blinkit

The return of Mr. Squid

Today's bLINKit: And a long overdue nod to Mr. Squid, better known as the most famous astrophysicist ever to originate from *Lennard Island, who's got a blog going on again. And a sharp looking blog it is: Blogger has really upped its roster of design templates, and Squid has kept it basic but classy.

In his most recent post, Squid opines on an NHL open air game in Buffalo (vs.the visiting Penguins) slated for New Year's Day 2008, and what a great idea it is. He also takes a shot at TO, or at least the Star, which considers an open air game a dumb idea. I'm with Squid. I remember the Edmonton open air game from 2003 on TV, and it was fine watching.

 

* spelling corrected since initial post

Supporting the troops -- too much?

WMD: Today's Globe had yet more coverage of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. It included Christie Blatchford's latest love letter to men in uniform (she really likes real men) and letters from individual soldiers themselves describing their jobs and what it's like to spend Christmas in a combat zone. On the whole, it's reasonable stuff, if you think any coverage is good coverage since it provides information about what our soldiers are facing in a situation we, through two successive governments of two different political parties, have put them in. But ultimately I don't trust the coverage. Reporters working with the blessing of the Canadian Forces, which is probably the only way to adequately cover the Canadian troops with any access, face rigorous military censorship. Some is absolutely understandable, such as locations of troop movements or installations and advance notice of offensives (although NATO seems to like handing out press releases about these anyway). Other censorship seems more politically motivated and inspired by the way the American military has neutered coverage by U.S. journalists of its wars: casualties cannot be shown, nor can damaged vehicles. Isn't that what war is about? We also have, perhaps for very good reasons, precious little coverage of the enemy, the guys on the other side. Who are they? What do they want? Why are they blowing up our soldiers? How about letters from them in the Globe explaining themselves? I have no problem with our soldiers shooting Taliban for a good reason. But I want to understand why.

The other reason I'm skeptical about coverage is that, as Geoff Olson has observed, Canadian journalists seem to have fallen in love with anything in a uniform. The first major shooting war for Canadians in half a century is a damn exciting story, so journalists are flocking to it, but the coverage so far suggests our troops can do no wrong and that it's all a big adventure. The choreographed and respectful scenes of funeral services of those who have died only seems to reinforce this feeling.
It's almost as if journalists are afraid of the charge that they "don't support the troops," a spurious phrase as useful and as honest as asking "have you been beating your wife lately."

I don't want dirt, I don't want sensationalism. By all accounts, and those accounts are all we've got to go on, our troops are indeed being professional and brave in a difficult situation. But I suspect we're not getting the whole story, the whole truth of what it's like for our soldiers and their mission, and we won't get that for years after.

It's why I've turned to Carol Off's book The Ghosts of Medak Pocket for some insight into the Canadian military and how it operates in the field. An account of one of the lesser known, but also most dangerous and violent episodes of Canadian "peacekeeping" in the Balkans in the 1990s, it's a reasonable read (and you can read about what some readers, including soldiers who participated in the events Off's describes, here), but timelines, locations (maps would have helped) and characters tend to be a bit confusing at times. And the high point of the events, when Canadians squared off against Croat troops in an intense firefight over 15 hours, is passed over almost too quickly. But it's still gripping:

Speiss had been watching the shooting match between the Serbs and Croats when all of a sudden the first bullets whipped past the heads of his own section. Speiss at first didn't notice that the trajectory of the firefight had shifted. He was standing on the carrier when he saw a fellow peacekeeper with his rifle on his shoulder. "And I asked, 'What are doing, man? You're going to draw some fire' And he goes, 'We're being fucking shot at.' And that's when it kicked in." Speiss got behind the mounted gun as the air around him split with noise. "It was deafening. I can't explain it to you. And then we got the order to fire back. I'm beside the carrier and behind the gun. And I opened up and we just started knocking some guys down in the hedgerow that was in front of us, about two hundred metres away."

