www.James-Strocel.com

It wasn’t the only bastion of intolerance in the city, but it was a good place to draw the line. Everywhere else in BC, Social Justice 12 was just another elective class for high school seniors. Students would learn how to analyze issues of intolerance in their world, as well as some strategies to combat that intolerance. The Abbotsford school board, however, voted to postpone the course and censor certain sections that dealt with homosexual rights. The irony was not lost on the 96 students who had already signed up for the course.

Over 300 people gathered in the rain at the University of the Fraser Valley last Saturday in response to the School Board’s decision. Some were indeed homosexuals, some of them were families, some of them were fellow students, and others were just tired of seeing this kind of thing happen in their town. Religion is kind of a big deal in Abbotsford. There’s practically a church on every corner, and the local editorial page usually has a letter every week advertising the book of Leviticus. There are people with the same approach to faith who make no qualms about injecting themselves into the local political process, hoping to turn this town into an idyllic version of something it was when there were 75,000 less people and it didn’t take up 5 highway exits. Intelligent people see something like this and they get scared. Nothing can wash away scruples like the belief that God is on your side, never mind that the same God has been known to have it out for those who practice religion without scruples, and never mind that the United Church flew a banner at the rally saying “We are all God’s Children”. Indeed, the people who supported the school board’s decision would see a rally like this as a form of persecution, further evidence they need to keep “people like that” out of the public sphere. That’s okay. This rally wasn’t for them, anyway. It’s for those who value tolerance and freedom of speech, yet are afraid to speak out themselves. It’s for the thousands who make their home in this town, yet feel shut out by the rhetoric they hear. This rally stands to prove that it’s not religious fervor that drives this town, it’s passion for our beliefs. Anywhere else in Canada, having passion is only a human right. Around here, it’s your duty as a citizen.

Now, it’s been years since I’ve been anywhere near the video games industry, but I still like to keep up with it in an armchair capacity. One of my favorite sites by which to do this is a blog called gamesetwatch, a collection of essays and links to articles by many industry leaders. One article they had recently was a retrospective on “Time Gal”, one of those old laser disc arcade games that had animated cutscenes that you control via pressing the correct button or moving the joystick in the right way. The author, Todd Ciolek, (who also writes X-button, a fine column at the Anime News Network) pointed out that Time Gal was the first game to have a non-licensed character that players could recognize as human. He goes on to praise the game for having a heroine that was so cute and chirpy, but then there was one line that just made my head spin.

“Misogyny creeps in, of course: Time Gal’s already skimpy clothes get ripped away by T-Rexes and Fist of the North Star mutants alike, and she’ll scream about being struck on the chest or getting bitten on her partially exposed rear. Pioneers are not always proud.”

It wasn’t just what he said, it’s how he said it. Misogyny. You know, creeping in like that. Here you are, pushing through the glass ceiling, but let one of those things on your chest slip out and BOOM! There’s misogyny. The word here is written with such complacency, such blasé, that it’s almost as if the author was describing the sky as blue. To use such a powerful word as misogyny in that way tells me that he doesn’t even believe in what he says. And why should he have to? He’s only preaching the gospel truth. You can see it repeated all over the ‘net. To show women as sexual in any capacity is misogynist. That’s it. Finito. End of discussion.

When there’s an idea that becomes sacrosanct and, dare I say, unexamined, it bothers me. Untested truth is what keeps us from moving forward, making connections and seeing the greater scheme of things. This is part of a pattern I keep seeing again and again in video game criticism. Why is a scantily clad girl in a video game defined as misogyny? “How is that not misogyny!?” is not a valid answer.

Despite being male, I think I can put my liberal arts hat back on and take a crack at this one. Misogyny is the hatred of women. If a woman getting her clothes torn suggestively in a fight is misogyny, then there are a couple of assumptions at work here. The first is that this is sexual objectification, where a woman is judged by her physical attributes independent of her personality and intelligence. This is demeaning to women, and that makes it misogyny.

