Is it my imagination or is compassion for Canada’s poor at an all-time low?

I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog that I tend to read the newspaper online most mornings. I don’t read just one for the simple reason that I want to get a variety of opinions. I read mostly Toronto area news, but occasionally I’ll meander to Calgary, or Vancouver news as they have vastly different opinions than those of the Toronto news media. One of the greatest advantages of living in the internet age in my opinion is that there is no excuse for living in a bubble. News used to be so regional, but now you can find out what people are saying in London, or Dubai, or Kitchener. They are all equally accessible. More important to me than the paid writers are the comments left by ordinary people. This is the pulse of our society. It is here that I am noticing a lack of empathy and a “who cares?” type of attitude. I am curious about the origin of this new attitude.

I should begin by making something clear to readers who don’t frequent this blog. People who know me either like my open style of speaking, or they don’t. I’ve been called many things in my life;. “insightful”, “a twit”, “opinionated”, “caring”, depending on the point of view of the listener. But I think most people – whether they like me or not, whether they share my opinions, or rail against them, would agree that I am always honest. Perhaps to a fault. A very long time ago I decided it doesn’t suit me to pretend to be something I am not. I lack the shame that society has tried so very hard to thrust on me for speaking honestly about what it is like to be poor. I grew up poor, I spent most of my adult years poor. It is only in the last 15 years that I have beaten the odds to break that cycle. Perhaps sometime in the future I will write about how I struggled my way out of being a statistic but for today I just want to dispel some of the myths I’ve been reading.

MYTH #1
Poor people are lazy and unmotivated.
Balderdash! Wasaga Beach is full of seasonal and minimum wage earners. There aren’t a lot of good paying jobs here. You have your choice of being a maid for one of the motels or serving up dinner at local restaurants. The majority of jobs in this area are in the low paying service sector. I know plenty of people who work 3 jobs just to earn enough money to keep a roof over their heads, lights on and food on the table. These jobs are unstable at best. They pay as little as they are legally required to do (some less – I’ll talk about that later) and they exploit workers by figuring out clever ways to avoid making anyone “full time”.  I get so tired of hearing this mean spirited generalization. It’s not true. The motivation behind this myth is simple as far as I can tell. It’s easier to blame poor people for their plight than to lean on policy makers to create more stable working conditions.

MYTH #2
Welfare has become a lifestyle choice. Free money for doing nothing.
This kind of comment clearly comes from people who have never had to accept a welfare cheque in their lives. My question to anyone who utters this type of comment is “how many paychecks are you from poverty?” Surprisingly, the average person would admit they couldn’t last more than a month without a steady paycheck. It’s easy if you lose your job to find yourself in line for Government help. Employment Insurance, a fund which workers pay into as a type of “insurance” (as the name implies) is out of reach for too many. More about that later.

MYTH #3
Why don’t they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
It’s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t even own a pair of boots. The poorest in our society are completely consumed by the task of making enough money to live. Exploitative jobs, poor transportation options, family obligations, illness are just some of the roadblocks to that better life. While some people do manage to break the cycle of poverty, it is the exception to the rule, not the norm. It is exceedingly difficult to get an education when you can’t afford an extra $2 to ride the bus. I will admit to looking for change all over my room just to get the T.T.C. to a job interview. Most people don’t have any idea what it is like to be so strapped for cash that an extra bus ride is a burden.

MYTH #4
People on welfare can always afford cigarettes and booze.
I’ve never been able to afford these things. Foolishly, I smoked when I was a teenager but when I found myself on welfare at the age of 16, cigarettes were the first to go. Call me silly but I thought eating and rent were much more important. I tend to ask people who make this claim how they have determined that the person they see drinking and smoking is actually on welfare? Do they see the cheque? Often people see someone who “looks” poor out on their porch having a mid-day party but my first thought when I hear this is that this individual can’t be on welfare. With the rules today, it is hard to be on welfare for any length of time and believe me, after reading the monthly figures I can’t imagine many people who wouldn’t be desperate to find work. A single person brings home $561 per month. A single mother with a child under the age of two gets $906 per month. Even the most frugal person would have difficulty making ends meet on such a pathetic income.

I should add that in the 1960′s, Canadian Social Services was tightly controlled. If you were a single woman living on Government assistance, you could expect the social worker to open your closets to search for evidence of a man in the home. And, if you were kind enough to offer a cup of tea to the social worker, your reward was to have your children secretly grilled with such gems as “does Mommy have a boyfriend?” or “Are you happy living here with your Mother?“. We weren’t stupid. We knew that the wrong answer would get us a one-way ticket to a foster home. Thankfully, having a boyfriend, a social life or drinking a beer or smoking a cigarette are no longer grounds for termination of benefits.

MYTH #5
If you can’t find a job where you are, why don’t you move?
I’ll refer you back to myth #3. If you can’t afford a couple of dollars to take the bus, just imagine just how daunting a task it would be to move everything to a new city! Unfortunately poverty is paralyzing. It is extremely confining to not be able to afford things that many of us take for granted.  Moving to a new room, apartment or town is something many can only dream of, but finding oneself in a position to pay moving expenses is out of the question. Why do you think there are so many poor people living in violent areas of major cities? They are desperate to get to cleaner and safer neighbourhoods but financially it is not possible.

MYTH #6
Any job is better than welfare.
This is where it starts to get a little mirky. There have been so many changes to the structure of employment in Canada since the 1970′s. Gone are the reliable jobs. Good paying manufacturing jobs are outsourced overseas to countries who allow corporations to pay workers little more than $1 per day. Companies are so concerned about shareholders and paying the highest salaries to executives that they have forgotten who really makes them rich; their workers. Jobs have been dismantled slowly but surely for decades and we are now seeing the result: a small amount of people making obscene money, a shrinking middle class and a new class of “working poor” who are forced to work several low paying jobs just to equal one full job. Gone are the benefits and the security. Gone is the ability to pay into Employment Insurance. Seasonal and part-time work dominate the landscape. And the definition of part-time has changed. It used to be that if you worked 40 hours a week, there were strict rules to make sure you were taken care of. So to skirt this, companies will make sure you never get 40 hours. Companies have found every possible loophole. They hire “contract workers” to whom they can pay less than minimum wage. Yes, that’s right LESS than the lowest legal salary. School bus drivers are contract workers, cab drivers, truck drivers, many seasonal and service industry jobs are as well. Sales jobs are often so exploitative that the hiring/firing ratio amounts to 100% of their workforce every two weeks.  When the new hires are finished calling every friend and family member, they are let go because people don’t buy products from telephone solicitors. Open the newspaper to the “help wanted” section and you’ll find that retail and office jobs are paying the same salary (or less) than they were 20 years ago. Inflation is all around us except in our salaries. Eaton’s, Sears, Bell Canada, Banks and Insurance Companies – all of these were once decent paying jobs but now they pay so little that they are indistinguishable from smaller companies.

SUMMARY

The vernacular in our culture has changed. Jobs that were once considered honest work, are now seen as transient and menial. People used to be able to support a family on a job as a salesman, or a bartender or a truck driver. Some could even afford a home. My entire neighbourhood was comprised of blue collar working class folk. There is no choice for couples who want to have children any more. You can’t have Mother stay home while Dad brings home the bacon. Years of inflation and political neglect has created a situation where both spouses are forced to work to bring home less than one salary used to pay. Why?

And if the reduced pay and status of workers isn’t enough to make you realize that something needs to change, consider this; somebody needs to fill these jobs. Our society is based on a structure where some people graduate high school and get right to work, while some continue on to University to fill the doctor and lawyer positions. It shouldn’t mean that a few years of schooling amounts to a hundred times better pay. The distribution of wealth in our society has gone absolutely awry!

Poor people don’t want hand-outs. What they want is a living wage. In a wealthy society such as ours, there should be no such thing as a person who works 40 hours a week while not being able to afford nutritious food. We closed our eyes for a few years and this is what happened!  It shouldn’t matter that you are a brick layer, or a waiter, or a truck driver. These people are the cogs in the machinery and without them we would collapse. They deserve a little more of the pie than they are currently getting.

