potential ethical guilt that a publisher would feel for acknowledging that it is helping to perpetuate a stereotype that needs to be fixed. There are stories discussing whether she will “take him back“, AND EVEN A STORY IN THE L.A. TIMES TALKING ABOUT HOW BEING THE VICTIM OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MAKES THE VICTIM LOOK BAND, AND HOW THE VICTIM SHOULD BE AWARE THAT SHE PUT THEIR CAREER AT RISK BY BEING ASSAULTED.  Remember to always blame the victim.

[As an aside, Google "Rihanna deserved it" and you will see a pretty fucked up list of results, mostly of message board threads, filled with teens talking in brutal grammar about whose fault it was]

The media frenzy didn’t seem like it could get anymore gratuitous until somebody remembered that it is the 21ST CENTURY!!1 and that means that everyone’s world is everyone’s oyster!!!! So, a gossip website managed to get a hold of what is purportedly a picture of Rihanna’s face, that was taken at the police station.  Of course, it is now all over the Internet.

I don’t even know where to start with this:

1) This is an almost farcical (think that South Park episode about Britney Spears) example of media sources fighting eachother for “scoops”; fighting to be the first to have the latest SHOCKER.

2) a) Some media outlets have argued that by publishing this picture, it may give courage to other victims to come forward.  In other words, it’s okay to obsessively recirculate and re-publish this picture, if you say it’s for the good of society.  THAT IS FUCKING BULLSHIT.  I would say that 99% of the people who worked for commercial media corporations, who made the decision about whether to publish the picture or not, did it with one thing in mind: to attract as many viewers/readers as possible.  Grow some balls and be honest about your intentions, you sick perverted swine.

b) Some outlets, instead of writing about the content of the picture itself, are writing about how TMZ published the picture, using that as an excuse to also publish the picture.  GOOD WORK GUYS.  That makes you only 66% as perverted and twisted.

3) For all the media companies who asked the question, “is this appropriate?” and talked about how TMZ was kind of fucked to publish the picture; for all the media companies who said “perhaps this picture may disturb people, or is not the best thing to publish” —- DON’T PUT THAT PICTURE UP ON YOUR WEBSITE OR ON THE NEWS IF YOU’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOW IT’S MAYBE NOT THE BEST PIECE OF NEWS TO DISSEMINATE (re: the ABC story)

4) This gossip website discusses why they published the picture, and mentions how it will be EMBARRASSING to Rihanna for years to come.   This same article says that it was important to share the ugliness of misogyny.  Should a victim be embarrassed?  Seriously?  I was raped when I was 18, and beaten up pretty badly when I was 19.  Both incidents were at the hands of strangers, and both incidents required a lot of therapy, support and time to even partially recover from.  Of all the emotions that I felt, embarrassment was never one; humiliation certainly was, though.

There are quite a few issues to weigh about what is responsible and what is irresponsible to publish, and under what context.  I have so many other thoughts on this, but I don’t want to go overkill.  Still, when the bottom line is making a profit, ethics can jump out the window, so why should anyone really expect anything but this shit in the first place?

The other day, I was hit on by a sandwich artist as he prepared my lettuce sub.

I had just left the Press Box bar to go home, when I learned that the next bus would not be coming for 13 minutes.  I thought “Hmm.  I have not really eaten anything today, so I will get myself a lousy, overpriced vegetable sub at Subway.”

I ordered my sub, and the man said “cheese?” to which I replied “no”.  The following is more or less the exchange that we had:

Sandwich artist: “So you like vegetables, eh?”

Me: “I guess… I don’t eat meat…”

Sandwich artist: “So you’re trying to make some improvements then?”

Me: “Huh?”

Sandwich artist : “You’re trying to be healthy then? Change your life around?”

Me: “Oh no, I haven’t eaten meat in like 11 years.”

Sandwich artist: “How do you stay alive?”

Me: “I guess by eating at Subway…..” (sarcastically, of course..)

Sandwich artist: “No, I mean, how do you stay alive when YOU’RE AN ANGEL?”

Me: “Uh…. I’ll have lettuce…. cucumbers…..etc etc.”

