Shantaram

After literally months of stealing a few minutes here and there, I finally just finished reading the 936 page novel called Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. The book is already an international bestseller, and was recommended to me by my Australian friend Phil after I'd related to him my joy at reading Suketu Mehta's Maximum City. While the latter is a non-fiction account of life in Mumbai (Bombay), Shantaram is a novelization of the true life story of Roberts, a New Zealander heroin addict serving prison time for armed robbery, who escapes from prison to Mumbai, where various circumstances compel him to become a slum doctor, a mafia soldier, a counterfeiter and a gun runner to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

It's a very large story, replete with intricate, fascinating detail about multilayered life in Mumbai. But, at its core, it's a study of the nature of love and freedom, in the sense of those words that Plato would have most enjoyed. Before his downfall, Roberts had been on an academic path to become a professor of philosophy. His study of violence and meaning, intertwined with the poetry of pain, both psychic and physical, is in many ways a masterpiece of meditation.

The book is rife with laughable purple prose at times, such as this description of a sex scene: "My body was her chariot, and she rode me into the sun." But more common are somewhat profound studies on the essence of free will, like the book's powerful opening:

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when its all you have got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving,can become the story of your life."

If you're interested in an honest and intimate portrayal of the Indian ethic, and/or a unique perspective on the motivations and fragilities of masculinity, I recommend the book to you. You'll be inundated with talk of it soon enough, though, since Johnny Depp and Amitabh Bachchan are making the motion picture version pretty damn soon... unless, of course, rumours that the film has been shelved are to be believed.

During my traditional post-read research, I came across some interesting lectures and interviews by Gregory David Roberts. First is a five part interview with the dizty Indian hostess, "Sexy Pooja". Part 1 is here. Here is part 2:



And here are links to parts 3, 4 and 5. They're sort of worth it just to see a white dude speak streety Hindi and Marathi.

The next three videos (parts 1, 2 and 3) are of Roberts giving a lecture to some social group. He tells a good story or two.









For those who've read the book, I think you'll really enjoy this four part interview with Roberts on CNN Asia, in which he takes us on a tour of the slums in which his book was set:

part 1




part 2



part 3




part 4




In Other News

My review of James Cameron's new science fiction movie Avatar is now up at Skiffy.ca. Go have a look.

And because I'm sick in bed and sort of bored, here's a great photo I found on the Interwebs. Is this not the definition of elegant?

"Weekly" Twitter Tweets

Weekly Twitter tweets from deonandan, since:2009-12-10





:Twitter haiku 227 - "Downsides of Christmas / Fat man breaking into house / Reindeer shit on roof"
Dec 26, 2009 12:52 AM GMT


:Twitter haiku 226 - "Garden of Eden / Built December twenty four / First chick: Christmas Eve"
Dec 24, 2009 04:55 PM GMT


:Twitter haiku 225 - "A supermodel / Has turned necrophiliac / Victims: lucky stiffs"
Dec 22, 2009 08:39 PM GMT


Abercrombie & Fitch: the whitest place on Earth.
Dec 22, 2009 07:13 PM GMT


One benefit to having a cold: built-in excuse to drink brandy.
Dec 21, 2009 09:22 PM GMT


:Twitter haiku 224 - "Keen on good grammar / Santa's elf got new title / 'Subordinate Clause'"
Dec 21, 2009 03:59 AM GMT


Almost bought a real life medical reference book until I realized, "hey, this is why God and Al Gore invented the internet!"
Dec 20, 2009 07:23 PM GMT


Had long talk with Sudanese cab driver about battle of Khartoum, Gordon-pasha, the Mahdi and Lord Kitchener. Erudition lives... in cabbies.
19 December at 17:23


I am a banana!
19 December at 11:19


Am proctoring my 4th year exam right now and Facebooking at the same time. Ah what glorious times we live in.
19 December at 09:34


:Twitter haiku 223 - "Christmas in da 'hood / Santa frontin' like a pimp / Chanting, 'Ho, ho, ho!'"
19 December at 00:06


:Twitter haiku 223 - "Homeless hedonists / Wand'ring explorers of flesh / Hobosexuals?"
15 December at 17:54


Drunken massages are overrated if you're too numb to enjoy it... Unless it's the masseuse who's drunk!
14 December at 18:35


Am drunk at Nordik spa in Quebec, awaiting my overpriced massage. Ahhh, hedonism.
14 December at 16:49


:Twitter haiku 222 - "Once told a girlfriend / I was multi-orgasmic / She said, 'Come again?'"
12 December at 18:30


Overdosing on TED lectures.
12 December at 16:05


A morning of weak coffee, strong eggs, no email, and the Temper Trap on a loop. Yet the tweets keep coming.
12 December at 10:11

A Christmas Video

Earlier this month, I commented negatively about the growing intimacy between the UFC and the US military.

