Facing down the fear
I have had to break down my pre-existing notions about our conservative party...in realizing that not only do they lead in the polls, but are likely to win at least a minority, in part due to the votes of many of my FRIENDS!!
This news initially filled me with outrage and sadness, but I can't afford to lose friends, for many spiritual and practical reasons. Therefore I have to work through it. Stephen Harper is going to be Prime Minister. That fills me with dread, though I know I will have to accept it. Why dread you ask? Let me explain...
I remember when I was a kid and the subject of welfare came up in our class (you know when you're really young and you don't have subjects, you just have class!) ;) ... we were talking about how if you don't have a job then the government will help you so you can eat and have a place for your family to sleep until you find another job... it's so you won't starve, shows how we all care about each other and take care of one another.
Someone in the class said that they thought those people were lazy, they didn't want to work. AND that they all had multiple nice cars and toaster ovens and stuff that we don't have. Because they're rich, cause they're on welfare. You can imagine my little 8-year-old idealism raging against this type of class-ism. I earnestly defended those so-called lazy people (even though I didn't personally know anyone I knew to be on welfar), and looked to the teacher to admonish the speaker like he would when someone said something racist or made a bathroom joke.
But he didn't. He made a comment about how some people did defraud the system, a lot in fact, and that was something that would have to be addressed... I was floored. Kids will be kids, and will say all kinds of crazy stupid mean things that have nothing to do with anything. But this was my teacher, who I looked to to shape my natural instincts of reason and compassion and to reinforce the values that I'd been taught at home.
I began to see at that point that though I could trust my rural schooling for the ABCs, I would need to develop my own way of making and holding opinions on these issues, apart from my peers, because these people thought differently than me.
It was never an option for me to turn in my opinion and just agree with them, as of course you're tempted to do when you're eight (or was it ten?) and belonging matters more than anything. It simply would have cost my heart too much to cut myself off from my fellow human beings that way, to become hardened against the less fortunate and to become certain of their intent to defraud and to take what wasn't rightfully theirs. It was a turning point for me in many ways, because it helped redefine (undefine) my sense of belonging to the rural way of thinking/way of life. I found my peers' attitudes toward people of other cultures (even though few of us had ever met anyone of a different race) and gay people (we definitely didn't know any of those!), different from the ones I instinctively had; decidedly harder. N.B. My home riding is Conservative.
In later years, and I don't remember the exact crystallizing moment of this one, I heard the anti-social-safety net rhetoric of the Americans, and it reminded me of that mean-spiritedness I heard as an eight-year-old.
Later on, in my mind the pro-gun, anti-welfare, pro-life (or should I say anti-choice), anti-gay-marriage, pro-death penalty, pro-big business, pro-military, anti-environment, worst-case scenario politics got all knotted up together. (Though I began to understand the various shades of grey within each issue, I never came down on the side of the lazy-callers...my compassion and idealism remained intact even as I learned to appreciate the importance of a strong economy, and for individuals and enterprise to play their part within it.) And I never voted Conservative.
Whether factually true or not, the Conservative party wears the face of that school of thought, the closest thing our 'evolved' society will get to pure evil, for me. N.B. My home riding is Conservative. Yes it bears repeating.
When the Liberals ran their campaign in 2004 on the basis of Stephen Harper's scary hidden social agenda, I was glad that the public took heed. Finally someone was shutting up that little kid who said that welfare people were lazy and greedy! We were rejecting that mean-spiritedness. We were affirming that we were part of a society that truly believes that the measure of a people's greatness is the treatment of their poor, their sick, their old, their young. We were voting not just on the basis of how a particular set of policies affected us, but how they created the society that we wanted, the one that we believed in. Troops would not be sent to Iraq. A woman's right to choose was fully intact. And the same-sex marriage bill was passed!
