What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Wednesday, April 30, 2003

PAUL MARTIN TURNS TO THE DARK SIDE

Today's ridiculous Toronto Sun headline (as opposed to any other day's ridiculous Toronto Sun headline) concerned the Canadian government's outrage at the World Health Organization for costing them tourist money. It read "SARS WAR" (oh, like the movie! Only the WHO is like the Empire? And the government is like the Rebel Alliance? That's, like, so clever!). OK, let's all have a big sigh on three. 1...2...3.

Meanwhile, what's left unreported is an actual Star Wars problem on the horizon: hoping to restore Canada's bootlickin' good reputation with our Elephant to the south, Paul Martin plans to reverse our country's longtime opposition to that ludicrous Missle Defense Shield program Ronald Reagan left lying around (the pros and cons of which are neatly outlined by Policy.ca).

Despite the increasing evidence that attacks on North America will come from chemical weapons, possible viral attacks or, oh I don't know, commandeered airplanes, the Bush government still believes that we need to spend billions upon billions of dollars on laser beams that will shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. This technology still hasn't been proven but Paul Martin, our designated next Prime Minister, is ready to sign on. Isn't this the part of the movie where Yoda shows up and gives him a good talking-to?

Labels: Canada, Trawna

AND IN OTHER NEWS, WATER IS WET

As seemingly one of the last people left with a fondness for baseball, I found this headline on Salon.com mordantly funny: Baseball's attendance is on the decline. What was the first clue? Years of half-empty stadiums, perhaps? This quote was my favourite:

Paul Adams, the director of ticket sales, admitted being concerned about the slow start at the turnstiles, but he was confident that crowds will improve now that the war in Iraq is essentially over. "People were not concentrating on baseball during the month of March -- when they normally buy tickets in advance -- because of the war," Adams said. "Now that the war has broke, hey, it's time to enjoy themselves and come to a ballgame."

Riiiiiiiiiiight.

Fortunately, the rest of the article covers the main point that Adams has obviously missed: that massive ticket and concession prices are driving away the family audiences that built baseball in the first place. So, baseball owners and players, how about making it a priority to find a way to divvy up profits and create a reasonable price structure for the fans?

It you build it, they will come.

GREETINGS FROM ORAN

After coming back from sunny California into the tail-end of an ice storm, and then enduring a week of typically erratic April-in-Toronto weather, I wasn't surprised to find myself with a dreadful cold this past week. Muscle pains, laryngitis, night sweats...ahh, spring! What did surprise me was the panic my occasional coughs created in strangers around me, but that's SARS for you.

Since the onset of my cold symptoms this past Monday, over 30 people (and yes, I've been counting) have flinched away from me and asked if my cold is actually SARS. I think most are kidding; some are not. Since the War on Iraq has done so much to erode my faith in the public's rationality, this hysteria over an over-hyped illness has really been the last straw.

Am I being callous? Oh, probably, but consider that the thirteen deaths everyone is freaking out over have happened in a city of three million and that ten of those thirteen victims were older than 70. What doesn't make the front page is that twice as many people die of pneumonia every year, hundreds more of the flu. Those are odds I can literally live with.

Now of course I'm not suggesting people not be concerned, or that doctors not quarantine anyone they feel they should, but I hate seeing stupidity and bigotry and the SARS scare has featured lots of both. People are avoiding Toronto in general, Chinatown in particular, and I was told today about a man at the farmer's market who, upon seeing an Asian woman behind the counter, slapped a mask over his nose and mouth until he left the building.

I had a personal view of this, too. Within thirty seconds of Gil's father meeting us at the Toronto airport to offer a lift home, a security guard strode up to us and barked, "Okay, move it along!" I saw genuine apprehension in his eyes and wondered just how badly terrorism fears were affecting airport staff. I'd never witnessed a guard be quite so snippy before. Then I realized that my Chinese friends were standing in front of one of the many bright-yellow posters with big red letters reading "SARS" and everything became clear.

With all that as context, I hope people will understand why I've growled at everyone backing away from me in fear this week. I don't expect pity when I'm sick -- not even compassion, really -- but I'd resent being treated like some plague-carrying leper even if I did have SARS. We already saw a lot of that kind of paranoid bigotry in the 80's with that other four-letter acronym. Am I making too big a leap there? Then stop behaving like it, people, and go wash your hands once or twice.

Labels: Trawna

THE NEXT WORST THING

Can one really recommend the Museum of Tolerance? It was an astonishing experience I hope never to repeat. After two days of strolling through LA's soothingly-vapid outdoor promenades (Pottery Barn! J. Crew! Barnes & Noble!), the descent down the Guggenheim-like spiral walkway of the MOT dropped us back into sad reality. The Bertolt Brecht quote painted on one wall made me smile though: "If you do not like this world you see, you will have to change it."

The centerpiece of the museum's exhibits is an hour-long tour through a brilliant recreation of Germany circa 1923-1945. You visit the newstands, eavesdrop on café conversations, listen to the early speeches of wannabe Chancellor Adolph Hitler and feel the encroaching hopelessnesses as Jews lose each freedom, a piece at a time. The walk through the darkened tunnels of the exhibit increases in tension until you yourself are ushered through the gates of a concentration camp and led down narrow passageways to the showers.

It's a curious experience to experience something on an intellectual level -- cooly comparing facts I've grown up knowing with new ideas I've never considered -- while your emotions are simultaneously, wildly, in flux. My breath caught when we rounded the corner into our final destination, a large bunker with sealed doors and numerous gas vents. I knew it was all fantasy and remained calm during the video presentation, but still I kept one eye fixed on the door as a voice in my head kept screaming, "Open. Open. Open!" When the attendant abrubtly opened the door to release us after five or ten minutes, I jumped in my seat, almost hollering.

I'm not sure I could urge anyone I know to put themselves through such a simulation but I'm glad the Museum is trying to ensure that history doesn't repeat. As for Gil and me, we raced off to cheer ourselves up at the Japanese pop culture store, Giant Robot, and then went out to LA's oldest Mexican restaurant, El Cholo. White supremicist idiots don't want racial mixing but we say domo origato and olé!

LA-LA-LA-LA-LA MEANS I LOVE YOU?

On Day 3 in Los Angeles, my friend Gil and I are about to race off to the Museum of Tolerance, which sounds fascinating. It's also very appropriate that such an exhibition is housed in LA because, if a city ever required huge amounts of tolerance, it's this one. The city seems to run on annoyance and the less said about driving its multitude of freeways, the better.

Still, I'm enjoying the sunshine, the shopping, the strange artificial bubble of calm created in its outdoor malls and, most importantly, yesterday's stroll along the Santa Monica pier. I rolled up my pant cuffs and went splashing my feet in the Pacific ocean for the first time. Even if the rest of the trip continues to irritate, that fifteen minutes of pure joy will have been worth it.