I'm pleased now to forward a tweet redirected by UFC commentator and stand-up comedian Joe Rogan. Here's the video, which I believe is quite relevant for today:




Merry Xmas.

India or China?

During the first session of every class that I teach at the University of Ottawa, I relate to my students some of my observations from giving a lecture at Jawarlahal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, back in 2007. Essentially, I tell them about how the students at JNU take their education much more seriously than do students in Canadian universities, about how they don't complain about extra work or the difficulty of classes, but rather appreciate the increasing competitiveness of a globalised economy and therefore the importance of every small iota of knowledge or skills that an educator can provide. This experience is contrasted with some of the complaints I get from some Canadian students, who moan about "too much math" or having to do --gasp!-- written assignments or, Zod forbid, write two exams on the same day.

I tell them this in order to bring home the truth, as I see it, that the West is losing the education war, and that we North Americans need to work very hard indeed to match the work ethic of our Asian competitors. After all, I want my students to be as competitive as their Asian brethren, and to be able to work, produce and excel at a global pace.

This sentiment is touched on briefly in Hans Rosling's famous TEDIndia lecture, in which he states that in his experience students in India study much harder than do students in the West.

I observed a similar trend during my tour of India's major cities in 2007, where I noticed that every young person with whom I interacted seemed willing and able to sacrifice and to endure great hardship to do his part to push himself, his family and his country to the world's economic forefront. I've seem similar work ethics in other parts of the world --China, Indonesia and Thailand come to mind-- but never with the same weird mixture of optimism and desperation.

It's almost a truism now that a handful of formerly impoverished nations are poised to be the superpowers of the next century. The so-called BRIC nations --Brazil, Russia, India and China-- have the world's fastest growing economies, and are posting expansive economic stats, even during a global recession. Two in particular --India and China-- are seen as the great emerging powers of the world. Indeed, it should be noted that in the history of human civilization, the two strongest economies on Earth have always been India's and China's, with the exception of the colonial period of the past 200-300 years.

Currently, most US and Canadian foreign policy, with respect to these nations, has focused on China being the likely rival to the USA's throne of hegemonic dominance. This is reasonable given the overlap between American and Chinese military interests (security of the Formosa Strait and arms deals in Sudan among them), and also because of the current dominance of Chinese products in US markets. Chinese GDP is 7-8 times that of India's, her per capita GDP six times greater, and her inflation substantially lower. China's infrastructure, her road quality, civic amenities and electrical grid, for example, are comparable to those of Europe or North America, making for relatively efficient goods production and transportation. And Chinese military power is well proven and disciplined, making China the great regional superpower of Asia.

In the comparison of Chinese and Indian economies, a practice increasingly popular in the parlour rooms of academics, China seems to win according to every traditional metric. But there are qualities that hint at a dramatic shift in coming decades. I would like to respectfully suggest that it will be India, not China, that will take the world's economy and culture by the collars and shake it till the human race takes note. Assuming that a global economy still exists, and assuming that Climate Change or some other apocalyptic event hasn't ravaged humanity back to the Stone Age, I predict that the close of the 21st century will see India as the world's leading nation.

Here are my reasons:

The demographic dividend. China has an age profile comparable to that of Western nations, specifically Canada. In other words, the Chinese are old. As a result, they are heading for the same economic precipice as is the West: in 10-30 years, the number of workers will be fewer than the number of retirees. This is a considerable economic strain. India, on the other hand, is a very young nation. The bulk of its population is just entering the work force.

English. There's a reason one of the more dynamic industries in China is English language training. They recognize that English is the current global lingua franca and the language of commerce. This will not be changing anytime soon, due to centuries of British then American global dominance. As a result of their colonial past, the elite and mercantile classes of India are already either functional or fluent in English, affording them immediate linguistic entry into the global market. It is not unusual or difficult to find fluent speakers of French, German, Portugese, Russian or any number of important world languages on the streets of India; the same cannot be said of China.

British law. Another dividend of post-colonialism is the inheritance of a relatively functional, reliable and more-or-less fair judicial system, at least to the extent that it needs to be for business purposes. China's legal system is functional, as well, but individual rulings at the local level are theoretically subject to the whims of the central ruling party. This is relevant to business because trans-border contracts need to have legal heft. An agreement with an Indian firm is guaranteed by the Indian legal system; there is recourse, at least in theory and more-or-less in practice, should a contract go awry.

