Walking Drawings

Great is graffiti. Even better: animated graffiti! Graffiti is illegal, but it's a way for rebellious artists to take back their space and define it in their own
image(s). I have seen lots of beautiful graffiti in different parts of the world but not enough in Canada. More people should be more brazen with their spray cans!

This video was sent to me by my sister, who found it on, and also likes to visit Zefrank.com.

On the other hand, there are certain kinds of graffiti that some could go without. Toronto Sun reported some graffitti that wasn't quite as impressive to firemen in Toronto. They found blue paint splattered over a granite memorial commemorating fallen firemen, inspiring reactions such as "despicable" and "cowardly". They are pressuring the government to punish the vandals severely.

Part of me feels like they are being irrational though and reminds me of how some Muslims reacted with outrage when a cartoonist depicted Muhammed in one of the comics. They rioted, burned embassies, sent death threats to cartoonists, but what did it accomplish? I feel like spending millions of dollars to repair the memorials would be an equal waste of effort, especially considering it might have cost them an additional $5 to coat the granite with a cheap protective plastic covering in the first place.

Whenever freedom of expression and people's sensitivities are at odds we're forced to face the fact that someone's drawings, statements and actions will never mean the same thing to another person.

One man's terrorist is another man's graffiti artist.

What Epictetus Might Say

I realized that things can be a lot of fun, as long as you have variety, because, naturally, the universe is abundant.

Poster Girls

I am all for finding true love,
yet when we dress predators to disguise them as prey,
should we be surprised that it gets easy to be lured away by things that don't matter?
(Or those that don't care?)

Not only that but attraction gets diluted
in all the polluted neural pathways
distraction seems most suited by how the moon, off of the ocean, plays
In a reflection, can you see true beauty? Look closer.
(Is it returning your gaze?)

I want to find true love, but yet I can hardly stop staring,
when through a store window,
I see the erect nipples of a mannequin saying "hello!"
Some surprising compromise between a familiar friend and a strange saviour.
The store display entices, but I pass on as routine behaviour.

Cash is ass, or so we're taught, taught to buy and breed.
We starve because we can't eat bills, soul saturated in greed.
My imagination is all I have, my concentration breaks.
If there is no real girl for me there's only so much I can take.

(So)
I have a momentary arousing distraction in the pinstripe of the mannequin's pert form.
But it is nothing special.
Because we've replicated the female figure and mass produced it in plaster!
It's now the norm.
Our tough job is to distinguish reality and make genuine decisions based on it.
But beauty's diagrams are severed and scattered all over the sex-crazed streets on posters of teens posed in sheets.
(Somehow I feel cheated)

Is that how I have trouble finding one real live woman's body to hold throughout the night?

All these ads, telling me how to act.

I am stalked by a cold, two dimensional army of pornstars.

©Copyright SirBarrett 2008

Poetry

My Sister's Trip To Hawaii

...resulted in this.

This is my older sister and her fiance. They are something else. He's an physicist studying distant galaxies in space. She's a public health researcher. When my fourth sister (not her) was born, I cried. I cried because I thought to myself: "This was my last chance to have a brother, and now you've blown it mom!" I guess it turns out I was wrong, however. Now I'm finally going to get a brother (in law)!

Congratulations Saul and Celine!

On Obama's "Bitter" Comments, and the Bitterness They Have Perpetuated

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." -Barack Obama

These comments made by Barack Obama at a fundraiser in San Francisco have caused such a stir in his candidacy that the now famous words could easily be considered one of his greater "gaffes" yet. He has had a hard time reexplaining what he meant, trying to defend his "cling(ing) to...religion" statement by saying that "Scripture talks about clinging to what's good". It is a shame what he originally said doesn't seem to have registered with white working class American voters and that the news has put such a negative spin on it. It seems to have done more bad than good for those he was trying to reach.