The book is quite strong on the background politics and diplomacy, which put the Canadians -- who were about the only UN troops in that area of the Balkans with the courage, training and willingness to do anything difficult -- into what was essentially a failed UN mission. It notes how much of the movement and financing to create and arm an independent Croatia as Yugoslavia fell apart came from the Croat diaspora in Canada, a certain irony for the Canadian soldiers who ended up in combat against Croats on the ground. The Canadian soldiers on the ground were mostly reservists, untested, and cobbled together from a military reeling from cutbacks and troop level reductions and the strain of overcommitment to foreign peacekeeping efforts. They were also jerked around by international politics. Off has obvious respect for the soldiers she talks to-- it's the reason she wrote the book -- but she doesn't flinch from noting their problems, such as antiquated equipment, the uselessness of UN troops from other countries (eg the Kenyans in the Balkans willingly allowed themselves to be disarmed by the Serbs and sold their gasoline rations on the black market), disputes between officers, a bizarre near-mutiny in which soldiers tried to poison their officers and the emotional toll of a mission -- to protect civilian lives -- that was falling apart around them. That the Canadians did as well as they did, and were regarded for it, is a testament to their bravery and skill. But at least with Off, and other accounts of Medak, we're getting a fuller picture of what those Canadians went through. A decade after it all happened ...

Today's bLINKit: Americans love to shop online. Canadians don't.

Kissinger on iPod

Today's later bLINKit: Michael Kissinger says the iPod did indeed begin the personal soundtrack revolution. Crazy Horses by The Osmonds proves it. (Note go to Osmonds link and click on the picture of Marie. The site you come to is disturbing.)

Plus, I blab on about Battlestar Galactica again.

Empty towers and playing as kids

SL Neighbourhood update: It was too good to last. The revived greenspace to the west of me has been developed by a consortium called InWorld Properties, which has built two luxury condo towers. I've previously talked about the first tower to the southwest. Now a second tower has gone up immediately to the west of the Flying Twinkie. It's a reasonable looking building, fronted by a nice boardwalk and large rock fountain, but it's high and close enough that I could hit its roof with spitballs from my deck (if I could shoot spitballs in SL, that is). I don't mind the towers so much except that the suites are all empty, which makes the building seem like a multi-tier mausoleum. Other developments: two of my longstanding original neighbours, who bought land next to me at the same time I did, have sold and moved on. (They sold to the same consortium, which as far as I remember has not approached me with an offer.)

I took a flyaround this morning. It turns out the neighbourhood is mostly now developed, with changes every day. The "sea" not far to the west turns out to be, now that SL has terraformed more land, an inland lake, so I'm fairly landlocked. To the north, someone is building a large multi-purpose arts facility, which so far seems to support stadium-style outdoor seating. Would be cool if something actually happens there.

I also in recent travels stumbled across a subculture of people who like to play as children in SL, including shrinking down their avies to childlike proportions, playing with dolls, tawking wike baybies and offering themselves up to adoption to other avatars to form "families." The woman who runs an "adoption agency" for people who like to present as children in SL told me some have bad childhoods they're trying to cover over with fantasy experiences of a healthy childhood, while others simply want to escape the adult world. I won't speculate on the psychology of it, but as far as I could see, it did not involve anything weird. But then one's definition of weird is stretched almost every week in SL.

Today's bLINKit: Brian Fawcett compares Vancouver to Toronto and their different approaches to urban planning. He prefers Vancouver. He writes:

More than a few Torontonians were irked by a recent article ranking so-called world class cities that placed Vancouver at the top and put Toronto behind Victoria, a city noteworthy only for the fact that it dumps its raw sewage into the surrounding ocean. But Torontonians have only themselves and their elected officials to blame for this embarrassing state of affairs. As Vancouver transforms itself into a city by choice, Toronto is in danger of becoming a city by accident. While Torontonians bicker about what to do with the much maligned Gardiner Expressway, Vancouverites are watching city workers dig up – underneath, technically - Cambie Street in order to build the RAV line that will connect the airport to the downtown core. While Vancouver continues to make bold planning decisions that redefine the shape and character of its urban neighbourhoods, Toronto turns Maple Leaf Gardens into a glorified grocery store.

iPod and angry Vancouverites

Today's bLINKit: Slate asks if the iPod changed anything after it appeared five years ago. It decides it merely continued the personal audio space revolution begun with the Sony Walkman cassette player. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, but it was the first to carry the idea of MP3 successfully to a mass market thanks to great design and functionality. I carry around a Creative Zen V, a tiny flash player that was $50 less than the iPod Nano equivalent when I bought it a couple of months ago. (It's excellent, both for design and function. All it lacks is software equivalent to iTunes.)