Sandwich artist: “I have to tell you, you smell INCREDIBLY AMAZING…”

Me: “Oh… I thought I smelled like beer and tequila…”

Sandwich artist: “You smell AMAZING.”

Me: “I’ll have banana peppers…. etc etc.”

Sandwich artist(shut down): “Would you like chips with that?”

Me: No.

So then I paid and left.  My sub tasted crappy.

Last night, the man in front of me at London Drugs was purchasing the following:

-A can of SPAM

- A jar of vaseline

- A box of Ferrero Rocher

I felt meek, because all I was buying was a pack of instant noodles to accompany my PBR.

Right now I’m doing my University Transfer courses at Capilano College, as many of you may be aware.

Cap is a great school for someone like me, academically speaking.  The class sizes are smaller, the teachers are great, and it’s a good stepping stone from the 5-year-downward spiral-gap I had between high school and post-secondary.

That being said, Cap is on the North Shore.  I know several great people on the North Shore. My dad’s best friend lives on the North Shore, for that matter.  There are fun things to do on the North Shore.  When I mentioned to my friend Patrick, who does live in North Van, but attends UBC, that I was going to Cap he went “oooh…. you mean North Van High.”

This is a reference to the student body.

A lot of the student body is your typical mish-mash of liberal arts, bohemian, “I’M GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD AND SHOW EVERYONE ELSE HOW TO” type.

And then we have a group that would be considered, I guess, to be Canada’s equivalent of

characters on Laguna Beach or the O.C. or whatever.  I’m not sure, since I’ve never actually watched those shows.

Today I found myself getting dressed, and was about to pick up a jacket that I enjoy very much.  I got it at Goodwill for 5$ a few years ago, and it has seen better days.  It is ripped and shit, but I like it.

I realized that I don’t have expensive, or even new clothes.  I started feeling like the way I felt when I was a kid going to school in the Beaches.  I hadn’t really ever had that feeling since then.  It was strange.

I’m 23 now.

But it’s cold, and I can’t find my other jackets, so I’m gonna wear my ripped to fuck jacket to school, even if the people in my Geogs class think I’m a crackhead. (As one girl said to me “I NEVER go south of the water.Ugh!” For those of you who do not live in Vancouver, that is a reference to the Burrard Inlet which separates North & West Vancouver from the Lower Mainland.  It is the most expensive part of Canada to live in.

Creative Writing class is different.  It’s just a bunch of wackos like me.

I am sitting at work right now looking at the window.  I noticed a dark cloud.  Then I noticed that this dark cloud is going from what appears to be East Van or Burnaby all the way to Richmond.

 There’s a fire somewhere.  A big fire.  I’m sure it’s not my house, but it looks like it’s that approximate area.

You will need:

•  2 pounds of okra
• a ball of twine
• an air conditioner
•  a good book

Step 1) Fill a box with okra.

Step 2) Add “cardboard box” to the list.

Step 3) Turn on the air conditioner and read your good book.

Step 4) Start a revolution as a result of the subversive propaganda you read in your “good” book.

Step 5)  Take some twine and create an artistic creation out of it.

Step 6) Put a pretty smile on a burlap sack.

Step 7) If your revolution was successful, continue to recruit the desenfranchised by offering them okra and twine

Step 8)  Wash hands of blood, okra and twine.

Step 9) Fill the burlap  sack with any leftover okra and twine

Step 10) Also add “burlap sack” to your list

Step 11) Repeat as necessary

Step 12)  Turn off air conditioner.

I understand that this is just a “fun”, shot-in-the-dark game, requiring little mental intelligence or dedication in order to win, but there is another side to it. (Also, I don’t want to get stupid Facebook messages every day telling me to get more of my completely uninterested friends to join your damn group.)