I was reading the newspaper (online) this morning and I kept seeing a recurrence of unflattering words which right wing  journalists use to describe Liberals. Before I get into that, I wanted to first say that I do not enjoy this whole right vs left battle that seems to go on in our culture. I have many friends and family members and they all have their own opinions. Of course I am going to have more spirited political and religious discussions with friends who are far right thinkers but during most of our day to day interactions, it doesn’t affect us.

I came across this word which was popular in when I was growing up; “Bleeding Hearts“. It seems to have returned to the vernacular of some journalists. The word itself is meant to convey that Liberals are too soft, too weepy and naive. Conservatives have managed to villainize compassion and empathy.

I’ll bet you are wondering why the words “Bleeding Heart” caused this rant.

I was a child of the 60′s. I was too young to be either a Hippy or a Flower Child, but even at the age of 10, I knew that their message was a good one. Peace on Earth, love one another, make love not war and my favourite; the whole world is watching.

I can remember a time when middle aged, angry, white men with military style haircuts armed with shears would grab long haired young men in the streets and force a haircut on them. I was far too young to understand that this was what we refer to today as “left and right” ideology. The angry men were just “wrong” in my young mind. I had no idea why it bothered them how a young man would wear his hair. It was the fashion of the time and all the kids were doing it. Why was it so important to these men that the young people conform to their ideas?

Mary Ann Vecchio kneels over the body of Jeffery Miller. Photograph by John Filo.

The wrongness of far right ideology gets much worse than an unwanted haircut. I still remember vividly an incident in 1970 at Kent State, a University in Ohio where unarmed students were gunned down by the U.S. National Guard simply because they were protesting  against the American invasion of Cambodia. An event that was memorialized in the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Ohio”.

I grew up watching the events of the time unfold on TV.  My young eyes and ears soaked up information like a sponge. The KKK were still going strong in the South. Segregation was still legal in some States but it was being challenged in ruling after ruling by the Supreme Court. National laws conflicted with local laws and had people on both sides fighting mad. Perhaps this partly explains the anti-Government feeling amongst many right wingers, but TV had the entire world watching and reacting to images of lawlessness and bloodshed. White supremacists brutalized freedom riders simply for daring to ride buses with “Negroes” (we didn’t use the word “blacks” back then). TV exposed their dirty deeds and made it clear that their ideology of white born privilege was  disappearing. Although I was very young, I couldn’t understand why anyone would force a black person to drink out of a separate fountain, sit at a blacks-only section of a diner, or use a different toilet. My young mind wasn’t hardened by the prejudices of the previous generation. As it would turn out, a lot of people knew this was wrong.

So when I read the words “Bleeding Heart” this morning – a word uttered by the right wing to label Liberals as overly soft and naive, I thought back to its origins. It’s a word meant to villainize traits that I have come to admire; compassion, empathy, the ability to walk in someone else’s shoes. I am proudly a bleeding heart.

There is something seriously wrong with these far right wing people. They have always sought conformity in a world of diversity. Even in their own lily white communities, there is always someone who marches to the beat of a different drummer. Those people are inevitably punished to the fullest extent. Homosexuals, feminists, atheists, artists, musicians, free thinkers. The list is long of people to punish for being just a little bit different. The right wing has become a caricature of true conservative values. I can respect conservative values. However, I cannot respect right wing ideology as it is defined by some in the media today. They are two different animals. No self respecting conservative could stand behind the hateful words of people like Pat Robertson, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and their ilk. Being conservative should not be akin to being hateful. The historical reality is that far right thinking has always been wrong. And yes, the argument could be made that far left thinking is wrong too but that is a whole other article. For now I’ll just say that when people are too extreme, in either direction, they tend to meet at the fringes. People have been trying to define and label extreme views since the dawn of time but the reality is that far left and far right look disturbingly similar. It wouldn’t matter whether you were kidnapped by a fascist or an anarchist. The result would be the same. Neither has a whiff of compassion to offer.

Besides “bleeding heart“, there are several other adjectives to define and divide people according to their desire to live in a free and equal society. These words are meant to be insults, and they require a condescending tone or snarky written context to be fully understood. Still, they really tell you more about the utterer. The irony is wasted on them. While touting the virtues of being patriotic in a Country which was founded on embracing differences, these people are afraid of anything different. And just like the bullies who would call you names in the school yard, they have a whole vocabulary of insults for people who don’t fit the narrow definition of a good citizen.

The Right Wing vocabulary is slick. They’ve learned that they can’t just utter insults in mixed company so they have coded regular words which are meant to find others amongst them. Depending on your reaction to these words, you are either one of us, or one of them. As you read through the words, you’ll notice that most of them are just regular words but after years of vitriolic treatment, they are words which define a generation of angry, displaced people. It isn’t the 1950′s any more. Canada has been evolving and the world depicted in early sitcoms doesn’t exist – in reality, it never did. Yet somehow, in 2010, you can still find men and women out there, angry as hell that feminists, gay people, minorities and others have fought and won their own place in our diversified society.

Ultra Right Wing Dictionary:

Feminist: (or Feminazi – the favoured insult to describe feminists.) It was meant to describe a particular type of feminist but these days it’s a blanket term when a woman wants to calmly discuss issues of equal rights. Of course feminists are blamed as the root cause of all that is wrong with our society today. The breakdown of families, the lack of jobs – you name it.

Homosexual: There are at least a half-dozen adjectives to describe this group. An abomination against God is the most offensive. If you wish to be a good bigot, you must firmly believe that Gay people are able to change, they just don’t choose to.

Atheist: The bane of all über-right-wingers. You can believe in any God so long as it is theirs, but being an atheist is the #1 worst thing you can be. Of course every good far right winger must believe (wrongly) that democratic societies are based on the 10 commandments and that we should all fall in line or deport ourselves (to where?)

Commie: Anyone who doesn’t tear up when they see a photo of Ronald Regan, or Brian Mulroney. People who are left of Pat Robertson.

Liberal: (Libtard, Lie-beral) This is just another word for “Communist“. Now that the cold war is over, they would look ridiculous using the word “commie” so this is the updated word. Next to an athiest, a Liberal is the worst thing you can be.

Socialist: See the previous two entries. Commie, Liberal and Socialist are all the same thing even though the differences in ideology are huge. Never mind those pesky facts though. Just do as you are told.

Un-American, Un-Canadian or Unpatriotic: This is levelled at anyone who dares to ask questions of the people in power. Note: This only applies during the years of Conservative rule. It is your duty to question, harass and make governing impossible for Liberal Governments. There is a long line of “authority figures” to whom we must all salute. They include; police, soldiers, the military, firemen, and especially corporations. These people can do no wrong even when they are discovered stomping all over your constitutional rights. In that case it is for your own good and for the security of the country.

Pro-Choice: If you believe that women should have dominion over their own bodies, well you are just a baby murderer. It doesn’t matter how many times that you tell them that you are both in essence “Pro-Life” and you would prefer to see prevention methods and education come before abortions. Of course “Pro-Life” ends with those anti-social pot smokers. We ought to be executing people who smoke dope. So the rule is: killing babies = bad, killing adults=okay.

Pro-Life: You are truly God’s children. Yes you are.  A true right wing Pro-Lifer will stop at nothing to protect innocent zygotes. Zygotes are fetal cells which have not yet developed a nervous system or a brain. They use phrases that are based in non-science like “Partial birth abortion” and employ tactics like murdering doctors, or bombing clinics to scare women and their care-givers away from legal clinics worldwide. To be a true Pro-Life right wing nut, you have to be against third trimester abortions even if the fetus is dead inside the woman, is nonviable beyond the uterus, or will kill her in childbirth. Facts don’t matter to far right wing-nuts. They are appalled that any doctor would abort a 3rd trimester fetus and would surely kill him for his crimes. His crime is usually saving the life of the Mother but those facts are treated as propaganda.

Immigrants: Immigrants are to be feared and loathed. They are usually up to something. Immigrants have heard about free welfare and want in on some of that $500 per month action. It is irrelevant that all of us are children, or grand-children of immigrants. It also escapes them that many born and raised Canadians have used the welfare system during difficult times.

