I haven't felt much like blogging recently. The greyness of these Covid times, and worrying about my friends risking their lives on the front lines of the pandemic, has practically paralyzed me. When the bug first struck I thought about keeping a Plague Journal, like Daniel Defoe did during the Black Death. But that didn't last long. In the internet age the story is just too big. Self isolation drained the energy out of me. So soon all I wanted to do in my spare time was watch TV, and sleep. And eat, did I mention eat?
If any of you have been wondering why I haven't been blogging as often as I usually do, well wonder no longer. For as you can see it is the sailing season, and after a long winter of fake scandals, Doug Ford, and bleak polls suggesting that Andrew Scheer could win the next election, I'm determined to enjoy every minute second of it. However, even as I skim over the waves and let the cold clean wind scour away the horror of that nightmare winter, I can't forget that we are now only about four months away from an election. And that if the Cons win that election we could soon be living in a nightmare world.
I must admit that when I flew to Scotland a few weeks ago to attend a friend's wedding, I had no idea that it would lead to my longest break from blogging in almost twelve years.
But then who knew that after a few wild days in Edinburgh, I would find myself in the rugged Orkney islands, listening to old tales about Vikings, giants, and evil dwarfs, rather than reading about the latest exploits of the insane monster Donald Trump.
Or that while racing back to Edinburgh my motorcycle would hit a patch of black ice and I would have to spend two days in hospital, and almost a week recovering at my family's home in the highlands. Too battered to blog, and unaware that one of the aggregators that has published this blog for years had just died.
When I started blogging nine years ago I never could have imagined that so many years later I'd still be blogging in the darkness of Stephen Harper's Canada. Or that after all he's done to this country, he could still dream about winning another bloody majority. Or that we are still living in the terrifying shadow of this nightmare.
Well I must admit that there are so many things I want to do with my free time, now that the Winter from Hell is over and it finally feels like Spring. Almost all of them have to do with bikes and boats. And blogging about the horror of Harperland is not one of them. Not when sometimes all I can think about is how to escape the grubby living nightmare that the Cons have created...
I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away… People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.
Now I understand where Dr Dawg and the others are coming from. I'm frequently appalled by some of the vicious garbage on the internet. Nobody should be able to defame someone or bully someone online. And get away with it.
But here's the thing eh? If you are defamed or bullied online you probably should use the legal system to punish those responsible. Instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, punishing all kinds of innocent people. And playing into the hand of Big Business and Big Government.
Because there are many, many, many, good reasons to remain anonymous.
And the marginalized and the oppressed of this world have the most to lose.
What’s at stake is people’s right to protect themselves, their right to actually maintain a form of control that gives them safety. If companies like Facebook and Google are actually committed to the safety of its users, they need to take these complaints seriously. Not everyone is safer by giving out their real name. Quite the opposite; many people are far LESS safe when they are identifiable. And those who are least safe are often those who are most vulnerable.
And there’s nothing acceptable about those who are most privileged and powerful telling those who aren’t that it’s OK for their safety to be undermined.
Now try to imagine what the internet would look like if the marginalized were excluded, and it was the musty preserve of privileged people. Yup. BOOOOOOORING.
As for me... I'm not really anonymous, people know my first name, where I live, and I use my full name on other internet sites. But when I started blogging I decided to do so anonymously because I was afraid that some crazy homophobe might turn up on my doorstep, with a Bible ....or a GUN.
And sure enough one did try to track me down, and had to be caught and punished hospitalized. Which was scary enough. And I don't have to worry about losing my job, or being arrested and tortured by some murderous regime. Unlike so many others.
Although I do worry that Big Business wants to know more about you than even your closest friends.
The kind of naming policy that Facebook and Google Plus have is actually a radical departure from the way identity and speech interact in the real world. They attach identity more strongly to every act of online speech than almost any real world situation does.
So they can sell you stuff.
And what I think is even more alarming is that Big Government wants to blow up anonymity as well. Because they have seen how the internet can be used to organize protests and Arab Springs. How it can make the youth move as one. So they're cracking down EVERYWHERE.
