The War on Terror

My cynicism sometimes gets me into a great deal of trouble with others. In the immediate hours following the September 11th attacks, I was very skeptical of George W. Bush's "guiding hand". I recognized that in a time of utterly unbelievable devastation, people need to look to their leaders for some sign that life will continue in a recognizable manner, or that someone will seek retribution on their behalf, but I doubted that this man, whom everyone ridiculed as a buffoon, was the right person to lead this campaign.

In the immediate days following, when the "War on Terror" entered everyday vocabulary, I silently wept for the world. The 1970's War on Poverty was a joke. The 1980's War on Drugs was badly prosecuted. And now the War on Terror was becoming a paranoic, slightly Autocratic exercise in rolling back rights around the world. And the worst part was that people were in such a hurry to approve of and assist in the War on Terror that some people got rundown without even a chance to save themselves.

I'm talking about Maher Arar, the Canadian Poster Boy for bad investigating done in a hurry. There are others, but Mr. Arar stands out because of the blatant actions of all the governments involved. Mr. Arar knew a guy who knew a guy who was suspected of cooperation with a terrorist group. I probably know a guy who knows a guy...but I don't know this because I don't run background checks on my six degrees of separation.

The RCMP were in such a hurry to prove that they were more relevant than everyone else in helping American counterparts that they forgot that their first duty was to Canada. They fucked up so badly, and I was briefly ashamed of Canada. But to this day, I don't know what political authority in what part of this planet gave the Americans the right to ship this man off to Syria of all places, where torture is a standard practice.

But I save my most irate confusion for the American officials who scream denial, denial, denial. There are still some who believe that Maher Arar is connected to terrorism. He's connected all right...he's a victim of it.

Sagas revisited...Cancún Part II

I suppose I owe it to my devoted readers to update you all on some things that were left just hanging in my blogging as of late. Where to begin I suppose...

Cancún...I was profoundly struck by the boldness of the diverging worlds of this tourist mecca. On the one hand, there are fantastic resorts with fantastic beaches and large airy shopping centres filled with Dolce & Gabbana and endless souvenir t-shirt shops; on the other hand, there are Wal-Mart Super Centres built on the side of the highway beside 4-storey walk-up apartments that look like they would crumble if hit by one stiff wind...buildings so rundown-looking and covered with hanging laundry, the stereotypical malnourished street dogs that seem to be a feature of most movies set in Mexico, and lots of short people.

Rod and I took the bus out to the Wal-Mart, and I was fully aware that we had left tourist-land behind. It was an awkward experience going to Wal-Mart. I was acutely aware from the moment we got off the bus that local people were staring at us and they didn't quite know what two tourists were doing there. Even the employees were uncertain and couldn't help but stare. It was weird...too weird. I was an inmate of Wal-Hell for nearly a year and a half once myself, and I just can't remember a time or picture in my head me *staring* at a customer who seemed to not fit in.

I was also struck by the bus buskers. Small boys as young as 7 years old getting on and belting out La Cucaracha, La Bamba or other popular Mexican tunes at the top of their little lungs. On the Tuesday night, around 10:30 pm, Rod and I were on a bus headed back to the hotel and two boys got on and started their bit. It occurred to me that these kids, who told an inquisitive lady on the bus that they were 8 and 10 (though I would say more like 6 and maybe 9), had school the next morning. Like the lady, I wondered how their parents could be aware that their boys were out busking late on a school night, but since there were at least a half a dozen other boys competing for buses, I had some suspicions of my own as to what they were doing.

I miss the beach. I miss waking up to the endlessly stretching Caribbean Sea running off with the bright blue sky, and the warm sun over head. But I like having the moon. It's strange. Rod and I were out for a late stroll on the beach one night when I remarked that I had not seen the moon since we had left Edmonton. If anyone can tell me if there's some sort of a scientific explanation for it, please do so because I was puzzled that I wasn't getting the full-on romantic moonlit walks on the beach.

And people stop on the side of the highways randomly. Driving in from the airport, I saw about 3 or 4 vans, trucks or cars parked on the shoulder, people just sitting there on the stretches of grass dividing the north and south lanes, lying out, napping, eating, talking. I think the only time I've even seen people on the grassy divides of the highways in Canada is when there are people mowing the grass.

Of course, there's so much more about Cancún that I can run on about, but nothing struck me more than driving through a "first world" setting and into a "second world" setting in a matter of 5 or 6 city blocks. I've travelled internationally before, but I don't think I had ever felt like I was somewhere so foreign as there. I know, you are saying to yourselves, "Cancún? Foreign?", but it's true. Even when I was in Spain, I felt a certain...cosmopolitanism or worldliness...like they had been there for centuries and had "been there, done that".

Anyways, off to bed. Next I'll talk about the experience of meeting Mayan culture.

Feather, Freedom, Gage, Amethyst, and so on

What do these random words strung together have to do with each other or anything at all?

http://www3.gov.ab.ca/gs/information/vs/top10_names.cfm

Oh, they are connected all right...these are some of the names people gave to their newborn daughters in Alberta in 2004. On the 2003 list, there were 2 Fancys. And Peter Jackson alone is responsible for the revival of a generation of far too many children named after characters from the Lord of the Rings series. There are other odditities on the list...the way some people chose to spell their infant's names...Gracii (Gray-see) for instance, makes me think back to mispronouncing everything in Latin and Greek in junior high for laughs, and I can't stop myself from reading it Grah-kI.