In June 2004, I attended Gay Pride events with a deep warmth and satisfaction - the kind that only comes from the feeling of a long-standing wrong being righted. David Miller and Jack Layton made appearances at the parade. Stephen Harper was nowhere to be found. His Conservative candidates said various unhelpful and mildly evil things: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/analysiscommentary/now_then.html
and the dye seemed cast. They lost. I was relieved. Everything seemed to fit. The meanness I remembered from my childhood was just that - a memory. A scary shadow, forever disappeared.
But not so this campaign. The voting public is turning back to the shadow. Away from corruption, they would say. That scary 'hidden agenda' doesn't exist, they would say. It's just Liberal scare tactics, they would say, because the Reds are desparate to hold onto power.
Well, I feel no more passion for or against the Liberals than I do for, say, celery. Limp celery. But to believe that the Conservative agenda has altered so radically in just 18 months? That's more than even my rampant idealism can stomach. I'd like to believe that after much soul-searching following 2004's loss to Paul Martin, Harper took his party away for a yoga retreat and they all found their inner peace and endless fountains of compassion.
Mean-spirited kids take years to realize there's a nicer way to be. Adults who have shut off their hearts like that may never come around. At the risk of sounding horribly cyncial, I'm not fooled. The Conservatives are riding Liberal complacency all the way to the polls, and behaving themselves just enough to get in - and it's working.
Please let it be a minority.
It ain't what it used to be...
Well my friends, I've officially decided to accept the fact that anytime I visit my alma mater town (Kingston, the Limestone city, famous for prisons, academia and drunken Prime Ministers of course!) at least 50% of what comes through my mouth will begin with 'But where's...?' or finish with '....was so much better...' . I am a real alumnus, a relic, a product of the past. The Kingston I knew is gone, or at least submerged under a layer of weird, chaotic, car-flipping, drunken-brawling madness. You've seen the news?
Innocence lost, along with beloved greasy-spoon Lino's. The glory days of mantel-dancing, campus-pub partying over, as gone as the Burger King on Princess that was as good a Sunday night dinner option as two dollars could buy. Light-hearted mingling with alumni as non-existent as ol' Frost Wing. Ritual lineup as blocked as the parking lot behind Goodwin Hall. Reverence for alumni status as distant a memory as the Lick's where I managed to corner the love of that part of my life convince him that yes, he really did like me too. :)
Still, the celebration of the 5-year anniversary of our graduation from university was sweet. Full of laughter and song and bouncing around. Full of the bizarre daylight chance encounters in backyards and backstreets that are only possible when (ahem) sufficiently socially lubricated. Holding it all together, bonds of rock-solid friendship - the kind that's only possible when a single exchange of looks can convey a detailed thought like 'the pool table didn't used to be over there...! seriously, what were they thinking?' . The whole weekend shines with a strange luminscence that I didn't know existed.
I've embraced the idea that it's okay that these kids don't get the experience that we did, and trust that they'll have memories every bit as tender and special as mine. Finally, that one day they will be secure enough in themselves to walk up to me, read my jacket and express their breathless admiration for the final class of the 21st century. In the meantime, it's sort of fun to be crotchety.
Random round-up
1) My uncle once: took me canoeing and we saw a hawk pull a fish right out of the water. He said it was because we were wearing matching shirts.
2) Never in my life: will I ever make a meal out of processed cheese. I don't care how many slices of milk they put it each one. Blech!
3) When I was five: I could read, but the teachers kept testing me to see if I had memorized the book.
4) High school was: completely different than I remember it.
5) Fire is: 'fuego' en espagnol.
6) I once saw: ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.
7) There’s this woman I know who: is absolutely magical, and I am lucky enough to be related to her.
8) Once, at a bar: I wrote my phone number on the leg of a guy born in the 80's. Yeek!
9) By noon I’m usually: what am I doing next Tuesday?
10) Last night: I was awoken by the moonlight at 3:22 am. That is some powerful stuff.
11) If I only had: the cord to my laptop.
12) Next time I go to church: I will be dressed in a saree.
13) The best thing about my last relationship was: Peter Gabriel's 'Talk to me'
14) What worries me most: is worrying that the worries I worry will come true!
15) When I turn my head left: I see a stack of binders and a co-worker who can practically read my mind.