Because let there be absolutely no doubt, if the Harper Cons allow the police to search computers without a proper warrant, it will be the beginning of the end of internet freedom in Canada. Police will use their new powers to the max. Who can blame them eh? And they WILL be abused.
The writing is on the wall all over the world.
As in if we don't stop them, a wall, in a dark and secluded place, will be the only place you will be able to publish your opinions and remain anonymous....
Yup. When Big Business, Big Government AND Dr Dawg want to bust anonymity, the writing really is on the wall.
But at least the good doctor has started a conversation that we all need to have. Before it's too late.
Would you blog, or write comments, if you couldn't be anonymous? Think about it.
I must admit that I'm finding it hard to blog these days. I'm not sure where I want to go. I don't know where this country is going.
There are a lot of stories out there, but after this story.
So many flowers cut down so savagely. They all seem so trivial.
And then there's summer...
It's so short I want to enjoy every minute of it. Soak up the sun, feel the gentle breeze in my face.
Smell the flowers...
Before they are gone.
Because what happened to Jack Layton reminded me that for everything there is a season. Life is so fragile. And I can't get his parting words out my head.
We WILL replace the Conservative government, a few short years from now.
And we WILL work with Canadians to build the country of our hopes
Of our dreams
Of our optimism
Of our determination
Of our values...
Of our love.
Because they sound so much like an epitaph.
But since I don't know to what dark place Stephen Harper is going to take this country...
I don't know how we can stop him. Nobody wants to talk about that because its summer. And since defeating the Cons means everything to me, the progressive blogosphere seems strangely hollow, and more of an echo chamber than ever.
Or the personal sandbox of a small group of gigantic egos, who can't write enough posts, and suck up all the oxygen in the blogosphere, competing against each other for votes.
JJ is an amazing blogger, a feminist warrior, and a very old friend who was one of the first to encourage me when I set out on this blogging journey six years ago.
I missed her terribly, and the progressive blogosphere has never needed her free spirit more.
You know I was thinking tonight if only the blogger Bruce MacDonald could come back it would be like it was before. But of course he can't, and maybe that's why I find his great friend's return so comforting.
I don't know where this summer is taking me. Or where Stephen Harper will take this country.
A few weeks ago I ran this video by Bruno Mars, The Lazy Song.
I can't remember why, except that it had something to do with comparing Stephen Harper's Thousand Year Majority to the Planet of the Apes.
And was yet another hopeless attempt to try to cheer up the progressive blogosphere. And about as effective as telling the survivors of the Titanic... oh well...at least you got to see an iceberg eh?
But now I've got another problem.
I'm feeling too lazy to blog. And after switching on the TV today hoping to watch a replay of the Monaco Grand Prix, and somehow ending up watching Question Period with Jane Taber, I may never write about Canadian politics again.
Because watching that bubbly little idiot going on about the Clarity Act, and thinking that I might have to listen to that nonsense for five more years, is more than I can bear.
And that was before the thought struck me that FIVE more years was probably way too optimistic.
Because it'll probably take half a century before the left unites, and we can even think of winning again.
And I have to be brutally honest eh?
I've always been lazy, and I'm not sure that in fifty years I'm going to feel like blogging. Or doing ANYTHING.
In fact, I'll probably be even lazier than Leonard...
OMG. You know if I had any weed I'd probably light up too.
Except that now I'd be afraid to do that, in case my neighbour turned me in, and I was sentenced to life in prison. Or worse.
All of which to say that over the next few weeks blogging may be sporadic, and even more erratic than usual.
And if the sun ever comes out, you'll probably find me sitting in this chair a lot. While the water slowly rises...
(click pic to enlarge)
Staring into the distance.
Pondering what I'm going to write about todaytomorrownext week next month. Please let it not be Sarah Palin.
Wondering where my Canada went.
And of course thinking... holy Planet of the Apes @#!!$!
It's not hard to feel the pall that has fallen over the progressive blogosphere since the Cons finally won their majority. First there was shock, then there was anger, and now just sadness.
So rather than write about The Great Darkness, and make things worse, I thought I'd just share some of the things that comforted me today.