Poverty: Poverty is always preventable. Poor people are just lazy, unmotivated, and anti-social. Again, facts are completely discarded for this one to be swallowed whole. It matters not that most employers are adept at finding every loophole to maximize profits and avoid paying a living wage to their workers. It is irrelevant that food banks are serving more and more “working poor“. Poverty is just as simple as pulling up your bootstraps…. even if you can’t afford boots.

Welfare: This is a fund that is taken forcefully from the pockets of taxpayers and given to people who are lazy and unmotivated. Social safety nets, a distinctly left-wing idea has saved thousands of lives – most of them children, but again you must discard facts to whip yourself into a mouth-frothing, right wing tizzy.  Never mind that many of the people who are against such programs will someday need them themselves. It’s the facade that matters. Righteous anger against Government for daring to help the weaker members of society during their worst moments.

Old Age Pension: This one cracks me up. I argued with someone recently who claimed that Government has no place taking money from our paychecks to help us in old age. We should be deciding for ourselves what pension fund(s) we want to contribute to. Not a single one of these people will refuse the money when they reach the age of 65 but again, those are just pesky facts. A true right winger thinks that everyone has a disposable income after paying rent and utilities which can be used for such things as retirement planning. It is the classic “let them eat cake” type of thinking.  The very idea that many families struggle from paycheck to paycheck is just foreign. Must be nice to be so clueless about the reality of just how close most of us are to bankruptcy. How long can you live without a steady paycheck? One – two weeks? A month?

Employment Insurance: (or rather “Unemployment Insurance” as it should be called) Another safety net that just takes money from the pockets of hard working taxpayers and puts it into the pockets of lazy, unemployed bums. Never mind that we pay directly into this as a form of insurance. Or forget the fact that most of the people who have paid into it will be surprised to find themselves ineligible should they need it. And let’s not mention the fact that women are the biggest losers when it comes to E.I.  Part-time jobs (which women tend to have so they can be flexible for children), seasonal workers, full-time workers (3 x part-time jobs = full-time) will all have difficulty collecting when they need it. The system which works on an archaic “hours worked” model doesn’t take into account that most people work several jobs to get enough hours. If you are let go from two of your three jobs you are just shit out of luck. You are lazy and fat and a burden to society if you need to depend on E.I. at any point in your worthless life. It’s that simple.

Capital Punishment: “Kill the bastard” or “I’d pull the lever myself if I could” are perfectly acceptable ways to express your desire to rid society of people who won’t walk in goose-step. The venom that you might expect to be reserved for child molesters and murders can also be extended to Liberals and Atheists. Pro-Life? Only if it involves forcing women to stay pregnant against their will. Their real feelings about the value of life are interestingly displayed in their thoughts on capitial punishment.

God Fearing: This is one of my favourites. It means a “good person“, someone of strong moral fiber. (also see; man of god, church going man or Christian man) It doesn’t matter that most of the people who sit on death row in U.S. jails claim to be religious, or to have come from religious families. A belief in god simply doesn’t guarantee godliness. But the myth continues in right wing circles and it’s a difficult myth to bust as religion is the only topic I can think of where people just make up their minds and refuse to listen to reason.

Well.. let the comments begin. ;)
Tell me your favourite right-wing words and definitions. I’m sure I missed a whole lot of them.

More on the subject:

• Wikipedia – Employment Insurance in Canada
• Wikipedia’s page on Extremism
• Is hair still a symbol of rebellion?
• The song “Hair” by the Cowsills

I am still in shock and grieving over the events of the G20.

In my lifetime there have been a few events that have caused me to feel this way, but none so close to home. Toronto you see, is my hometown. And no matter how long I live in Wasaga Beach, and no matter where I travel, it will always be a big part of who I am. My identity is so closely tied to that city.

So when I saw police clubbing people, peaceful, law-abiding people their heads bleeding. People begging cops to stop hitting them. Asking why are you doing this? What did I do wrong? Trying to tell them “this is a peaceful protest“. When I read accounts of handicapped people trying to stay out of trouble by sitting on the grass at Queen’s Park being rounded up and roughly arrested; a man’s artificial limb separated from his body. When I heard yet more accounts of the abuses at the detention center on Eastern Avenue; authorities not providing the basic rights that we have come to expect as free citizens, I felt outraged.

There are hundreds of accounts from witnesses which defy the official story of cops under duress trying to make the best of a bad situation. What happens when the people you are supposed to respect become the enemy? Why were some of these police so rude to protesters? Why did they tell a woman that they would gang rape her? Why did they not allow an incarcerated handicapped man to go to the washroom, instead forcing him to urinate in his pants? Why did they refuse to provide toilet paper to detainees? Why did a confined lawyer have to tear off his shirt and allow another man, in one moment of human kindness, use his sleeve as toilet paper? Why were Torontians treated like animals at that detention centre? These dehumanizing tactics that one would expect to be used against a prisoner of war employed right in the heart of a major Canadian metropolitan city! Many of the people rounded up and arrested just lived in the area. It’s a dense, gigantic city. What did they expect of the residents of Toronto?

Why was there no water when people were thirsty? Why the ill treatment of people who were not charged with a single crime? Why were the real trouble makers allowed to run for a full hour and a half with riot police in full regalia just feet away? They could have shut those trouble makers down in 30 seconds. Why did they allow people to use black block tactics to terrorize the citizens of Toronto? Why? What does it all mean and who gave these horrible orders?

We are taught our entire lives to respect  authority. We respect the troops, the police, and firemen. But.. what happens when these people behave like thugs? Do we still support our military when they are caught allowing prisoners to be tortured? Do we support the police when they turn their batons, tear gas and rubber bullets on people who are just trying to make their way home – miles away from the G20 convention?

It’s confusing.

A few days ago I wrote a letter to our local M.P.P. Jim Wilson. This is a man I have met once or twice and he seems like a decent person. I turned to him because I felt as a citizen of a free country, it is our duty to speak up when something doesn’t feel right. In this letter I beseeched him to look into the matter. I wrote to ask him what his official position was. This was his response:

Ms. Watters:  Thank you for your email.  I appreciate your taking the time to bring your concerns to my attention.
Like most Ontario families – I was appalled by the violence we saw from the thugs and hooligans at the G20.  No political point gets made when you throw a brick through a store window or light a police car on fire.  This is nothing less than hooliganism.  In my view, the ringleaders behind this violence must be caught, tried to the fullest extent of the law and held financially responsible for the cost of the damage done.

I stand behind our men and women in uniform.  The police had a very difficult job to do.  There should be a very thorough review about what could have been handled better.  But ultimate responsibility for everything that happened rests with the thugs and hooligans who started the violence.

After the violence and vandalism we have seen during the G20, I certainly can appreciate the importance of ensuring the police have the authority and tools they need to do their job. However, Dalton McGuinty’s actions were a disappointment.  He had plenty of opportunities to announce and inform the public about these new powers but instead kept them secret.  This was an act of cowardice.

There is a formal process for private citizens to launch complaints about specific police action through the Police Services Board; however, I believe any such inquiry deflects attention from the real instigators of the violence during the weekend – the thugs and hooligans caught vandalizing property.

Thank you again for taking the time to write and please accept my best wishes.
Sincerely,
Jim Wilson, MPP
Simcoe-Grey

My heart sank.

Is there a single politician on this planet that speaks the same language as the people they represent? Are they all from Mars? I was asking him why police unleashed all their might on the people of Toronto and he responded by blaming a hundred skinny anarchists – who could have been controlled easily. And then when he was finished blaming them, he turned his guns on the McGuinty Government. No mention of the people of Toronto who were wronged. Not a fucking word.

What’s going on?

Yes there were hooligans as Mr. Wilson puts it. But comon’! Wake up and smell the human rights violations. Doesn’t any of that matter to elected people? I have heard the exact same response from Mayor Miller (NDP), McGuinty (Liberal) and now M.P.P. Wilson (Conservative). WTF? You cannot convince me that all of these people are that stupid. There is a deliberate campaign of misinformation going on here. Didn’t any of them feel any compassion for the people who were hearded like cattle at Queen and Spadina? What about the moment when Police in riot gear charged at a bunch of peaceful people singing O’Canada. What was their crime?

