It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken

Every Tuesday and Thursday I take the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail from Worcester to Boston. This ride takes me through a corridor of industry past and present - through the burgeoning CSX rail yard in Worcester, past the Dennison factory in Framingham, then into the houses of rich people in the Bostonian suburbs. Threaded through all of this is the rough nature of Massachusetts, with its brown grasses and naked limbs, following the curves of scrubby streams. There's a pair of swans I look at, usually in the pond next to the pump house at Framingham that I sometimes imagine living in. In the spring, skunk cabbage rushes up everywhere. The whole landscape is littered with tires, trash, the occasional sofa. I don't see a lot of nearby animals, which is a funny contrast to the regularity with which I see mice scurrying around on the tracks while I wait inside for the red line train at Park Street. Inside, life by the third rail; outside, not a creature stirring.



When I make this trip, I'm usually listening to the Tragically Hip. Several years ago, my friend Ben asked me if I wanted to go to a Hip concert in Boston at what used to be the Avalon and is now the House of Blues. I'd never heard of them, but I went anyway. It was one of those beautiful nights where you get out of the T station and feel the air wash over you like it's thrilled you could make it. The Red Sox were playing the Yankees, so I had to wait three trains before I could elbow my way into the sea of red and navy. I wound up squished next to the only other four people on the train who were going to the concert, Canadians who followed me out of the T station yelling to each other, "come on, come on, she KNOWS," which was great - here I am being credited with mystical navigational skills, and the only real secret was to follow everyone else. The concert was one of the first I've enjoyed as an event. I usually like concerts fine, but wouldn't necessarily say they're a thing I like to do. I came home and started listening to the Hip.



In the beginning, I responded to the sound of the Hip, rather than the specific lyrics, because I simply didn't KNOW enough of the latter to get all that excited about them. Even that sound, though, speaks of a particular kind of experience. There is a gentleness to their music, that I think is an admission that we all need it. We need some softness in our lives because we are always in transit and always about to fall. That this should be so evident even in the sound of their music speaks quite clearly to my experience of Canadians themselves. While I have met some really remarkable Canadians, I've also met some real assholes, people who I truly wanted to punch in the face. Still, this quietness rests in all of them, a quiet strength that comes from something shared.



When I started listening to enough that I learned the lyrics, I decided two things: that the Hip might be too smart for me, and that they pull from a deeply enviable kind of nostalgia. I say they might be too smart for me because their references - historical, literary, hockey related - are so various and occasionally so subtle that I feel I could study them for years and still not be able to hang them all together in a frame...or else study them for years and find some kind of epic blueprint for Canadian world domination. I'm sure that people who have loved the Hip longer and better than I have tried this; I have a long road ahead.



But that second point, I think, is why I listen to them on the train so often.  Nostalgia for nostalgia's sake isn't always good; there are a lot of people in America right now desperately striving towards the past in the name of a misplaced nostalgia for a simpler time, as though the political conflicts and worries that we are staring down today didn't exist back then, forgetting that there were even bigger problems and yet more injustice.  This points to a fundamental misunderstanding of what politics are.  Politics are the navigation of our law through the stormy seas of human interaction.  Whatever form they take, political discourses are an attempt to sort out how to let each person be human.  That doesn't change.  But there is a nostalgia that fits with these shifting tides, and this is a sense of what was good and what was achieved, and the soft, glowing pride that attends those things and pushes us towards the future.



Right now, I think this nostalgia attaches itself most often to our thoughts about industry in America, and in Canada as well.  We are linked together whether we like it or not.  We are brothers, with all that entails - the competition, the cross-purposes, the conflict, the conspiracy, the love.  I think we conceive of industry in the same way as well.  These are nations built on industry, and now industry is fading, to make way for new economies.  While we want to succeed in these new economies, I think we see our work in old industry as being fundamentally about being Canadian, being American.  This is the industry my train passes through, and it's particularly poignant to see how some industry is continuing on, wearing a mantle of rust, and some has been reconstituted into the new world, like the Dennison building by Framingham.  It's still a giant heap of brick, with a massive window sporting an ornate blue Dennison "D," through which light once shone on a paper milling floor.  The window is still there, though the machines have quieted and changed.  This is how the Hip feels to me.  Their songs feel like fondness for making things on the strength of our backs, and standing on shifting sands.  Their songs feel like a reminder that things are good, even if they're not the same.   They're songs about working men, and about quiet strength.  I love those songs for that.

