Facts:

• “Anarchists” using the black bloc tactic were hiding amongst the peaceful protestors making it difficult for the police to identify them individually [1]
• The black bloc rioters destroyed dozens of private properties and at least four police cruisers on Saturday evening [2] [3]
• The police had identified at least some of the vandals and promised to arrest them at a later time (i.e. a later protest) [4]
• The “peaceful protesters” did next to nothing to stop the “anarchists” from destroying all the property: by many accounts, those who weren’t cheering and applauding were idly standing and watching (bystander effect at work?) [5]
• The police admitted to arresting and detaining many innocent protestors, but also claimed it was a necessary evil to arresting those black bloc rioters who were blending into the crowd [6;ongoing]

The “Anarchists”

“They call themselves anarchists. I think that’s a generous opinion.” -Mayor David Miller

Most of the mass media reporters seem to agree on one thing about the black bloc anarchists: they were mostly ‘punks’ and kids who showed up for the explicit purpose of violence and vandalism. They had no particular cause, nor a particular issue, nor are they even an official ‘group’ of any constitution. These are idiots who get off on seeing chaos and destruction. They probably took Fight Club a little bit too seriously.

These are stupid, naive, and violent ‘thugs’ who don’t have enough to do with their time. For the most part, they are young societal outcasts hailing from the middle class who also happen to be misanthropes.

The “Peaceful” Protestors

So those anarchists with the black gear decided to blend into the crowds of protestors, then gradually hi-jacked the protests and started a riot. The protestors stood by and watched while the streets burned. Then they go on to complain that the police presence is too much and that we were turning into a Police State. The “Whose streets? Our Streets!” chant being used against the police seems a little self serving here when it is blatantly obvious to most residents of the city that the police were there to protect residents against the ever-present violent rioters.

Why is it that the protestors stood by and did nothing? Why is it that they kick and scream about police brutality, but make no mention of the window-smashing and cruiser-burning? This particular theory seems pretty appealing: the protestors seem to want some ruckus and fighting. It might just be useful to their cause. Then there are the conspiracy nuts who keep trying to tell us that the police were the ones who lit their car on fire.

Furthermore, it seems that many of the protestors actually knew who the people in the black were (pretty easy to spot with the big black army boots after they get rid of the clothes), and yet didn’t bother to report anything or confront anybody. They act all brave when yelling at the politicians, but somehow lose their guts when they see an anarchist? Give me a break.

For the large part, most of the protestors are not your average citizens / Toronto residents. Most of us decided to stay away from the city and the mobs of chanting people. Sure, many of them have pet issues that they care deeply about – possibly the environment, child poverty, world hunger, or wars – but the most important common thread between the groups are that the people are there for the purpose of causing a scene. That’s what protests (peaceful ones even) are for, of course.

Think of the people you know who went to the protests. Watch the news footage of the protestors. Listen to the interviews of the people on the streets. From what I gather, most of these people are the ’shit-disturbers’ of society. You know the kind – the ones who like to yell and scream and incite chants for their cause du jour; the kind of people who like to scream and yell at the most seemingly inappropriate times when you just want to, say, go to sleep, or just try to leave work for home (sadly in that particular case, some of us regular folk had to foot their legal bill)!

All this, and we still don’t really know what the protestors were arguing for. Nobody seems interested in putting out a logical argument pertaining to the matter that they are trying to push. Most are only interested in catchy chants, it seems.

The Indignant

Naturally, when some of them got arrested for refusing to listen to police instructions (a common sense and street-smart thing to do in almost all circumstances), they cried foul and started claiming abuses of civil liberties. Well, what about my civil liberties as a resident of the city who doesn’t want to listen to your protests (especially when many of you are extraordinarily ill-informed and naive)? If I recall correctly from my Law & Morality course, our constitution and most constitutions of the “free world” are based on the premise that you have fundamental rights – provided that you do not interfere with other peoples’ rights.

So excuse me if you will for having no sympathy for you lot. If you want to get real change, go shape the public policy debate by helping a political campaign or running for office. Most of the G20 leaders were democratically elected, after all. Yelling and banging and creating the justification for the multi-million dollar security bill certainly doesn’t bring me to your side of the fence.

