Trudeaumania: Part Deux?

It is approaching twenty minutes to midnight as I write this and if the news coverage and projections and preliminary mumbo jumbo is correct, Justin Trudeau is going to replace Steven Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. The craziest thing, thus far, is how it's a Liberal majority - in an election where fools like me were certain it would be a minority government outcome. In the best scenario I could envision: if there was no real change of government, at least the Conservatives would lose their majority, and all the parties would have to learn how to govern – not squabble and waste taxpayer monies – together.

The skeptical pessimist part of me just sees today's results as the pendulum of public favor swinging between two largely similar though ideologically distinct dominant political parties. And I am not convinced it isn't, but another part of me tempers my disbelief and wants to believe that Justin Trudeau will mark a new era in Canadian politics and therefore the country as a whole. Perhaps in ten years the country will be unrecognizable: the slowing economy revivified, the police state moderated or mutated into something more constructive, the puzzle of protecting one of the world's largest countries with what amounts to a tiny population solved, the political climate more respectful and positive, the tenuous possibility of Arctic sovereignty stabilized, the environment protected... and any other of dozens of serious issues put to rest or at least constructively engaged.

This is an election, mind, which has been strangely muted but rather intense, with very high stakes such that an American weekly news show covered it (though John Oliver is British and therefore would know at least two things about each commonwealth member, and perhaps even care about Canada on a personal level). It got heated in the final days, with perhaps one of the most boneheaded, bald attempts at recovery and public control yet to be seen in this election, a full page front cover advertisement... let me post a copy here below for you, in full color!

You know what they say about courting voters: aim for the wallet and the heart will follow... I don't actually know what they say about courting voters, but this to my eyes is an example of what they talk about. What I like is that apart from being kind of a tone-deaf and stupid and reactionary move, it's very shrewd to target the Liberals specifically, as if nobody in politics actually took the NDP seriously as a contender. I guess a real lesson is never to trust polls, I guess they just exist to measure the response of a sample size of the public so the data can be sold to political parties so they can invent good stories and manage their media appearance and tone instead of engaging a public by discussing governance concepts and ideas for bettering the country as opposed to making it a cheap place to live (if you want that, you go to America), and being honest about challenges instead of using them to spread fear and disgust.

Ah mais oui – the Sun line of newspapers. If you want to see what they're like, look them up online and see what they consider front page material. Celebrity gossip, fashion tips, crime stories, automotive news, hockey golf and football... all the stuff Gord MacRegular Canuck III would care about with a blend of partisan politically charged agenda-stories that are definitely surely not endorsing any specific party or being biased. But then, the ecosystem of the Canadian media is not the healthiest in the world and this isn't the time to discuss that.

There was a lot of strategic voting, I think, with motivated activist voting in order to not allow the Conservatives another majority or anything like it. Hence the NDP getting dumped... I feel for Mulcair, it must have been heartbreaking knowing the blow was coming and being completely unable to avert it. Not so Steve Harper (my sources tell me he is eyeing a job in hockey commentary or advising the CAPP), who is expected to step down as leader of the Conservatives, after being in power for a long time and being pretty successful in what he wanted to do, which any Canadian will tell you about if you ask them.

I'm sure Harper won't be heartbroken, but surely disappointed if not a bit sour about losing when none of his victories were particularly hard-fought (or, allegedly, fairly fought). Them's the breaks in Canada, though. You run a tight ship that goes where it wants, all the while rust grows, and one stormy day the thing implodes and sinks. But you get your insurance money and walk down the street feeling pure relief, once the sullenness has subsided, and thinking maybe to go into a different business after all...

One amusing anecdote is that on Twitter (a popular text-broadcasting social media app established in 2006 that is popular with media people and older millenials) the story seems to be STEPHEN HARPER with some mixed messages about who did what. But I guess 'Ridding Canada of Harper' for good or bad, became the theme of this election. That means no minorities and no coalitions, and the world will see what that means.

