Canada is at the Polls
Today all over our country Canadians will have to make a choice and more than which beer is best for Canada Day. Today we have to decide, as my friend Mike Sugimoto puts it, between evil, stupid, evil and stupid, and hippies. While I assign different parties to each of the headings than he does the point is the same; there is no GOOD choice. The Liberals who has spent money on things that now no-one takes responsibility for or they forgot that they said “Yes”; they have no comment on what we should do with our friends south of the border; and hey they are supported by U2’s Bono. The NDP that party has some of the best ideas I have ever heard: increase spending on social programs and health care; reduce student fees; say “no” to us being part of the US-Missile defence system; and while Jack Layton seems to be a tad more irritating than Paul Martin (see the English Debate) he hasn’t said anything really stupid...yet. We could pick the Conservatives who will give tax breaks (to the wealthy), drop gun registry while signing us up for the U.S. air missile defence program, and spend our tax money on guys who will figure out how tax money should be spent. I’m not from Quebec so I know very little about the Bloc – sorry. And finally the Green Party who, as studies in B.C. found out, were not even as green as the NDP.
So what do you do? Vote for the devil you know or the devil you don’t? Or do as I am vote for the NDP because the Globe and Mail said Jack Layton’s wife is the best dressed of the significant others of the four major parties; that and they seem to care about the “regular-working” people. Bottom Line: Please God don’t let the Conservatives win.
So Canadians need to get out there and exercise there right to vote, even if it means spoiling the ballot, because it is a right we are fortunate enough to have.
Whale Rider
Culture is a funny thing, while sometimes it seems to belief based on fantasy the sense of magic gives it credibility - I want to believe. The movie
Whale Rider is the perfect example of this.
On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants.
This movie blends the best parts of tradition, faith, love and hope in order to show how much one girl struggles to prove she can keep the Maori culture alive. Whale Rider makes you think about the role you want to take in life and creates a curiosity about culture –
Maori or otherwise.
Teachers Afriad to Fail Students
In the Globe and Mail this morning, the non-online edition, there is a story titled ‘Iraqi profs face death for failing students’ and it begins with:
"In most countries, it is the students who dread tests. In Baghdad, it is the teachers. As exams are administered on campuses across the city, many of them are wondering whether these tests will be their last."
It continues to explain that professors have been threatened and in one case killed by students over test grades. Many students are condoning these death treats because they feel that with the increased difficulties in studying, since the US lead invasion, their professors should be making classes easier.
Protection for the professors is impossible with the shortage of law enforcement elsewhere. So the professors will need to make a choice to take the risk and continue teaching or quit; there is a third option as well give into the threats and tailor the programs to the students. If they quit or change their teaching styles then the only people at a real disadvantage are the students. Their situation is impossible to imagine for most attending Canadian Universities, we have power when we need it and there are no roadblocks to hold us up. However, these students need realize that by threatening their professors the only people they hurt in the long run is themselves. They need to find a better way, with the professors, to create a balance between what is required and what work can realistically be completed under the condition in Iraq as they are.
Cheers to the Globe for reporting stories on all aspects of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.
What is Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals?
This is the name of the most recent album by
Goran Bregovic.
"His music marries sounds of a gypsy brass band with traditional Bulgarian polyphonies, those of a guitar and traditional percussion with a curious rock accent…. All against a background of a bedevilled string orchestra and deep sonorities of a male choir, creating music that our soul recognises instinctively and the body greets with an irresistible urge to dance."
When I was in Italy, during the May 1st party in which Slovenia joined the European Union, I, along with my boyfriend and my relatives from the area, headed to a village called Goriza that straddled the boarder to hear Bregovic play. There were tens of thousands of people packed into this tiny square where just weeks before a barbed-wire fence had separated Slovenia from Italy. I wasn’t entirely sure what we were in for as we stood shoulder to should with people of all ages. A cool breeze was blowing making me wish I had brought a sweater. Smoke from cigars and cigarettes could be seen in the beams of the spot lights pointed at the stage, their smells both sweet and bitter. As we waited we listened to all these people talk - different languages from Croatian to Slovenian and of course Italian; but when the first few notes of music hit the air there was silence from the crowd. Time passed without my noticing by the end of the first hour I was screaming and cheering along with everyone else even though I had no idea what any of the lyrics meant. The music alternated between music that would have everyone dancing in their one-foot square space to music that was so beautiful and haunting you would get goose bumps. The night seemed to go on forever long after my legs and back had cramped from standing, after the last song had ended people kept clapping and cheering. Bregovic returned to the stage and spoke, my cousin translated for me “you don’t want to go home? All right we’ll then we will start from the beginning again.” With that the orchestra and singers tromped back on stage and they started again playing for another 45-minutes.
The popularity of Bregovic in the Balkans and throughout Eastern Europe would easily rival any star here in North America. The entire event was powerful – standing on a mosaic to commemorate Slovenia’s joining the E.U. and listening to the culture of the Balkans.
