Is it possible…

…to drag yourself out of bed this morning when you know what lies ahead? The wounds that regularly train track across your hands sting like they did those first few days on the line. There is no way to know just how many wiring harnesses you have strung together over the years but, today, you know that there won't be many more. How do you wake up to pink slip?

You were never under illusions that the work you did or the skills it took to do your job was more than means to a pay check. You weren't a rocket scientist, a social engineer, a medical researcher. You were number 14 in the line building wiring harnesses for the inner workings of a Ford Fiesta, then a Honda Civic, then a Buick LeSabre, and so on. The harnesses for the Cadillac's were stupid. Number 14. Tim was 13 and Frieda was 15. Last week you sold Tim one of the last of your litter of chocolate Labs and you gave him a deal. You play hockey with Frieda's husband every Tuesday night in the beer league team sponsored by the company. "It's a living" you tell your buddies and they nod.

And now it's not. No severance. No Christmas bonus.

You look down at your hands. Your fingers only know how to make money one way. They look humiliated and weak holding a pen – filling out the EI forms. Days at the plant tick away into mindless oblivion. Deft hands twisting, pulling, placing, and sending away. Rhythm and constant rhythm. Like a well worn sedative against the ghosts you've shut out. And now they've cut you off. The large screen TV mocks you with the latest news. You shrink into the pillowy discomfort of your new Lazyboy – the one she got you last month with your favourite hockey Jersey. You curse your hands.

You plot a scheme to rip out each and every CA-345TF circuit board in every vehicle on the block. You're pretty sure you know where to look. It would only really affect the intermittent windshield wiper systems…

You've spent your whole life building a product that could largely go unnoticed. But everyone needs a car. Right? Needs a car? Or three? Your work sits inside rusting, pollution spewing… Come on! What were you thinking? Can you ever get to the point of thinking that maybe you should lose your job? Maybe it's better that you are out of work? After 26 years? After pouring your life into your hands? Can you just chop them off like that?

Who is going to bail out the soul of western society that has suckled at the breast of capitalistic 'endeavour'? When wants are fed like needs to the greed drunk masses, who will be brave enough to shout over the loud speakers – "DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID!"?

Safe or Brave?

"[Governor General Michaelle Jean was not just being asked a constitutional question. In the nation's eyes, she was also being asked a moral question: is it democratic to silence the House of Commons for one-sided political power?

I'm not going to refer to Charles I, as others have. I'm directing the question to Jean: is it moral?

In the worst economic crisis since 1929, as Harper himself said, is it moral for multinationals to lay off hundreds of thousands of humans worldwide?

Was it moral for GM, Chrysler and Ford to willfully disregard "peak oil," a
concept known for decades and continue to churn out gas-guzzlers? Was it moral for unions to fail to prod automakers to look to the future as Japanese carmakers had wisely done?

Is it moral for a prime minister to egg on Canadians to hate each other?

All these things were easy to do. Canadians don't riot. In this country, a
political autobiography would be called The Hope for Audacity.

Auto executives will continue to live well. So will union leaders. Harper
will be fine." - Heather Mallick

See the rest of the editorial here

Has anyone noticed…

…just how well the Boston Bruins are performing lately?

Youth-worker Re-Boot Camp

There should be a requisite training component to all youth workers who make it past the 3 year mark in ministry. The organization which pays their salary should set aside the space of 4 months for what I'm gonna call a Re-Boot Camp. I outline the curriculum below:

The youth worker should

1. Enrol in a first year level course in Sociology or Philosophy taught by the most ardently atheist professor on the campus of the local University.
   
2. Secure employment at a minimum of two part time jobs: One should be in the service sector (retail, food service, etc) and the other should be in one of the 'labour' jobs (construction, factory, etc)
   
3. Attend the year end student social, party (U of L called it the 'ender bender')
   
4. Make arrangements to live in housing along with other post high schoolers with whom there should be no relational connection. This could be tricky if the youth worker is married so even spending a few weekends could be enough.
   