Politically engaged diaspora. Both nations enjoy large global diasporas which have sought and received commercial success. But the Indian diaspora has gone further by achieving political success. Canada, the USA, the UK, the Caribbean, Africa and beyond... all are seeing elected officials of Indian extraction who, while serving the needs of their electorate, nonetheless maintain a connection to the Motherland. This is serving to accelerate commercial, philosophical, cultural and political connections between India and the world.

Energy profile. Both growing economies are emerging energy hogs. However, China's model is a factory-based industrial one, depending on coal-fired plants to churn out cheap consumer goods that flood Western markets. India does some of the same, but is known more for its virtual products and human resources --information technology, call centres, medical tourism, etc-- all of which have fewer industrial energy demands than does strict manufacturing. The result is that as energy production becomes increasingly prohibitively expensive, the Indian model for wealth generation will become more labile and efficient than the Chinese model. This may be the difference in sustaining Indian growth when the energy crunch really hits hard.

Democracy. It's somewhat propagandistic to suggest, as the West did during the entirety of the Cold War, that democracy is a prerequisite for national wealth; Singapore proved that assertion to be false. However, history suggests that democracy remains the best political system under which to build a thriving, stable economy. India's functional democracy, unlike China's one-party ruling system, is arguably more robust against major perturbations. A revolution, the argument goes, leading to a vitiation of trade deals and dramatic shifts in economic philosophies, is less likely under India's system than under China's.

Soft power. Whereas hard power is military brute force and money spent by one nation to affect the behaviour of another, soft power is that exercised to encourage others to become acclimatized and sympathetic --almost desirous-- of one's lifestyle and perspective. There is official, government-funded soft power and unofficial, cultural soft power that flows naturally from a nation's character and enterprises. Both India and China have pursued the former, by sponsoring cultural exchanges and by investing in development projects and other goodwill gestures abroad. China, perhaps, has been more acutely involved in this activity, especially in regions of specific geopolitical interest, like energy-rich portions of Africa. However, the unofficial kind of soft power is arguably what is more pertinent to assuring a nation's supremacy atop an increasingly monolithic world economic culture. After all, what has done more to promote US interests abroad, America's vaunted military supremacy or Coca Cola, Hollywood and Britney Spears?

Chinese cultural soft power has flowed slowly but consistently over the years, bringing kung fu, acupuncture and Chinese cuisine to all parts of the globe. But in recent years we've seen the explosion of Indian soft power. The ancient art of yoga is now, ironically, a fast growing multimillion dollar global industry. With it has come Indian styles of meditation and Ayurvedic medicine, all the rage in trendier parts of the West. India is now the centre of the English-language book publishing world, surpassing both the USA and UK in this category, and regularly producing Booker and Pullitzer Prize-winners from her sprawling diaspora.

An increasing global acceptance of vegetarianism as a lifestyle, championed by celebrities and medical authorities alike, is being fueled both by rising food prices and by realizations that meat production is not an environmentally sustainable practice at current global levels. With the increased popularity of vegetarianism has come a gravitation toward the world's most recognizable vegetarian culture in India. This, too, is a kind of soft power.

Bollywood is, of course, the dreadnought of Indian cultural soft power. Bollywood images of beauty, athleticism, wealth, talent and vivacity are replacing extant world views of Indians as mystics, fakirs and impoverished indigents. The Oscar win of Slumdog Millionaire has permanently cemented the Bollywood ethic into the global mainstream, and with it a growing comfort with doing business with Indians, in all the ways that that phrase suggests. To paraphrase Shashi Tharoor, in today's world it's not the country with the biggest guns that wins, but the country who tells the better story; and India is quite adept at telling stories.

The import of cultural soft power is being seen in the rise of Indian educational centres; a few of whom, such as the Indian Institute of Technology, are rivaling the top schools of the USA in quality and name recognition, and are attracting foreign students in increasing numbers. China has some excellent schools, as well, but the global branding of Indian schools is allowing their graduates to leverage those brands in trans-national commerce, by force of name recognition alone, a feat that was once the sole domain of top US and UK colleges.

Both India and China suffer from that great worrisome blight of the Global South: the gaping chasm between rich and poor, both within city centres and between rural and urban poles. In the Chinese case, this has been managed centrally, by establishing specific zones of economic activity. But within those zones, tragedy abounds in the form of child workers and conditions rumoured to be occasionally medieval in their brutality.