Isn't it crazy, though? I mean just look at that. Stephen Harper's shadow is so long, and mighty, that Justin Trudeau (soon to be sworn in as the Right Honourable Mr. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, etc) even in victory stands in it. As in: he's overshadowed by Harper as if he were a supernatural figure of some sort, a kind of human rights/environmental grim reaper.

Trudeau's victory speech was inspiring (it had Political Maverick Jack Layton overtones) and polite to other contenders, Mulcair's was resigned but determined, and Harper's omitted the fact that he was stepping down as leader, but NO REGRETS BITCHES. All the speeches have a fair bit of politicalese in both languages and if you want to hear what Duceppe or May said you'll have to look them up. In this writer's respectful opinion, they were never really in the race (except in their respective strongholds).

Let the whingeing commence! Let the qualified commentators do their thing. Let the vitriol spill over, as it will despite the calls for clemency and moderation by the leaders. I can't wait for the Trudeau Facts articles which will point out his deceased brother (killed by an avalanche) and all the Father/Son comparisons observers of Canadian politics will be forced to endure. How voter turnout numbers will look is going to most interesting for me, but I haven't seen figures at the time of this post and need to sleep. In conclusion:

Explain Yourself, or Don't, Nobody Cares

Expostulatory blogging is kind of a dead thing. The overreaching narrative of the times is outrage and discord, with a healthy mix of disinterest and distraction thrown in. For good measure, sometimes there is added a aggrandized sense of injury or unopposed wrongs. In this environment blogging to do anything but maybe get a good line in is a waste of time – engaging the stories and constructively analyzing them is best left to 'the adults': paid journalists, high profile bloggers, and the generally execrable morons with weekly columns.

For anyone wanting to blog for anything but niche topics or absurdly obtuse generality (or 'comedy' options such as the way stale top 10/12/15/25 lists, or 'jokes') the field is intensely competitive. Aggregators have created a system in which maybe 10% of all internet users bother to go beyond the internet's collective front pages. Even linking seems quaint and mildly outdated. The only real blogging left is niche blogging about the outrages and abuses of modern society, or being political, or getting paid to blog to sell something.

It helps explain the rise of people who have absolutely zero self-awareness: people who never think past the snappy one-liners and one-dimensional politics of the internet. These kinds of people, even when well-intentioned, only serve to hurt their own causes. 'Misogyny' becomes a sort of mantra that progressive dudes bray mindlessly whenever simple OR complex issues regarding women emerge from the amoral fracas of the modern media environment. People on the fence see nothing but a faceless horde of shmucks wanting to prove their progressivism and decide, Hell, why not start trolling these point-seekers en masse? You can't blame them. Aggrieving the crowd is as righteous a battle for some as fighting for the oppressed is for others.

User Comment Rodeo: Multiple Choice City

The UCR Mk.II picked up a hugely lucrative article about a social studies professor who forced her entire second year sociology class into taking a geography pop quiz. Just a purely innocent decision which had no loaded stakes, made by a disinterested, scientific-minded professor with no agenda up her sleeve – forced on a classroom of modern students. Said class failed dismally at accurately labeling countries, provinces, capitols, and even broad geographical regions. The UCR Mk.II almost crashed analyzing the over 200 comments. The irony sensor burned out too many times, and I had to deactivate it lest I ran out of spares.

It seemed to me (and still seems to me) a monstrous project, but I will gladly take it on. There is nothing more entertaining than watching idiots go at their bogeys, and watching the poor moderates waste their time. What's really important, in the end, is that everyone tends to just have fun. So kick back, get a stiff drink, forget how old or young you are, and indulge in some senseless ageism. And remember: more than 200 hundred comments resulted from poor test scores about an unrelated subject in what is a small sample of post-secondary students. This is, in more ways than one, an example of why the west is withering and how the internet is making it worse (or making it appear worse). Don't get offended, let's go on a rodeo:

The comments flew in fast and heavy. Reading them almost caved-in my sense of hope. It was brutal. I missed some doozies, no doubt, but there is never time to think when it comes to a User Comment Rodeo. There is only action. There is only the lassoing of choice screengrabs, and hoping they turn out to be priceless. I warn ye who would read this: this is going to be lengthy and uncomfortable, and the levels of ageism, ignorance, and bigotry unveiled herein will drive you into hysteria. If you had any faith, in the young or old, turn back now. The world needs your optimism more than ever. As for me: I don't care, I'm not even paid to do this. Maybe I'll get a shot or two in.