I’m flummoxed.

A facebook friend today called me an eternal optimist. I try to see things from both sides and I try hard to believe in the basic good of people. For the first time in my life I can see nothing to be optimistic or proud of here. I am not proud of any of the leaders; not the politicians of any party, not the police and definitely not the people of Canada who think that carrying a few protest signs sets anyone up to be beaten and thrown into jail. Shame on all of these people. Shame!

And I’m afraid.

I am afraid that the police will get away with it. They were abusive. The politicians were secretive. The people we put our trust in lied. All of them.

It’s another article completely that the G20 is a group of people who are not elected by us deciding major public policies for the entire world. Why are we as a free society allowing them to meet anyhow? In case you were wondering, as it was not discussed much by the media, the G20 participants decided that we should have less social programs, increase taxes and decrease pensions and wages. This is how they plan to help the poor. Brilliant huh?

So enjoy your homes while you can my working class friends. The rich have decided that we are making too much money and not giving enough taxes to them. While banks are making record profits and taking huge government (Remember “Government” is “Us”)  hand-outs. It is us who will pay the price.

And just to make sure that we comply with these new measures, police and politicians beat a few innocent heads to warn us what will happen if we complain.

Welcome to the new order.

Personal accounts: (Read them if you dare)

• http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/829921–i-will-not-forget-what-they-have-done-to-me
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLt40d_AbU&
• http://rabble.ca/babble/activism/my-experience-g20-detention-centre
• http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/conditions-g20-dentention-centre-are-illegal-immoral-and-dangerous/3918
• http://lexgill.com/
• http://www.counterpunch.org/shultz07022010.html
• http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/story-my-arrest-detainment/3997
• http://www.gipfelsoli.org/Home/Ontario_2010/8530.html

I read today in the Toronto Star that Lady GaGa has reached 10 million friends on Facebook. That’s the highest recorded amount of friends for a living person on the popular networking site. Michael Jackson has 15 million friends. Gee, does he talk to them from the grave? What sort of updates could he be making? That would be worth reading if he is…. my apologies, I’m falling off topic. ;)

It was a brief article but in just a few sentences, my upside down world was set upright again. It said:

While she handily beats such contemporary pop stars as Justin Bieber (almost 6.5 million) and Taylor Swift (6.2 million), she still trails the Facebook fan list of the late Michael Jackson (almost 15 million).

Auto-Tune Plug-in

I have been wondering if the entire world has gone nuts. I wrote in my blog recently complaining about how entertainment writers can’t seem to distinguish between an entertainer and an actual singer. These are two completely different animals, and although Justin is infectiously cute to 10 year old girls, and Taylor Swift seems to write songs that youngsters identify with – they could not be called “singers” as their talent is mainly studio processed. There is a lot of editing and fixing going on with most artists and unfortunately it is designed to trick people into hearing a more polished performance than the artist is capable of singing in a live situation. How would these artists exist if there was no such thing as auto-tune pitch correction? They wouldn’t.

I can remember when Def Leppard fans complained that they sounded nothing like their records live. Ticket buyers were angry because the multi-layered background vocals – a hallmark of producer Mutt Lange, weren’t possible in a live setting. The trend of fixing photogenic performers in the sound studio really began in the 1980′s  with the creation of music videos.

Lady GaGa on the other hand is actually, how do I put this delicately, … um … good. She has a good voice! She is capable of morphing not only her image, which she does gleefully at every opportunity, but she is a versatile singer as well. Like her or not, that’s your prerogative, but she has pipes. Unlike many in her generation, she doesn’t cheat her audience by using pre-recorded tracks for the main event. Instead, she keeps the dance moves simple while she sings. For better or worse Lady GaGa sings live.

Lady Gaga's Gyroscope

I watched with amusement when she appeared on Saturday Night Live. She wore a costume that looked like the solar system. I’m not sure if this was an oversight, or an accident but there was a point in the performance when she is supposed to sit at the piano and sing. The outfit wouldn’t co-operate. But, like a true professional, she dealt with the problem almost seamlessly. She sat down, pulled the microphone closer, tried not to hit it with her solar system hoops, and sang – beautifully I might add. She had power, control, a warm tone and emotion. She did a good job under difficult circumstances.

Although people have compared her to Madonna, Lady GaGa has something Madonna doesn’t have – a real singing voice. Live, Madonna was difficult to listen to. She was “pitchy” as we call it in the industry. Her voice was lacking control and she warbled her way through her pop melodies.

Singing with costume obstruction.

I don’t think it was a secret to insiders that Madonna wasn’t a great singer because when she did the movie Evita, they hired her a vocal coach to handle the material she’d be singing. Entertainment writers were falling all over themselves to applaud her more controlled style of singing although it is unclear, and it will always be an industry secret – if she sang these songs without the aid of studio tricks. The movie was not “live” which means any number of techniques could have cleaned up Madonna’s shaky singing.

Although it is much more pleasing to the ear to hear songs recorded with the technology of today, there was a time when entire bands assembled in one room with one overhead microphone to record them – warts and all! Classic artists like Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder Aretha Franklin. Country legends such as Hank Snow, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn. Jazz greats like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker. All of these people began when there was no way to cheat. If you listen to some of those old records, you can hear the human element; mistakes. In the early days of records, artists had to get it right and quickly. 2″ Recording tape was expensive and artists had to be well rehearsed if they didn’t want to waste record company money.

In 1981, I worked at a recording studio in downtown Toronto where they did many of the commercials that appeared on radio. If my memory serves me correctly, we used Ampex magnetic tape; 1″ wide. I recall ordering a reel of tape. It was $80.00 – almost a week’s salary for an average person. 1″ magnetic tape could record 8 tracks which was typical for radio commercials. 2″ magnetic tape was used for recording artists and could store 16 tracks, athough lower budget artists would sometimes try to get the job done with just 8 tracks.  The studio owner would get very upset if the hired actors, voice-over people, fooled around too much because recording over the tape was a big no-no.

A couple of years later, I worked at factory which produced music cassettes. My job was quality control, although that title was an insult to my intelligence. I ran a master machine which would take the multi-track magnetic tape and run it in a loop while a dozen slaves would create reels of  1/4″ tape. Each of those tapes contained hundreds of copies of the recorded album which would later be cut down into individual cassettes by a handful of machines and their operators. It was a low budget operation. Often the tape would spill out onto the dusty floor (not good for magnetic tape) and be crinkled, or even torn. The technical staff would, against my better judgement – but under orders; iron the tape, and then splice (cut out and re-attach) the tape back together so it could be put back in the master machine. This meant that parts of songs would be missing. Good stuff huh?  Quality control? I wanted to kill myself.

So back to Lady GaGa and her live performance. Technology has progressed to the point where Lady GaGa wouldn’t have to sing a live note if she didn’t want to, but she chooses to. I have a  mountain of respect for that. I’m sure she is pressured by her handlers to save her voice but she gives all she has to her audience. And she gives them something which is rare today; herself. A real human voice. If she sings an off-key note, it would happen too quickly to be corrected. If her wardrobe makes it difficult for her to play the piano and sing, she still gives it a go. Good for her!

The very fact that she has 10 million Facebook followers redeems my faith that maybe live music is not dead. The audience hears something in her voice that they like and even if they don’t know what it is, they come – by the millions. While I realize that some of these people are just there because she is the flavour of the month, I think once they see her perform live, they will be lifelong fans. This woman has “it”. I hope she does well and shows the ailing recording industry that people DO want to hear real, live performances. They don’t buy tickets just to see a bunch of dancers lip syncing to over-processed studio tracks. Perhaps the era of beautiful looking, video friendly performers is at long last ending. Live music enriches our minds and inspires other musicians to create.