16) When I turn my head right: my neck twinges a little. I think my brain is too heavy.
17) You know I'm lying when: a gigantic neon sign flashes above my head.
18) What I miss most about the eighties: three way tie between My Little Pony, jelly shoes and those multi-coloured plastic bangle bracelets. So cool!
19) If I were a character written by Shakespeare, I’d be: a visionary/philosopher/witch.
20) By this time next year: I’ll be twenty-eight. Everything else is deliciously up in the air!
21) I have a hard time understanding: why cabs pull over and honk at you when you are on the sidewalk. Do they think I am incapable of hailing them myself?
22) You know I like you if: I ask you lots of questions.
23) If I won an award, the first person I’d thank would be: God. More in a sincere oh-my-gosh, isn't the universe amazing sort of way, than in a snarky making-fun-of-the-Grammys sort of way.
24) Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens & Geraldine Ferraro: were all champion omelette chefs in their time, but very few people ever knew it.
25) Take my advice, never: think that there's no such thing as karma.
26) My ideal breakfast is: cooked and eaten outside.
27) If you visit my hometown, I suggest you go to: the water-tragedy memorial gardens. Really, they're nice! Then go to the Central Tavern for some disco-ball karaoke.
28) Why doesn't everyone: love a little more, complain a little less?
29) If you spend the night at my house: you'd be amazed at how little sense I make in the morning.
30) I’d stop my wedding: if the dude was ever mean to my dad.
31) The world could do without: KKK, ATVs, TSX
32) My favourite blonde is: the person who inspired me to write this...
33) If I do anything well, it’s: being brilliant and humble and cheeky all at the same time.
34) And by the way: they're real, and they're spectacular!
35) The last time I was drunk, I: danced myself right into another world! Way to go, me...
Redundantly said again
Do you want to improve your dog's health for the better?
Go to the park between 10 am to 2 pm.
Also, see if you can make him jump up and down as well.
I hope you see what I'm getting at. I hope that at least one of the above sentences turned your teeth on edge, or at very least sounded a little bell that went 'mmm...something's not right there...' . If you experienced neither, then I have work to do.
You see, I have listened to a number of writers sermonize on how we use gobbledy-gook language to mask our true intentions or, worse yet, when we have no intentions (and no clue) but need to pretend that we do. This book, and this one both relate to the deceptive and/or inept use of language, most commonly in the form of buzzwords and cliches and red herrings that all lead nowhere.
Truth is, I think that words that some people call buzzwords have their place. I really have designed a long-term strategic approach to ensure greater synergy with my stakeholders. It's a spreadsheet on my computer right now! When we refuse to allow the language to extend beyond literalism, we confine communication to the tangible and mundane. When we put up sanctions against particular words, we're more likely to end up making statements like 'that kind of stuff is good'.
However, I do see the point these authors are making: it's worse to use words to say nothing at all than to just shut the hell up. And it's definitely a sign of the degeneration of our thought process when we use redundancies like the ones above. Either we've lost our ability to discern correct language from poor, or we're talking so much, we're not even listening to ourselves!
To whit: You want to improve your dog's health OR you want to change it for the better.
Go to the park between 10 and 2 OR go to the park from 10 to 2.
Also, see if you can make him jump up and down OR See if you can make him jump up and down as well.
Carry on.
More to give than money
One Christmas when I was in university, I emerged from the pressure cooker of exams, (thoroughly steamed but not totally turned to mush, to push the metaphor!) and threw myself on a bus for a quick trip to Toronto for a blitzkreig shopping trip. Destination: Eaton's Centre, natch.
I was treated to Holiday Splendour (registered trademark) in all its tinsel-covered, can't-move-on-the escalator, full-blown glory. This shouldn't have come as a surprise because it was December 20th or thereabouts, but having been in academic quarantine for 3 weeks I had missed the crescendo of Christmasness and thus had no clue at all. That was one of the worst things about Fall term exams; when you're a kid, you're just aching for December 1st so you can begin eating the chocolates out of your Regal advent calendar one by one... As a university student you're lucky if you get more than 3 days of pre-'Santa' anticipation in. And much as you've just spent the majority of the last few months drinking beer and/or staring out the window, you can't help but feel just a tad ripped off.