You know what's kind of depressing? You don't? I – Ah, fuck it. I prefer cuss-words anyway, since they make a solid point, frighten puritans and squares, and require almost no intelligence to be used effectively. The internet can still educate. It can also mislead, trivialize, infantilize, and stupefy. Reader, mark well the words of these and following User Comments. Note the vast problems they bring up, and their generally piss-poor sentence construction. Ah, the familiar smells of lazy rhetoric and half-baked idiocy. Is this crisis in education new? Is this a beautiful moment in our collective existence? Will the bleating objections of the masses lead to a new era of mental rigor?

These were the 'upvotes' in reddit-speak (RIP Swartz, I never knew ye, but you deserved better). These were the king comments. These were choice, juicy, apropos, and insightful beyond all the rest. Observe the beautiful spectre of ageism rising from the rabble. One can hardly blame students who are prejudged en masse as morons, merely for existing in a troubled and complex era and for their casual use of advanced electronic devices. It seems as if everyone has given up on them. Everyone except for the oilsands, that is – and when one is scientifically illiterate, one eats up greenwashing with both hands, and feels great about it. The modern explosion of ideologues is due to lack of mental rigor, but if education was so impeccable in the 50's, 60's, and 70's then why are so many middle-aged people so insufferable in their harmful, hateful, and ignorant opinions – why are they so vulnerable to fast-food politics, misinformation, and ideology? Look what they threw away to live comfortably. It's cute, because the coming generations get to live in not only mental, but also economical, physical, and environmental squalor. No wonder they don't give a fuck.

User Comment Rodeo:

It may perhaps be biased to even glance at such a story. Low-hanging, insignificant, too significant, wildly polarizing, etc... Imagine an undergarment modified with toy firearms, worn by yesteryear's darling at a backwoods concert. It could be happening all around you. You are too late to prevent it. How does it make you feel? How would you articulate your throwaway internet response? Which season of the news cycle is it?

Would you dabble stylistically with poetry? Insist upon your innocence? Would you highlight the absurdity of the situation? What can one do but look towards better times? And where are they?

And what is nostalgia? It is not a refuge for everyone, and it is only comforting insofar as it is delusion. The debate will always rage, and its warriors will remain eternally insufferable.

Sensitivity is passe except at extreme proximity, it seems. Someone should ask Doris Day about this whole thing: she will hopefully possess a superior perspective and greater wisdom. I fear she won't – then again, she never had to resort to gimmicks and never earned nine million (USD $9,000,000) 2011 dollars* in one year. The whole numbing madness of the world is nothing new, after all.

* estimate based on hearsay

A New Vanilla Ice Era

It goes without saying that Justin Beiber is his generation's Vanilla Ice. There is so much fuss made about the whole thing by people who hate him, people who support him, and, most oddly of all, people who claim to be entirely disinterested. Yet the truth is pretty simple, and I hear very few people discuss it at all.

I have to wonder about that for at least a moment. Ultimately it makes sense that nobody cares. Everyone is too busy pulling original agendas (and trying to make them stick to an indifferent, fractured and/or and shellshocked mass identity) to consider the wholesome, mundane, and entirely mystifying patterns that are more and more self-evident.

Problems, often doubling as patterns or effects of patterns, are just not so easy to turn into double-plus commercials. 

Does the Internet Make You Sick?

Well I think anybody who has thought about it already knows the answer, and there's no point in spoiling a surprise, so...

What Hasn't Made Us Sick?