I think many people are simply looking for something, anything to criticize Obama about to keep the democratic candidates rivalry alive. This "clinging to guns or religion" statement is a good opportunity for that. It's a hot button. But arguing that he is a snob who doesn't deserve the white working class vote is not fair to what he actually said. I think Obama's statements are only vulnerable, precisely because religion, immigration and security happen to be very sensitive issues in the USA today and people are ready to jump into an argument about them before they have even allowed anyone else to finish speaking. I give him credit for talking about them at all. I mean, there are fanatical Christians (of many types) on the one hand and staunch militarists running the White house on the other. Americans are still at war with terror because they still feel terrorized. You can't fight terror if you encourage fear, if you feel disillusioned, burnt out, or seduced by radical "solutions" to problems that have practical ones. What Obama wants to avoid is the same social phenomenon that has echoed throughout history, that whenever experiencing moments of instability, societies tend to react by segregating themselves into smaller groups based on superficial commonalities rather than practical purposes. They spread hatred or racism or classism and it is never productive. It is always destructive. They attack others because they are feeling insecure about themselves. They find a scapegoat and then they torture them to make themselves feel more righteous about their own forms of government. Well here is a newsflash: peace and security don't happen through divine intervention or at gunpoint. You have to relax. Say you consider yourself religious AND patriotic. How are you supposed to compromise the idea of Jesus Christ dying for our sins with the fact that the US army (et al) are at war and are sacrificing others lives for a "democracy" they themselves seem to be unsure of. Did you expect there not to be any cognitive dissonance between those two things? It's a slippery slope when you start agreeing with the "give me democracy or give me death" kind of attitude, because often that leads to some unpredicted forms of both. It is also a desperate and fear-driven mentality. Why does it have to be an ultimatum?

So I disagree that what Obama said about small town Americans should be taken with so much offense and I think his description of small town behaviour (although I will admit I have never been to Pennsylvania) actually rings true in a lot of cases. However, I invite anyone to explain why, if I were a white working class small town American, I should be offended by what Barack Obama said. When you are down on luck, you cling to that which gives you a sense of security. It's natural for us as humans. I don't think he was implying that whatever that is for people is necessarily ineffective. Different strokes for different folks. Why can't we live and let live on this issue? Now we have to crucify Obama? For some people, religion IS their bread and butter and it brings them peace of mind. And? Other people like to sleep with a tech nine under their pillows. That's fine as long as there aren't any missionaries interrupting my dinner or drive by shootings on my street. But I would also wish that for others, too. It's a problem though once everyone starts fighting for their own agenda and giving up on working together. No one gets any sleep. I don't think he was demonizing religion OR firearms at all. He wasn't specifically praising them either. He was just suggesting that sometimes the reasons you gravitate to them aren't always healthy, hence the use of the word "cling". I think what he was criticizing was the fact that if you are "clinging" to those things as a reaction to uncertainties in your life instead of as an act of free will, you may be going towards them for the wrong reasons. To cling to anything too hard, that is to say, to rely on one thing firmly, is like building a house out of sand on a beach right next to the shore. When the tide rolls in, your entire livelihood could be gone. So diversify your portfolio! Speak other people's language! Get to know your neighbors, ESPECIALLY if they have a different lifestyle than you!

People often distort what Barack says, though. Now Hilary is using this as an opportunity to suck up to Pennsylvanians and McCain is using it to argue that Barack Obama is "out of touch" with Americans. People distort what Barack says because they don't like the subtle hint that he might be telling them something they don't already know, or something that they may know, but are too afraid to admit.

Politics

A Final Farewell to my Grandfather

In loving memory of Steve Benjamin Peta
Born~November 5, 1918
Passed Away~March 28, 2008
Age~89

Steve Peta: Farmer, Teacher, Principal, father and grandfather, was best described by his boundless generosity.

He was generous with his time, in hospitality and with his stories.

Contrasted with his generosity was a balanced, conservative attitude towards spending. He would always tell us not to waste our money on things that don't last. "Save your money!" He would say. "Put it in a bank today and it will be worth something tomorrow."

He always seemed proud of all his grandchildren. He was ambitious for them to achieve more. He constantly encouraged us and remained interested in what we were doing. He told us: "Study hard so you can get into a good school, so that you can get a good job." Supposedly this made sense merely coming from a retired school Teacher and Principal, but it somehow seemed to come from some place deeper. It was part of his character to be competitive, to strive harder and get farther than anyone would expect of him. And he would go about this in his own consistent, deliberate way.

Because we lived provinces apart, I fondly remember being visited or visiting my grandfather. When I was fourteen, I remember the giddy excitement of flying out to see my grandparents, with no parents! We visited his wheat farm, which was the most desolate landscape I had ever seen. It must be something to be able to bear it out here, I thought, watching the oil pumps eerily moving up and down. But despite farmer suicides being high in the area, presumably because it was so lonely out there, my grandfather told me about how the "chin coulee"* ghost was there to keep him company. He would see him in the mornings, sitting on the fence.

