[LINK] "More discrimination in Canada than EU: poll"

This news article surprised me when I first read it.

Canadians report experiencing more discrimination than Europeans, according to new research that appears to contradict popular perceptions about Canada's multiculturalism.

While just 15 per cent of European Union residents say they've personally felt discriminated against or harassed for factors such as ethnicity, age or sexual orientation in the past year, 28 per cent of Canadians say the same. That figure rises to 39 per cent among francophones, according to research being released today by the Association for Canadian Studies.

But those numbers might be the result of Canada's diversity, not in spite of it, says Jack Jedwab, the association's executive director.

"Most surveys suggest that interaction creates better understanding between communities," he says. "It also creates this higher sensitivity or awareness of discrimination and a greater tendency to identify instances of discrimination."

Canadians are also more likely than Europeans to say they'd witnessed discrimination against someone else in the past year (41 per cent compared to 29 per cent), with race and sexual orientation being the most common targets.

More Canadians report having friends of different cultural backgrounds, and those with a diverse group of friends are more likely to say they've witnessed or experienced discrimination than those with friends who are just like them.

The findings create "a real dilemma" in trying to get a true read on the prevalence of discrimination, Jedwab says, because it gives the impression that a country like Canada that prides itself on multiculturalism has a more troubled record than other nations with comparatively little diversity.

The data was taken from a Leger Marketing survey for Canada and a Eurobarometer surveys for the European Union. As the article notes, the data sets aren't directly comparable. That said, I wonder if there's something that Canadians de souche might be missing out on.

Thoughts?

[LINK] Someone doesn't like losing

I got the link to Mark Crutcher's WorldNetDaily article from elfs.

Although the polls should have prepared us for this, it is still hard to imagine how a nation founded by statesmen like Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton could decay into one run by socialist whores like Obama, Pelosi and Reid. But that's what we've come to.

For my brothers and sisters in the pro-life movement, I would like to offer a little perspective on this situation. Before you decide to take a bath with your toaster, remember that God is still in control. He is not holed-up in some obscure section of heaven pacing back and forth and wringing His hands, desperately trying to figure out what His next move should be. We're the only ones doing that.

Be assured that I am not trying to downplay the significance of what just happened. Besides being a Marxist, Barack Obama is the most rabidly pro-abortion, morally defective and completely unqualified person to ever be given the keys to the Oval Office. This man is thoroughly evil, and I have little doubt that we are likely entering into the most dangerous period in the history of our country. On the 20th of January, 2009, the fox will not be guarding the henhouse--he will be inside the henhouse.

I'm tempted to say that this kind of reaction means that the American electorate has made the right choice.

[URBAN NOTE] I love you, too

I was walking north on Yonge Street when I saw a man walking beside me, head down, almost walk into a woman. She smiled and came within a nose's breadth of him before she looked down at his purple shopping bag.

- So what did you steal for me?

[REVIEW] Haruki Murakami, After Dark

Until recently, I haven't been reading much literary and/or mainstream fiction because I've been consumed by Deep Space Nine relaunch novels and their equivalents in the Next Generation universe. Yes, they're media tie-ins, but should I care about that? Discovering what happened in Bajoran space after Sisko's return, or what happened to the Enterprise and even Voyager crew after the events of Nemesis and the Starship Voyager's rapid destruction of the Borg's galactic transportation network with future technology more than does it for me.

But it isn't the only thing that does it, at least not now. One of the non-tie-in novels I've come across and read recently is Haruki Murakami's novel After Dark. It was an enjoyable enough novel, with different characters--an excessively studious young woman, a stranded and scarred amateur rock guitarist, a women trapped as a hikikomori, a beaten Chinese prostitute--all interacting over space and time, mostly not heading in any particular direction, in a way that brought to mind Robert Altman's movie Short Cuts

My problem with After Dark is that it read flatly, as flat if not flatter than some of the tie-in novels I've also been reading of late. It may be, I hope, that Murakami's literary style just doesn't appeal to me. What I'm afraid is that it might be another case of translation sapping a work of its original energy. To me Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles comes off as a novel of ideas, lacking the literary flair and style ?that I'm told characterizes Les particules élémentaires. What frustrates me here is that while I have the French that I'd need to read and at least start to appreciate the style of Les particules élémentaires, I very doubt that I'll ever acquire the Japanese language skills to appreciate After Dark in the language in which it was written and be able to judge for myself. Alas.