The G20 Experience in Toronto – With mass arrests and human rights violations, this was a dark day for Canada. Yes there are inquiries, but the Bill Blair, Chief of Police is still there, and though a few individuals have been taken to task, no one is holding any of the politicians responsible.

Rob Ford Becoming Mayor of Toronto – Conservative Rob Ford  got elected on a platform of fighting the “war on the car”. That’s right, he convinced the voters of Toronto that the problem was not the fact that there are too many cars on the road, and we should look at why, but instead that there is some mysterious “war on the car”. This saddens me, since we have an opportunity to increase transit, and with his mishaps with MetroLinks mean that probably there will be no forward movement on transit in the next 3 years of his term. He has recently distinguished himself as the first mayor in decades not to march in the pride parade. I lived in Toronto for 10 years (and may be going back next year), and I cannot believe that the people of this diverse cultural capitol chose this guy to lead them.

Conservative Stephen Harper Getting a Majority – I noticed that even the political pundits are rolling their eyes. When an new scandal came up recently with him re-appointing an ex-senator to the senate, who had left to campaign and failed, one of the pundits on Evan Soloman’s Power and Politics said “well, you elected them after outlandish scandal after outlandish scandal, what do you expect?” Yes, perhaps this has more to do with the implosion of the Liberal Party than anything else, but I am saddened that this man represents me and my country on the world stage.

I don’t know why Canada has changed so much – especially when we are seeing a predicted Conservative win in Ontario as well… I think that these politicians are preying on the apathy of the voters. I think that, since I cannot believe that the average Canadian is aligned with these guys. Maybe everyone is just busy like I am doing the day-t0-day, and we are letting the wolves manage the henhouses.

I have always liked the saying: “Canada is not great, but it is good”. But, now with this awful collection of leaders with their backwards agendas, I am afraid we can no longer say that.

This video was inspired by the women of Hamilton, who created the It’s Over Steve initiative:

Finally, we see a Republican candidate acting like an actual conservative – encouraging small government (and shutting down the interventionist policies in Iraq etc) and individual freedoms (and not having the government spy on their own people). It seems like for a number of years in the US (and of course spilling into Canada) conservative = religious right and war loving, but that is wrong. I see Paul as getting back to the roots of conservatism (though he is religious). It will be interesting to see how the 72-year-old influences this election and right-wing politics around the world. Maybe at least we can stop hearing conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying "and God Bless Canada!"

I have heard the same thing said about London – as a financial and cultural center, and which was long considered to be the most powerful city in the world… compared to the rest of England, which does not share those traits. Toronto is similar. Toronto compared to other Ontario towns, such as Ottawa, Kitchener or Barrie sticks out like a sore thumb, with its variety of cultures and the general chaos of so many worlds colliding. I was thinking, as cities are becoming more and more powerful, maybe we should rethink how we are governed. It seems impossible to believe that the citizens of the major cities and the citizens of the rest of the provinces/states/countries have the same needs. So, let’s start by creating the island of Toronto .

I have been working for American companies for most of my career. I have had respect for my colleagues south of the border – for their straightforward manner and their ability to face facts and make tough decisions. They also are not people to be messed with, and any time that I have tried to circumvent that I met with a quick, definitive and sometimes harsh response.

So – I really don’t understand what is going on in the US lately. Here are some of the inexplicable things I see, that are so out of what I think is the norm for Americans:

• Putting up with an unprecedented level of surveillance including phone and e-mail and allowing police to conduct a search without their knowledge, with a warrant obtained from a non-public court.
• Not holding Bush responsible for the problems in Iraq and not somehow harshly punishing him for misleading them by making them believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
• Not taking Bush to task on his close relationship to special interest groups, including the oil and gas industry and his abuse of signing statements.

It is very confusing for me to see this going on – from the people who are so outspoken and not to be messed with. It is surprising to see this in them being so passive (a trait I have often talked about Canadians having, compared to Americans) in the face of what is going on.

There does seem to finally be some real dissent about the Iraq situation. Retired Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, who was the commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, recently came out saying that the politicians should be held responsible for the lives lost in Iraq.

"Too often, our politicians have been distracted and they have
chosen loyalty to their political parties above loyalty to the
Constitution because of their lust for power," he said.

Congress, he said, has failed its job of oversight.

"Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national
political leadership involved in the management of this war," he said.
"They have unquestionably been derelict in in the performance of their
duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would be immediately
relieved or court-martialed."

Now… that is more like the Americans I know. Let’s hope for more like this.

PS. You can see a great story and some beautiful pictures of my boyfriend Matt’s summer road trip across the US here.

Labels are on an HTML page what a book cover is to a book. Or… a the face, hair, curves and abs on a person. But, most of us have figured out that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, or a person by their outside (especially with the unrealistic impressions brought to us by plastic surgery ).

In Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason  he discusses that the public is becoming increasingly ignorant, and relying on shallow things such as labels instead of a deep and reasoned understanding of the issues involved:

Bush would not be able credibly to label a bill that increases air pollution "the clear skies initiative" – or call a bill that increases clear-cutting of national forests "the healthy forests initiative" – unless he was confident that the public was never going to know what these bills actually did.

I found it astonishing that the pattern people exhibit while web surfing and channel changing has leaked into political life.

Maybe the issues are getting more complex, or maybe people are tuning out of current affairs… but I think that the responsibility of elucidating issues to the public lies at the feet of the media. Are they up for it? With the labels that so many people have for the media today (uncurious and order-takers from the major news agencies for example) – maybe not.

From page 79 of this edition.

One thing he was particularly focused on was the UN’s failure to act in the face of AIDS. Instead, they studied and talked:

I make this point because all of us, myself included, who moved too slowly in the face of the viral contagion, who fiddled while Africa burned, who have spent days upon days in incestuous discussions, meetings, conferences, seminars, roundtables, with their reports, proceedings, documents, monographs, statistical compilations ad nauseam, all repeating what has been said before, all pretending to transform the obvious into revelation, all of us spending huge amounts of money on travel and accommodation, money that could have been used to save lives… all of us have a lot to atone for. And there’s nothing quite so unseemly as the refusal to admit we were wrong, we delayed, we conducted business as usual when we were in the midst of the most appalling emergency in the history of humankind.

I find this common in well-meaning people and organizations. There becomes a bias towards inaction, where people with some skin in the game or who can get some personal gain from something DO act. In some organizations, acting on something is almost shunned – as if it is dirty, common work where the thinking and talking is higher. I think these people are also somewhat afraid of acting because every time you act, you can be critisized. I’ve really appreciated working with entrepreneurs and start-ups lately because they know they HAVE to act or die. It deeply saddens me that even in the face of AIDS, an organization like the UN couldn’t even muster up the courage to be more responsive.