I have a problem with this. This also assumes that the way a woman looks and how she presents herself has nothing to do with her personal taste, her habits or the culture she comes from. It would seem that this imagery is only defined by how I see it. Big, white male me. Now this tells me that if I look at something and get a rise out of it, it immediately becomes misogynist. I am indirectly dictating what can and cannot be depicted in regards to women. It doesn’t matter if anyone else finds the game cute or funny. Is that feminist? Hell, is that even humanist?

So now that we’ve found out what misogyny is, what’s feminism? What images do game companies produce if they want to be forward-thinking and catch that ever-elusive female audience? Many would point to a game called Portal. It’s about a battle between a sarcastic computer and Chell, a barely seen female protagonist in a formless jumpsuit with no dialog, no expression, and no personality. She is seen as the perfect feminist archetype, as opposed to blond-haired traitors like Super Mario’s Princess Peach. Of course, this can’t explain why Peach herself has female fans all over the world and why her own game, Super Princess Peach, has sold over a million copies.

That, my friends, is why we can’t have compelling video game characters. This is why we live in a video game world populated by bald space marines and sullen amazonian axe-murderers. When we intentionally wall off a part of human nature, we blind ourselves to potential avenues of creativity. A specific, easily recognizable character can make the difference between millions of dollars in revenue and billions.

Image provided by http://www.abbotsford-real-estate.info/

My vote has been counting for a lot this year. We had a federal election last month, a civic election yesterday and we’ll have a provincial election this May. It goes without saying that the local sign makers are ecstatic. During the grand to-do of the US presidential election, there have been many grumblings on forums that we Canadians don’t have to deal with politicians who think The Flintstones was a documentary and other such nonsense. In Abbotsford, the town I grew up in and where I have chosen to live, the situation is a little different.

I would like to direct your attention to an organization called Abbotsford Families United. If you click the preceding link, you’ll be taken to their voting guide for the civic election which they e-mailed to anyone who signed up for their newsletter. You may notice these candidates are not chosen for their ability to run the city, but for their “strong stance” on homosexuals, sex shows and casinos. Never mind about the homeless on the streets or that school classes are overcrowded, if we don’t elect these candidates, as they claim, “You can expect to see pro-homosexual indoctrination right down to the kindergarten level in the public schools starting next year.” Yeah, you know, because if we allow that into the curriculum, how are teachers supposed to fit that in between classes on burning witches and oh, I don’t know, learning how to READ and WRITE!?

Luckily, this group’s choice for mayor didn’t come within spitting distance of winning the election. That honor went to George Peary, an man I’ve known to display capability and integrity in every position he’s taken. However, 4 out of the 5 council members and all of the school trustees in that voting guide were elected to office.

I find myself thinking about how California and several other states just passed measures banning gay marriage. The passage of Proposition 8 in California strikes me as a monstrous decision as I imagine it is to many Californians. Gay Marriage has become a more emotional issue for me recently. Over the past 8 months there have been many times when I’ve been sitting at home, watching TV with my wife and thinking “Yup, life is pretty close to perfect right now”. When I got married, I was able to celebrate my relationship with her in front of all my family, my friends and my community. It was, and still is, the best day of my life. If someone made a law that said that I couldn’t have that, that is was somehow wrong for us to be together, then I would break that law with a clear conscience and extreme fervor.

The Mormon Church spent over $40 million dollars to get that amendment passed, but it all had to start somewhere. Civic and school board elections may seem small in comparison to the break-neck races at the national level, but they are all vitally important to preserving our freedom. I shouldn’t have to tell you that even now people are literally dying for the right to elect their leaders and control their destinies. We will always have a section of society that believes order is achieved through fear, cruelty and dominance. Sometimes all it takes is one seat, one election for them to gain a foothold in the halls of power. So next time your local paper is full of candidates you have never heard of, take the time to learn about them, and for heaven’s sake, vote! Abbotsford Families United cannot claim a monopoly on all values. We all have values of one kind or another, and the only way we can honor those values is if express them in the leaders we elect.

