[LINK] "My response to Dawn of a New Gay"

This isn't my response. Rather, it's the response of Buddies in Bad Times theatre company director Brendan Healy to Paul Aguirre-Livingston's controversial article in weekly The Grid, the one talking about the death of gay as a meaningful identity that inspired most of my posts here on Saturday and Sunday.

The recent election of Rob Ford as mayor and the Conservative majority in federal parliament strike me as clear indications that our sense of collective responsibility and caring for one another is diminishing and is quickly being replaced by self-interest and greed. A vision of the Canadian social contract that is built on concepts of compassion, altruism and inter-dependence no longer seems to form the basis of our society. Instead, all I see is a political landscape that is dominated by selfishness, fear of difference and a rejection of inclusiveness.

I would describe Aguirre-Livingston’s article as yet another symptom of this societal shift. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Aguirre-Livingston’s own experience of being gay and he certainly has every right to live out his sexual identity in whatever way he chooses. I take no issue with that. What is disturbing is the article’s complete lack of awareness/acknowledgement of his position inside the broader world. The article does not speak to the context in which he is living nor does it place his experience in relationship to a broader community of homosexuals except in the most superficial of ways. His personal and extremely privileged position inside the gay experience is not the norm. Nowhere close, in fact. For a widely distributed media outlet to imply (or outright state) that it is the norm is outrageous. It is the equivalent to some posh Rosedale resident saying that there is no poverty because they do not directly experience it in their own lives and a newspaper publishing it as some kind of legitimate description of a social reality. It is self-centered, short-sighted and irresponsible. It denies our interconnected existence as a community – a community that is made up of a multiplicity of experiences. It feeds a growingly disconnected society of isolated individuals who have little understanding of the larger social realities that they are a part of. This is frightening to me.

For a long time, our identities as homosexuals were formed by adversity. Today, a select group of people from the community have grown up without these experiences of oppression. As a result, certain aspects of their identities are different from members of previous generations. This should be a good thing. This is an important thing for us to talk about as a community. It is unfortunate that this article did not live up to the task. The result is an apathetic, cynical and, often, contemptible piece of “journalistic” writing that further divides a community that has struggled and continues to struggle for equality, acceptance and basic freedoms. I appeal to The Grid’s and Aguirre-Livingston’s sense of social responsibility as they continue to define their role in the world and assess how they can contribute to the betterment of others.

The post came from Facebook here.

[LINK] "There’s No Fish Here"

Of course, it's all the fault of the seals.



The Map Room Blog's Jonathan Crowe explains: "Drawing on data from this study, David McCandless maps the decline in North Atlantic fish stocks over the past century. “Today’s fishing quotas and policies for example are attempting to reset fish stocks to the levels of ten or twenty years ago. But as you can see from the visualization, we were already plenty screwed back then.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Chinese businesses question shark fin ban"

CBC is one of the sources covering the controversies surrounding the proposed ban on shark fin sales in Toronto. Myself, I'm for the ban: I'm as little in favour fo tradition being used to justify anything re: shark fins as I am re: seal hunting. Ko raises interesting issues, but is the lack of a solution that can be applied universally and immediately justification for doing nothing at all anywhere?

A proposed shark fin ban in Toronto has some Chinese businesses around the city grappling with the associated ethical concerns, while at the same time questioning whether a municipal ban alone is a worthwhile initiative.

Toronto councillors John Parker, Glenn De Baeremaeker and Kristyn Wong-Tam launched a campaign on Monday aimed at banning the sale and consumption of shark fins within the city, citing unethical practices like shark finning, which is illegal in many countries, including Canada.

Shark finning involves hacking off the sharks' fins and throwing their still-living bodies back into the water. Groups like Oceana and WildAid say up to 73 million sharks a year are killed each year, primarily for their fins.

De Baeremaeker said he hopes other regions will follow Toronto's example and such bans will be "replicated across the nation."

[. . .]

James Ko, the general manager of Casa Imperial Fine Chinese Cuisine, is skeptical of the effectiveness of a city-wide ban on shark fin. His restaurant is known for its dim sum and high-end wedding banquets finished with shark fin soup.

"Unless it's nationwide legislation, I don't see how it can effectively end the illegal shark hunting," he said through a translator.

