Roadrunner

Went to see M.I.A. tonight. Alicia had an extra ticket and nobody was able to go with her. I've never been a big fan but I went with an open mind.
It was at the P.N.E., which made for a loud and echoing concert, maybe intentional. It was indeed LOUD. S'funny, I have always thought of her as an electronic act but really it's hip-hop, i.e. lots of beats, no music and no singing - just shouting.
The show opened with a 2-minute long speech by a Japanese man, seemingly speaking to a crowd of people prior to an election. It was subtitled and he was inciting the crowd to not vote because voting is a sham, democracy is a sham. He explained that to vote is to accept the status quo and only through revolution - armed revolution - would change be possible.
I disagree with the "armed" part, but I was still grateful for such powerful words prior to a concert. It's been a while since I saw live music but politics are generally not a part of the average show.
Sadly, the whole package didn't match the spirit of the opening words. Sure, she can dance and the music makes you want to move until the sun rises. And there were loads of images of guns and tanks and things on the screen behind her. I was nearly inspired to become a terrorist. But she's still a rock star, selling T-shirts for $120 each (no kidding), charging $52 a head to see her live and making videos for MTV. I think a true revolutionary would have to jettison capitalism as well. I don't claim to know how she could do that, but anything else is hypocrisy. I am not a revolutionary but I want at least someone to be.

p.s. the opening act was a team of DJs and MCs called Top Billin'. They were horrendous but it was great to hear a fat guy yell "top billin" over top of mid-90s rave music for an hour and a half.

p.p.s. M.I.A.'s latest hit, "Bamboo Banger", is a cover of The Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner". Highly recommended and they're coming to town soon, too.

let's send it overseas

The BC Grits have just signed a deal with South Korea for them to buy our alternative energy, according to an article in the Vancouver Sun.

the country is focusing on wind, solar, hydrogen fuel cells and coal gasification

Wow. So South Korea is buying our so-called 'green' energy, leaving us to rely on the Tar Sands to get by. As the president of the BC Technology Industry Association says about South Korea in the article, "These guys, when they put their mind to it, they just go. There's a certain boldness that probably would be good for us to focus on."

No shit.

Makes you wonder if it's because BC can't afford its own alternative energy.

Later in the article, we find out that this deal is also

aimed at helping B.C. business enter the Korean market

Aha! So not only will we send our energy there, but shortly those same industries bent on creating the green energy will also relocate to South Korea. Awesome.

Axes

The other night Alicia and I were discussing what we feel to be outdated drug laws. She asked me the age-old question of why certain drugs - namely pot, coke and dope - are illegal while others - tobacco, booze and benzos - are condoned. I don't know any full answer but I sure have my opinion. There are many explanations that delve into the financial benefits from keeping some drugs legal and others prosecutable. But why the vehement War against drugs that really do little harm aside from the social harms that come from trying to hide your addiction from the cops 24/7?

I believe that, deep down, we like a dichotomy of Good vs. Evil in our lives and in our cultures. It doesn't really matter which is which as long as there is something to love and something to fight. We humbly allow our leaders to choose for us the current Evil(s) and then rally behind their wars. I don't blame the leaders - we vote for 'em - nor do I blame human nature. It's just kinda how we are. But that doesn't mean we have to be ignorant about it all.

Similarly, when Bush called Israelis a chosen people the other day, on the same anniversary of Palestinian struggle for independence, I think he was backing the current Good in much of North American culture. Why Israel I am not certain - surely every people is chosen according to their own values and history - but this is the pervailing view, as we must all see daily in news reports. The Evil, naturally, is an array of governments and organisations forming at least one Axis. There is no 'absolute' reason for one of these groups to be Evil while Israel and, say, America, are Good, other than choices we and our leaders have made.

This may seem obvious to the 2 people who actually read this blog but it sure isn't obvious to most people I talk to. Heroin, Hamas and gay marriage are only Evil because we say they are. There is nothing inherently (im)moral about any thing or action in this world. So while I am content to stand by my own personal decisions on what is Good (summer, video games and coffee) and what is Evil (Sam Sullivan, SUVs and mushrooms), I must be honest that nobody ought to share my opinions - they are not worth War but are always worth talking about.

Staying clean at Main and Hastings

I heard about this from Eby's blog but have since read this thorough article from the Globe.
This part sounds good:

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will soon have 20 new beds to give female prostitutes a safe place to turn as they kick the vicious drug addictions that forced them into the survival sex trade

Not nearly enough beds, of course, but way better than nothing. However the program is "abstinent-based (sic)" and located in the Roosevelt Hotel, right beside the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings.
For those unfamiliar with this famous corner, it's pretty much an illegal pharmacy free-for-all. Not that I'm knocking it, but it's pretty easy to get sucked into doing a hoot here, there and everywhere.
So, this will either turn into a failure, or the Portland Hotel Society, who run the Roosevelt, will pressure the feds - who are funding this program - into being less forceful.