As I threaded my way through the festive hubbub, trusted friend on my arm, I saw the Salvation Army band with their little floating plastic donation bubble. I have such happy, strong associations with concert bands at Christmas time (years of playing on parade floats in a small town will do that to you - throwing candy canes from that tractor-trailer stacked up with hay bales and metal sheet music stands, you felt like the King of the World); the sight made my heart swell up.
The academic adrenaline fallout, the holiday spirit (and maybe one or two martinis pre-shopping, I can't be sure) were all doing their thing too; I felt like joyous and giddy, like Bob Cratchitt. My dear, the children, Christmas Day! I dug into my wallet to pull out a hard-borrowed twoonie (which was a lot of money back then - enough to get you a shooter on AJ's on Retro Tuesdays!) and strode dreamily toward the donation bubble to make my donation.
My heart sank when I glimpsed the sea of 10 and 20-dollar bills at the bottom of the bubble. How paltry my little coin would look against them! So many others were giving so much more. How could I ever make my mark? Make the fullness of my heart known to my fellow man?
Well, I dropped my twoonie in anyway, averting the bell-ringing Santa's eyes out of embarrassment. When I recalled my heartsink to my friend, she said something I have never forgotten. (Em, it was nearly a decade ago so forgive me if I paraphrase...)
Money is not what we have to give. What we have to give is far more valuable than that. We have our time, our energy, our enthusiasm and youthful wisdom. By far most importantly, we have our influence...our ability to encourage others to let their hands do the work of their hearts well into the future. And that is worth way more than dropping a 20 into that little bucket today.
Well, this really rang with me, because I have been doing work with charities since I was a Brownie. Selling napkins for the Cancer Society, delivering cookies and juice to Blood Donors, picking up garbage on the nature trails around my hometown, assisting at the daycare centre, pushing disabled people in wheelchairs at the Ice Capades. It filled a need deep inside to me, even before I knew it was there. Ever volunteered? Cheapest, purest high you'll ever get, I swear to you.
Standing in that mall in the Christmas craziness with my oh-so-wise and beautiful friend Emily, I pledged then that I would live my donation, rather than dropping it in a bucket. When I spoke at the Women in Engineering conference last week, I had the opportunity to share that perspective again. Revisiting that story always makes me smile: it was the day I realized I had so much more than money to give, and that the ways to give back to this wonderful world are both powerful and numerous. The exact mechanism by which we give matters, of course. But what matters infinitely more is that we do.
Tabloid epiphany
It must be tough to be rich and famous. Seriously.
The rest of us can at least point to our bank balances as our reason for not taking chances, not being gloriously happy, free, emancipated in our lives. If only I could win the lottery, we sigh heavily. Then I could begin really living!
The people with all the cash and influence they’ll need for a lifetime (or ten lifetimes, in the case of someone like Rob of Rob and Amber who, as far as I can tell, is famous only because he’s on TV. Go figure.) don’t have that luxury. They have no excuses. Here it is, says the universe – here’s everything you need. Go! Make your life. Be spectacular. Get your dreams to come true. And, oh by the way, everyone is going to watch you and criticize you because they think that you have it made and you don’t deserve it.
That’s a lot of pressure. No wonder they are all divorcing, cracked-up, joining cults. I'm not going to buy a lottery ticket this week.
Magna Spice Saves the Country
It’s sat heavily within me, this confidence vote. Strange; I am usually able to shake off a panic over the deeper implications of anything political. I have faith in our country, faith in due process and democracy. I believe in the right-mindedness of Canadians and our ability to learn from our mistakes. Even the sponsorship schmozzle has failed to whip me into flux.