The Cops

This brings us to the polarizing topic of the Cops. A cursory glance at the twitter feeds and the headlines from yesterday reveal that the cops were both too brutal and too reserved.

On one side, we’ve got people complaining that the cops were nowhere to be found when the rioters started smashing windows and burning cars; on the other, we’ve got people complaining that the police were too brutal when they managed to stop several potential riots involving the black bloc anarchists.

Oh sorry, I got that wrong: those are the same people complaining about both things. You can’t have it both ways!

Yes, the protestors were arrested and detained, and many of them were of the non-riot type… but as I said above – I’ve got no sympathies for those who willingly put themselves into the police ‘trap’ – how hard is it to not run into riot police? I, for one, am glad that the crazies were stopped before they could break anything else.

It is painfully obvious that the police were being provoked and baited – and while the opposite is also true, the protestors and their indignant supporters seem to get all one-sided in their account of events. Videos are even purposely cut short to show only out-of-context actions by the police. Shame on you guys for manipulating the media – thought you guys were all above that?

So there were a few bad apples amongst the police. There were also a few bad apples in the protests. Funny how things balance, no?

Get the G20 out of my city

Regardless, the only take-home message is this: why the hell were the summits hosted in the downtown core of the busiest city in the country? If they wanted resorts, Canada is full of country-side lakes and rivers. If they wanted big halls, we’ve got dozens of huge spaces in the suburbs. Heck, what about that thing, with the Nations that are United and have this internationally independent building that was built for the purpose of meetings? There doesn’t seem to be any great reason to cause a billion to be spent. (Oh, and what’s wrong with Skype?)

Maybe Stephen Harper just wanted Canada to be on the news more… at the cost of his (least) favourite Canadian city, Toronto. Payback for not voting for the Conservatives, eh?

Normally, I don’t have too big a problem with strikes – certainly unions have had their place in bringing much needed job security and improved working conditions – but in this instance, it was nigh impossible to feel any sort of sympathy for this union strike.

As a TA in the University of Toronto, I made $28.50/hour – a fairly hefty amount for little work and admittedly low standards of qualification. Granted, I am still an undergraduate, meaning my wages are lower than those of my graduate counterparts – who earn $36/hour plus health benefits (amounting to about $400 in medical coverage per year). York TAs, who work comparable hours in comparable situations, are paid a whopping $63.29 per hour. That’s right. Even as a graduated student, working in a full-time engineering firm, I would make no more than $40 an hour to start with – and that’s if I’m lucky.

CUPE3903’s demands have been wholly unreasonable, from the massive wage increases (they want in excess of 10% in the next 3 years – during the worst recession in decades, no less) to what they call “job security”. Let me elaborate on this point. The union wants part-time professors on one-year contracts to be given lengthier contracts based only on seniority, not qualifications. Many of these part-time professors lecturers are Ph.D. candidates or recent postdocs. The union claims it unfair that they don’t get the same security as tenure-track professors who have their Ph.D.s and established research fields.

On the face of it, increased job security seems something worth fighting for – something that even the students suffering from the strike could support. However, this demand of longer contracts comes with a condition of a shorter collective agreement. CUPE3903 refuses to sign a collective agreement longer than 2 years, while demanding that their faculty receive lengthy contracts of up to 5 years. Though unpublicized, most people know that the reason CUPE refuses to sign a longer collective agreement is so that their next round of bargaining in 2010 will coincide with all the other university CUPE unions province-wide. They’re just itching to go back to the picket lines in less than two years, along with a cohort of colleagues from around Ontario. With contradictory demands like this, it’s hard to take them seriously.

Moreover, CUPE3903’s hardline position has managed to drive a stake into Ontario politics. While McGuinty’s Liberals are in a no-win situation – alienating either the students or the unions, he can at least claim public opinion support in bringing back-to-work legislation to Parliament. The New Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been smoked out by CUPE to do something brazenly unpopular amongst us students. NDP Leader Howard Hampton has declared his support of the unions, and is solely responsible for holding up back-to-work legislation at Queen’s Park. In doing so, he has alienated one of his largest group of supporters – the students – in order to appease his core power base – the unions. It is yet to be seen how big of a political impact this will have on the NDPs, but needless to say, it won’t make the students any more likely to vote for them in the next election.