The mini-daily 24 Hours, the Vancouver edition, has launched video podcasts. I've seen a few and it's a good, fun use of the form. And I'm jealous.

Finally, Brian Fawcett tries to figure out why Vancouverites are so quick to anger when confronting one another. He chalks it up to deep ethnic divisions and an increasing chasm between the wealthy and the definitely not wealthy in a city which caters exclusively to the former. (I would add lack of space, especially on the roads, as a contributing factor.) Here's what he has to say about Asian influence on what will become Canada's first Asian city:

The Asian money, which has been circulating since 1986’s Expo is a subtle toxin. After two decades it has the city bulging with an overabundance of high-end retail that couldn’t stay in business for a month without it. It’s locally fashionable to think of Vancouver as the new Asian frontier, but the reality is more grainy. The business dorks spend a lot of energy propagandizing the idea of the Pacific Rim economy, without seeming to realize that their metaphor puts the city on the far edge of an economic toilet bowl and that its reality reduces the non-Vancouver parts of British Columbia to permanent status as a resource extraction zone.

Vancouver is really Asia’s recreational resort, a respite, and the wealthiest of the city’s Asian newcomers treat it as such. Yet for better or worse, Vancouver is going to be (and very nearly is already) North America’s first Asian city. The fiscal and cultural uneasiness of its Asian immigrants is palpable, particularly the wealthy ones. They’re insular, most of them arriving not with their own ethnic depth and confidence but with Asia’s strain of globalized culture, which is a veneer of consumerism, real estate Feng Shui and plastic.

It certainly explains Richmond.

 

Memory lane 2: Escape to New York

WMD: Some of the better pieces in my collected memory stash are postcards received from friends travelling or living abroad. They came from all over, different continents and countries, from villages in Africa to urban centres of Europe, all with a story to tell. Some are witty, some are wistful, some make you want to hop on the next plane to the location from where the card was sent, as in one card from Randy as he visited New York in July 1998. He writes:

Manhattan is a uniquely beautiful woman, confident and sophisticated, in a little black dress. Cutting her way through a mountain of gold. Or something like that. I'm drunk and energized by Greenwich Village. The ultimate scene.

Guest blogger: Daniel on his dad

Daniel sent this to me some time ago via Tara, and I'm now just getting to post it. Thanks for waiting, Daniel ...

Ten Things I Learned from My Dad
1.  Don't pick arguments with him.
2.  Don't trust politicians.
3.  Don't restart the computer.
4.  Don't leave your mess out.
5.  Don't hurt my brother, Ben.
6.  Don't hurt my brother, Stephen.
7.  Don't shriek.
8.  Don't erase the hard drive.
9.  Don't put paper on the stairs.
10.  Don't forget to take your pills.

My Dad ...
1.  Is fun to play with.
2.  Is always helpful.
3.  Is tough to negotiate with.
4.  Enters election campaigns.
5.  Regrets joining them.

Dream Jobs For My Dad

Don't let his mind deceive you, my Dad would rather be the first monarch of this
mud covered country known as Elcanbonia or be an anarchist leader in a huge
revolt.  
Then there is the option of the indespicable Walt Wingfield movement where a
Chairman of a large company goes farmer which moves him to Chairman of a large
company like Pixar.  
Then there is is always the Catbert approach... where he turns into a evil
blood-sucking human resources manager.  He'd rather be all of these than a
consultant.
Daniel von Schulmann, age 10, Cub Scout,Dilbert Fan, Wingfield Farm Fan, Tolkien
Fanatic, Gamer and Future Blogger 

Nice people, bad people

Today's bLINKit: In a recent post, Danita describes some of the poorer urban human behaviour, which we can all identify with:

Sometimes when i observe us humans interacting I wonder about this ability to reason that we supposedly possess. The other day I walked down the street and a parking attendant informed the driver of a massive SUV--that happened to be blocking a driveway--that he had to move and he went off on her, started to harangue her, calling her a bitch with no life. then all his cronies joined in. Not a voice of reason among them. It was frightening. Situations like that are the ones can potentially escalate into a person ending up dead or seriously wounded.