First off, what this type of “contest” results in is people trying to recruit their acquaintances to Facebook in order to help them win: You’re so preoccupied with your hoop dream chance of winning 7000$ that you forgot that what you are actually doing is PROMOTIONS FOR TWO ALREADY WELL-ESTABLISHED AND PROFITABLE BUSINESSES. You are doing this for free. By having a contest of this nature, Edge 102.1 and Facebook save a lot of money that they could be spending to market themselves in other ways. Is consumer marketing ethical anyway? That is not the issue which I am addressing, so I don’t care to discuss it right now. Regardless, you are performing tasks at no charge which companies would normally spend money on. It’s like paying to buy a Nike shirt. You are paying to advertise for Nike; you are donating your time to promote the Edge and Facebook via your plea to others in helping you win 7000$

From the contest info at edge.ca:

“Invite as many people as possible to join your group. Close friends, friends of friends, family, old school buddies, neighbors you don’t even speak to, ANYONE!!! You won’t qualify to win $7,000 unless you are near the top of the leaderboard when it comes to how large your group is, so friends are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!”

As a result of you promoting The Edge or Facebook for free, there is a chance that a few, several, or a great many people who would normally not use Facebook, or the Facebook groups feature, will be logging in and checking the page regularly due to their enthusiasm towards helping you win. How does the commercial media, whether it be the traditional mass media, or the new media, earn profits? Pat yourself on the back if you guessed “from selling space to advertisers.” Just as commercial TV shows are developed in order to attract the highest paying advertisers, quasi-commercial websites are developed in order to attract the highest paying advertisers. How do you get a client to pay more to advertise on your space? By guaranteeing a high amount of viewers or users, of course.

As outlined in the following passage from Facebook’s privacy policy, Facebook has the right to collect information about its members in order to help achieve the maximum effectiveness of its advertisements. What this means is that if I have 3000 people in my group, and 80% list themselves as enjoying Jack Johnson or some shit, and 75% love to watch Survivor, this is information obtained which would normally require the less cost-efficient method of market research in order to develop such a profile of Edge 102 listeners and Facebook users. This means average ages, educational statuses, locations, political affiliations and many other demographics are so easily obtained. Then the Edge and Facebook can go laughing to the bank upon learning which companies are surefire choices to attract as future clients:

Advertisements that appear on Facebook are sometimes delivered (or “served”) directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript and “web beacons” (also known as “1×1 gifs”) to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. Doing this allows the advertising network to recognize your computer each time they send you an advertisement in order to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. In this way, they may compile information about where individuals using your computer or browser saw their advertisements and determine which advertisements are clicked.

I hope I am not the only person who realizes how painfully obvious this is. 7000$ is no skin off of either company’s back. I will not join your stupid group.

My friends are awesome.  Last night, Jamus’s band, Cosmedic, was playing at the Media Club.  I wanted to go, but was feeling self conscious because of my eye.  Mike, Lindsay and Linzee drew stitches on their faces with eyeliner.  It was pretty sweet.

So I was standing next to Lindsay as she was ordering a drink when the bartender says to me “wow that’s quite a shiner you’ve got there!” And I was a little embarassed.. I tried to joke about it, and then pointed at Lindsay saying “she has one too!”  Then the bartender actually said “a bit of battered wife syndrome? ha ha ha” or something. HOLY SHIT.  No comment. Lindsay called him on that.  I wanted to leave, but I didn’t.

I crashed at Kerby’s because he lives near by and I wanted to sleep.  Bad idea.  Kerby lives at 14th and Cambie, meaning there are jackhammers and steamshovels going off outside of the living room window.

We went to the Dutch Wooden Shoe Café for breakfast and it was totally surreal.  I had been there before on a Sunday when the whole “after-church” crew was there, and it was *very* busy.  This morning, we were the only people there.  Kerby said it was like we had snuck into some Dutch man’s house.  If you haven’t been to the Dutch Wooden Shoe Café, allow me to describe it:  It is tacky.  It is like being in a big, wooden house covered in wacky Dutch paraphernalia and photographs of patrons.  And Moonlight Sonata was playing softly over the speakers ha.

So we’re sitting there, and I’m wearing sunglasses to cover my black eye, while my stitches are perfectly visible.  It was like something out of a Tarantino movie, or Natural Born Killers… It felt like we should have been plotting something.