5. All the money made at the part time jobs should be spent entirely on 'entertainment' – movies, music, sporting events, parties, eating at restaurants, etc.
   
6. The youth worker should be outfitted with the latest technological devices.
   

This is a method in sociology referred to as participant observation. I think this approach could provide two important learning experiences for the youth worker interested in 'staying in the business'.

1. Assuming that the youth worker has a spent copious time with adolescents in the high school context (i.e. spent time with kids), this experience could give the youth worker an valuable perspective on the 'world' that youth will enter upon exiting the 'protection' of high school. This insight should naturally lead to adjustments in what the youth pastor could provide in terms of preparatory teaching for youth.
   
2. This experience could also serve as a great way to create strategies to address the chronic 'drop out' rates that occurs post high school.
   

If other youth workers are like I was, the context of middle school and high school adolescence can become all encompassing to the point where youth workers lose sight of the destination that youth ministry is working toward. Of course youth ministry is not about getting kids to become healthy adults. Youth ministry should be about helping youth be healthy adolescents. However, losing the destination of where our kids will end means that the scope of ministry becomes limited and ultimately short sighted. Spending some time in the 'world to come' would give youth workers the ability to keep the destination in view as they sort out youth ministry priorities. Unless youth workers spend some actual time in this zone the characteristics of this culture will be lost in rhetoric that seems to stereotype the world that post high schoolers live in. This experience would, I believe, give youth workers a view into the positive and negative aspects of a culture is critical individual formation.

Yesterday in my last class of the semester, I overheard two girls talking about school.

"This is my last class," said one.

"For the semester?" asked the other.

"No – forever!"

"Sweet"

"Not really – they say I have to become an adult now," she joked.

"Don't do it!"

Oh Canada?!

Indulge me for a moment to comment of the political shenanigans transpiring in our nation's capital. I am not, as it is likely no surprise, particularly worried or bothered by the prospect of a coalition government. But that has less to do with how my ideological bent informs my political desires than it does with the dilemma presented by this form of government. I am also mystified by how media buffoonery has allowed the political rhetoric to once again reflect the contrived notion of partisanship.

That a coalition might be supported/enabled by the Bloc should not concern us in the ways it has in public discourse thus far. The Bloc is a separatist party whose intention is to see Quebec achieve the status of nation. If we are to follow the information given to us by Ipsos Reid and other polling organizations we would do well to note that voters who have sent Bloc members to Ottawa have done so for a myriad of reasons. It is true that Harper had 28% voter share in Quebec before the French debate and after the debate only 18%. The subsequent shift to the Bloc was due to Harpers position on arts funding, etc. Regardless of why they switched it is clear that the spectre of separatist rhetoric was not a direct cause of the shift but the failure of Harpers policies to convince voters to support him. Voters for the Bloc will identify most strongly with many of the more conservative values that the PC's espouse. The point I am trying to make here is that politics makes strange bedfellows. Let's remember that the PC's as it stands right now cannot pass a single piece of legislation without the complicit 'support' of one of the other parties.

Until now this complicity was not seen as a negative light on the PC's regardless if they needed the NDP's or the Bloc. PC's were not seen as compromising their values by being enabled by separatists or socialists. Rex Murphy is right to lay the blame for this crisis at the feet of Stephen Harper's feet for trying to lop off the fundraising power of his rival parties.

What everyone seems to be missing is the clear opportunity that is presented to address the presence of the Bloc as a political force. How can the Bloc truly consider itself a separatist party when it allows itself to become a central cog in the machinery of Canadian governmental system? Why isn't the media jumping all over the Bloc for it flavour of the week political pandering? I think have a feeling that many Quebecers are embarrassed by the childish isolationism and the fickle ideology of a party who would seek to govern them as a future nation. I have a feeling that there are those who are feeling much the way Albertans felt when the separatist rhetoric of the Canadian Alliance clowned its way through the parliamentary system. Alas it seems everyone is too nervous to speak to the blatant inconsistencies that would have a separatist party become part of the government but isn't that sorta what we have already? I mean regionalism is alive and well. We should not be deluded to think that Canadian provinces are or could be viable on their own.