Don’t get me wrong, heads need to roll. Corruption is not acceptable. But the fact that the evidence of the Gomery inquiry is now the stuff of public discourse and mainstream media rather than bureaucratic backrooms gives me heart. Walkerton will never have E Coli again, and no federal government will never even have the opportunity to Sponsorgate themselves – ever again. That type of lightning just doesn’t get to strike twice; the system gets reformed and it (it meaning that particular thing anyway) is never allowed again. I am pretty confident of that, but something about this proceeding and Belinda Stronach’s defection that set up the relieved jubilance of the narrow-as-they-come 153-152 passage of the budget yesterday has left me deeply unsettled.
The first time I heard about the comely Magna heiress-cum-politician’s move across to the Liberals, I was relieved. It felt like someone had jiggled the jigsaw puzzle just right, and the pieces now fit. When she first entered politics I had been ready to reconcile myself to the fact that her big business roots made her favour fiscal conservativeness and that made her a better fit with the Tories (for whom I would never vote because of their social policies). But in my head, the daughter of the founder of fair enterprise just didn’t belong in the same party with anti-gay, pro-missile-defense, scary scary Stephen Harper. No, this was much better. Any ribbing she might take for switching to the Liberals would roll off her downy feathers in light of the greater good that had been done. I went to bed feeling all was right with the world
The next morning I heard the comments, the commentary, the characterizations. Nasty, nasty soundbites. Naked grab for power, spoiled daddy’s girl, in over her head, damaging both the Liberals and the Conservatives. On and on it went. Not one person seemed to feel compelled to admit that she had shown guts, resolve and determination, nor to believe that she was motivated by principles and the need to keep the government running. No, only intensely personal attacks. While it would be over-simplifying to say that I whole-heartedly endorse every aspect of her actions, my heart ached for her.
I suppose it reminded me of some of the knocks I’ve taken in the course of the time I've spent as a woman in a male-dominated work environment. Nothing like the bile being spluttered at Belinda Wednesday morning, of course, but I’ve had my sexual attractiveness rated by co-workers (and I hope I rated well!), I’ve had sexual innuendo thrown into conversations (by which I was disconcerted rather than offended). I’ve had a few unfair characterizations of my motivations thrown my way (but eventually managed to make myself understood). I’m still in my job, and feel increasingly resilient to laugh off any gratuitous accusations, keep my sense of humour and my focus about me, and let my performance and talent speak for themselves.
It’s the subtler jabs that sting the most. On one particular interaction with a senior manager for whom I had overwhelming admiration and respect, I was called a cheerleader. ? I chose to interpret it as a tribute to my energy and positivity (maybe my attractiveness - as in the one that the quarterback will always want to take to the prom?). Well, I chose to leave the attractiveness thing out, because I just don't need to go there, and keep the positive stuff. It took a solid month, though, to talk myself out of believing that he had just revealed his perception of me as a peripheral player, a decorative pleasant element irrelevant to the real outcome of the game. Such is the nature of these (maybe) discriminatory comments: often framed positively, but containing just enough potential for a less flattering interpretation that you just can’t quite be sure. The doubt still remains, and when the soft warning bells strike up a jam session with the critic within, the resulting cacophony can be downright (self) destructive.
So perhaps I should be happy for Ms Stronach that her detractors’ comments are easier to decipher. At least she knows where she stands, and now stands to garner the sympathies of the Canadian public who would never side with such loathsome slander (would they?). Some would defend the Tories’ use of vicious epithets by saying that they are reacting emotionally. Belinda betrayed them; she destroyed their opportunity to topple the government; everything they had been working for.
Wait a minute, were they elected to bicker and clamour and fuss and vault themselves to power, whatever the cost to the productivity of running of the country? Whatever the staggering expense to the taxpayers of two federal elections in 11 months? Since when is that part of the job description? Were they elected to exercise 'war' on the government by trying to block the single most important piece of business in the House's docket?
Did they feel their constituents choose the candidate they thought would attack and maneuver the most skillfully, score ego-based victories at the expense of a fellow politician who wears different party colours? Silly me, I thought they were elected to voice the wants and needs of the people, and to provide vigorous and insightful debate to help run the country, not whine and tie sand-bags to things that Canadians really need. You know, like aid to Sudan, education programs, appointment of judges, reconciling injustices done to native people, public transit, and public inquiries on important issues. How is it that Ipperwash has taken a backseat to photos of Peter McKay pouting into the fields of his family homestead?
