[NON BLOG] Toronto to Date

I moved in yesterday morning, arriving at my new address at a quarter after eight o'clock, just a few minutes before the movers arrived with my materials. Some scheduling problems ensued--the person whose room I was moving into didn't arrive until noontime, while the person who was going to help another resident move entirely from the house didn't come until the same time frame--but all in all things went well. I haven't unpacked, since I don't have any furniture.

I've seen some interesting things so far: a guy on Queen Street West asking me for all my change so that he can buy a sandwich; a guy a bit younger than me talking to his girlfriend (of mixed Swedish Jewish, Ukrainian, German, and Anglo ancestry, apparently) about how glad she wasn't born in Germany; car drivers of presumably Greek ancestry driving down Yonge and Church Streets, waving the Greek flag as they went, following their country's recent victory in soccer.

[BRIEF NOTE] Two Livejournal Postings of Note

pimpsophist has a superb rant about the hypocrisy (or, alternatively, incompetence) of the Bush Administration in the world.

quuf has a fantastic description of the launch of SpaceShipOne from the California desert (with pictures!).

[BRIEF NOTE] Bunnies/Titanic

Via avva, Titanic in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. Versions of The Exorcist and The Shining are also available from that site.

[BRIEF NOTE] Notes on Art

I'm still processing my reactions to my recent visit to the AGO (made in the charming company of echomyst and thehollow), specifically to the Impressionist Visions showing of works by Turner, Whistler, and Monet, and Rodney Graham's A Little Thought Now On View showing (closed now, sadly).

It's no secret that I tend to prefer the graphic arts of the 19th century, considered as a whole, to the graphic arts of the 20th century. It might be a bit less known that I particularly like the works of the Impressionists--the second and last decade of the French Second Empire was an extraordinarily fertile period. The works on display by Monet weren't the sort of works that I'm most fond of, perhaps because the exhibition's basic purpose was to contrast and compare Monet's works with that of a much broader artistic movement than that of the Impressionists. The signal works of the Impressionists weren't present in that exhibition, and in my opinion that's a good thing.

I'm left scrambling, though, by the Rodney Graham exhibition. His images (moving and still) were technically quite accomplished; his choice of materials in his multimedia exhibitions were interesting; his pop music was well-written, successful in a wide variety of genres. (I think that his 2-CD album is still available for purchase from the gift shop. Perhaps I may yet go?) I was left cold, though, when these three elements of his finished works are combined. What effect is Graham trying to produce apart from a sense of distance? I'm unfond of distance, I suppose, in my personal life as in the wider world, and the dislike in the first instance might be spilling over into the second instance. But still, I feel that despite his demonstrated technical skill, Graham's works are fundamentally hollow, lacking in a necessary substance.

[BRIEF NOTE] More on Rwanda

Back in April, I wrote about how Rwanda's RPF government, under Paul Kagame, has been blatantly misusing the events of the 1994 genocide in that country to support its claims to power. Abiola Lapite has more, linking to this article from AllAfrica.com:

After three days of debate, the Rwandan parliament on Wednesday asked the government to dissolve the League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Ligue Rwandaise pour la promotion et la défense des droits de l'homme, or Liprodhor) and four other civil society organizations because they allegedly supported genocidal ideas. The action was recommended by a parliamentary commission that also called for the arrest of leaders of the organizations.

"Dissolving Liprodhor would call into question the Rwandan government's commitment to such basic human rights as freedom of expression and association," said Alison Des Forges, senior adviser for the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.

During the parliamentary debate, the commission made sweeping and unproven accusations against Liprodhor and the other organizations, including a rural association for improving agricultural output and an association of widows whose husbands were killed during the 1997-99 uprising in northern Rwanda.

The commission interpreted 'genocidal ideas,' prohibited by law in Rwanda, so broadly as to include even dissent from government plans for consolidating land holdings.

I can't disagree from Abiola's conclusion:

What fighting "terrorism" is to many a repressive Arab state, battling "genocidal ideas" has become for Rwanda's rulers - a useful way to bludgeon dissenting voices into silence with the acquiescence of the outside world. Kagame is no saint, not even a great but flawed figure, and it isn't necessarily the case that there's no alternative to his Tutsi-minority government, any more than it's necessarily true that the only alternative to the likes of Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali is anarchy. If anything, Kagame's repression of all organizations not under his thumb is a cynical ploy meant to ensure that "there is no alternative" to the indefinite rule of his coterie.