There are 3 boys named Cage, and I sure hope they grow up to be scruffy loner-hero types who drive around on motorcycles begrudgingly doing good deeds for people while trying to find themselves after tragic losses, because that's the vibe one gets from a name like Cage. You don't think he'll be a straightlaced accountant behind a desk somewhere. And please don't let the little girl Gage end up with a little boy Cage. There is a little boy in Alberta named Fawn. 9 little boys named Justice (I hope some of them don't end up in the same classes in school, otherwise I could go on about forming a "Justice" league, though I feel for the one boy who ends up taking the Wonder Woman role).

I know, I'm being awfully judgemental and harsh on some parents for their choices in names, but I want to sit parents down and tell them to carefully consider their choices. Even now when uncommon names are becoming more of a norm, there are still some that cross the boundary between uncommon and strange. I can tell everyone from experience that different names are a blessing and a curse...no one ever forgets my name (though they are pretty good at forgetting the person), but on the other hand, *you* trying acting cool in junior high with "Fancy Pants" and worse trailing you everywhere.

And for the daughters...gee, you know Fancy sounded like a good idea, but it obviously never entered my Dad's mind that when I grew up, I'd end up with a man who's last name is Chudyk (phonetically that's Chew-dick). You know those goofy little emails going around, figuring out your children's book character name or Pornstar name? Yeah, I ignore the pornstar ones...it appears that with the possibility of "Fancy Chudyk" hanging over my head, I already got one. So consider that your daughters could end up with just about any guy or girl and have problems taking on the new last names.

So the point to this long and harsh rant is this: THINK before you name your children! Because 15 years from now, the little girl named Feather or the little boy named Fawn could be battling their own existential teen-angst crises over their names being part of their identities, and they could end up blaming their parents.

"Can't"

Okay, I've been a little preoccupied with stuff since we've been back. Philosophy 120 stands to defeat me currently unless I can earn a reprieve today and tomorrow. This would mean I'd have to take Philosophy 325, which I've heard is way easier, but it would push convocation back to November. An assignment due last week has been the source of incredible anguish; On Sunday, Rod tried to help me with grasping a couple of concepts that I am unable to grasp, and it led to screaming and tears and threats of shoving pointy things into his eyeballs. No one likes to hear the words "I can't", but when it comes to math, I've learned that unfortunately, I really just can't get it.

I was always a very competitive person, and until about grade 9, I could keep up. But then Math started to get too complicated, and I fell further and further behind in the pack. I stubbornly refused to go the Math 13-23-33 route, instead insisting on doing Math 10. I tried to keep up, but in the end, I failed. I took Math 10 again and just barely passed. Then I went on to Math 20. This is where I became a long-running joke in my school, because I ended up taking Math 20 four times before I finally just barely passed again. But still, my ego refused to let me admit defeat. That came when the school refused to let me enroll in Math 30. I watched all of my friends take Math 30, while I (the idiot) pissed away my time until break so we could all meet up.

And just when I thought things couldn't get any more humiliating, I was forced out of Chemistry 30 because it was so Math-intensive, and the teacher called my parents to request that I withdraw. At the midpoint in the semester, I had a 29%. At this point, I had to learn to swallow my pride and say "I can't". And I was not alone. My mother wasn't mathemathically inclined, and my sister has also tried and failed, just like me. We did go to Math tutoring sessions, and tried the free help sessions at the local community college, and we just didn't get it. After 5 years of trying and having repeated failure for a result, I've become exhausted. I've accepted that I am unfortunately incapable of grasping concepts of math and logic. My parents have accepted it. My teachers all accepted it, and they were really nice and supportive anyways.

Rod couldn't accept it. He was doing what my parents did initially...mistook my "can't" for "won't". It took a long time before everyone would see that no matter how hard I tried, I was getting nowhere. I see no harm in pointing out to Rod that when he tells me he can't accept that I don't get this stuff, he's doing the very thing he hates...using the word/concept of "can't"

Back from Cancun...physically anyway (part 1)

Aside from Rod being a really nervous nelly and not trusting me with the details of the actual travelling, all went reasonably well. I got sick once from having my first drink in years and then following it with a choppy boatride. I got a strange and uneven sunburn. I shopped a lot. We ate fresh fruit and drink tap water. Rod played so much Beach Volleyball that I'm sure they'll have to retire the net in honour of his leaving. We saw many little stray "resort" kitties to remind us that we were horrible parents for leaving our precious babies. We thoroughly enjoyed travelling executive class all the way there and back. We saw turtles, turtles and more turtles of all sizes, and baby chicks just hatching from their eggs, and jaguars, and butterflies, and pretty flowers, and ugly slimy fish, and iguanas, and naked people, and giant birds, and donkeys (sorry Chris, I wouldn't let Rod bring one home for you), and we climbed a 9-storey pyramid, and the beach was perfect, and the buffets were always fantastic and I can't believe I'm back in this frozen wasteland.

Ready everyone? We're all moving to Mexico! Pack up! You've got 1 hour.