Like this shot of my favourite swan sitting on five eggs.
Or this one of another couple finding out that raising one is hard enough.
So what does Eeyore spend most of his time doing? Like all great outsiders, he Thinks – and he takes great pains to distinguish himself from the other animals for this. ("They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake..."). There he is in his lonely corner of the forest, sometimes thinking sadly to himself, "Why?", and sometimes "Wherefore?" – and sometimes not quite knowing what he's thinking at all. While the other animals amble contentedly through their daily lives, Eeyore wrestles with these questions alone.
Because he's always gloomy, but everyone loves him just the same. And goodness knows there are enough Eeyores out there these days.
And then there was the story of the dead Vancouver blogger and his last post.
It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real.
Which was sad but also incredibly moving.
Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.
Because what more could I add to that except..." I was loved, I was loved. What more did I need? What more could I want?"
And finally there was the 30th anniversary of the death of the great Bob Marley. Who died after failing to properly treat a melanoma on his foot.
There's a big moon over Mount Royal tonight. And I'm sitting here staring at that little plane flying into the darkness, and wondering why blogs can't last forever.
And how sorry I am to discover that somebody has taken down Bruce McDonald's blog Canuck Attitude. Only four months after he committed suicide.
Disappointed because I won't be able to link to some of his bully stories, to illustrate the horror of homophobia, and how it can kill, long after the bullying stops.
Disappointed because now the link to the different versions of the flag he designed...
Instead of being shared with people all over the world as it was for years.
But mostly I'm sad because I thought Bruce's blog was also his memorial, a place to go to remember him, and I was planning to keep it on my blogroll forever.
I don't know why somebody took it down. I hope it wasn't because they thought it's not the kind of memorial that a "respectable" dead person should have. Because that would be so wrong.
Yikes. Talk about a scary day on the internet. I woke up to be greeted by this warning every time I visited my site, or tried to publish anything.
The mighty Blogger was blocking my teeny blog, because it apparently contained:
"elements from rpc.blogrolling.com which appears to host malware."
So now I'm in a panic thinking blogrolling.com what's dat? Malware? Doesn't that come from porn sites? Why me? Is it the gun lobby? Or the sinister Con operative Snuffleupagus?
So I spent about six hours this evening scanning every corner of my computer, or slogging wearily through a jungle of HTML code looking for signs of alien life. I could see that people all over the blogosphere were having the same problem.
But nothing came up. No viruses, no malware, no nothing. So now I'm thinking either this bug is the latest model from Russia. Or Kory Teneycke is smarter than I thought. Because as we know, like the Russians, he's capable of ANYTHING. Or was.
Then tonight just when I was about to give up, I decided to take a chance and visit my Chernobyl site, and there at the bottom of the page, staring me in the face, under the blogroll of the Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians, was a little widget...... "POWERED BY BLOGROLLING."
I removed it with one click of the mouse, and the big red scary warning disappeared. Instantly.
But by then it was too late.
About an hour before, in a state of total distraction at the thought that Kornhole might be smarter than me, I had tossed my baggy army pants into the washer.... with my cell phone in them.
So are you feeling sorry for me yet? I didn't think so.
Oh boy. Sometimes I hate the internet.
On the other hand it's days like these that remind me, how much I depend on it, and how much I enjoy blogging.
So what the heck. Who needs a non waterproof cell phone eh? I got my little blog back.
It's almost the weekend.
So it must be a wonderful life...
Hey!! Is that my cell phone at the bottom of the pool?
As you know I spend most of my time on this blog attacking and mocking Stephen Harper and his Con government. Just like they attacked and mocked their opponents from the time they came to power. Because I hate bullies of any stripe more than I hate anyone in the world. And just like I did in school, I believe in giving bullies a taste of their own medicine.
But I attack the Cons so much that sometimes I worry that I am becoming like them. When in fact I want a kinder, fairer, gentler world, and they want to turn Canada into a jungle.
I also sometimes wonder what kind of person people who read this blog must think I am. Do you understand that the only reason I attack the Cons is because I want that better world? And I know it will never happen as long as they are in power.
