More

One of the best aspects of the internet, I think, is the easy access to short film and animation, the latter of which is my favorite. It can be sad, heartbreaking, and beautiful. The best makes us pause and consider our world in a new light. Of all the animation I've seen on the internet, the one my thoughts return to most is "More" by Mark Osborne. It is beautiful and sad in its reflection on hope, dreams, and work. This short film says more about the value of dreams and labour in our world than any book I've read yet. More by Mark Osborne

In a similar vein, though without the depth of feeling, is this short animation based on the Radiohead song "Creep"

And to lighten the mood (as you're probably rather depressed by now), here's something totally different but that I quite enjoyed: The Muffin Tree

Jon Stewart and Crossfire

Television so rarely offers us truely unplanned moments that are not filled with the superficial pettiness of "reality tv". This now-famous visit by Jon Stewart to the live CNN show "Crossfire" does this. The program was taken off the air shortly after this episode (was this the last?).

To attack the show so intelligently, so confidently, on live television is a testiment to Jon Stewart's brilliance. In a political climate where speaking out against what is widely (blindly?) assumed to be truth is so controversial, moments like these act as role models for the outspokenness we should all aspire to.




If you don't have a fast internet connection, start playing the clip and then immediately pause it to give time for the video to download before playing again. The left bar shows how much has loaded.

Boats at Granville Island

Boats at Granville Island
Originally uploaded by Matt Gibson.

A peaceful day after the windstorm last night. The first sunshine in a long while. The fishing boats seemed so peaceful. In the chaos of masts and lines, there is intricate beauty juxtaposed with the calm slate of grey water beneath.

Pancakes and Grief

Today was one of those pleasantly delayed Sunday mornings. I made pancakes while the sun struggled through the last remnants of cloud. The winds last night were intimidating; last night I returned home to the sound of chainsaws clearing a split and toppled tree a block away. I felt strangely proud of the beautiful trees the lined our street for surviving it all. The sky took on a crisp blue colour.
As I stirred pancake batter and preheated the fry pan, the television murmured in the living room. I couldn’t hear it. The kitchen fan was on. As the batter rose and browned, my attention was diverted by sounds from the adjacent room. Tears. Grief. Amnesty International was telling the story of a child left for dead beside some railroad tracks, raped with eyes gouged out. I attempted to console my partner in the panicked please-don’t-cry manner that we men gravitate so naturally toward. I listened for a while to the story unfolding on the television, the phone numbers that flashed on the screen, the pleas by celebrity sponsors asking for support and help.
It all made me feel very uneasy.
Not that I question the work that Amnesty International does. What disturbs me is the program I am witnessing: it is effective, emotional, tear-provoking, and implies the existence of human rights abuses in every corner of the globe. Am I bothered by the facts that are being uncovered? Yes, but those facts are almost beside the point. Catastrophe and cruelty are not revelations. The program is simply pulling back the veil that hides them. In so doing, the message derives from an implicit comparison: the difference between viewer and viewed, subject and object, the privileged Westerner and the suffering “other”.
It works. After watching that program, it is almost impossible not to feel driven to call, donate money, make a difference. It is a feeling derived primarily out of guilt – for being privileged, wealthy, and Western. Our feelings come not out of a sense of solidarity and equality with all humans. We are not one of “them”. It is that very fact that drives us to donate, write letters, drive change. I felt guilt because the things I take for granted are absent from the lives of others.
It struck me as I watched that there was one implicit assumption being made as the program unfolded, one obvious emotion that surprisingly did not appear to be in play: empathy. How could that be? As I watched the mother crying for her lost daughter, the homeless street children, the forgotten and abused, there didn’t appear to be much attempt to have the viewer imagine the suffering and sadness that had been experienced. Was it assumed that we are beyond empathy, beyond feeling? Am I too hardened to such appeals to sense an outreach to empathy? Or is an appeal to guilt more effective?
In the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter. If the program is successful in gaining donations, then does the rest matter? Perhaps not. I only watched for a few minutes before returning to my pancakes. The tears in our house did not result in a donation. For my part, it seemed suddenly that there was inequality, abuse, and violence taking place in every corner of the world. Could it really change if people are so violent and savage? And how did the people feel who were being filmed as they were obviously drawn into situations that would cause them grief ? The mother of the girl who was raped and left for dead by the railroad tracks was brought to the place her daughter was found. She broke down before her younger daughter who looked on with a confused expression. Was exposing that woman’s grief on television – making a spectacle of her pain – worth the money that would be donated?
I suppose there is no other way to appeal to our wallets with success. Perhaps that, most of all, was what disturbed me the most.