In India, the oceans of working poor underwrite the middle class's rapid accumulation of wealth. In the streets of Mumbai, street-side sellers, sweepers and construction workers sleep in the streets or in temporary slums so that the important work of erecting skyscrapers and servicing the business class will not be slowed by the inconvenience of worker health or happiness. Neither the Chinese or Indian case is a sustainable model for labour rights or popular stability.

Both nations must solve their worker rights issues before economic stability is achieved. Frankly, the nation who can do so first may, quite literally, inherit the world.

Leaving The Right

A "right wing" friend recently asked if I was still "left wing". I was a bit taken aback by this, since I don't consider myself one political stripe or another. I believe in smaller government, socialized medicine, low taxes, corporate regulation, environmental responsibility, the right to (ethically) become wealthy, strict market oversight, no foreign military adventures except for humanitarian purposes, gun control but the right to arm oneself, secularism, extreme personal freedoms, etc. What does this make me? I have no idea.

But in the quest to figure this out, I found Andrew Sullivan's now famous blog post about why he will no longer call himself a right wing American conservative. Here are his reasons:

"I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations."

Christmas Funnies

These have been making the rounds.

Recent Facebook Profile Pics

The UFC and the US Armed Forces: Strange Bedfellows Indeed

Dana White, President of UFC

I was living in Washington, DC, in the eras of 9/11, the start of both recent US wars on/of terror, the Beltway sniper and the now fabled anthrax attacks. One day my friend Andrew J. and I went to see a movie. At the start of the movie was the now common US Marines recruiting ad. I looked over to Andrew and saw that he was visibly saddened.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"They've won," he said. I asked him to explain and he said, "There was a time when the military recruiting ads would come on and everyone would boo because we all saw through it. Now we all sit in silence." And indeed, some seemed to sit in not only silence, but in reverence. "They've won."

Fast forward to present day. In the past couple of weeks, I've watched a lot of UFC. I love the sport of MMA and I love the way that UFC has helped the sport to grow. I've blogged about it here, here, here and even here. In this post, I wrote:

"I've argued many times that MMA is a civilized sport, that it exalts in the purity of the human spirit and strives to make a man confront his true self. The battle is, in many ways, irrelevant to the character-building journey that minimal-rule fighting represents."

A weird thing has begun to happen in the last few months, particularly in the last few weeks --or maybe I've been to blind to notice it before: the ever-growing intimate relationship between MMA --the UFC, in particular-- and the US military. This relationship, sadly, may somewhat invalidate my quote above.

At least one entire UFC pay-per-view (PPV) event was completely sponsored by the US military and was put on specifically for US military personnel. At last month's finale of The Ultimate Fighter, UFC's reality show, it was announced that one of the competitors was leaving for Afghanistan in a few days. The fight commentator, Mike Goldberg, was almost in tears, emoting on how this young man was fighting in the octagon, but would soon be abroad "to fight for our freedoms".

At UFC 107, which I finished watching last night, it was announced in the ring that one of the fights (that between Kenny Florian and Clay Guida) was being "brought to us" by the US Marine Corps. Both fighters then gave the corps a standing ovation, and the camera panned to shaven-head men in uniform in the audience, whooping it up.

In the past, UFC has sent its fighters to tour US soldiers in the field, such as Rampage Jackson's trip to Camp Pendleton. The relationship between UFC and the US military is an increasingly intimate one.

Well, what's the big deal? Ordinarily there wouldn't be one. In my world, any legal entity is allowed to sponsor any legal event and reap the rewards of sponsorship. And it's certainly any citizen's right to express his patriotism in any legal way he sees as appropriate. I may not like the recruitment methods of the US military, and I certainly don't like the way in which armed men have begun to be revered in some parts of society; but I do not deny the military's right to sponsor events and the UFC's right to accept such sponsorship. And, as I'm sure has occurred to many, there is a certain congruence in two brands of violence finding love in one another's tattooed arms.

Admittedly, it makes me uncomfortable that an erstwhile global brand like the UFC is visibly tying its philosophies, fortunes and values to the political dynamic of a single nation, the USA. I wonder what that says of the company's attitude toward fighters from nations not sharing American geopolitical ideologies. The company's newsworthy inability (or unwillingness) to sign Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, considered by many to be the pound-for-pound greatest living fighter in the world, might be indicative of an inability to fit competitors from non-NATO nations into their conceptual dynamic. Even so, if UFC wishes to tie its fortunes thusly, as did many professional wrestling companies, I suppose it is their right to do so, however unattractive to me their brand becomes.

But let me be absolutely clear and say that this post is not about bashing the military. Not at all. In other posts, I will gleefully offer my criticisms of US (and increasingly Canadian) military fetishism, and of the thinning line between soldierdom and policymaking, and of immoral and politically inappropriate use by government of the instruments of war and security. But no one should take any of this as criticism of the individuals who serve in the military. All of my interactions with members of the latter have always been pleasant and cordial.