Nous Te Souviendras

There are few absolute truths about politics.  No matter how strongly we hold our beliefs or how clear and righteous we believe them to be, there will always be someone who believes the opposite with equal fervor, who believes their stance is just as obviously good.  This is why those seeking absolutist solutions to political challenges are doomed to failure, and why those policies will simply be overcome, not necessarily by opposing parties or individuals, but by the passage of time and the fluid state of politics itself.  For this reason, the few truths that do exist about politics are all the more sacred, and cannot be claimed by one passing party or one mortal individual.

There is one truth above all the truths, and it's simpler than one might think: we live together as humans on this Earth.

It's not that simple, of course, but in a few essential ways our joint presence on this Earth is all that matters.  It means that we cannot escape each other, that every man, woman and child who dies is a loss for all of us, and the birth of every boy and girl is a promise that they will change us all, for good or ill.  It means that every resource we discover or create will be drawn upon by us all, that once exhausted they will be missed by us all.  It means that the better we make our neighbors, the better they can make us, and as we degrade them, we degrade ourselves.  None of this is optional, and because none of it is optional, we all have to be invested in the communal project of our own existence.  This means that no matter our differences - and we have had them, and will have them, forever - we must understand that we are all together, as humans, on this Earth.

Each of us is delivered to this home naked and screaming, with little but luck and circumstance to direct our path forward, and this demands that we respect each other as humans fundamentally, before anything else.  This too requires that we remember that those below and above us share this humanity.  None of us are infallible, none of us are perfect, none of us escape life without feeling fear or being intoxicated by love.  Still, we must rely on imperfect humans to shape our politics and our societies, because there are no other options. God, the universe, chaos, chance - these options are no options at all because they write no policy and take no votes, make no speeches and settle no arguments.  To require them to do so would be insulting in itself, to resign great sublime powers to the grind of determining the minutiae of human life, and it would rescind from us the great power of free will, which allows us to learn from our mistakes and victories alike.  It removes the miracle of humanity and its beautiful relationship to everything beyond us - it renders God and the Webb telescope equally irrelevant.  We must work through this business of living together with each other, as imperfect, mortal human beings.

Canada lost a man who understood this today.  The Honourable Jack Layton passed away today after a long fight with cancer.  He will be fiercely missed.

Jack Layton was no apolitical being and he could never be called a non-partisan voice.  He lead the New Democratic Party to extraordinary gains this past election, and his last letter, when directed at his party, his caucus and his beloved province, rings clearly like the bells of the ships and ports of Quebec with his liberal identity.  Liberals in Canada have lost a powerful leader, one whose work, had it not been cut short by cancer, could have taken Canada to a new position on the world stage.  As a liberal, I hope every day for a leader like Layton, a leader who is willing to mount a spirited defense of liberalism in its robust, rich and appropriate form, and to challenge the image of liberalism that has been painted by those foolish enough to believe Mao and Stalin represent liberalism, rather than their own perverted and ultimately weak doctrines. The NDP will have an extremely difficult time replacing Jack Layton, and they may never succeed - every so often we are given political leaders who are simply unique.  They will find a new leader, and they will have strong leaders, but they may never replace Layton.

What I think makes Layton special is when he turns to Canada as a whole, it is at the end of his letter, and it is nothing but these universal truths.  In the end, Layton understood that he stood on this Earth, amidst his fellow humans, engaged in a communal project that will outlast but still enrich all of us in the time we do have, and bear up those who will succeed us. You can - and should - read the entirety of his letter here, and it would be foolish of me to try paraphrasing his last message to Canada, so I will simply leave it here.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,

Jack Layton

Friday Round Up!: Why No One Except Grandma Can Have Nice Things

I missed last Friday's roundup because I was busy contemplating whether or not I should just drink myself into oblivion to cope with the debt ceiling fallout.  Luckily, I've decided against it, so here's this week's hit parade!