Along with my anxious feeling for the misplaced priorities and missing important agendas, and the nagging suspicion that the point of the opposition has been long since left behind in favour of ugly mean-spirited confrontational behaviour for its own sake, I have finally put my finger on my issue with the critics who fault Belinda Stronach so greviously. It isn’t the reference to her being an attractive dipstick. That’s condescending and irrelevant, but it is the type of jibe that savvy, self-assured career women like Ms Stronach and myself can take on the chin. I bet she even dances with a little extra verve when 'Wannabe' comes at the pub; I bet she works it like a true Magna Spice. You have to have a sense of humour or you're dead.
It isn’t Stephen Harper’s cutting little swipes just following her departure: her move was motivated ‘by ambition’ (just plain hypocritical coming from a man so eager to be PM he can taste it) nor even his acid tone in response to her claim that Harper did not understand the complexity of the country, ‘I never knew complexity to be one of Belinda’s strong suits’. Doesn't lend much creedence to the protests that he was never verbally abusive to her behind closed Conversative party doors.
It isn’t even the ugly, degrading allusion to her ‘whoring’ herself out for power made by more than one Tory MP: doesn’t even really make sense given the perilous state of the government, and (I hope) any one with an ounce of critical rigour would recognize the comparison to prostitution as ludicrous and spiteful, rather than illuminating or inspiring.
It’s the subtler yet unmistakable bias that gets me: the way nearly all the attention has been focused on the impact of her actions on other people, as though it was all one big personal assault. Look at what she did to her former party-mates. Look at what she did to the voters who elected her. Look what she did to that poor sweet farmboy from Nova Scotia.
Fact is, she made a radical shift in her career. Many people do this. It has impacted others personally - which is often the case. But does she not have a right, indeed a duty, to act according to her principles? Must she deign to others' feelings and priorities instead? Must she consider the impact of her actions above the priorities of her career (even if buys the claim that she moved only to aid her ascent in political power, which as I said I don’t)? The unmistakable answer: yes! Nice girls don’t leave, don’t ruffle feathers, don’t make people sad. The fact that she has done all three proves that she must be suspect, inappropriate, wicked, heartless; the worst kind of woman.
Still, even if (and that's a big if I am not going to give up without way more martinis and/or compelling argument) it is granted that her actions are ‘unwomanly’ therefore inappropriate, the unspoken conclusion is that she deserves to be torn apart despite the positive consequences of her timely defection. Personal dramas and character flaws are still emphasized above the fact that she crossed the floor to align herself with a party that better reflected her principles. Her move's profound strategic impact is left a distant second to assessing the personal devastation she has left. Interviewing her ex-boyfriend on the farm is the stuff of tabloids (can you believe that woman?), not politics. At the risk of sounding cold-hearted, one man's heartache is a small price to pay to keep the country running. The now-clear conclusion that her crossing the floor saved the government, and the budget and all the crucial funding and initiatives along with it. Chuck Cadman is hugged by Paul Martin and offered the key to Toronto by David Miller, lauded by reporters for listening to his Surrey constituents' wishes to delay an election. To me, it seems it would have been more appropriate to act according to the principles most appropriate to the situation, like Jack Layton did, but since the result was the same I won't split hairs. So why is (nearly) everyone in the media still so mean to Ms Stronach? Do they just hate her because she's beautiful?
The country will keep moving, at least for a few more days, the government doing what they are actually supposed to be doing, the very thing that the majority of Canadians want: stopping with the name-calling and obstructing and jockeying for power and getting the hell back to work. And I hope that when Belinda looks at herself in the mirror, she is proud of herself for the role she played in making that happen.
What it means to be a good girl but think like a bad girl, to dance in the moment, to wonder about being cool and to revel in the less obvious conclusions of life...