Or do you think I'm an angry one-trick pony hedgehog on a one-track mission?
When the truth is I'd rather write about other stuff than politics. And I'm interested in a million other wondrous things, from the mysteries of the universe, to life at the bottom of the sea. And just about everything in between.
So I thought since it's the long weekend, I'd try to stay away from politics, and share some of those other things with you.
Starting with this German video on poverty...
Because poverty does tell many stories, I see it in the faces of the suffering every day. In one of the richest countries in the world. And we can't have that better world, until we heal it.
Oh well. It's going to be an interesting few days trying to stay away from politics. A bit like flying a plane I've never flown before.
So you better fasten your seatbelts eh?
But I have to admit trying to pretend I don't live in Con Canada will be a blessed relief.
A sweet taste of the glorious day when Harper and his bully Cons are finally defeated.
When Canada will once again be Canada.
And I can breathe again...
Harper. Who dat?
Have a great weekend everybody !!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommend this Post atProgressive Bloggers
Every year around this time I feel like quitting blogging. And I never understood why I always feel the animal urge to come back. Until I read the bourgeois fool Margaret Wente. And I realized it's because I'm a male, I'm an idiot, and I like to pee in the snow.
Perhaps you've noticed that most of the comments on these websites are not terribly sophisticated. They contain a large insult quotient, even when they come from people with advanced degrees. They remind me of nothing so much as a bunch of 12-year-olds holding peeing contests in the snow.
Not that there's anything wrong with that eh? But all I can say is if she's going to write about blogging, shouldn't she do some research? So she can find out that men and women are equally represented. Spare us from this sexist nonsense: Men clearly have an urge to blog that women lack. Like extreme snowmobiling, the blogosphere is dominated by men. Not many women are interested enough in spitting out an opinion on current events every 20 minutes.
And ask more interesting questions....like why are bloggers getting older? According to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, blogging activity has dropped drastically among young adults in the United States....In December 2007, for instance, 28 percent of all 18-to-29-year-olds with an Internet connection kept some sort of blog. By the same time last year, that number hovered around 15 percent. "Sites like Twitter are offering this other way to maintain a similar social connection, but without the concerted effort of a detailed, four-paragraph blog post..." Or the questions I ask myself. Is a four-paragraph blog post really a concerted effort? Is Wente really an IDIOT? These days, you don't even have to start a blog to get an audience. All you have to do is write “Margaret Wente is an idiot” and hit send. Instant gratification! And who knew she's THAT famous? Of course I'm an idiot too. But I do love blogging. And since I also like to make videos. And the more videos I make the less I blog. Which thanks to the Manolo Lady, I now understand is bad for my manly manliness.
I welcome this development...
Or do I? Although I liked the Late for Work one a lot, and the blond guy at the bar...when he was drunk... I STILL can't decide.
Are we becoming smarter and more creative....or dumber and more violent?
Oh well. At least two things are for sure eh?
Whether you're male or female blogging is easier when it rains. Harder when it's sunny and WARM.
And after today, nobody can deny, that Margaret Wente is an IDIOT...
So we're sitting there in the cool night air, staring out at our home away from home, missing Montreal, and wondering where the fuck did the summer go? And I'm feeling particularly gloomy because I spent too much time blogging or surfing the net instead of grabbing every ray of sunshine I could...coz there wasn't too many. And just at that moment my best friend Angus says:"Simon do you mind if I borrow your computer for a couple of days? I've got to finish this project by Wednesday and mine is broken."
And the Saguenay Prince was enchanted, and I was super happy. Because I want this journey to continue forever. And of course, because I think I proved that while the internet may be horribly addictive eh? Sometimes it can be really HANDY... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.S. Thanks to our beloved friend Angus who took that great sunset picture. He can have MY computer whenever he wants it. *Sob* And I'll be back as soon as he LETS me.*Moan* Have a great long weekend everyone !! Video from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.