Sources:

• http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/832486–lady-gaga-books-record-number-of-fans
  The Star article about Lady GaGa’s facebook milestone.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune
  The Auto Tune Plug-In, pitch corrector
• http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/w0001736.html
  Former Ultravox’s frontman Midge Ure praises Lady GaGa’s live singing.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampex
  http://www.ampex.com/
  Ampex Magnetic tape

Dear readers,

I saw an advertisement today on TV from the Chicken Farmers of Canada.

In the past year or so I haven’t been eating chicken. I will eat it to be polite, but I won’t buy it.

I have seen some films that completely turned me off chicken even though it is one of my favourite meats. No, I’m not vegetarian, and yes, I know that other industries engage in similar practices. But, I am surrounded by farms. Many of them will walk you through and show you in person that they do not engage in cruelty. I prefer to purchase meat from people who can show me how my food is grown. When they hide the true facts of their operations, it should be a giant red flag to you.

Anyhow, tonight after seeing this ad, which smelled more like propaganda from an industry hurting from wiser consumers, I ran directly to my computer and looked up their website and contact information. By the way, nowhere on their website do they show the inside of their operations, but they do show some nice smiling families who they claim are just some of their farmers. In the back of some of the photos, you can see the industrial chicken barns where they keep thousands of suffering, natural light deprived, corn fed chickens. (Chickens don’t eat corn!) These so-called family farms are more likely contractors, people who sell chicken to large companies like Conagra. Conagra you see, controls most of what you eat. Everything that is processed usually touches that company in some way.

I wrote them the following letter…

Hello,
I saw your propaganda, er… I mean Advertisement on my TV tonight. I had to run to my computer to write.

I happen to be in marketing so I know that you wouldn’t be advertising unless you had a reason to. Usually it means your revenues are down because people aren’t buying your product.
Well, I am one of those people.

I am not a vegetarian. In fact, I rather enjoy chicken. But, I have vowed not to eat it until Farmers as a whole stop torturing animals in the name of mass production. Lest you think that a person who likes chicken couldn’t last long without eating some, think again. It’s been more than a year.

You see, I saw video of how farmers manage their chickens. It made me sick to my stomach. Educated consumers are a nightmare aren’t they? I noticed that on your video you posted photos of nice farm families to give the impression to viewers that this is still a family based business rather than a bunch of contractors who work for a giant food company like Conagra. We aren’t fooled.

In the background of these photos, you forgot to remove any trace of those large chicken barns. The ones that crowd in thousands of ill and dying chickens who can barely walk because they are fed food that doesn’t come natural to them. The barns that don’t let in any light and force these animals to live their entire existence suffering and sick.

I have never written a letter like this but I am furious with your industry.

If I buy chicken ever again in my life it will be from a local farm where I can inspect the conditions myself. Clearly I can’t trust the chicken industry at large as they are still trying to pull one over on the Canadian public. Rather than change your ways, you change your image. It won’t work. We are on to you. We don’t want your sickly animals. I would no sooner purchase one of your chickens than I would the meat of a seal that was clobbered to death. I will not spend money to support an industry that engages in sickening and cruel practices.

If I am completely wrong and off base in my comments, prove it. Post your farming methods. Invite the public and the press to have a look at the way animals are treated. In fact, I challenge you to invite me to visit some of your chicken farms… let me pick which ones. I’ll photograph and write articles for my website (a website that gets thousands of visitors per day). if I am wrong, I will shout it from the rooftops and publicly apologize.

Till the invite arrives in my mailbox, I’ll be avoiding chicken products.

Yours Truly
Darlene Watters

I will await their response.

In the meantime, you can enjoy these videos to learn why I feel like I do about chicken.
- just for fairness, my side of the story, and theirs. Both videos are for you to come to your own conclusions.

If any of these videos make you feel angry or turn you off chicken. Don’t despair, we do live in an area where plenty of farmers need your support and will sell you free range meats.

• Live fast die young.
  The reason I stopped purchasing chicken
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_HXNaZPUKY
  This guy is talking positively about the cleanliness of chicken farming in Canada but look behind him at the crowding. Does this look like an environment that an animal would want to live in?
• Chicken Farms the real story – notice the same farming methods and that this video is from a Chicken lobby. They don’t show you the truth of how these animals suffer in these crowded, low light, commercial feed conditions.
• What do chickens like to eat?
• http://www.lionsgrip.com/chickens.html
  More about what they eat and the argument by the Chicken Lobby that they don’t eat grass.

UPDATE: July 2, 2010

I was very surprised to open up my mailbox today to find an answer from a Canadian Chicken Industry manager of communications. It was a very well written letter and she called me out on some of my comments and told me that some of the information that I pointed to was from non-Canadian sources and that things are different here in Canada. Okay, fair enough. I’m listening.  I have been promised the opportunity to discuss the issue and I’m very excited about that. I have lots of questions and it will be nice to get the “other” point of view. There are as they say, two sides to every story.

More to come….

Dear Readers,

I don’t know about you but I’m still in shock over the events of the G20.

I don’t usually write letters to politicians, but today I took pen to paper (or typed via email actually) and wrote to my local MP. I beseeched him to speak out against the wrongs we saw yesterday. We lost our rights yesterday. Based on a law written to protect buildings in the 1930′s against Germans, we watched as innocent people were trampled and beaten by police.

I’ve read many of the online comments and spoken to friends. Some of them will say “when police tell you to move, you move”. This is absolutely true but I responded that as Canadians we are a little naive. We don’t think police have any right to pound heads so long as we aren’t armed and dangerous. Personally, I would have moved if I was asked, but there were some cases where people were asking police where to go but they were hemmed in and attacked anyhow.  There were even more cases where people were just walking the streets, going to the store, coming home from work and got caught up in this nightmare.  The classic “wrong place at the wrong time” scenario. Some of the protesters didn’t show the best judgement, but being beaten and trampled is not the response I would have expected from our Police.

Police were awarded extraordinary powers yesterday. They abused it. Even journalists, who were told they were allowed to be there were subsequently attacked for staying.

This video encapsulates my feelings better than anything I could write so I hope you will take a moment to look at it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5o5891JS8&feature=player_embedded

In the end, it’s up to every one of us to tell our elected officials how we feel. This is a matter of great importance and it should be expressed to every level of Government. Freedom is so easily taken. Benjamin Franklin said: They who give up liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

If you read this blog. Please write. Phone. Email. Tweet. Text message. I don’t care how you communicate to the power people in your area, just speak. Silence is acceptance.

Most Sincerely Yours,

Darlene Watters

I have been aghast and appalled by the events of the G20 Summit. There are a lot of culprits here and the “good vs evil” model that we all try to live by isn’t so easy to define.

Most of the protesters were pretty good. Thousands of them marched, danced, sang and celebrated their right to free speech and demonstrated for their particular cause. Most of the signs were about poverty, women’s issues, protests of greed and corporate corruption. These hardly sound like heresy to me. Equality, the right to free speech, and anti-poverty activists are staples of our society and despite the cruel and un-called for remarks I have seen from some internet commenters, these should not be defined as left or right issues. They are issues that affect us all. Poverty is everyone’s problem.

The news talked about approximately 100 anarchists, dubbed the “Black Bloc” protesters. These were the trouble makers. The window smashers, molotov cocktail tossing punks. Nobody in a polite society would agree with the tactics employed by these brats. To me, they are the rebels without a cause. Still, the news media focused on the worst element of the protests while ignoring the 99.9% who assembled peacefully.

I was angry with the news media for doing this. They showed the same car on fire all day long. They showed the same guy kicking in the Starbucks window. They showed the same few people, dressed in black acting like anti-social vermin. They did a lot less reporting on the peaceful people, and even less reporting about what was actually going on behind closed doors at the G20 Summit. The real media this weekend was the private citizens. The people with telephone cameras, the bloggers and the people on twitter and facebook. These were the witnesses to what was going on and frankly, I believe them before I believe any major news organization with their right or left slant on every topic. The real heroes of this weekend were the people who dared to record the truth.

I am angry with politicians who have their heads in the sand. The Mayor of Toronto for praising the actions of police who surged on peaceful protesters yet stood by and watched punks dressed in black damage property and terrify the staff of stores in their path. The question remains, why were police able to hem in a couple of hundred peaceful protesters but unable to stop a handful of anarchists?