Steve was a man who, because he was generous, enjoyed the company of others. Imaginably, because he had experienced poverty to a greater degree than my generation, we were forced to appreciate what we had more through him. For example, if we were full from eating his food and wanted to throw out the leftovers, he would say "Eat some more! It's good food!"

When we got together, he was always happy to see us. He would walk up and throw his cane against a chair and shake my hand with vigour and ask: "How is Barrett doing?" picking up right where we left off.

We will always remember grandpa's antics. I remember thinking that he was tough because he did push ups into his sixties and stood over six feet tall. He demonstrated to us children the proper way to eat soup in the military: up and across! He joked that while doing target practice, someone shot his belt buckle and his pants fell down. It was lucky that I had a grandfather that I knew. If it wasn't for him tripping and breaking his wrist at just the right time (during the draft), he could have been sent to war and never returned before I had the chance to meet him...

Instead, my childhood was filled with his stories of jackrabbits, chin coulee* ghosts and the classroom.

He would make juice and call it "kickaboy juice" because its sweetness gave you a kick in your mouth. He always had a tiger tail sticking out of the gas tank of his old boat of a New Yorker. When I asked him about the odd appendage, he merely asked "What do you think is powering the engine?"

In more recent years, grandpa Peta's health was fading, though his mind was always tough. (In his mind he was always invincible) but his body was losing strength.

I think he would want us to remember him in the ripeness of life, because he always struck me as someone who was practical, who wanted people to enjoy what they had while they had it, because tomorrow it could be gone. There's an expression: Life is wasted on the living. Not so with him. He wanted everyone to use their abilities and not waste a single moment.

Steve may be gone now but he will be remembered fondly. We should be happy he lived such a rich and colourful life because he recognized it when it was there. In his letters to me, he would chronicle the changing of the seasons, the snow, the crops and the forecast for next season.

Apparently, the promise of spring was not strong enough to make a man in the winter of his life hold on for another season. May Steve Peta rest in peace.

*Although the word "coolie" has taken on the form of a pejorative racial slur today, I always thought my grandfather meant it to refer to the Asian laborers that would have worked with his father (my great grandfather) when he immigrated from Hungary to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. On separate occasions, described the racism that was present in those days, with Asians often having to perform the most dangerous jobs like laying dynamite to blast out the mountains. Sometimes they would lose their lives. I now realize that the name he had for the ghost was the chin coulee ghost, referring to the particular valleys and landscapes of the great Canadian west.

Personal Diegesis

A Hoarse Head

Sorry folks, I haven't been blogging lately...my schedule has been tighter than tetris. But this video pretty much sums everything that has happened recently and brings you right up to speed...or DOES it???

How the Hog Lies

Today is officially the first day of spring, but somehow, as I survey the cold dandruff falling from the skies, I get the sense nature is running on her own schedule. The groundhog is a liar.

Here was an email sent to us employees at Ontariocolleges.ca:

Hi Everyone:

Happy first day of spring, unfortunately we are not over winter yet.

Please continue to be aware of the ice that may still exist around the parking lot. With milder days and colder nights we can expect to see ice in the morning. In an effort to be environmentally responsible our maintenance company will not spread salt unless a significant area of the parking lot is covered in ice (or more snow!).

Kinda sad...but it just means we will have something to look forward to for a little longer!

New Move

I'm so excited I could clap my hands but haven't yet because I am dreading packing. I will be out of my place in no less than two days!

College Versus University Versus Neither

This is the new campaign that has been launched on our website, here at Ontariocolleges.ca. Obay is (a fictional drug that parents prescribe to their children in order to control them?) the brainchild of Smith Roberts Creative Communications. There have been posters, billboards and radio ads launched with it as a new communications campaign geared towards debunking myths about college and encouraging applicants towards making the next step towards a brighter future. :)

Although I give the campaign credit for its creativity, I'm not sure I understand the intended outcome of the campaign. The other thing I don't like the kinds of praise that some parents are giving about their children's experience in college while belittling university in comparison. This mother for example, commented on Universities being "big" and "impersonal".

Possessing both a University and a College diploma, I found benefits to both College and University however, I disagree that any generalizations can be made about either. I disagree that college is more "hands on" as is argued pervasively, or that Universities are "impersonal". Actually I had some very small, intimate classes in University, and some very theoretical (not hands on at all) classes in college.