Rather, the big deal, for me, arose when I received a Twitter tweet from UFC President Dana White, acting, not as a private citizen, but as the President of the UFC. The tweet was this:

danawhite http://www.tinyurl.com/yd22h4b Read the story then you decide. They have my support. I hope they have you too.

Click on the link he forwarded. It's a Facebook page asking for political, emotional and financial support for "two elite Navy Seals" who are facing courtmartial for allegedly abusing an Iraqi detainee in their custody. According to the page, the charges are of "impeding the investigation and dereliction of duty in failing to safeguard a detainee."

I don't know the facts surrounding the incident beyond those reported in the Facebook page. The page itself exists to garner public, and therefore political, support for a sociopolitical perspective, specifically that the rights of the detainee are less important than the need to honour the Navy Seals in question. To quote the page:

"The proceedings against these heroes are an outrage to all the brave Americans serving in uniform to defend this country, especially those deployed in harm's way."

Their rationale is that prosecution of alleged abusers plays into the master plan of "terrorists" to diminish soliders' morale. This is followed by:

"The supposed victim, Ahmed Hashim Abed, was the mastermind behind killing, burning and mutilating four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004. His followers hung the desiccated corpses high on a box-girder bridge over the Euphrates River. Mr. Abed was run down by the SEALs on a covert mission in September 2009."

I hope it's clear to anyone reading this that the charges against a detainee (who has yet to face trial, by the way) has no bearing on whether or not his custodians are allowed to strike him. This is the nature of accepting the responsibility of custody. This is how it works in every legal system in the Western world. And as an aside, my congratulations to the US military for convening such a courtmartial; it goes a long way to reclaiming their image as a law-abiding agency worthy of international respect.

So what makes me uncomfortable about this whole thing? It's the fact that UFC President Dana White, in his capacity as President of a corporation, is sharing this website address to UFC fans and adding the qualifier, "They have my support. I hope they have you too. [sic]"

It's one thing to accept sponsorship from an arm of the government, on behalf of your company, and to further state your support for the policies and practices of that governmental arm. (After all, that's what allowing the military to embed itself so closely within your commercial activities means: that you associate yourself with that agency's policies, practices and philosophies.) It's quite another thing to brazenly advocate for the preferential slackening of criminal law on select transgressors where such slackening coincides with the larger agenda of your sponsor.

In other words, Dana White, private citizen, can do whatever the heck he wants. Dana White, corporate head of UFC, has no business encouraging UFC fans/customers to advocate for the vitiating of selected criminal proceedings.... That is, unless that it is indeed the will of UFC, Inc.

I wonder what the UFC Board of Directors has to say about this? And if indeed it is official corporate policy to take a side in this particular matter, then UFC needs to spell this out clearly. And, of course, they will have lost me as a fan, and perhaps many more like me.

I'm surprised that no one else has been commenting on the growing intimacy between the UFC (the fastest growing brand in sports) and the US military. A Google search brought me just two hits: this peace activist has a more angry stance than me; and this exchange on a fight forum has already been deleted, only accessible, it seems, through Google cache.

Many people reading this will respond with several predictable tropes. As in the cached exchange, some will reply with, "From the entire U.S. army, Go **** yourself." Others will say, "Well what did you expect, that's their demographic."

The former is par for the course. The latter is simply saddening. What I "expect" is irrelevant. What is important here is what we choose to tolerate. How comfortable are we as a society with our corporate leaders using their corporate heft to influence consumers to not only accede to certain political philosophies (nothing new there) but now to overtly advocate for the vitiation of criminal proceedings in favour of the abuse of an individual?

Strange --and critical-- times indeed.

More Student Evaluations

I've been catching up on archiving old documents today. Finally got around to scanning my student evaluations from 2007. (You'll recall that I already posted my favourite evaluations from last year.)

My ego needed some stroking today, so here are my favourite evaluations from 2007. To those who wrote them: I don't need/want to know if you were being sarcastic; I appreciate them as is!