I am angry with Steven Harper who was warned that Toronto was not a secure location for this summit. Harper has shown much contempt for Toronto during his years as Prime Minister. Even though he was raised there, he seems to side with the parts of Canada who malign the city and complain that Toronto has too much power. Toronto doesn’t ask for this. The attitude of hatred towards the city has boiled over and the people who continue to perpetrate this “us against them” mentality ought to be ashamed. Torontonians for the most part are decent people.  I know, I grew up there. I am one. We are no different than those who live in any other part of the country except that we must constantly listen to people exclaim “I hate Toronto!” I grew fed up with this attitude and began to ask people why they say this. The answer is usually that they got lost there once, or they visited and didn’t know what to do. It’s a big city and like any other large place, it might feel cold but I can assure you, the little communities; Riverdale, Parkdale, Rosedale, East York, Beaches, Etobicoke, Little Italy and more would disagree wholeheartedly with that assessment.

Toronto is the financial hub of Ontario and a highly populated city. It isn’t unreasonable that they should ask for help in funding (for example) the crumbling TTC. People need to get to work and cars are not the answer in a city the size of Toronto. But Harper, possibly angry with Toronto because its voters generally do not buy what he is selling,  often smites the city by underfunding or defunding important programs, and diverting tax dollars (raised by the sweat of city taxpayers) to other areas. He has allowed the city infrastructure to crumble and bashed the Mayor and the Provincial MP for asking for help. All they are asking for is their fair share of their own money. It is disappointing to see how this once beautiful city has been trashed by years of financial neglect. The subway is filthy, the roads are pothole disasters, the line-ups for basic Government services could test the most patient individuals. Is this fair? I am straying from the topic at hand, but my point is Harper has long done whatever he can to hurt Toronto and the G20 appears to be more of the same from him. Get the burr out of your saddle Mr. Harper. All Canadians deserve to be treated with equal respect, not just the ones who approve of your message.

I am angry with Toronto Police who openly bragged for weeks before the summit as they showed off the weapons they planned to use on unruly protesters. Water cannons, ear busting noise machines, rubber bullets, oppressive and violent tools to warn people that protests were not welcome. They spent so much money on outfitting police that the message appeared to be that Canada will not tolerate demonstrations of any kind. Peaceful protest is a hallmark of democracy and this display of pure might appeared to be telling us all that our rights as citizens would not be recognized. And, according to many of the twitter comments, bloggers and video evidence out there, they were not. Hundreds of witnesses claimed the police were more concerned with vandalism than they were about protecting people. Videos emerged almost in real-time to contradict the offical accounts. With over 900 people arrested? Why couldn’t a thousand armed to the hilt police not stop these black-clothed punks from running rampant in downtown Toronto? Here’s a hint… it’s the guys wearing balaclavas.

• Police Charge People Singing “O’ Canada“
• Police Ignore worst of protesters – It smells of a big fat photo op to me.
• Police Surround Peaceful Onlookers at Queen And Spadina – yep, bypassers, people coming out of restaurants, your Grandmother or mine – all held for four hours in the rain and most arrested. Does this sound like the democracy you believe Canada to be?
  • Another view
  • More here
  • Fire Police Officer # 12375

• Police Detain Legitimate Journalist
• Editorial by Toronto Star writer John Cruikshank
• Blog by detainee who was released. (Gosh, I think to myself “this could have been me!” I’ve attended the occasional protest)

The Media thrive on sensational video but where was the news about the summit itself? What did the G20 accomplish? Do you know? I don’t. I saw a few photo ops of smiling politicians, of which only 3 were female. I know that the conference was supposed to discuss the issues of women and poverty. What do a bunch of rich politicians know about what it’s like to be poor? Why are these gatherings always void of the representatives who know these subjects best?

The people are waking up. The middle class, exhausted from years of neglect are finally realizing that no politician, no Liberal, no Conservative is going to help them pay their mortgage. Sure, they’re pretty good at bailing out banks and then turning a blind eye when the white collar criminals are not punished for their greedy deeds. They are so focused on protecting the window of a Starbucks in downtown Toronto that they forgot to protect the people who make these corporations rich; the taxpayers. Middle class citizens are realizing that they are nothing more than consumers in the eyes of conference attendees.

And lest anyone think I am giving those anarchists a pass, I’m not. As they smashed windows and set taxpayer paid police vehicles on fire, they wore clothes they bought at the Gap, they had Gatorade stuffed in the pocket of their Swiss brand Backpacks. Fools. All of them.

It will take a while before this bad taste leaves my mouth. I am truly worried about the future of this country. Canada has been stained by the G20 circus. Let’s hope everyone learned something from these events.

An update 4:20 p.m.: I just read some more accounts from people who had been arrested and detained. One of the things that shocks me most is the wide area of these arrests. I know these areas very well. People claimed to be arrested on Eastern Avenue, or the Esplanade, or at Queen & Spadina or Parkdale. This is the equivalent of being arrested anywhere from Collingwood to Elmvale. It’s a large area. So in essence, you could be walking in any of those areas wearing a black shirt and you might be arrested. These are areas where people live. One detainee claimed he was arrested for having a tiny pocket knife. I carry a pocket knife. It comes in handy when I need to cut something like… an apple. People were going out to get gum, or coming out of restaurants (which were open), or shopping at Steve’s music when they became victims of this wide net tactic by police. Wow. Just Wow.

Toddler or 25 year old?

Ugh! I just watched the most disturbing show on TV that I’ve ever seen. It was called Toddlers & Tiaras. Appearing on the learning channel (TLC) – the learning channel? What did I learn from this show? Well, here’s my short list:

• Sexualizing little girls with make-up and $10,000 dresses really seems to make some Mothers happy. Some people would say that anyone who uses the word “sexualizing” to describe a five year old is the one with the problem, but I’ll let you be the judge. See the photo left. Five going on Twenty-Five. While these mothers describe it as an innocent game of “Dressup”, I don’t recall any game of dressup that cost more than my car and required me to cease being a child for the sheer indulgence of my Mother. Here’s a newsflash to these mothers. Every mother thinks their child is prettier than the rest. Yes, children like to play dressup but they don’t want to sit in a car for eight hours and watch you fret and freak out and act like a crazy person. You are taking the fun out of being a kid.
• No five year old wants to spend hours, day after day practicing to flirt, make a big smile and strut like a sexy model on a runway.
• Spending $10,000 without blinking an eye on a dress that  a child might wear once or twice – especially when the Mother admits that she is preventing herself and her husband from moving to a better home, or affording something that they actually need, is well.. obscene. Both Mom and Dad need a reality check. Never mind the good one could do with that amount of money if you wanted to be a good citizen of the world. Still, it’s your money, do what you want with it; but it seriously makes you wonder about the decision making process of these people.
• The fathers are clearly confused by their wive’s obsession with pageants. In fact, most of the world is confused too.
• I watched as a  overly made-up, bleach blond woman who coaches pageant girls gave the following life lesson to a toddler; “Marry a geek because they make more money” and “You are learning to be a good Trophy wife!” All of this within earshot of the Mother. This sounds like advice from a well meaning aunt for a much older girl, but an even better message would be “get an education, learn to take care of yourself, make your own money and you will never be imprisoned in a loveless marriage. Stand on your own two feet girl!” I am so glad my Mother never gave me such frustratingly bad advice.
• I learned the hard way that getting your teeth whitened is a very unpleasant process. The goo that they use to make an exact replica mold of your teeth got stuck in my mouth and I felt like I was going to go into a full out claustrophobic panic until the dentist was able to yank it out of my mouth. I would NEVER put a five year old through this, but Toddlers and Tiara Mothers would do it in a heartbeat to create fake adult looking teeth for their precious, already perfect children. Ladies, your babies are gorgeous without the makeup and the hairspray and the fake teeth. They are five! The pressure of life hasn’t shown up on their faces yet.
• Tired and cranky means nothing to these Mothers. You must smile and perform and practice. Be a big girl even if you are just a little one. It borders on sadistic and I’m not sure what the message is here. As someone who has travelled on the road for a living, I know how disgusting and utterly exhausted a person can feel after a 10 hour drive. Imagine what it does to a toddler? They are expected to perform the next day when most people would want to sleep in.
• Five year olds can’t remember when or where they won the trophies they have in their homes. Exactly who is entering these pageants anyhow? One mother kept asking her little girl if she remembered winning this or that trophy or ribbon. She had a couple of dozen of them in her room. (In a heavy southern accent) “Do you remember when we went to Hackensack, New Jersey and you won that trophy? Oooh, it came with a lot of money too. That was $3,000.” The girl said “no“.  Mom continues with memories of several of the other trophies and her daughter’s answer remains “no“. Earth to Mother, your kid doesn’t give a rat’s ass. Do you remember that much of your life before the age of five?
• A five year old dancing like Madonna or Lady Ga Ga is just disturbing. (don’t send me hate letters, I actually like Lady Ga Ga but she is an “adult” performer) My husband and I once played at a resort near Huntsville. We played some dance songs like Madonna and Janet Jackson. Neither of us were aware that the parents would be in another room drinking and socializing while their young children would watch the band and dance. This was at the height of Madonna’s popularity and the result of her videos in heavy rotation on Much Music was unmistakable. These kids danced not like children, shuffling their feet from side to side, but with the full bump and grind of sexually suggestive adults. We both had to look away. Welcome to the MTV generation! I have trouble watching adults do some of these moves. It’s like you are a voyeur to a private moment in the life of two lovers. It also reminds me of a dog trying to hump my leg. Hopefully it’s just a fad and it will go away.
• Mothers don’t mind teaching little girls that beauty is on the inside while indulging them in rituals that completely contradict this message.  One mother actually gave her five year old a facial -  some sort of mud pack. Very soothing I’m sure but at 5, little girls already have perfect skin. I wonder if this sends a negative message to young girls that they aren’t perfect if they don’t spend hundreds of dollars on beauty products and treatments. No wonder teens are asking for breast implants and other dangerous cosmetic operations.
• It’s abusive tell your little girl she sucks or that she should work harder if she lost. She’s five! One father kept telling his daughter she sucked. I think this was his attempt to keep her grounded and it was an inside joke between him and her, but this emotionally stunted man didn’t know when to put the joke away. Right after the little girl’s performance she asked her Daddy how she did and he replied “you suck”. She didn’t laugh. It just felt sad. Another Mother leaned over to her daughter who had won 3rd prize and said that she lost because she just didn’t work hard enough this time. The girl was only 8 or 9. I wanted to cry for her. It is so easy to break a child’s spirit and some of the things these parents do border on child abuse. It’s not bad enough that they see their children as a means to future fortune, telling toddlers that they are destined to grow up to be “stars” (Do they have any clue how difficult and competitive the entertainment industry is?)
• Mom, your child doesn’t want to do this. It’s your dream, not hers.

I’ve noticed lately on TV, and have remarked to a few of my friends that there is a 1950′s style shift to the right going on in the U.S.  The TLC network, which is the acronym for “The Learning Channel” appears to be turning into a propaganda network with a goal of promoting an excessive capitalist lifestyle. When the channel was founded in 1972, the focus was on learning. This is what Wikipedia says about their early days.

The Learning Channel: “a place for learning minds”
The channel was founded in 1972 and was originally dedicated to be an informative/instructional network focused on providing real education through the medium of TV. At one point it was known as Appalachian Community Service Network. In November 1980 the channel became known as “The Learning Channel”, subsequently shortened to “TLC.”[2] The channel mostly featured documentary content pertaining to nature, science, history, current events, medicine, technology, cooking, home improvement and other information-based topics (only the home improvement content now remains).

Today there are very few shows on this network that facilitate learning. A quick look at their 2010 show lineup. If this network teaches anything, it is that you should be woefully unhappy if you can’t afford a lavish wedding, or if you aren’t dressed in the latest, expensive clothing, or if your home isn’t stylish enough. Besides the pageant shows (King of the Crown, Toddlers & Tiaras and Miss America Pageant). It has two shows about tattoo parlours; LA Ink and Miami Ink (are they encouraging people to risk hepatitis just to look “cool”?). At least three shows about extra large Christian families. (Table for 12, The Duggar family with 19 Kids and Counting and the Kate Plus 8; formerly Jon & Kate Plus Eight). There are several shows which attempt to tell us that we can slather on creams, buy the right bra, scrape off layers of perfectly good skin and wear the right make-up to look younger (10 Years Younger, Making Over America with Trinny & Susannah), another handful of shows that encourage women to spend, spend, spend to get that dream wedding; Masters of Reception, Wedded to Perfection, Say Yes to the Dress and Four Weddings. (Oddly, I have never once dreamed about a wedding. Mine was at City Hall and I liked it.). And then there is a host of shows that exploit the challenges of people who are mentally ill, morbidly obese or too small ; Addicted, One big happy family, Hoarding: Buried Alive, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant and Little People, Big World.

While Toddlers & Tiaras may have been the show that caused me to write in my blog, there are so many shows on this network that have little to do with learning and everything to do with sending a message of propaganda – especially to women but also to a wider audience. Nobody is happy unless they have the best house, the finest wedding, the cutest child. And when you are done looking at things you can’t afford, don’t worry – these addicted and mentally ill people should make you feel lucky for what you do have. Might as well shoot myself now because none of those things appeal to me. I think the best thing is to turn the channel to something else.

I’ve learned that most of the articles on the MSN site are mostly fluff but they always manage to catch your eye with a good headline. It is the National Enquirer of online magazines. Inevitably, you will click into the article and be completely disappointed by the content. This article for example was about advice to younger women. Great topic and it’s an important one if it had been handled well. It started out wonderfully with “you are at least 10 times prettier than you think you are” but went south from there. Unfortunately, I don’t think you need to reach the age of 52 to give such sage tidbits as “cut or potted flowers are never a waste of money“, or “wear sunscreen every day“. I would hope by middle age, women would have more important advice to offer. It smelled more like an advertisement for florists and sunscreen makers than any real advice.  One savvy young woman in the comments section was bright enough to post “cute to read, but not entirely the wisdom I was expecting to read from a 50 year old.” And rightly so. 50 years is a long time and the wisdom acquired in half a century ought to eclipse musings about potted plants.

I’m reaching the big 5-0 this year. I am surprisingly not bothered by it. I had an entirely different view of what 50 would be like and I’m happy to report, it’s okay. So far so good. Of course I am not officially 50 until November. Perhaps I will dissolve into a major emotional meltdown – but I doubt it.

I’d like to offer my top 10 life lessons to my younger sisters. I hope they are more useful than the advice MSN writer Patricia Volonakis had to offer. The thoughts I would impart with younger women is meant to help them get to the age of 50 – healthy and happy. If you look around at people of this age group, you will notice that 50 looks as young as 35, or as old as 65. How you live your life really matters, and the things you do today will show on your face, your body and affect your overall health in 30 years. And should you think you are too young to worry about these things, think again. Ask anyone who is 50 or older and they will tell you that they were 25 just yesterday. Time has a way of speeding past us, barely noticed.