In the end it seems to me that the things we are not talking about is often more interesting than what we are talking about…

Happy Black Friday y’all!

Today on The Current

Ah, the sounds of the holidays ... a cacophony of cascading voices, all urging you to spend. And that's just the beginning of the commercial onslaught. Which leaves me with just one question. Aren't we supposed to be in the middle of some kind of ever-expanding, global economic meltdown?

Now a financial apocalypse is as good a reason as any for a little retail therapy. But still, it all seems a little odd to be asking people to spend their way through austerity. And yet, it seems to be working because retail sales in Canada are holding strong, even as consumer confidence plummets.

Benjamin Barber has a few thoughts about why that might be and why the perils of shopping and consumption are so difficult to avoid. He's a political theorist who's best known for his book, Jihad vs. McWorld. His latest book is Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole and he was in New York City.

Here are a few quotes from the interview…

"…if socialist politics dominates every sector of society we call that totalitarianism. Nothing wrong with religion. Religion is part of our life. But when religion dominates every sector of society – the cultural sector, the leisure sector, the economic sector, we call it theocracy. But when commerce dominates every part of society we call that liberty."

"I have news for all those folks who are buying environmentally good products. If you really care about the environment just buy less."

It is surprising to me that the man still claims to endorse capitalism. Even so it sounds like a he might just make a good Mennonite…

listen to the whole thing here

Joseph Dwyer

The Current presented one of the most exceptional pieces of documentary I have read, watched or listened to in a while. The piece tracks the demise of a soldier who became an icon of the all the hope that the war in Iraq had promised to deliver through this picture taken by an embedded journalist.

The piece is titled Out of Frame and is available as here

My comeuppance

Here it is…

"Actually, I am convinced that coffee drinkers are the weak ones...cool, but weak..."

The Theory of the Leisure Class

A dude named Thorstein Veblen wrote a book called The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen has intrigued me ever since I was introduced to his theories last spring in the Anthropology of Popular Culture class in which I was a student. Veblen contends that the markers between classes are actually their engagement with leisure. Here is what he has to say:

"The…gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialization as regards the quality of the goods consumed."

"Since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific; and conversely, the failure to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark of inferiority and demerit."

And…

"Closely related to the requirement that the gentleman must consume freely and of the right kind of goods, there is the requirement that he must know how to consume them in a seemly manner."

"Conspicuous consumption of the valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. As wealth accumulates on his hands, his own unaided effort will not avail to sufficiently put his opulence in evidence by this method. The aid of friends and competitors is there fore brought in by resorting to the giving of valuable presents and expensive feasts and entertainments."

Veblen's ideas make even more sense today than they did back in 1899. He certainly had heard of RVs, Hybrid cross-overs, time shares and 52 TV's but he seems to have captured an aspect of how society works that is hauntingly evident today. To boil it down Veblen basically says that the marks of social difference in class (rich and poor) is their ability to consume stuff conspicuously. The more and better quality goods that a person or group consumes reveals their status in comparison to others in society. But it is not just the ability to consume these goods that makes him/her distinct. Veblen suggests that it is how that consumption is made public or apparent that achieves the goal of setting apart an individual as a higher class person. This public or conspicuous consumption has interesting effects. It forces the consumer to change the way in which he/she consumes these better quality goods (i.e. there is a certain way that fine wine is to be tasted and ultimately drunk). This distinctive behaviour further empowers the higher class person to be honoured even more as other people try to emulate the way they consume certain goods. Here Veblen's theory really makes an interesting comment on our consumeristic society:

Have you ever gone on a vacation or trip and not bothered to tell anyone about it? Have you ever stopped to evaluate why you purchased a newer vehicle when the old one was still functioning to transport you from one place to the other? Is it because of appearance? Or what about renovations to your house? Or that new big screen TV? Our ability to engage with excess is a huge factor in determining our social status but it is not just what we can all afford that make the difference. It is out ability to use that consumption to negotiate a higher status in the social context within which we operate. If we can't talk about it – why bother.