Peak Jesus

Although Eby's blog is a tempting inspiration to wax at length about Vancouver and its current political climate, I'm not fully ready to put those ideas down. They're still kinda fuzzy and liable to make me look more like a douchebag than I already am.
Instead, I want to pour some worry on you, baby. For years I've been semi-into Mike Ruppert and his theories (or facts) on 9/11. I even bought his book, which was so chock-full of factoids that I never made it past page 100. One thing that stuck with me, though, was not the notion that 9/11 was an inside job. It was his point that Peak Oil didn't refer strictly to fuel but to everything made from oil and its by-products.
Lately Mike's health has been poor and so his good friend Jenna Orkin has taken over blogging on their site, dedicating it to Peak Oil in the news. I check it once a week or so; it's also very fact-heavy and too much for me when I do most of my blog-reading at 6:30 in the morning. Still, I think this idea of Peak Everything bears some thought. Ruppert tried to drive home that it's not gas for cars but cars themselves that will not withstand the end of oil. Much of their insides (plastic, vinyl, polyester) are oil products. Same with this computer I'm using, my bicycle tires and all of Grandma's clothes. I can't decide if this spells dire consequences or not. Like every other looming disaster, I just can't get motivated enough to panic. Otherwise I probably wouldn't live in an earthquake hotspot like Vancouver.

Gabor, you run the city

Ok, this is a bit after-the-fact, but I am going to try and review Gabor Maté's book, The Realm of Hungry Ghosts.
The book came out a few months back (I got it for Christmas) and has been receiving many rave reviews from the lefty press, including rabble.ca, thetyee.ca and the Walrus, though some may debate whether the Walrus is lefty. The general consensus is that Maté writes with knowledge and compassion about addiction and the War on Drugs. His is the power to sway audiences from judgmental attitudes towards junkies and maneuver them toward pity and love. But not hope. Oh no, Gabor believes in no rosy future for his patients. Rather, they must suffer their lot but at least a gentle and rich doctor can ease their pain in the meantime.
To sum up, Gabor Maté works in the inner city of Vancouver - the Downtown Eastside - with people who cope with all sorts of problems from addictions to mental illness to violence. Instead of condemning them for what they've managed to get themselves into, namely poverty, Maté thinks we should consider their childhood of trauma in our analysis of their current lifestyle. Addiction, he says, is the bodies way of dealing with trauma and abuse. I'm oversimplifying; he goes into a lengthy section on brain chemistry and addiction as well. The reason I skip over this part, though, is because I find it largely irrelevant. If anybody actually needs to be convinced of the reasons for addiction, well, then maybe they'd find this section useful. However, I was looking for solutions, not descriptions.
The book is intended at a lay audience - one that does not console the down-and-out on a daily basis like Gabor and myself. But unlike me, Gabor's answer lies in medication. Yes, we both love our patients, and I do not use that word lightly. And we both see a bit of ourselves in them, share our lives with them, and miss them when we're at home.
But Gabor's love comes in the form of a pill, tested and sold by Big Pharma. Moreover, he sees the pill as an end, not a means. People are destined to die down here, he says in an interview with the Pivot Legal Society. "I see myself as working in palliative care." And he's serious. Just like the Empire of Poverty Pimping he works for, the Portland Hotel Society, Gabor offers brief respite from pain but little else. He cannot fathom that people have the ability - with help and compassion - to get out of the Downtown Eastside. His is a top-down model: doctors, social workers, then clients. Clients couldn't possibly write books about their own lives, so Maté has to, and reap the rewards.
By contrast, I firmly believe that people in the deepest Hell of addiction and poverty can get out of it, with our commitment to social justice, fair economics, entrepreneurship, and less reliance on pills and famous authors to ease their suffering. Take the model of the Hope in Shadows calendar, put out by Pivot Legal Society: instead of just profiting off pictures of poor people, instead of just giving poor people some cash in exchange for their photos, Pivot teaches people about making money, about building community, about being proud of accomplishments and about being role models. Maté is maybe still to fresh on the scene to appreciate people's potential, but I hope he figures it out soon.

Gathering of Single Unemployed in my Child's Bedroom

Yesterday afternoon we ripped up the floor of Hadley's room. The previous tenant, bless her heart, thought that carpets are a worthy substitute for cat litter. Beneath the carpet lay 4 layers of tile. Underneath it all is a very old hardwood floor, half chopped up into little quadrants of plywood.
Before this project we wondered how old this house is, as most people do when they move into a new place that was built between 1900 and 1970. Alicia did a mini-survey of the outside of the house, deducing that both the front and the back are add-ons, thus making the actual house very small. I think that what is now Hadley's room was actually the old bathroom but Alicia thinks it was the kitchen.
Between the 1st and 2nd layer of tile were a number of sheets of the Vancouver Sun, dated July 11, 1938. This places it right before the war, depending on which historian you ask. The articles vary between quaint and fascinating. We're going to try and scan the paper and then I'll put some some examples. I was very excited to read a story about mass evictions and riots by homeless people. The mayor of the time was much less wishy-washy than Sam Sullivan; he decried the riots as insufferable and immoral. We'll see what old Sam says when we tear this town down in 2010.