In case you didn’t know it was the 21st century, America has just elected Barack Obama, the first African-American President. Personally, I think this turn of events benefits everyone, even Non-Americans like me. It isn’t going to matter exactly what kind of President he is, the fact that Obama got elected the way he did is enough to rewrite the playbook on political campaigns. A vivid and compelling vision of your city, province or country is a requirement for any run for office. Now that we have the internet, that vision can be as vivid and compelling as you want. You can have as much information out there as you want, and the candidate with the most information wins. This increases voter confidence and energizes your core base. Early statistics place US voter turnout at 70-80 percent. Forget that there is a black US president, that number is an even greater achievement!

However, since Canada’s relationship with the US still resembles that of a humpback whale and a cluster of barnacles, a change in regime should always be a concern. The US Ambassador warned the Fraser institute that Canada will miss Bush if Obama wins the election. I’m sure we will miss Bush just as much as that lovely 30% duty he decided to put on our softwood lumber exports.

Obama’s site says that he will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to change NAFTA in such a way that benefits America’s workers. The campaign promise is vague in a way that’s unsettling. Is he appealing to his democrat base, or is this a vision of things to come? Of course, there are also elements within Canada that believe we got the raw deal on NAFTA. Perhaps if all parties meet on the basis of a shared distrust of the agreement, some common ground can be found and a better NAFTA will result.

No matter what Obama’s actions as president we’ll be, it’s a sure bet that he will think of his own people first. We should ask nothing less of our own parliament. However, we should take solace in the fact that he got to where he is right now by listening to the people around him, rather than just hiding behind his talking points. Where his opponents demanded obedience, he demanded inventiveness and passion. If he invites Canada to join in his plans for the future, he will do it by trying to inspire that same inventiveness and passion. Even if he turns out to be an adversary to Canada’s interests, the only way we’ll do right by Canada is if we respond with a strong vision of Canada and our place in the world. Either way, we come out with the Canada we wish for.

Image provided by http://www.mackaycartoons.net/

After a month of salacious tv ads, accusations from all sides, and 300 million dollars we have achieved…absolutely nothing! Actually I think everyone got what they wanted in this election. The Conservatives have more seats, but still a minority which is what most of Canada wants anyway. I don’t think the Conservatives have themselves to congratulate for their 19 new seats. The Liberal party’s media presence, at least in the west, was next to nothing. I think many people voted for their Conservative MP candidate just so Harper would get out of that goofy sweater vest and stop attempting to smile. However, it’s more likely that the Liberals have done nothing to shake the image that they only care about Ontario and Quebec. Not only that, if you have a place like BC with bad memories of a provincial NDP government, we are left with no centrist alternative to vote for.

Now, I’m not saying that Canada is going through a new phase of Reaganomics, Thatcherism, or any other variation “Big government=Bad, No taxes=Good” philosophy. It’s just nice to know that we can pay for the kind of services we expect from the government without burdening future generations. We love the idea that we can get our medicine, military and employment insurance without running a deficit. The Conservatives bring this ideal to the table, but it doesn’t cover other issues that Canadians are concerned about, like the environment or poverty. The other parties were very passionate about these issues, but offered little information as to how their strategies would work without bankrupting the country.

The Liberals “Green Shift” plan that cost them so much seats could have been a blessing if they had simply published some data on how it would work. It could have created jobs and spurred innovation in many industry sectors, but we wouldn’t have known that because the other parties had control of the plan’s image. The average commercial webserver can send out the equivalent of the library of congress in a matter of hours. It shouldn’t be a stretch publish white papers, datasets, or bill drafts of any kind.. The Liberals chose to respond by repeating themselves rather than provide more detail, like they were guarding the plans for the atom bomb. The rumour mills provided by the NDP and Conservatives were able to build on that uncertainty until both parties had gained seats in the election.

I want to point out a recent article in the Boston Globe about the nature of rumours. Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology studied over 280 internet discussion groups to find out how rumours were born, spread, and killed. They found that rumours are based on a genuine attempt to find the truth. If you want to fight a rumour, first you cannot deny it if it’s true, and if it’s not true, make sure the truth is more vivid than the lie. The Democrats in the US are unwittingly putting these conclusions to the test in the forthcoming presidential election. Some Republican supporters have literally accused Barack Obama of being the Anti-christ. The website fightthesmears.com, along with the shear volume of information being published about the Democratic candidate are strategies dedicated to producing that more vivid truth. Forget the man’s stance on international trade. If he wins in two weeks, this will be a new chapter on how to use media to in politics. The internet has shrunk the costs of communication by exponential factors. No one will be interested in a repeated lie when the truth can be repeated just as easily. Candidates no longer be able to win elections based on hearsay and conjecture, but by communicating the most comprehensive vision of prosperity for all of their voters.