If the NDPs take a political hit in the next election, their already fragile existence may become life-threatening for the party – and CUPE3903 will have had no small part in making the NDPs look irrelevant to the public in the midst of a massive recession. NDPs losing power means less sway for CUPE, and some would wonder how they’ve gotten themselves in such a mess. It all seems to me like the unions have bitten off more than they can chew, asking for the moon when we can’t even see the sky.

I wonder, too, whether CUPE3903 really represents the graduate students and the TAs and the contract faculty. In my experience, having attending a couple of union meetings for the sister union at the University of Toronto, the meetings are dominated by the union leaders, whose jobs are paid for by the union, and whose only tasks are to fight for more demands and get more publicity. There is no room or any voice for dissent, and generally, the leaders are preaching to the converted. The people who attend union meetings are usually the most hardcore, or even militant. These are the ones who really believe in striking until all their demands are met. Most of the moderate or conservative types stay away from union meetings because of these attitudes. With such a biased attendance, it was no surprise to me when I read news reports of CUPE3903 members voting to reject York’s latest offer. What I wonder is whether those who voted even bothered to read the contract, or just decided to do what their all-too-aggressive leaders told them to do.

What’s even more puzzling is the lack of student input in the whole issue. When a striking union of less than 5000 members holds over 50000 students hostage in a 3-month long strike, one would think there would be more of an outcry in the media – but reports have been mostly docile from the students, not outraged. If I were at York right now, I would be demanding a full refund from the university, and in addition demanding that the union compensate me for lost time – the opportunity cost of a few lost months of education plus lost time in the summer for employment. Not to mention all those people who still have to pay their loans, or the exchange students who have become disgusted at the whole system in the ordeal.

Have the unions become irrelevant? What are the students doing? Will there be another strike in 2010?

To describe George Carlin merely as a stand-up comedian would be an insult to his memory. George Carlin was a man who, despite not completing his high school education, pushed the bounds of human morality. He is much better described as a modern philosopher. His satirical acts became known not only for their black humour (he was undoubtedly the greatest at it), but also for their seething accuracy in describing the decaying human condition.

Carlin was a fearless commentator, attacking everything that he deemed morally unjust and incorrect. This included religion (and the ten commandments), excessive consumption, obesity, politicians, education, death, the english language, and of course, censorship.

With Carlin’s death, we lost not a Great Comedian, but we lost our greatest modern philosopher, and most fearless social commentator. Nobody before or since has ever taken apart our world so eloquently, shattering our daily illusions of comfort and safety. His musings on our lives will be missed, for there is no one more capable of telling the masses ‘the world as it is’, without any political bullshit and big media bias.

He never caved in to political or media pressure. When his most famous (but probably not his best) act, “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” was unleashed into the public, he was instantly put under siege by the politicians, the media, and the conservatives. Carlin, though, never backed off. Defying arrests, lawsuits, and censorship, he continued his act, improving it even as the lawsuits mounted. He spent nearly his entire career telling the world that the ‘big establishment’ of politicians, corporations, and the media were all screwing with his country. He did a great deed in giving the people a voice of dissent and common sense amidst a sea of political correctness and corruption.

Now Carlin’s gone, and there is nobody left qualified to take his place, taking it to the media as he did so often. He did what any honest man would do – stand up for his rights, speak up when there’s nobody else to do it, and never be afraid of the government, the corporations, and the media.

Carlin’s great work was perhaps never appreciated by a great deal of people (now is as good a time as any to start), but everyone he reached understood where he came from. In a world where high school students are being censored, politicians are being bought out, the economy collapsing, and where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, Carlin’s ideas are as accurate now as they were when he first spoke of them.

On a week when the American Senate passed a bill declaring immunity for telephone conglomerates who spied on its customers because the White House said so (without warrants), we should all take a page from Carlin, and let the world know what we think.