On Thursday, I may go to the Mongolian Grill with Kerby.  Why? Well, he filled out a customer profile once while he was there.  One your birthday you get a free meal; on your anniversary you get a free bottle of wine.  I was going to pretend I was his wife and that May 10th is our anniversary.  There is only one reason I may not go, and it is not because of my facial injury.  Kerby has met a girl.  I am merely a platonic friend.  So, obviously I would not be offended if Kerby and said girl end up going to the Grill.  Plus, wine is best when accompanying a non-concussed head.

If I do go, we’re going to have a big argument while were sitting in the restaurant and freak people out.  Only cause I have the cut on my face.  We want to get someone to videotape it.  It will be hilarious.

(edited)To whom it may concern:

As a new resident of Vancouver who moved here in September of 2006, I have been pleasantly surprised by the professionalism and punctuality displayed by your bus drivers. Unfortunately, today I had an experience with one such driver which has left me humiliated and disturbed. Therefore, I would like to make a complaint about said event.

I am a student at Capilano College and I live near Skeena and East 22nd . I have a bus-pass and a FastTrax sticker.

This morning, May 8, 2007, at 11:18 AM, I boarded an Eastbound 25 Brentwood bus at Skeena and East 22nd Avenue. The bus number was 7237. I was on my way to the Emergency Room at Burnaby General Hospital, as I had recently suffered a head injury which had developed complications.

I realize that it is only a short distance from 22nd and Skeena to the hospital, but as I was frightened and in pain, I did not feel it was safe to walk. I also cannot currently see out of my right eye, which is one of the complications, so walking is not easy for me at this time.

I did not want to miss my stop, so upon boarding the bus, I asked the driver to let me know when it got to the hospital. As I was saying that, I pulled out my bus pass. The driver said to me, referring to the zone change at Boundary Road, “it will cost you an extra 1$” . I apologized, and said I had a FastTrax sticker and went to retrieve it from my wallet. The bus driver replied to me snidely by saying ” why are you telling me that when you could have showed me your pass?” I apologized again and told him that I have a head injury, (which is quite evident to anybody who looks at my face; I have 15 stitches in my forehead.) I told him that I wasn’t really sure what was going on because I was upset and needed to go to the hospital. The bus driver’s response was “I don’t give a shit what the hell is wrong with you” and then said something about me being another crazy person on the bus.

I do not recall what he said verbatim about my “craziness”, but he also said that I had probably been “crazy” before the injury as well. I found this inference to me being a drug addict or mentally disabled quite derogatory; I have relatives and friends who have suffered and overcome drug addiction and mental illnesses, and they are exponentially more personable and courteous than this bus driver.

I did not appreciate being verbally abused in front of the other passengers. I was humiliated and terribly upset. I did not do anything to provoke this driver, nor did I use any profane language. It was absolutely out of line, and his attitude was such that I was terrified that he would not allow me to ride the bus on account of him being an inconsiderate individual. When I was discharged from the hospital, I chose to walk home to avoid the risk of having the same bus driver. As I mentioned, I cannot see out of my right eye, so the walk home was unpleasant at best. I could not afford a cab home because, as I said, I am a student (with an un-crazy Grade Point Average of 4.0). This is why I have a bus pass and a FastTrax sticker which allows me to travel for the price of one zone in the first place.

I asked the bus driver for his name; he told me it was Steve and then asked me what mine was. I said my name didn’t matter and that I did not appreciate his attitude. I then told him I would write Translink about him. He yelled at me that “wow, your head injury sure improved quickly if you’re able to write.” Then he continued to yell and swear about me being crazy as I took my seat. While Steve is entitled to his opinion, he is not a doctor, and my head injury, as advised to me by the doctor at Burnaby General, does not appear to have left any neurological damage. So I am not “crazy” and was not at the time. Just injured. This is why I am perfectly capable of writing this complaint four hours after my encounter with your driver, Steve.

I do not have any further details at this time to add to this letter, however I would greatly appreciate a response from somebody at Translink. I do not imagine that this is the first time you have received a complaint about “Steve”, and so I would hope that he be disciplined properly.

Thank you for your time,

Leora

1) Meet a girl at a party.

2) Accuse her of being a lesbian

3) Make out with said girl; she is trying to prove that she is not a lesbian. She is not a lesbian.
4) Communicate occasionally with said girl. You go to school with her roommate, so you may cross paths now and then.