Okay, done. My ego feels back to its old self again :)

Oh and this was my second most favourite one from my first year class last year:

"Weekly" Twitter Tweets

Weekly Twitter tweets from deonandan, since:2009-11-23




:Twitter haiku 221 - "Young Richard Simmons / Mastered chess, checkers and bridge / Outrageous game man"
Dec 10, 2009 02:09 PM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



You know it's cold when I have to wear pants at home.
Dec 10, 2009 09:32 AM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



Re-watching my favourite Peter Davison Dr Who episode: "Earthshock"
Dec 9, 2009 11:05 PM GMT · from API · Reply · View Tweet



Snow sucks.
Dec 9, 2009 02:57 PM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



Watching "The Caves of Androzani", supposedly the best Dr Who episode ever.
Dec 8, 2009 03:14 AM GMT · from API · Reply · View Tweet



Reliving the Peter Davidson (5th Doctor Who) years.
Dec 6, 2009 07:20 PM GMT · from API · Reply · View Tweet



Sunday morning with no hangover. Hmm, I can get used to this.
Dec 6, 2009 02:42 PM GMT · from API · Reply · View Tweet



A long night spent as the designated driver to a carload of very sexy women = a night well spent indeed
Dec 6, 2009 08:21 AM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



The interwebs are slow and tangled tonight.
Dec 5, 2009 06:55 AM GMT · from API · Reply · View Tweet



At the Cdn Latin American Wine Society boozefest. Let the booze flow!
Dec 5, 2009 12:19 AM GMT · from API · Reply · View Tweet



My latest blog post, this time on the Munk debate: http://bit.ly/6jdoR1
Dec 4, 2009 09:53 PM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



:Twitter haiku 220 - "Famous golfer with / Wandering club 'pon the green / Tiger's wood is champ"
Dec 4, 2009 08:15 PM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



All nighter, double espresso and a pound of bacon. I'm the picture of health.
Dec 3, 2009 04:50 PM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



:Twitter haiku 219 - "Lo, North Africa / Filled with bald men with long beards / Need not see berber"
Dec 3, 2009 09:01 AM GMT · from dabr · Reply · View Tweet



Watching the Munk Debates. Now I remember why I dislike Bjorn Lomborg.
01 December at 20:18



:Twitter haiku 218 - "Weak accountant tried / To unstick computer key / But couldn't budget"
01 December at 11:40



:Twitter haiku 217 - "Fussy mint robbers / Wanted coins but no pennies / Such a cents-less crime"
30 November at 03:02



Am on Via train 46 from Toronto to Ottawa. You know the drill. Anyone else here?
29 November at 15:32



On via train 461 to Toronto. Anyone else here?
28 November at 06:42



Drinking excellent Scotch at Guyanese High Commissioner's residence... Must...stay...sober.
27 November at 18:52



Cousin Ajay wants any of you who have an Android phone to try his app: http://bit.ly/7bPSDO
27 November at 16:47



OMG the Superman/Batman direct-to-dvd movie is already out AND NOBODY TOLD ME!
26 November at 21:34



Just got the H1N1 vaccination. Jeez, I went through fewer checks and forms to get my mortgage!
26 November at 11:36



:Twitter haiku 216 - "Shrink cum coroner / Dissects teens dead from head bumps / He opens young minds"
26 November at 07:55



I know everyone wants to know: yes, a gin spritzer managed to kill all the mushrooms invading my house plant.
25 November at 21:00



At university awards ceremony. Someone just won for "excellence in leisure studies." Yes, he looks quite relaxed.
25 November at 18:14



I've made up with Porter Air. Once again, a hassle-free and cost-free last minute flight change at the gate!
25 November at 11:33



:Twitter haiku 215 - "Mannequin fact'ry / Must close due to surplus limbs / Workers up in arms"
25 November at 09:57



:Twitter haiku 214 - "A crazy almond / Imprisoned among padlocks / But the nut bolted"
24 November at 14:05



Mayor David Miller just interrupted Anne McCarthy's presentation at the refugee health conference. Me not like.
24 November at 11:46



Lutefisk is not a rapper. Who knew?
24 November at 08:19



Attending refugee health conference today. If anyone else is here, say hello. http://bit.ly/5h429q
24 November at 07:03

Bits of Tid

Mysterious lights appear over Norway. Clearly, an alien space ship opened a hyperspace jump gate in the upper Earth atmosphere. Judge for yourself:



In unrelated news:



In even more unrelated news, a student who shall remain unnamed has honured me (I hope it was an honour) by naming her pet mouse somewhat after me. Introducing.... "Rayrat":



Apparently, Rayrat lives in a cage with three lovely lady mice. It's important to me that my namesake is, as the kids say, gettin' some.

Lastly, D-Mack sends us the Top 10 Science Fiction Disappointments of the decade. The article is retarded. Yeah, I said it.


Today's Real Topic

Now, in today's serious bit of news, I just came from the press conference for the unveiling of my artist friend Jenn Farr's newest project, a very important depiction of the cell in which Canada's recent "extraordinary extradition" victims were kept and tortured while being held in Syria. The endeavour is spearheaded by Kerry Pither, author of Dark Days.