(Click for a larger version!)

Yesterday evening, when he stepped onto that same podium, he was beaming with pride. His speech was confident, yet welcoming. It was delivered with a smile, and a smoothness that John Tory seemed to lack. After 4 years as Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty became someone different. He’s no longer the shaky, detached lawyer he was as the opposition leader. In a quiet sort of way, he gave a sense of security, despite various portrayals by the media of him as a liar.

Even during the campaign, Dalton was unphased by opposition attacks – while the NDPs and Conservatives were busy attacking him with negativity and cynicism, McGuinty ignored all of it, and ran an almost spot-free positive campaign. His quiet confidence let him talk without resorting to low-blows.

Despite what the polls say, or what the oppositions paint, Dalton McGuinty has undoubtedly become a great leader – capable of handling criticism, and find confidence where many would have crumbled. I, for one, am proud to have McGuinty as my Premier.

Tory was inadvertantly admitting defeat to his 2007 campaign. His Conservatives were banking on a campaign that focused on McGuinty’s broken promises and backtracking – but now that Tory’s been caught blatantly backtracking, his television ads seem like nothing but hypocrisy. At least McGuinty had an excuse to backtrack ($5 billion debt), while Tory’s only claim to an excuse was the vehement opposition to the idea (which never had legs to begin with).

Barring a miracle, McGuinty’s Liberals will go on to form another government. The only question remains is whether it will be a majority or minority. Not that Tory’s defeat will be surprising, though. Despite all the hype by the media and their ‘polls’ about Tory being a better leader than McGuinty, Tory has actually been a remarkably terrible politician.

Tory’s most recent claim to fame prior to becoming leader of the Ontario PC’s was his entry into the 2003 Toronto Mayoral Election. Remember that one? The one where he lost to David Miller. Anyone who has been following politics (or the news, for that matter) will know that David Miller’s municipal government is being run into the ground, with increasing debts and a split caucus at City Hall. That Tory could not convey his supposed leadership skills over Miller should be indication to everyone of his unsuitability to politics.

John Tory was connected to one other infamous political event. In 1993, the 135-year-old Conservative Party of Canada, entered a federal election as the sitting majority government. Led by popular prime minister Kim Campbell, the Conservatives looked like they would face minimal trouble defending their government. That was, until the campaign began. Disaster after disaster struck the Conservatives – eventually escalating to the oft-cited Conservative TV attack ad about would-be PM Chretien’s facial expression.

The result of the 1993 federal election was that the sitting Conservatives lost 149 seats. I don’t have the precise figures, but I’m fairly certain that it was the worst political defeat in Canadian history (and probably one of the modern world’s greatest). The oldest political party in Canada was left with a paltry 2 seats. It helped bring to the life the right-wing Reform party as well as strengthening the radical Bloc Quebecois. The federal Conservatives were soon swallowed and forgotten. (The current Conservative Party of Canada is but a similarly named twin, but not the same party)

The 1993 Conservative campaign manager’s name was John Tory.

So, Tory obviously has a history of running political campaigns into the ground. Nothing’s really changed, despite his stay at Rogers as CEO.

John Tory is not the great leader that the PC’s are telling you he is. He’s but a failure of a politician, trying over and over again to do something he just doesn’t understand. If he were a good politician, he would never have let the one religious schools issue bring him crashing down.

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for – that’s your choice. But you have a right to be informed, too. So if you had any inclinations to vote for John Tory’s Progressive Conservatives, I’ll at least be able to say: “I told you so”. Personally, I think Tory is a lying hypocrite, which is worse than McGuinty, who is by any standards, just a really good liar (as any good politician seems to be).

Let me first begin by saying that I think Michael Crichton is a genius, and that I have read more of his books than any other author. He is, of course, the famous science fiction writer who wrote Jurassic Park (though I think that was actually one of his less well-written books), as well as the classic tv show ER.