Fortunately, if you watch you'll also see the good side of human behaviour, such as the other day when Randy and I were walking up Cypress near 2nd Avenue. A cyclist was heading down the hill with her friend, her purse was hanging from her handlebars (bad, bad idea) and it caught in the spokes of her front wheel, sending her pitching forward on to the pavement, with the bike on top of her. Her friend stopped, and so did we, and so did four or five other people walking or driving by, all willing to help in some way. The cyclist was lucky. Despite not having a helmet, she didn't hit her head, did not break anything, and seemed to be just badly shaken up. The point is that total strangers were quickly and readily willing to help out.

By the way, Randy's got another great pic.

World Wednesday: Letter from Afghanistan

Paul Fieber, a friend of JaqPike's whom I've met several times and liked meeting, recently got a new job working as a civilian contract worker in Afghanistan, working for a Calgary company supplying "morale communications" (email, instant messaging, phone service) to the Canadian troops and other NATO personnel stationed in Kabul. Paul's been there nearly a month and is writing some fascinating emails about what he's seeing there. He's working up his own blog about the experience, which I'll link to, but until then, I'll run excerpts from his email circulars about his life in Afghan. The fellow mentioned as Brooks is his colleague over there. In today's excerpt, Paul describes shopping and the Afghan dark.

On shopping: Went to the Monday Market, which occurs every Monday (oddly enough) just outside the camp gates. Vendors of carpets, cashmere, clothing, carvings, metalwork, Taliban money, Saddam Hussein money, some truly impressive cutlery, and hundreds of other items flood an area just south of the gate. Usually every second week, actually, but weekly now, because this roto is over in about three more weeks, and everybody wants to buy stuff. Including pirated DVDs -- not just from China anymore! Indeed, amongst all of the more traditional offerings are tables laden with DVDs -- TV series, movies, collections. Just about everything you could think of. Sex and the City, Seasons 1 through 4, was available at a number of locations. How the Taliban must hate that. Good thing they are not in a position to file an official protest. Their unofficial ones are usually more than enough, but I don't think they'd be foolish enough to make one at the market in front of the camp. I have never seen more heavily armed shoppers anywhere. Not to mention the alert fellow parked in the Coyote reconnaissance vehicle with it's 1-inch machine gun at the ready.

Even going to market is an ordeal. If you are forces personnel, you go in a ballistic vest, and all personal weapons. It's kind of like being in a role-playing game, actually. Even us civilians must shop wearing some extremely uncomfortable clothing -- the aforementioned ballistic vest. I had to wring my shirt out when I got back. Don't recommend it for outings on Robson Street, however stylish it may appear. Brooks took a picture of me all ready to go, but it didn't turn out. Will try again next week.

On nighttime: Dark. I promised earlier I would talk about Dark. There's a lot of it. In the light-polluted West, we kind of take being able to see after sunset for granted. Not so here. Every evening, just after sunset, Dark rides into town. There's lot's of electric lighting in camp, don't get me wrong. but absolutely none of it is outside. Couple this with Kabul being a city without traffic lights OR streetlights (not entirely true, actually. There are streetlights in place, they just don't turn them on. You get a glittering effect from the lights in the windows of homes, but none of the glaring bands of light that street-lighting produces.) and you can't see a blasted thing after sunset. Nearly everyone has some sort of lamp, flashlight, glowy LED thingy tied to their head. I found out my cell phone makes an admirable substitute for a flashlight if you don't mind hitting a key every 22 seconds. But the real fun is seeing how well you can do without light. My eyes do eventually adjust. Not quickly, like all those young whippersnappers rocketing about in the dim, but slowly, and once the process starts, I'm loathe to interrupt it. Eventually, I can make out buildings, see fences, roadblocks, and so forth. Then the fun begins, because I start moving, and my theoretical assessment of what is around me gets put to the test. Large, stationary objects are fairly easy to outwit, it's the other walkers in the dark that are tricky. Sometimes all you get is a 2 second crunch of gravel to alert you to an imminent collision, then you have to make your best guess as to which way it's coming from. Kind of fun, actually. I'm getting more used to it, and haven't actually hit anybody yet, although I have come close. And I can see the night sky. It's pretty cool.