It's one thing to read about modern torture and to have polite, fashionable discussions of it at cocktail parties and on the Internet. It's another to physically experience the actual conditions. If you can get a chance, visit the installation. Here are a couple of quick pics snapped on my Treo:




The installation is called "El Abbar", which means "the grave", and is a precise recreation of the cell in which several Muslim Canadians were held and tortured by Syria, with collaboration (as concluded by the Iacobucci Inquiry) by Canadian agencies. Those held include Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and, of course, Maher Arar.

The cell is tiny and dank. The walls are thin enough to overhear the torture of those held in adjacent cells. Sometimes so many would be stuffed into a single cell that they would take turns sleeping. I'm told that cats would pee on the prisoners from the grate above, and of course the odours of filth and decay were ubiquitous. One of the artist's intents was to re-create the smell of the place, as well, but that was eventually not pursued.

It's ironic that the press conference for the unveiling of this object was coincident with one by Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter McKay, someone I would charge as complicit in the abuse of the men held in these cells.

I think it's important for all Canadians to recognize firstly the horror of these conditions, and the fact that innocent men were held there against their will and tortured repeatedly; and secondly the extent to which Canadian authorities were --and continue to be-- complicit in these ongoing abuses.

Munk'd

A few days ago I hunkered into a lecture hall at the University of Ottawa to watch the most recent Munk Debate, this time between the teams of Nigel Lawson & Bjorn Lomborg vs Elizabeth May & George Monbiot, streamed live from Toronto. Had I known the debates could be accessed from the web, I would have stayed home to watch it with several strong glasses of port. But no....

The topic: Be it resolved, Climate Change is Mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response.

Nigel Lawson came across as a fussy old fuddy-duddy, underinformed and full of ideological bluster.

Elizabeth May I've never really taken a liking to, given her screechy delivery and overly confrontational demeanour. However, she at least said the one thing that needed saying: that these four are the not the experts; the scientists are the experts. This lack of true expertise hindered further substantial debate, I think. She is a lawyer/politician. Lawson is a journalist/politician. Monbiot is a journalist. And Lomborg is a statisition cum self-promoter.

George Monbiot has been a favourite figure of mine for some time. What an eloquent, passionate and well informed speaker. His website's earlier incarnations were actually the model for the direction my own website eventually took, so I admit to having a slight bias for all things Monbiot. Having said that, even the great George came across as slightly unscientific, given his background as a journalist. His famous self-imposed travel ban, meant as a gesture to encourage minimal carbon footprints worldwide, was suspended for this special occasion, allowing him to physically be in Toronto. I always felt this self-restriction to be a bit precious, if you know what I mean.

Bjorn Lomborg, meanwhile, is no stranger to this blog. I have discussed him in the March 5, 2004 post, the Jan 14, 2005 post, the Aug 31, 2007 post, and the Oct 17, 2007 post. In short, I detest everything Bjorn Lomborg stands for. I will not mince words here. The man is insidious and, in my opinion, simply for sale. His landmark book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, was the Climate Change denier's bible for years, effectively used as ammunition to slow down change on the policy front.

In recent months/years, Lomborg has begun to rehab his reputation. He no longer denies that Climate Change exists, is a big deal or is human-caused. This is rather convenient, now that the book has made him insanely wealthy and positioned him as a preferred champion for the anti-Climate Change business sector. There is speculation, implied by May during the debates, that his position earns Lomborg a pretty penny. Instead, Lomborg's new mantra is that:

(a) there are more important things we can be focusing on; and
(b) since we don't seem to be making headway on Climate Change, why not apply these energies and monies to --I dunno-- eliminating poverty or disease?

On the face of it, this is not a bad position to have. Indeed, his position seems to have won over many in the audience. The debate statistics show that public response was thus:



In essence, more people changed their minds in favour of the Lomborg/Lawson position than in favour of the May/Monbiot position.

Apparently, Time Magazine once listed Lomborg as one of the most important 100 intellectuals in the world, according to his intro during the Munk Debate. This surprises me, given his brazen anti-intellectual behaviour during the debate itself. Lomborg's position, as I summarized above, is fundamentally untenable, and I'm afraid May and Monbiot did a poor job of explaining this to the audience. It comes down to this:

It doesn't matter that poverty and disease remain as plagues upon the world. Climate Change exacerbates those things, making them increasingly worse. And it doesn't matter that pro-environmental legislation slows down economic development. What is the point of creating wealthy nations if there's no food or water left to buy with your newly created wealth?