• Steampunk Fashion on Display at HCC (ABC13, Texas) First on the list is my grandmother's upcoming exhibit in Houston, TX, because Grandma is awesome and so is this exhibit.  She is a fashion historian and recently gifted her historical collection (which, by the way, is about 5,000 pieces strong) to her American Costume Society compatriot Kay King at Houston Community College.  Some of the pieces were used to put together a fabulous steampunk exhibit, and my Dad, Grandma and I will be headed down to Texas at the end of September for Elizabeth Brown Day and the exhibit's opening!  Here's the news clip from the local ABC affiliate:
• What's Happening With the London Riots? (Mother Jones)  Mother Jones routinely posts these rolling update articles about major events, and I find them immensely helpful.  As far as the riots, I encourage everyone not to dismiss the rioters outright.  Of course there are some people who just want to watch the world burn, but this is not that simple.  I point you to this quote from a young man who NBC was asking if rioting really achieved anything: "Yes.  You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?  Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."  These are people fighting for a voice.  
• States Can Now Opt-Out of No Child Left Behind Provisions (Amy Bingham, ABC)  No Child Left Behind is the single most damaging thing to happen to American education in its history, full stop.  The decision to let states opt-out of its ridiculous and useless provisions is a huge step in the right direction, and I'm proud of both Secretary Duncan and the Obama Administration for taking it.  I hope that it is fully dismantled in the next few years.  (For some smackdown on NCLB's shitty test-based standards, you can read this report from the National Academies.)
• How the US Media Marginalizes Dissent (Ted Rall, Al-Jazeera)  I recently submitted a paper for publication - cross those fingers, everyone! - about the way media frame debates compared to public opinion polling.  I found that overwhelmingly, the media preferred to polarize complex issues, establishing two fairly extreme poles as the dominant views and completely dropping the grey area out of the debate.  I suspect few people will be surprised to hear that most of public opinion is, in fact, in the grey area.  This article takes a similar approach, examining the language used to marginalize voices that don't fit the media's established framework, particularly with references to people as being "serious" or not.  [NB: I have been so impressed by Al-Jazeera as a whole lately.  I'm not sure if their quality has gone up or I'm just bumping into their articles more frequently, but I think they're putting out excellent, excellent work.]
• Canada Has Lessons, No Answers, for US Debt Woes (Randall Palmer and John McCrank, Reuters CA)  Americans often think that we are or must be wholly unique.  This was particularly visible in the healthcare debate, where other nations' systems were critiqued and held up as examples of why "universal healthcare, full stop" would not work, but not examined as systems that we could either pillage for parts or learn from to build a better system.  Instead, the discourse went something like "we must create a system wholly new or nothing."  Our politics have suffered from this mindset, because it disconnects us from historical context that provides balance and depth for our political system as a whole.  This article talks about Canada's own happy fun time with debt problems and explains a bit about how they recovered, though it rightly admits that exactly replicating Canada's approach would not be a perfect fit. 
• Megyn Kelly Destroys Guy Who Called Her Maternity Leave a Racket (Maureen O'Connor, Gawker)  I can't usually stand Megyn Kelly, but this clip is absolutely glorious.  She is dead on, the guy looks openly embarassed - as he should - and he has zero response.  I hope Kelly remembers this interaction the next time she's railing about entitlements (as Jon Stewart pointed out the other night).  
• Us. And Them. (Chris Carroll, National Geographic)  An interesting article on the progress of humanoid and "helper" robots, and the ethical challenges posed by their development.  I know I'm That Girl Who Always Talks About Robots, but this is a serious thing - military funding is pushing a lot of robotics development while shelving ethical considerations, and with the push for AI, there's a very real danger that technology may progress beyond where we CAN place ethical frameworks on robots.  This needs to be talked about.
• Falcon HTV-2 is Lost During Bid to Become Fastest Ever Plane (Ian Sample, The Guardian)  Speaking of DARPA funded projects, the Falcon HTV-2, a rocket launched unmanned aircraft capable of travelling at Mach 20 and crossing the continental United States in 12 minutes, was lost during a test flight.  This makes me sad even though I know it's a weapon of war, because I've been clinging to wild aviation projects like this following the death of the shuttle program.  
• Rare Sand Cat Kitten Gives Hope for Conservation (Zooborns)  WARNING: WEAPONIZED CUTENESS AT LINK.  A sand cat kitten was recently born at Zoological Center Tel Aviv - Ramat Gan, and is currently wiping the floor with all other comers in the Adorable Baby Animal Olympics (Cat Division).  This is a big, exciting deal, as sand cats are endangered and have great difficulty breeding in captivity.  
• Every Picture Tells a Story (Janice Harvey, Worcester Magazine)  A couple weeks ago, Janice Harvey wrote a column about how totes grody laydees with tattoos are.  Not surprisingly, people did not like this, and proceeded to call her an asshole loudly, publicly and aggressively.  She published an apology the other day, and while I appreciate the guts it takes to apologize publicly, I think this apology is kind of a template for how NOT to do it.  It basically amounts to "you just didn't get it" (if you click through to the original, you'll see why her trying to play it off as humor is either incredibly disingenuous or demonstrative of a fundamental lack of understanding about how humor works) followed by "you guys were mean just like I said you were, you trashy bitches."  I give her points for trying to change her attitude, but she has a long way to go in understanding that there is no single type of woman (or man) who gets a tattoo.  (That it was shitty to use a public forum to trash a specific demographic still seems to elude her, so...whatever.)  Janice, maybe this will help: I've owned my own businesses, I'm a Ph.D candidate in a very conservative field, I'm married, I wear makeup and heels, and I have tattoos.  Keep your shit in your own basket.
• Teaching With Twitter (Kohenari)  This is a very cool project wherein a professor at the University of Nebraska is teaching his political theory course with Twitter, and invites outside folks to join in.  I'll be doing this course and I hope you will too! 