To get back to the add campaign and its usefulness, I've had many comments from applicants that they are very impressed with it and relate to it. The one good experience about both my college and university experiences was the fact that my parents never pressured me to take a specific program. They realized that higher education was important but also that it's the experience of learning itself that needs to be appreciated.

I realize that I am a bit of a statistical oddity, in that although I went to college and university, my current position has nothing to do with my education! But is this really that strange in current times? If we were to credit the skills gained through school as what jet-propelled me into my current career(s), we could but we have no way to prove whether these skills came about as a result of school, or whether they would have been instilled in me otherwise (education moves in mysterious ways). I am reminded again of the graffitti I saw recently that states "My bike takes me places education never could".

I look at the statistic 90% of graduates who enter the labour force are employed within six months, and 93% within two years" with some disdain as it seems to mask the fact that that could be in ANY profession. Although I am part of this 90% I still had to experience being laid off and I am STILL looking for work in my desired field almost two years after completing both a university degree and a college diploma!

Things could be worse. I could be addicted to Obay.

Or, my parents could have tried to control every aspect of my life since I was a baby...

We Are All People Every Day

There I was, sitting in a cab again.

I have been taking cabs a lot lately...which is starting to run up my costs. It's more than a $20 cab ride to work, because it's so far away from where I live. That means that in essence, for part of my shift, I'm working for free.

I try to catch the bus but our bus system is probably the worst on this planet. You have to go right downtown if you want to be sure to catch the bus. If you try to catch it along one of its routes you never know when it will come. There are numbers on the signs that you can call that are supposed to give you time estimates based on the GPS systems in the buses of when the next bus will come. You punch in the bus stop code and then an automated voice is supposed to tell you when the next bus is coming by. It's a good idea in theory but the automated service only lasted about a week before the GPS systems in the buses stopped giving the system accurate times and the automated voice went haywire. It sounds like someone melted the voice machine tape (I realize most machines are digital these days. The voice became all garbled and incoherent. I called it once and it told me the next bus was in 72 minutes. Disheartened, I walked a little off only to see the bus whiz straight past me. On the other hand, when the bus is on time, sometimes it's full so all the bus driver can do is wave as they go by, and that's no fun for anybody (well, maybe it is for the bus driver).

So there I was this morning, sitting in an exceptional position: on the bus downtown. I was so impressed with myself that I had showered, shaved, made myself breakfast (it's usually just 50 cent coffee from the machine) walked downtown and made it on time. My day was going to be perfect, I thought, I was set for work. Then the bus pulled away, did a three sixty and headed in the opposite direction from that which I intended. So there I was morning, sitting on the WRONG bus. I pulled the cord to be let off and dialed the familiar taxi number.

Despite my best intentions and strongest resistance, there I was, at the whim of Red Top Taxi. The worst part is: I couldn't blame the buses. It was I that failed to read the outside of the bus before onloading. At least I wouldn't be late considering the taxi takes a mere 10 minutes compared to the bus' 45.

When I got to work one of my first calls lasted not the usual minute or so, but ten minutes! This is a sample of the caller's concerns:

"My question is I study in George Brown college for a year and a half, and I pay $85 for the application, I paid already, I pay thousands of dollars for school and now they ask me to take English assessment test. I am not beginner. I take many courses in English, all my courses in college in English. What is the reason for this? I pay $8 for my transcript, what is the reason? Now my transcript is not worth anything? Who protects us, that is my question. Who protects us? I think maybe I talk to this person, I talk to that person, it's all for make money. My question is why? Why is my question. You understand I already take college. I am not beginner. Why Centennial college ask me for English test?"

Her voice inflected up and down like a wild rollercoaster, and the questions all flooded my ears before she would give me a chance to respond. She went on and on. I explained that in order for the colleges not to request an assessment test, they need to see the grade 12 English mark, for which they need a high school transcript submitted. The caller obviously didn't want to submit the transcript on moral grounds, arguing that it would be impossible to get into college anyway without high school and therefore that the college should assume applicants like her had grade 12 English if they had submitted college transcripts. When I explained that the application process doesn't work that way; that the college needs to see the transcript as proof, the applicant's response was: "That is no good. I think that answer is no good" and started at the very beginning again. Eventually, I asked them if they would like me to have someone else give them the same answer that I did and they said "Yes". So that's what happened.