These were the basic aspects of environmental and health science poorly conveyed during the debate. I proudly commented afterward that I'm certain my undergrad students could have debated Lomborg into a corner, given how much I've tried to encourage them to think in terms of interrelated networks and systems.

Let's look at Lomborg's claim that we are better off tackling global health than Climate Change. The world needs to understand that many of the problems in global health are either as a direct result of Climate Change, or will be exacerabted beyond repair as a result of Climate Change. As Stephen Lewis once commented during a live address in Ottawa, "I fear we are looking at an Apocalyptic event."

When Monbiot (or was it May?) commented that Climate Change makes HIV/AIDS worse, Lomborg gave us his theatrical hands-in-the-air disbelief pose. "How is that even possible?" he demanded to know. Sadly, only Monbiot bothered to explain a mechanism, but only told part of the story. The incident, though, causes me to ask whether Lomborg is really so uninformed (causing me to wonder how Time would dare list him among the world's top intellectuals) or is he instead disingenuous. If the latter, then he is insidious and dangerous indeed.

Monbiot's mechanism was basic: Climate Change is causing droughts, which forces men off the land and into the company of prostitutes, hence spreading sexual disease, including HIV. In truth, it's more than this. Drought leads to poor nutrition, which prevents proper uptake of the anti-viral drugs that treat HIV (which need good nutrition to work properly). Environmental collapse causes economic collapse and produces more disease issues, further overwhelming healt care systems and prventing a society from addressing its HIV epidemic.

The ecology of much of the developing world, including sub-Saharan Africa, which has the greatest HIV burden in the world, is already operating at the margins. The crops there already subsist at the very edge of tolerance for temperature and humidity perturbations. With Climate Change comes more dramatic perturbations and thus a certainty of widespread famine in those regions.

No amount of structural adjustments, as Lomborg champions, will give such nations the economic might to overcome such famine, not when most of the region is similarly affected.

In short, unlike crises in the past, Climate Change represents humanitarian challenges that one cannot buy one' s way out of. Again, you can't buy water that does not exist. In response to Lomborg's assertion that human societies will develop adaptations, Monbiot powerfully retorted (and I paraphrase): in these parts of the world, the only adaptation is the AK-47.

There are many other mechanisms by which Climate Change exacerbates health, and thus wealth. Among them:

The changing of vector behaviour. Mosquitos and their like determine their ranges by temperature and humidity. As these factors change, the nature of related diseases will also change.

Water quality. Because rivers are changing paths and rainfalls are misscheduling, the predictability of the safety of drinking water is uncertain. Already, 2 million deaths a year, mostly among young children, are due to diarrhea, directly caused by unsafe water. WHO estimates that today 2.4% of diarrheal deaths are due to climate change. (WHO uses very conservative methods to reach these estimates.)

Changing agriculture. Agriculture is affected by temperature, precipitation and soil quality. According to a 2008 article in Science: southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize, by 2030. In South Asia losses of many regional staples, such as rice, millet and maize could top 10%.

Migration. There is a long established intersection between migration and health. The sudden stress of large numbers of people is ecologically bad. Environmental refugees must be fed, sheltered and cared for, and the world has a poor track record of caring for mass migrants. According to a 2007 article by Christian Aid: "The growing number of disasters and conflicts linked to future climate change will push the numbers far higher unless urgent action is taken. We estimate that between now and 2050 a total of 1 billion people will be displaced from their homes."

Insecurity. Ecological collapse can cause war. According to a 2007 report by The Pentagon:
Global warming constitutes a security threat to the USA, as there will be wars based on diminishing fresh water supplies, refugees, and higher rates of famine and disease.

Economic effects. Less money means less spent on health and poverty reduction. As an example, according to a 2008 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Coral bleaching can lead to collapse of the world’s fisheries in a matter of decades.

Air pollution. One US model predicts that by 2050, due to global warming, ozone-related
deaths will increased by 4.5% and there will be 60% more alert days.

Heat waves. According to WHO, heat deaths in California alone will double by 2010.

Natural disasters (floods and storms). According to WHO, flooding will affect 200 million people by 2080.

Here is an interesting little graphic showing deaths due to Climate Change in the year 2000, almost a decade ago. The truth today is much more daunting:



There are a lot more data and many more details. There is no dearth of studying on the topic. I don't know how anyone who's familiar with even a fraction of the data can conclude anything other than Climate Change is indeed the single most important crisis facing humanity now and in the next two centuries. More than the threat of nuclear war, and possibly on par with the threat of direct cometary impact, runaway greenhouse affect might very well drive civilization itself into the dust within our lifetimes.