This week's music comes from the Great White North Courtesy of Chief Economic Adviser Len Badwin, who unfortunately linked me this video when he was upset about missing a music festival at which the Tea Party would be playing.  While it's sad he missed the festival, I'm glad he linked me the video because I quite like it. As with so much Canadian music, good luck finding it on iTunes.

What the HELL, iTunes.

Oh, CANADA!

It's Canada's birthday today!  Happy birthday Canada, and happy Canada DAY, all my Canadian friends.  Canada is 114 this year.  Canada is also a very interesting political landscape (oh shut up, you knew that shit was coming as surely as you know I'm going to talk about hockey in a minute).  Canada Day celebrates when the chunks of the Great White North were actually linked together as a federation and became a real live kingdom, with Britain riding political herd over it.  That's not exceptionally unique situation in terms of colonialization, but the cool stuff went down in 1982 when Canada patriated its Constitution. Not repatriated, but patriated.  Because Britain was still the Constitutional authority, Canada didn't have complete political autonomy, so they basically claimed the Constitution - with some adjustment - as being Canada's, for the sake of ruling Canada.  Cool, right?

I've been thinking a lot about Canada in the past couple years as my faith in the republic's ability to reassert itself has wavered, and there's a lot to recommend it to anyone.  A comprehensive listing of what I like about Canada would be too long and verbose for anyone of sound mind to tolerate, but here's a short list:

• Hockey forever - the Montreal Canadiens, for rivalry purposes the Toronto Maple Leafs, the juniors system, its stature as the majority sport from sea to shining sea up there, pond hockey, hockey on Canadian currency, and fans who know how to fan properly (which is to say, not causing an aggressive and ill-timed ruckus during games and not walking down the aisles during play oh my God why why why does this happen and why won't it stop)...
• Tim Horton's coffee and the strange existence of strawberry TimBits
• Peter Jennings, whose news broadcasts shaped the way I consider news when I was a kid. Yes, really, he's Canadian!
• the Canadian relationship to nature and a general understanding that you should not assault it 
• The Tragically Hip, for not only being excellent but also excellently named
• a willingness to shore up and preserve Canadian products and enterprises 
• Don Cherry and his suits, even if he's getting kind of senile and crotchety and nonsensey.  (Suits. You're welcome.)
• Montreal, and specifically Ste. Catherine Street and Spa Eastman on Sherbrooke Ouest
• Romeo Dallaire, his attempt to save Rwanda, his openness about how badly its failure screwed him up, and his unending dedication to humanitarianism
• perhaps most importantly, a general sense that Canada is all in the project of Canada together, even when at odds with specific neighbors or coworkers or what have you, i.e. none of this designating certain people as real or fake Canadians as is currently in vogue in the States

That barely scratches the surface of what I enjoy about Canada, but it's a good broad-strokes starting point.  I was going to post a nice picture of Canadians celebrating, but when I googled for "Canadian pride" this happened:

Well hello, Shawn Ashmore.

...and really, I think we're done here.

O Canada indeed.