Maybe it was the Green Comet.....and my mistaken belief that it was the space invaders coming to save us from Stephen Harper ..... and the Great Disruption. What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it's telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall - when Mother Nature and the market both said: "No more." And the Great Disappointment that followed...when I realized it wasn't them. And that the only space invader that is probably ever going to DARE land on this Planet ...is one of these Darth Comets. Comets could be the most significant impact hazard to Earth, with sky surveys underestimating the number that are potentially devastating by a factor of between 10 and 100, British astrophysicists say. Current NEO programs might be "monitoring a swarm of bees while standing on a railway line with an express train due...." I mean are YOU feeling lucky these days? But anyway...what I wanted to say was with all these things on my mind I didn't notice that the other day I wrote my 1000th post. Which I realize is about as awesome as a Christmas tree light compared to the Green Comet. But for me at least ...has still been quite a journey.
I started this blog to speak up for bullied kids in our schools....because I was one of them. And of course to defend the gay cause. Then I deleted the first forty posts and started again. Only to do more or less the same thing. Just go after all the other bullies in the world as well. Like Stephen Harper and his brutish Cons.
And of course have FUN. Some of my friends say I should be more serious so I can be taken more...um....seriously. But I figure if I can't be serious AND playful I'd rather do something else. Because being playful is a big part of me, and of the kinder, gentler, world I believe in.
So I think I'll just thank my readers for their support and encouragement over the years. You are the BEST. I wish I could promise to be a better blogger. But I'm afraid all I can do is threaten ...promise to continue this journey.
At least until the Great Disruption forces me to sell my computer for food. The Big Rock we didn't see coming smacks into us. Harper wins a majority ......and sentences me to forced labour in the Oil Sands Gulag.
Or the space invaders arrive...
OMG. They're HERE !!!
Hey Great Green Leader !!!!! Welcome to Planet Toast !!!!! After you've finished zapping the Cons.....don't forget to take me with you eh? Gawd. Maybe a thousand posts IS enough. Thanks for reading me everyone....
In China resistance to heavy handed internet censorship takes many forms. But these days the most popular and mindblowing one is the grass-mud horse.
The grass-mud horse is an example of something that, in China’s authoritarian system, passes as subversive behavior. Conceived as an impish protest against censorship, the foul-named little horse has not merely made government censors look ridiculous, although it has surely done that.
It has also raised real questions about China’s ability to stanch the flow of information over the Internet — a project on which the Chinese government already has expended untold riches, and written countless software algorithms to weed deviant thought from the world’s largest cyber-community. The expression and cartoon videos may seem like a juvenile response to an unreasonable rule.....But the fact that the vast online population has joined the chorus, from serious scholars to usually politically apathetic urban white-collar workers, shows how strongly this expression resonates. The grass-mud horse as an icon of resistance. In a country where bloggers are jailed.
Think about that the next time you hear the right-wing racist bloggers in this country screaming about how the Gestapo Human Rights Commission is OPPRESSING them. WAAAAAAAAAAH !!!!
Just like I think about what could happen if China's heroic internet resistance gets a little help from 12-year-old Kevin....
The censors won't stand a chance. Zap.*POOF*
Hmmmm...that gives me an idea for the CANADIAN resistance. You don't think we might be able to turn Stephen Harper into a small glowing energy ball.....
....And have him fly out of his ASSHOLE ?
Complete with sound effects. Wow. Wouldn't that be awesome? Go go go great grass-mud horsie !!!!! Freedom Forever !!!!! Isn't resistance FUN ?
Uh oh. Bad news everyone. When we all lose our jobs thanks to Stephen Harper's incompetent Con government, selling chestnuts in the street might help pay the bills..... but blogging definitely won't.
For two years I was obsessed with trying to turn a blog into a business. I posted 10 or 20 items a day to my site, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, rarely taking a break.
I walked away feeling burned out and weighing 20 pounds more than when I started. I also came away with a sneaking suspicion that while blogs can do many wonderful things, generating huge amounts of money isn't one of them.
OK so let's do the math. Blogging won't stop you from being homeless, it can kill you or make you really fat. And if you lose your job it can wreck your chances of ever getting another one....after subjecting you to the most embarrassing job interview EVAH.