A Trip to Cuba is a higher rank than holidays in the Rockies which is higher than 3 nights at a hotel with a waterslide. Why? Because when we talk about our holiday the exotic nature of Cuba garners higher currency than the hotel in terms of how it is evaluated in comparison to how other people spend their holidays. Our ability to engage in leisure is the currency. Money itself is devalued as a social indicator and leisure becomes the social capital. Spend some time listening to teenagers and you will see that they talk like this already. Money is devalued as the focus of work or career. The ability to engage leisure is the real deal.

Has anyone heard of this new chic-Fiest?

I love my Itunes (notice how possessive I am)! It's the only way I purchase music. The interface has some pretty good features. It allows me to play my library of song in "Party Shuffle" mode which randomizes the songs in my library and plays them back with typical overlap that radio stations usually do in their back to back style. I like other features and am frustrated with others.

One frustration is how my choice of songs is limited to those which have been given permission to be sold by the artist/record company. I have, as those who know me well, an eclectic taste in music. This diversity in taste often leaves me frustrated when I am not able to pay for the music that I really want to listen to. And claiming that my tastes are eclectic is not intended to be an arrogant position in anyway. There are many who could claim a far more eclectic musical palate than mine. I do not aspire to be more eclectic – or less for that matter. However, there are many who would readily agree that for as much as my taste might be eclectic in some way, it is just plain poor taste. To those of you who feel that way, let me remind you that I have rarely if ever criticized your narrower scope in musical selection as a negative quality. And I can hear the voices lining up who would seek to tether me to a fondness of 80's music, for instance. This is nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to justify their own narrow musical selections with the suggestion that I have in essence narrowed my own and falsely labelled myself as open. This is petty and frankly unsettling since it reflects the prevailing cultural tendency toward musical homogeneity – a puzzling site of power indeed. But this one portal or access point (Itunes) that I use to engage with recorded music serves me well most of the time but rather poorly when the borderlands of my musical palate find penchant to be explored. So it is that I have been limited-controlled if you will. But clearly it is my choice to use this interface. So some would say I am limited by limiting myself. Is this really the case?

In order to understand this better we are drawn inevitably to my selection of Itunes as the vehicle to access the music I want to listen to and find important. There are indeed a plethora of other options that could allow me access to music – some could conceivably allow me more access to those pieces of music that Itunes does not allow. I could purchase CD's, attend concerts, listen to certain radio stations (on Satellite radio let's say). Each of these options, as I hope is obvious; themselves exercise a limiting or controlling effect on my access to music. I could also choose to download my music through 'free' file sharing sites which arguably might not be restricted to the limitations of the corporate agenda imposed by Apple. Not only is this option a contravention of the social and legal parameters that exist in our society but this option clearly makes my musical choice limited to the condition that someone else out there must have been willing to share the very same piece of music I want to listen to. Again this reinforces that problematic notion of homogeneity in music selection. In essence then the choice of Itunes must be seen as presenting a complexity of problematic aspects that, while not being similar, can be just as problematic.

Now we return to investigate the premise presented above: some would say I am limited by limiting myself. We can observe then that when it comes to accessing music in general and specifically the music I want to listen to and especially not just the music they want me to listen to, there is no other choice than to be limited and limiting. In other words, anyway you look at it I am controlled into controlling myself with the controlling apparatus with which I access music. I can to a measure control which control I will allow to control me but in the end I am still controlled. But this is not nearly as neat and tidy as it seems when I write it as it is above. There are many forces which confound this apparatus, none of which I suspect most of you are interested in wading through if in fact you have made it this far. Save to say that this apparatus (Itunes) is itself under some sort of control under which I would also then inevitably fall.

A few interesting questions can then arise out of these proposals. Am I listening to the music I really want to hear? Can I really know if music exists that I want to hear but cannot listen to? Can artists actually exist that are not somehow tainted by the homogenizing reality of our present (musical) culture? What kind of music is being overlooked, forgotten, or suppressed? And the most important one of all: With the drop in oil commodities will the per song cost of $0.99 be reduced?

Play along?