My “Get to 50 healthy and happy” list For Young Women

1. People who love you don’t hit you or scar you emotionally with hurtful words. If you are in a relationship like this. Get out. Love doesn’t hurt.
2. Never diet. Eat right and be active but keep your money in your purse and don’t give a penny to the diet industry. Your body will thank you.
3. Be a skeptic. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Critical thinking gets sharper as you learn and before you know it, you’ll be able to spot a charlatan from miles away.
4. Exercise your brain. Be curious. These are not male traits. If you want to learn something new, never let anyone tell you that you are too small, too delicate, too blonde, too emotional or too female (insert female stereotype here______) to do it.
5. Remember always that there are industries who make billions of dollars making women feel insecure. You are beautiful just as you are. Learn to love yourself and don’t compare yourself to the people you see on TV. They are fake. If you fall prey to advertising, you will be nipped and tucked, your fat will be sucked out of one part of your body and injected into another. No man has ever made love to a woman while thinking that you would be better with slightly larger lips.
6. “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” This quote from John Steinbeck applies to everyone. You might want to be a doctor but you end up being a medical researcher. You may aspire to be a musician but you end up teaching music. When a door opens – go through it. Sometimes your original plans and opportunity don’t always match up. Don’t let it discourage you. Most lives are lived this way and often we experience happy surprises when we are willing to treat life as an adventure.
7. The choice to have children is extremely personal and difficult. Too often young women romanticize the role of being a mother. Children aren’t dolls. They are a major life change and having them too early will alter your opportunities. Some women are absolutely destined to be Mom’s and it is the happiest role of their lives. But some women feel trapped by the responsibilities and challenges. I have heard this phrase too often “I love my children but if I could live my life backwards, I would not have had any.” In a perfect world every child is a wanted child and every mother is prepared for what lays ahead. Don’t let anyone hurry you into this decision and if you decide it’s not for you – know that you are not alone.
8. Weddings are an over-rated and overly dramatized life event. Follow the trail of money for this hysteria. The wedding industry is huge and they survive by making young girls pine for something they don’t even understand. The big ring, the white dress, all that attention. Often called the “happiest day in a girl’s life” – a phrase that makes me want to gak. Frankly, I’d rather keep the money and travel through Europe for a year. Imagine the memories you would have if you passed on this pointless tradition and actually did travel? This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t want a wedding complete with all trimmings but don’t feel at odds with the world if you don’t get it. I didn’t.
9. Enjoy your family now. When I was young, I just assumed that my family would always be there. Now that I am turning 50 I have lost my Grandmother, both my in-laws and my Aunt is ill with Alzheimer’s. I miss them all terribly and there are moments when I think I could have made more of an effort to spend time with them.
10. Don’t let your busy life rob you of your friends. We are all busy. You can only say no to your friends “x” amount of times before that phone stops ringing. Sure you will get busy with your job, your marriage, your children and your family responsibilities but when you get to be 50 and the children have left the nest and your parents have died, who can you turn to but your friends? 50 is an awfully lonely number if you alienated all of them. The saying you can’t go back there is true. You can’t telephone a friend after 25 years and pick up where you left off.  It’s not hard to keep friends in your life. Even getting together once or twice a year is manageable for most people. Remember their birthdays, keep updated on Facebook or email. Don’t lose these people, you will need them later.

While writing this list I realize that there is so much more that should be imparted to younger women. There is very little discussion in our society between generations and that’s a shame. I wonder how much time and effort I could have saved if someone gave me advice when I was young? I guess the main thing that I would want to impart to a young woman is that so many people reach 50 and find themselves stuck in a rut and dreadfully unhappy. I am lucky to not be one of them. I am married to a man who is still my best friend. I am healthy and don’t have any medical issues yet. I am full of energy and enjoy many of the same things I did when I was younger.

When I was about 35, my Mother had a friend who was about 52 years old. This woman had a very high stress life. She smoked and she drank, a lot. There was always some trauma in her home. I noticed that my Mother who was actually a little older than her friend was energetic and happy while the friend was in such poor shape that she couldn’t walk to the corner store. I vowed to be a happy and healthy 50 year old and this year I will reach that age.

You make choices when you are younger that changes your future in dramatic ways. We all know that smoking and drinking will ruin your health. But worse than that is stress. Stress can bring even the strongest person down. It’s a killer. I have spent a lifetime trying to avoid stress and I think it is the biggest factor in my health today. Enjoy your life and don’t take yourself too seriously.

I was reading the paper this morning when I came across an article about the former bassist of the band “Hole”. If your memory is fading and you need a reminder – Hole is the band which is led by famous for almost nothing, screeching, note dropping, walking disaster, panty forgetting, herpes sore sportin’  Courtney Love. Hole. (Say it with a drole, uppity tone as if being introduced by a butler) Hole is here to see you Madam.

Anyhow, the article was interesting enough. I was surprised to hear that Melissa Auf der Maur was from Montreal. I would have thought given her upper class upbringing that the bar for musical ability would have been higher, but I digress.

Ms. Hole… er, I mean Der Maur is putting out a new album it seems and apparently that warrants a full page in Toronto’s biggest newspaper; in the Arts & Entertainment section no less. Here’s the quote that set me off this morning; “At 38, Melissa Auf der Maur is leading an enviable life. Not only is she beautiful, she is a prominent musician, a former bassist with Courtney Love’s band Hole…”

A prominent musician? Aw, comon!

Now to be fair, the author Jennifer Hunter is not a music or entertainment writer. I Google’d her bio and it appears that she has spent most of her time covering political and international stories. Still, she is a woman of words. Words are her business. She should be aware that “musician” is not the same as “entertainer“. Hole, and everyone in that band could not be mistaken for musicians. If any of them showed up for an audition for a night club act, they’d be promptly dismissed. Thank-you, we’ll call you if we are interested! (don’t wait by the phone)

If it seems that music in this millennium has hit an all time low with an endless stream of performers who look good on camera but can’t tell you where middle C is on a piano, perhaps it’s because even our biggest media outlets can’t discern the difference between an entertainer and a musician. Forget about setting the bar high enough – they’ve just kicked the bar out of the way. When the Toronto Star can write a full page article in the Entertainment section about Justin Bieber, Miley Cirus or Taylor Swift and neglect to be honest about the actual abilities of these insanely popular performers, it feels like there is a deliberate cover-up. Are we dealing with another payola situation like in the 1950′s where the record company pays to have their performers talked about and played on the radio? I’m not picking on these performers specifically. They are just the flavour of the week and a new crop of barely musical but awfully cute youngsters will take their place in another year or two. But, let’s be honest about who and what they are. They are not musicians. Perhaps someday they will be. But today, and until they can find that middle C, and be able to understand and play Mezzo forte or Dolce or have a working knowledge of important musical modes such as pentatonic, dorian or mixolydian, these people are just performers. Rich, over-rated, lucky and terribly premature performers. They are not musicians.

And it isn’t just the newspapers who are awarding unearned accolades to performers who couldn’t carry the shoes for the likes of Ray Charles or Dwayne Allman, it’s the entire industry who seem to be involved in a conspiracy to dumb down the masses. The Grammys routinely put the likes of Taylor Swift on the same stage as Aretha Franklin and if dear Aretha looks annoyed, perhaps it’s because she can’t get her records played on today’s airwaves. And if that isn’t putting a burr in her saddle, then maybe it’s trying to stay on pitch when cute little Taylor is singing a half-tone off right beside her.

In Canada and the U.S., there has always been an attitude that older performers should make way for the up and coming, younger musicians. Music is not like playing soccer. Age doesn’t diminish the talent or abilities of a musician. It takes years to really know music. You can study it your entire life and still feel like you are just scratching the surface. Take Sting for example. As a member of 80′s band “The Police” he began with catchy but fairly rudimentary reggae and pop fused songs. As time progressed, so did his talent and abilities. He moved into a more adult contemporary genre with elements of jazz with 10 Summoner’s Tales. Now he’s reached far back into  history and his own heritage to put out an album of English ballads from the 16th century. My point is that as he grew older, he was driven to learn more and more about music and it has taken him down a variety of paths. It may not be for every palate, but music isn’t about being a trained monkey, it’s about raising the bar with every new album. Music can become a competition against yourself to get better and learn more. In other words, you are never to old. If our society would raise that bar and embrace excellence, who can say what masterpieces would emerge. But if we continue to award entertainers, lip syncing dancers and pimple-faced teens while ignoring real musicians, we will continue to get assaulted with the likes of Ke$ha and Ashlee Simpson. Bands like Yes, or Rush, or Kansas or the Allman Brothers or Janis Joplin to name a few would not be signed by today’s record labels. They just aren’t pretty enough. Doesn’t it make you wonder what you are missing?

For the benefit of Star writer Jennifer Hunter, here are a couple of examples of bass playing. The first is her “musician” Melissa Auf der Maur. The second clip is of bassist Jeff Berlin who is famous in jazz circles. Forget the musical genre difference and just focus on the styles and technical abilities of these two people.

Melissa Auf Der Maur

Jeff Berlin