Mr Simon did you write THAT? Um...er...yessirree Mr Boss Man. But I must have been DRUNK. But of course it REALLY REALLY could be worse. You could be on Twitter and Facebook as well. So you can let the world know when you're going to have a shit. Or find out that Ken has flat feet that sound like suction cups when he walks. And what Sarah thinks about nutmeg. Because the only thing worse than that would be to have my mother walk in on me when I was playing video games. With a Joydick....
But wait...isn't that how the Blogging Tories blog? You know people sometimes I can't help wondering whether blogging is all it's cracked up to be. Or whether we're all dead already. The cellphones HAVE eaten our brains. And we just don't know it...
Maybe it was the cold wind blowing across the lake. Or the sight of the empty rink. Or the guy in the wheelchair. But I think I finally realized how much trouble we're in.The signs of the Greatest Depression are everywhere. Factories are closing down. Small businesses are struggling to survive. Pensions are crumbling. You don't dare walk anywhere near the financial district...in case a broker lands on you. And now the CLINCHER. A friend of mine came back from Disney World and told me the place was half empty. Can you believe THAT? But how do you blog about the end of the world as we know it? I almost give up. Every time I think I've found a new and brilliant approach it turns out to be....um....not so brilliant. Like this soccer throw-in..
Ouch. I bet that was painful. Just like it is living in Stephen Harper's Con Canada.
Gawd. How I wish we could do to the Cons what the Democrats are doing to the Republicans.
Mmmmm.....hmmmmmm.....HEE HAAAAAW !!!!!!! But of course in Canada, WE are the ones getting screwed. Screwed by the Cons, screwed by our own stupidity, screwed by cruel fate.
FUUUUUUUUUCK !!!!!!! How come that sucker sailed over Saskatchewan but DIDN'T hit Small Dead Chihuahuas? You know how she's always going on about not waiting for the asteroid? Wouldn't that have been awful? I mean PERFECT.
Then I saw this list. And for a while it really boosted my spirits. It was just what the doctor ordered...along with lots of alcohol. But then I thought nah. Who needs that aggro shite? My parole officer says it's bad for me. And Canada these days is grey and bland and humourless and depressing enough... who wants to spend Christmas in prison?I need a more POSITIVE message. Cue Christina...
NOW we're talking. C'mon Canada repeat after me: It just keeps getting BETTER. Being reduced to grinding poverty because Harper's Cons blew the rainy day surplus.... trying to buy votes..... ISN'T the End of the World.
Who needs turkey when we can have PIGEON? And of course, and above all, and never forget it, Stephen Harper's bestial and incompetent Cons are the government we DESERVE. Have a great weekend everyone !!! While you still can...
The other day I got a chance to send a message to my friend JJ, the awesome blogger known as Unrepentant Old Hippie, who has gone for a ride on a sparkly pink unicorn. Now I really miss her. Not just because she's such a BRILLIANT blogger for human rights. And we all love her. But also because she has supported me so much over the years. So I told her it's OK to take a short break...because she deserves it. As long as it's a very very very very short one.
And I made a joke about how we're all blogging addicts. But then I took this test. And now I'm not laughing because it turns out I'm a hopeless junkie ...or ...um...Blonkie? 91%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
Gawd.I KNEW my ass was expanding exponentially, but how SCARY is that?
All I can say is thank goodness I don't live in China.
China is likely to become the first country in the world to officially recognise internet addiction as a clinical disease as it battles with the increasing number of people who spend almost of their time in chatrooms, blogging or playing online games.
Mr Tao runs a "boot camp" in Daxing, a suburb of Beijing, one of several hundred across the country. During the therapy, Mr Tao, who built his career on treating heroin addicts, offers addicts counselling, military discipline, hypnosis and mild electro-shock therapy to help them reform.
Military discipline and mild electro-shock therapy? Uh oh...no thanks. I guess I'll just keep blogging until I get a perfect score...or my chair collapses. Or JJ comes back from China to relieve me. Anyone seen a sparkly pink unicorn? It can't happen soon enough...