How to Succeed in Business

At work, we talk about work/life balance and about how important it is to have a life outside of work. Do we live to work? Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, I think we do. At least, that is how our work lives are structured. Do you get a promotion because you left on time to pick up your kids from daycare? Do you get a raise because you took paternity leave to look after your kids for 6 months? You get recognized for doing more than is asked of you. You could even say that you get overlooked if you just do what is asked, work the hours you get paid for, and commit your main energies to family and personal commitments. As a manager with several staff, I accept this implicitly and use it without thinking. Promotions are based upon who stays late, who works hardest, who goes above and beyond. That only makes sense really. Are you going to penalize those people for doing extra, for sacrificing their personal lives for the success of the company?

I've spent long hours at work. I get there at 8:30 AM and rarely leave before 6 or 6:30. I know that's not much really. Lots of people work longer. But the reason I've been successful is at least in part because of my willingness to stay extra, to give up my personal life for the sake of my career.

There are some basic realities of work commitments:

-If you are lucky enough to be sent on a course by your employer to improve your job skills, this will require you to compensate for your training by staying late, checking emails from home, and making up for the work missed on your own time.
-Your allotted vacation days must be used, but any work missed during your absence should be done on your own time when you return.
-If you fall behind on work due to low staffing levels or inadequate resources beyond your control, you should work longer hours to compensate and get the job done.

But do we ever stop to consider what the end result of all this is? Obviously, our employers profit from the extra productivity. But what about employees? Well, we get promoted, get raises, and generally make more money. At the same time, we have less time to enjoy our successes and depend more and more heavily on our work lives for satisfaction and personal gratification. This leads us to increasing dependency on our work lives and less energy put into home, family, and relationships.

The isolation that individuals feel from each other and the communities of which they are part stem from this process. In turn, we feel less committed to those communities: the disadvantaged are overlooked because we have neither the energy nor the awareness of their situation. Our family lives suffer as well. On a personal level, we feel dissatisfied and tired. Our solution? Buy things. Our financial success has left us with little time or energy to do more with our newfound wealth than spend it on toys promising quick gratification of our unacknowledged needs.

Success in our culture is too often defined in these terms. Once one recognizes this mythology of success for what it is, a new path must be chosen. The problem is, how? What alternatives exist for success that is not defined in material terms? How to escape the sacrifices demanded by career success?

These are the questions I'm currently wrestling with ... hopefully with some success.

Guilt, Consumerism, and Charity?

I'm Caucasian, male, and reasonably financially stable. These facts put me in a position of privilege. Out of luck, I was born in a developed country to parents who valued education, financial stability, and hard work. A good protestant work ethic, you might say.

So what? Well we are all products of history, our surroundings, and as such many would say my privilege invalidates any right I have to speak about poverty, the developing world, or inequality. After all, what do I really know about it?

Very little, I admit.

What I DO know is that I'm lucky. Everyone living in the developed world is, to some extent. Is it simply guilt that I feel? I want to make myself feel better about living in a world where so many people are sick and dying, and I'm not? Perhaps that's part of it. Hell, I should feel guilt. I should be aware of how privileged I am. But awareness and guilt don't change a damn thing. That's why I'm writing today.

I have a simple proposal. What if, when each of us go out to buy ourselves "a treat" or "a present," we also take the same amount of money and give it to a charity that helps the developing world? If I spend $60 on a new videogame, I also give $60 to Doctors without Borders (http://www.msf.ca/). Yes, that means that the game costs $120, but in a sense maybe that's closer to its true cost.

The ability to purchase a luxury item is something I take for granted. Yet there are so many people who don't have the resources to feed themselves, to get necessary medicines, or to get an education. How many developing nations are in their situation because they were invaded or manipulated by foreign governments to extract resources or labour? In a very real sense, developed nations such as Canada owe some (or much) of their prosperity to the developing world. Regardless, it is callous and ignorant to spend money simply on unnecessary luxuries based upon impulse or desire without acknowledging that such inequalities exist.

Ultimately, I'm suggesting a reconsideration of our consumer culture. Next time you are about to buy something you don't really need, ask yourself whether you could also afford to give the same amount to charity. If not, then consider holding off on the purchase until you can.

I've done this several times. When I bought my XBox, I donated $300 to Doctors without Borders. When I purchased an iPod, I also donated $200 to a charity that collects medical equipment for poor children in Africa. Yes, that means I spent $600 for my XBox and $400 for the iPod. It means that I wait longer to buy those luxury items, and buy fewer as a result. The important point is that I could still afford them, even if it took a little more saving. That wealth, that privilege, is something so many people on this planet do not have. I think we owe it to them -- and to ourselves -- to work to address that inequality, rather than selfishly gratifying our consumer desires.