Now then, I just finished reading his latest book, Next (thanks to the good old library’s bestseller express 7-day borrowing!). Now, most of Crichton’s books deal with controversial scientific issues (his last book, State of Fear, was a great thriller based on climate change science – yes, it’s actually interesting). This one is no exception. It deals with some very eye-opening details of current genetic research, and showcases some of the greatest problems facing future advances in genetics.

I was particularly drawn into the subject as I’ve just taken a full blown university biology course which was 75% genetics (now that’s my kind of course). Most of the stuff we learned was, unfortunately, highly technical, and much of it also involved ongoing research. So this book, Next, filled in the gap between technical detail to social context. You don’t have to have any biology knowledge to read the book, but of course, if you do, it’ll put things in better perspective.

Now, I’m not really going to summarize the book here – the style is a little different than his usual ‘adventure’ type science fiction thriller. This book was more of an exposé on the field than an adventure – which took a while to get used to, as there were no real ‘protagonists’ in the story. It interweaved about 4 or 5 different plotlines, and at the same time exposed some of the greatest ethical problems facing genetic research.

What made this book a shocker to me was that it exposed one of the greatest flaws in modern genetic research. The flaw? Genes have been patented. This fact perhaps would have been lost on me if I wasn’t fresh off a biology course, but as we’ve learned, there are two major issues with this. First, there really is no clear meaning of a single gene. There are strict textbook definitions, of course, but our course has shown that each ‘genetic trait’ is controlled by so many different factors that the term gene must really be used carefully. For example, there is no single “diabetes gene” or “blond gene” or “smart gene“. Each trait is controlled by so many ’sets’ of genes and environmental factors that these popularized terms really have no meaning. The second major problem is that ‘genes’ as they are used and defined, are literally just sequences of letters. They’re pure information that is inherent in nature. So the question is, how can anyone propose to patent a ‘gene’, when they’re patenting pure information, occurring in nature, and represented by a sequence of letters? Logically, it can’t be done. But – it has.

Universities and big corporations have been busy patenting human and animal genes that they ‘discovered’ in their research. This is quite a concept. The rationale is that the genes can be used to create new drugs and therapies to fight disease – which it can. Unfortunately, it also means that a great many of us are walking around with patented information inside us. In the strictest sense, it means you don’t have ownership over your own genes. Some big corporation, or university, or researcher, owns that part of you. This has apparently been a major point of dispute in genetic therapies – patients have been refused treatment, or asked to pay ridiculous prices, for stuff made from their own cells.

Shocking.

Anyways, I won’t go into too much detail, because that’d involve a lot of technicals… I’d also start going on a rant about capitalism and its flaws, but that’s for another article… just go read the book. I recommend it to anybody interested in biology, or science in general, or indeed, the human condition. It’s interesting, and shocking, at the same time. (It might not, however, be the best foray into Michael Crichton or science fiction if you’re new to any of those… try State of Fear or any of his earlier novels instead).

—

Next on my reading list… The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. (Been meaning to read this for a year)

Normally, I have no problem with the concept of patriotism – it’s great to be proud of your own country, and to represent yourself as such. But come on, these books have nothing particularly interesting about them, or even particularly special – it’s just that they’re from Canada. Will I read a book because it’s from Canada? No. I will read a book if it interests me, and I will read it if it’s good. I don’t care at all where it’s from, or where the author is from.

It’s kind of like that book I read for grade 12 english – The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. It was only on the reading list because she was Canadian. Sure, I live in Canada, and it’s important to know about Canada, but the book was terrible, to be honest. It was a boring monologue written from the perspective of a dying senile Canadian woman. That she was Canadian did not add anything to the story. It could have taken place in any countryside, anywhere in the world. And it would still have been an utterly boring read. Yet I read this book, because it was by a famous Canadian author.

This is a blatant case of patriotism for the sake of patriotism. It added no value, no history, nothing at all to the book. If you’re going to be patriotic, please do it with  something worthwhile and meaningful. Like, you know, be proud of being in the homeland of hockey, a worldwide sport. Or the world’s largest exporter of that really delicious maple syrup. Something like that. Please don’t give me a book and tell me to read it just because it’s Canadian. Tell me to read it if it’s good. If it happens to also be Canadian, then all the better – as long as it’s good.