Today's bLINKit: Meantime, yet another Slate writer (I like those folks) is writing daily dispatches from Afghanistan, too. You can find them here for comparison to what Paul is writing. Tuesday's post is a disturbing discussion of the reason behind the pullout from the country of MSF (Doctors Without Borders en anglais). Partly it's the worsened security and the murder of MSF workers. But also it's the concern that civilian aid is being used as a political tool by the occupying Americans etc. Here's an excerpt about the security situation:

There is no doubt that security in Afghanistan has worsened in the last several months. The numbers tell the story: Thirty-three aid workers were killed in the first six months of 2004 compared with 14 in all of 2003. Recently, I spent an hour in the office of an organization that provides security advice to relief groups. On one wall was a giant map of the country. Huge swaths of territory were crossed out with red marker: no-go zones. Most of the eastern edge of the country was in red, as were chunks of the south.

Since Paul is in the middle of the Canadian camp, I'm sure he's well-protected.

Sunday guest blogger: Victoria, the city that's not as bad as it used to be

As regular Blinkit readers know, many of us who read this site went to UVic in the 1980s and called Victoria home for half a dozen years or so. We had varying opinions on the place. Being easy to please, I liked it--not really big enough to be noisy and anonymous but not small enough to be hicksville. Now that I live in Vancouver, whenever I return to Victoria I'm struck by how small it is, how close everything is, how few things have changed--at least from the outside, how many old people and tourists there are and how agonizingly slow everyone drives there. Bernard thought the place sucked in the '80s. But now that he and Catherine have just moved there again, he believes it's not too bad and he's "coming to terms" with living there. (Note on coming to terms: try Medicine Hat in the winter.) Here are his latest observations he emailed to me, describing Victoria in 2004:

1) The freecycle culture - I have no idea if this existed in the 1980s, but I never knew about it then if it did. There is a listserve that shares all manner of things people are trying to get rid - furniture, boats, cars, small things etc..... Also, it is very common to see things at the side of the street with a free sign on them. Since coming here we have managed to get a rowing machine, dishwasher, couch, and TV.

2) The rise of the cyclist. In the 80s I cycled a lot and noticed then that there were few commuters cyclists. Now I walk to work on the Galloping Goose and see large amounts of cyclists commuters. There is a very good network of bike paths in this city now.

3) This city has traffic problems. It still does not take unreasonable times to get places, but it is common now on Douglas to have to wait for cycles of the light before you can go through the intersections. The Freeway sections in the Western Communities (now West Shore) and in Saanich are heavy with traffic.

4) This is not a do it yourself town - decent hardware and building supply stores do not seem to exist. Kamloops is better served. I suspect that this has always been the case here but it was never something I needed to worry about.

5) Harpo's is gone but the replacement seems to be Lucky on Yates street.

6) The inner harbour through to Selkirk Water is very busy with more planes than ever, pleasure boats, kayaks, dragon boats, rowing shells, bikes and people walking.

I am coming to terms with working in Bastion Sq - home of my worst drug and alcohol excesses of the 80s. The walk to work is just over 30 minutes along the waterfront. This morning I reveled in the amazing weather as I walked with others to work and people walking their dogs. I could watch people on the water in their boats - there were some practice race sessions going on for the 4s. And planes were dropping down into the Inner Harbour every few minutes.
I think I can get used to this, I think I can come to terms with living in this city.

Today's bLINKit: One of the things I do miss about Victoria is watching the herons nest in Beacon Hill Park. The first time I saw a heron gliding overhead among the treetops in the park it freaked me out, because for a half second I thought the creature with the large wingspan and dull-blue cast was a pterodactyl. I was an imaginative university student. Or maybe just half-starved. Now, courtesy, of the Heroncam, I can watch the great birds again.