Someone knowledgeable should write a book about that. I'm deeply allergic to knowing anything about health or myself, so I would probably not buy it, but I would pay someone to do the work. I would pay at utmost 5.00 in whatever currency 5.00 still means something. If there is some sort of hypervaluation crisis (and it would be one, don't even fool yourself) I would pay .5, .05, down to .000005 depending on circumstances. The project of discerning whether or not the internet can make you sick could be completed (or at least started definitively), with global co-operation and collaboration (via the internet), in a as little as 12 hours. For free, I'm sure.

If the internet has taught me anything it is to always rush noobs, pick the noobiest weapon/build, the following acronyms (too many; mainly 'afaik'), there is no such thing as too many clicks, don't ever get involved in anything, avoid chat in general unless to friends – and most importantly: to not be a total dick when you start beating the shit out of other players, in any game except online chess. Also doubt everything, and avoid anyone who has anything to say as they're most likely charlatans or shills.

So the prognosis isn't great.The suppression of it is variable. The internet is still more a force for freedom, except it, like any other media, can be just as detrimental to it. Oh and dangerous, possibly catastrophic. But that's just about anything, and the laws of mediocrity will hopefully minimize the odds of anything extraordinary happening.

"The Best Years"

This might just be a sensitivity on my part, as an 'underemployed' and/or 'out of work' young man, but there is no overused term that puzzles me as much as when somebody (usually almost always on TV) refers to 'the best years of your life.' Yeah. Those years.

Sometimes, it is true, the person referring to their best years has been abused, or incarcerated, or somehow put in a position where they have possibly missed the best years of their life due to limited or withheld freedom or outside interference of another sort. But, if you rob a bank, you might be able to get a best day out of it before someone traces the money, at least. The jail time is just shit icing on your overpriced cake, and maybe you'll learn a lesson so, by the time you get out, you'll be wise enough to actually appreciate those 'best years' you almost threw away.

What's worst about anyone referring to 'best years' is it's usually referring to the years between 19 and 29. I don't know what happens to numbskulls between 29 and 30 that makes them incapable of appreciating life or even having a 'best year' after the hallowed twenty-something phase of human development, which is typically the largest chunk of a human biology textbook, is elapsed.

For comparison, the TV show Friends was notably less enjoyable than Seinfeld, and the latter show as about older people who were, arguably, less cool than Chandler and company. This was an important lesson, from an otherwise untrustworthy medium, about things getting funnier the older and more pathetic you get. You used to have to go to Shakespeare for these kinds of lessons.

I did a search about 'best years', and the internet search I did confirmed my worst fears, except that they are even more ageist than I thought. Today's "best years" are the teenage years, which makes sense, because when I was a teenager I had two shows convincing me that the best years were in later life, and if nothing else the unknown-but-ruling forces of the world prey on making you think you lost your best years but can buy them back. I could cry when I remember that I actually believe in safety scissors or adult supervision. I don't even think a two-year heroin binge could deaden the knowledge I've fought for and won, like that there is a shadowy consortium built around the idea of 'best years'.

If nothing else, the concept of 'best years' makes people in various parts of their lives more liable to circle the wagons, more liable to be tricked into being content with what they have. Not that it's wrong to be satisfied with your life, but it's too easy sometimes. Even if it is not true that life continually gets better, like aged cheese or well-cellared wine, it's probably healthier to always keep pushing those best years ahead of you, no matter how persuasive the shallow arguments that your sexual peak was a decade ago, or that people who got published at 16 are better writers than you, or that older people can hold their alcohol better and know how to smoke a fine cigar. We live in a society where fruit is plucked from the branches before it is ripe, and where pumped ethylene gas replaces a few extra days in the sun...

...I actually forgot where I was going with that. The real points I wanted to make are lost in the past. Things were better then. But allow me to dispel any fears about best or worst years. The younger you are, the more likely you are too callow to appreciate the really fine points of living, and the older you are, the less likely you are to really notice the originality of life. Old or young, the amount of time spent thinking about best years is inversely proportional to the amount of enjoyment that could have been got instead. So, what troubles me, what I wrote this whole nonsense about, is when someone thinks they have life figured out enough to tell you that you missed that critical phase of life when anything would be better. With prevalent attitudes like this, modern ageism isn't such a mystery anymore.