"Meanwhile, look at the food on our table. Can we guarantee every cow, chicken, pig, fish was not slaughtered inhumanely? Should the killing of these animals be all regulated?"

"If Toronto passes the bylaw, it simply means people will just cross the street to other cities like Markham, for shark fins," said Ko, whose restaurant is located at the southeast corner of Steeles and Warden Avenues, on the northern limit of city of Toronto and just south of Markham.

[LINK] "NDP leaving ‘socialism' behind — in constitution, policy manual"

Is this just one movement more on the New Democratic Party's trajectory towards replacing the Liberals as Canada's other natural party of government? I say yea.

New Democrats are preparing to cast off the shackles of the socialist label by eliminating the word from the federal party constitution at a policy convention this weekend.

“The New Democratic Party is dedicated to the application of social democratic principles to government,” reads part of a proposed new preamble to the party constitution, which will be voted on at the 50th anniversary convention in downtown Vancouver. “These principles include an unwavering commitment to economic and social equality, individual freedom and responsibility, and democratic rights of citizens to shape the future of their communities.”

That language is much different from what exists in the current version of the constitution, where the principles of “democratic socialism” are described as being against making profits and for social ownership.

The change will make it trickier for Conservatives to dismiss the NDP as a bunch of socialists, but a senior party official said rewriting the preamble — which the party executive received the mandate to do through a resolution passed at the 2009 convention in Halifax — was simply about modernizing the language.

Granted, the left in the NDP is still going to be vocal. But influential in the new environment? Who knows?

James Laxer, a political science professor at York University who once ran for the NDP leadership and was part of the socialism-based “Waffle” faction in the late 1960s and early 1970s, said the shift to the centre has been going on for decades.

“Like other social democratic parties in the West, the NDP has adopted much of the outlook of the neo-liberalism that is the dominant ideological strain in the market-centred era of globalization,” Laxer wrote in an email Tuesday, adding this has its pros and cons.

“The NDP has been able to challenge the Liberals as a less corrupt, more principled and somewhat more progressive party that occupies centre-left ground,” said Laxer, but added that in order for the NDP to become truly progressive, it needs to espouse policies that aim to close the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada.

“If it fails, it will be little more than the new Liberals,” said Laxer, although one of the proposed resolutions is for the party to formally reject any proposals to merge with the Liberal party.

The trend does not sit well with the NDP “socialist caucus,” whose members introduced a long list of left-wing resolutions, including phasing out the “Alberta tar sands,” repealing the Clarity Act and boycotting “apartheid Israel.”

“The right-wing has done a very effective job monopolizing the political discourse through the mass media and other institutions in Canadian society,” said socialist caucus chair Barry Weisleder. “The NDP has adapted rather than challenged that elite consensus.”

[H&F] "What hockey has shown us about Canada"

I've a post up at History and Futility made as I watch the Boston-Vancouver game, noting that the exciting series has demonstrated that Canadian do care a lot about the game--it explains so much about what has been going on here!

Go, read. And enjoy the game!

[LINK] On the Bruins' 2011 victory

Congratulations, Boston!

The 2011 Stanley Cup Finals have ended, and the Bruins won by 4-0, this despite the Canucks' playing on home ice back in Vancouver.

(If you're curious, yes, I'm happy with this: I am from Atlantic Canada ...)

The game wasn't close. At the beginning of the third period, the Bruins were ahead three to nothing, having established that lead in the first period. The CBC Hockey Night in Canada online chat featured a poll asking if viewers thought the Bruins would get a fourth goal just seconds before they actually did. Goalie Roberto Luongo's career has to be over.

I came across three tweets of note tonight.

• Wil Wheaton argued that Canucks' goalie Luongo is like "a parachute that works well on the ground, but turns into a backpack when you jump out of the plane."


• I liked Steve Paikin's tweet: "Bruins outscoring canucks 22-8 so far in the series. They deserve to win."


• Toronto tech writer Ivor Tossell made a sour observation: "When I said we've found Toronto's second team, btw, I meant the Canucks. I feel we'd get each other." Granted the Canucks have done much better than the Leafs in a long time ...

Oh, and Bruce Arthur shared his memories of the riot that followed the Canucks' 1994 defeat in the finals.