Reassuringly, the next applicant was a young man with a medical degree from Iraq who had provided all of his documents, including a landed immigrant card and his transcripts. I was proud to tell him that his international assessment of academic credentials was complete and that all he had to do now was wait for a response from the colleges. He was anxious to get online and check whether they had accepted him or not, right away.

People all come from different walks of life and this is what I see on a daily basis. There are those who argue with the system and seem to get nowhere, take me nowhere, make me feel nothing but frustration. There are others who through hard work and empathy, inspire me with their determination and excitement for new opportunities.

Diversity is what keeps me going though. I know that not every caller is going to be a treat to deal with, but we're all just people and the most I can do is make a consistent effort to do my best. I tell everyone to have a great day at the end of the call, no matter whether it started with them shouting at me or not. That way there's always the hope of improvement. So here's wishing you improve too. Hopefully your day turns out better than mine started. We are all everyday people. I'll credit the Smarties commercial for that. It's brilliant!

Just a Note on Valentines Day

If love hurts then should you avoid it? Well, according to the band the Smiths: "I am human and I need to be loved...just like everybody else does." So love is unavoidable? It's part of Maslow's needs. We grow through its challenges and its upsets. There are libraries full of song lyrics about love, Petrachian poetry, Sex for Dummies etc. and we can see its proposed expression through the purchase of everything from a set of roses to a diamond ring. We can see why this holiday is a commercial success. For some, this is enough of a reason to boycott it.

If you're one of those guys who is unsentimental perhaps you'll make it through the day without having to do very much at all. But if you have a girlfriend, watch out. She may pretend not to make a big deal about it, but she's expecting a bit of extra love. My roomate's girlfriend just showed him her love by bringing him Tim Horton's coffee (but he's still sleeping). Loss of points? We'll see.

As for me, last night I was walking alone and I saw that someone had written "LOVE" in the snow. It was a nice idea but it reminded me of the pressure of loving at this time of year when everyone is particularly vitamin D deficient. I walked a couple steps further and then I saw the word "CALM" so I breathed. I'll be having a calm, casual, light-love occassion, listening to Roy Orbison...and possibly treating myself to a tan the salon.


HAPPY VALENTINES ALL!!

Why Women Live Longer Than Men

Possibilities are Endless

"Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities -- always see them, for they're always there." ~ Norman Vincent Peale

It's not only a sad time of year for me but a necessary time to regroup with myself, look into the mirror and ask questions like: "Who are you, really?"

While relationships can be so uplifting they can also be downright exhausting. Sometimes it takes getting out of a relationship to mend the one that you have with yourself. :)

Between my ex and I, when times were good, they were so, SO good but then when they happened to take a downward spiral, I felt like I was falling out of the Twin Towers. I think a lot of it has to do with a sense of security and trust, being able to be independent despite being together. There were always times when we *knew* that we weren't being fair to each other and so, to be nicer, we broke up.

Relationships can be filled with so much pleasure and cause so much pain. But if they don't work, it's time to get out and re-examine things. In the meantime, it's important to stay busy so that you don't lose your mind.

So, when I'm not browsing around for a new prospective wife on here I'm busy answering calls and cooking up dishes for restaurant patrons...and it makes me HAPPY to not be so involved with the multiple identities of me, me as far as my other is concerned, and regular old me.

I relate to the blundering Presidential Candidates who were just recently on their campaign tours in that I don't get a lot of sleep, and when I don't get a lot of sleep, silly and hilarious things happen. When Hillary Clinton naps are shortened, she says things like "we had 300 people outside, literally freezing to death." (Quick Hillary, get out your Websters and lookup "literally"! Iowa is not having a state weather emergency). My SNAFU was misanswering a phone call the other day, not with "Customer Contact Center, how may I help you?" but "Customer Chaos Centre, how may I help you?" I think my subconscious was saying more to me in that instance than when I dreamt I was an adopted member of the Adams family.

Who will I be tomorrow? Will I wake up with a dorsal phin growing out of my spine? Will I start drinking tea and speaking in an English accent? When I was first single, it was surprisingly horrifying. I felt like I couldn't handle it. Life tested me by completely separating me socially against my will. I lost my cell phone and my keyboard got ruined. I was cut off. That was important though. For once I had no distractions and so I went on a cleaning/organizing rampage, finding out why I wasn't receiving mail (because Canada Post is afraid of unshovelled driveways), how I could get a new phone, how I could organize my life. Now I'm starting to be delighted by the surprises. I'm shape-shifting. Possibilities are endless.