As observed in the United Nations report on the World Social Situation 2005 (http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/media%2005/cd-docs/fullreport05.htm), "the key to reducing poverty in a sustainable manner ... is to focus on building a fairer and more equitable society" (ch1, p26). Certainly this simple step to balance consumerism with charity will not solve the problems of global poverty. It does, however, take us one step closer toward doing what is right, toward balancing privilege and poverty, toward making change.

We are familiar with advertising that claims that our choice of clothing or luxury items reflects who we are. Our spending decisions are moral and ethical ones. The next time you choose to succumb to the temptations of our consumer society, consider taking the opportunity to also make a difference for the better.

After all, that money you spend is a statement of your values, your ethics, and once spent, cannot be taken back.

2006 Election and the Environment

According to the pollster hordes, the Conservatives will take this election. If so, they will have won based on the fact that they're not as corrupt as the other guys and not as left-leaning as the NDP. That GST tax cut looks pretty good too, as do all the other spending promises that have been thrown about.

In fact, this election has really been about seeing what each party is willing to promise to buy voties. We've been told for the last ten years that sacrifices were needed to deal with the debt, to get the country on track. Healthcare sacrifices. Taxes. It would be more expensive for a lot of us, but in the end things would be better. We bought the story, made some sacrifices, and watched healthcare and social programs suffer as a result. Now, every party is out there promising anything they can to get us to vote for them and screw the cost. I'm not just disillusioned. I'm fucking angry.

It's not just the fact that all these promises simply throw back in our faces the sacrifices that were made in the past. After all, anyone with a brain cell realizes that there's a very real risk of spending our way back into the same problems we started with, all for the benifit of a self-serving party to get in power. What really pisses me off is the fact that people are buying this shit. The Conservatives are winning votes at least partially because of GST reductions and a nice cheque they'll give to help out with that child care business (God forbid we actually create a social program to deal with the problem). The Liberals are trying their best to keep up with the spending promises. Is that really all they have to offer? And is the populace really so stupid to forget that this is their tax money that is being spent? Oh yes, that's right ... it grows off the govenment's special money tree. How could I forget?

In case you're interested in keeping tally of the promises and spending, take a look at this analysis: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/realitycheck/spendingtallies.html The numbers are significantly different from advertised.

If it was just fiscal imbalances that are at stake, I might not get my knickers in a knot. Its the selfishness and greed that really bothers me. So we've decided to place our vote based upon how much money we save or recieve in the next few years? Oh yes, that's a fantastic idea. After all, Canada is such a poor nation with a populace greatly in need of economic relief. Forget the slums of Calcutta or the AIDS crisis in Africa. We need help in Toronto and Vancouver to just get by. That mocha cappuccino every morning adds up.

What about debt relief for developing nations? What about doing something about CO2 emissions -- widely held amongst the scientific community to be the greatest crisis facing the world today. Hmph. What do scientists know? We need a reduction on the GST so I can buy my new XBox.

If we're that stupid, we deserve what's coming to us. The fellow borrowing the brain cell from the collective intellect will return it evenually ... but I fear it will be too late to do much more than regret.

In case you actually care about the policies of the various parties out there, take a look at the following links:
http://www.ctv.ca/mini/election2006/static/issues/environment.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/leadersparties/issues.html

Or you could always just close your eyes and point like the rest of us lemmings racing for the cliff.

A Beginning ...

Once upon a time, I started a magazine called Tripwire. It lasted one issue, cost $12000 of my own and borrowed funds, and was a collossal failure -- but only if you judge such matters in terms of readership or revenue. Well, it looked damn good and did have some interesting articles, so I'll give it a few marks for quality, but the rest was something of a disaster. As I stared at the empty space where my url should be, the name Tripwire came to mind. A second chance for my failed attempt at publishing. If only it was so easy the first time around.

Why Tripwire? Cause and effect. Reaction. A trigger mechanism of sorts, this sharing of thoughts: I toss words outward and hopefully someone out there will catch a few and throw them back. That's the idea of this blogging business I suppose. Let's see if it works.

The title suspended up there sounds lofty and serious in a way I don't intend to be: Ideas Political, Social, and Reactionary. Whew. At the same time, we are all good little ostriches sticking our heads in the sand while the hunter targets our ever-widening bottoms: the nearing end of affordable oil, western opulence as developing nations struggle with poverty and disease, and the ecological abuse we heap upon the natural world. We should be terrified and shamed into making real change. Instead, we watch the newest "reality" show with glassy tired eyes, tranquilized and overwhelmed into inaction.

Yes, I know that's simplistic. But that, after all, is why I'm sitting here typing this instead of staring at my XBox: the hope for dialogue, awareness, and perhaps even a little desire for real change in the world. Naive and idealistic? Perhaps. But you've got to start somewhere.

For me, I guess that somewhere is here.