5) Run into girl on the beach at some wack-ass-ritualistic-hippy-dippy-goat-sacrificingly-primal “holiday”.

6) Flirt with girl; tell her you want to “make love” to her and whatnot.

7) Have girl come home with you; watch Ren and Stimpy briefly.

8.) Get a message from girl cause she thinks it’s funny that she got interviewed on the street, while looking like ass due to spending a night at the beach and then staying at someone else’s place. You see, telling a person who knows where you were the night before has more relevance than telling someone who just thinks you look rough shape. Makes sense, doesn’t it.

9) Get contacted by girl the next day. Just a little, inane comment or two. Those 30 seconds spent out of the 86 400 seconds in a day are clearly the result of a great deal of new-found devotion from that girl. The idea of communicating with someone EVER after they spend the night at your place is unfathomable. How creepy. Fucking creepy.

10) Send girl a message over the website Facebook.com saying “I just hope I’m not your new favourite past time Leora.”

Ever felt really, really insulted?

My favourite pastimes include chain smoking, sleeping all day, writing, mainlining Prozac, not cleaning my room, playing with my bunny, reading, preparing for the Apocalypse, watching Home Movies, quoting the Simpsons, playing Super Double Dragon (newfound pastime), hanging out with my roommates, watching hockey and stalking vainglorious art school students.

Well, that’s okay.  I had a job interview with the PNE HR lady.  Not to be a ride operator, but to be a call centre manager from May-Sept.  I have a second interview next week. Scoooooore.

I emailed this to Steven who never posted it, but here we go.  I am in Toronto now. It is so weird. I slept in my old bedroom.  I smoked cigarettes on my old porch.  My cats are here!!!!!!!!! I have a terrible headache, either from the change in altitude or something like… Toronto is stinky.  I sat next to a Jehovah’s Witness on my flight.  It was wack.

And we had the WORST MOVIE EVER, as per usual on a flight.  It was supposed to be “The Red Violin” but instead they screened “Freedom Writers”, starring Hilary Swank, which is a second rate version of “Dangerous Minds”, which starred
the lovely Michelle Pfeiffer.  Both movies are about preppy white women who don’t know about how hard life is in the projects.  They go teach at schools full of non-white kids who speak non-white colloquialisms and freak her out cause they shoot and rape eachother and even might do so in class, or steal her pearl necklace!!! (no pun. I’m serious) Eventually, the white lady teacher learns a thing or two about what the black struggle (or whichever race you would like to insert here) and then becomes one with the students, who think she’s hip.  They’ll start calling her names like “Miss G.” which is totally colloquial, y’all.  Then she will make a difference.  Because when rich white women come into the ghetto, everybody wins.

AS FOR MY AIRPORT DEBACLE. Not much of a debacle, but you may click to read about what I wrote at the airport. It’s not exciting. Cowboys and stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=447654&in_page_id=1770 

By CHRIS BROOKE -

The snake’s body was found by a dog-walker

This 18ft python should be slithering through the jungle.

But yesterday on a country road in North Yorkshire it was going nowhere fast.

A man out walking his dog got the shock of his life when he stumbled upon its body.

Baffled police are trying to find out how the fully grown reptile wound up in the village of Cloughton near Scarborough, a million miles from its natural habitat.

Ann Tindall, who lives nearby and also spotted the snake, said: “It was a real surprise to see it. You just cannot believe that something like this could be found somewhere like Scarborough.

“We measured it and it came to about 17.7ft.”

Police said the snake had started to decompose by the time it was discovered, and environmental

After analysing the photo, one reptile expert said the snake was probably an African rock python.

Inspector Simon Lovell, of North Yorkshire Police, said: “We have no idea where it came from. The suggestion has been made that maybe it had outgrown somebody and been dumped as a result or dumped after it died.

“More inquiries will be made into the matter. Certainly there are no signs that it has been deliberately killed.”

Over a million people in England own an exotic reptile.

Snakes are becoming increasingly popular as pets, although many owners underestimate the difficulties of looking after them.