Voting in an election is probably one of the easiest decisions in politics. There is so much information on each candidate, so many polls, voting graphs and pie charts that there is no possible way anyone could vote in a modern election without the confidence of a zealot. If there’s a convincing case for the other guy, you can ignore it, like many voters do. Even the ballot has a limited number of boxes which are cleaner and more distinct than the messy business of lawmaking.

The true challenge of politics, in governing ourselves is the work that takes place in between those trips to the polls. We have to maintain the lines of communication with our elected officials at just about every level. Through research and information we keep those dialogues meaningful and effective. When all is said in done, wherever you are, whoever takes that oath of office, don’t let your politician rest in his or her Corinthian leather office chair. Fire off an e-mail, make a phone call, let the people in office know that you exist and have an opinion. Not because it’s your right, but because it’s your responsibility.

While the American public gets ready to head to the polls this November, the Conservative Government of Canada, not to be outdone by their neighbors to the south will follow suit in October. The election hasn’t even been called yet, and the Conservative party has already jumped the gun in creating these ads championing their glorious leader, Stephen Harper.

The ad is almost as cynical as it is stupid. You can’t even vote for Stephen Harper unless you live in his riding! It’s insulting to voters because it preys upon our supposed civic ignorance. The “testimonials” couldn’t have looked more staged if they all had Jar-Jar Binks pole-dancing in the background. To top it all off, Stephen Harper has a smile that curdles milk and gives nightmares to small children.

To add insult to injury, when this election goes forward this October, I will have to make a decision. It will either be the Liberals who won’t even look at you if you live outside of central Canada, the NDP and the Greens who have never formed a federal government, and the pack of losers responsible for that ad. For once I just want to see a campaign ad that talks about promises and plans for the future. As I said before, the governing parties of Canada seem to want nothing more than a majority in the house, and all designs for the country run secondary. I rather enjoyed having a minority government because no one party’s agenda could really get passed in the House of Commons. If either the Conservatives or the Liberals get a majority this time around, I have no idea what they have planned. I for one, am planning to vote this fall. I think it’s cowardly when people deign to complain about the government yet make no effort to do anything about it. Now if any potential politician wants to know what he or she can do to attract my vote, answer me this: What’s my country going to look like in 5 years?

During our Trip in Nelson I got a chance to see the Nikkei Memorial Internment Center in New Denver. Sara and I went there with her friend Wendy Tagami, whose parents had met near there during the war. Over 22,000 Japanese-Canadians were interned at New Denver. Wendy told us that many of the small houses on the outskirts of town were converted from the cabins that they had to live in. The center consisted of several of the wartime cabins surrounded by a wood fence and a Japanese-style stone garden.

The garden was so beautiful you could almost forget the circumstances by which people came here. At the time, Japan had already taken over Hong Kong and bombed Pearl Harbor. The government felt it couldn’t afford to offer Japan any other gains, so it went so far as to round up its own citizens with any racial connection with that country. Many of the Japanese-Canadians, in the very spirit of “stiff upper lip” calmly signed over all their possessions and reported to Hastings Park in Vancouver, where the PNE is now. From there they were sent off to the BC interior, far from any critical civil or military infrastructure.

Many of the first nights were spent in cast-off army tents. Soon, small cabins the size of most modern kitchens were built with walls so thin that the winter ice served as the only form of insulation. The internees did everything they could to keep life going on as normal as possible. At the memorial center you can see the photos of the dances, the baseball games and the Buddhist church that still stands today. When the war was over, the internees found that most of their possessions had been sold to pay for their internment. There would be no redress until 1988.

It’s easy to deride the decisions of the government at the time as racist and opportunistic. By our standards, they most certainly were. The repatriation and redress of the Japanese-Canadians was just and lawful. However, the policy of current governments apologizing for the mistakes of past governments unnerves me. It is a great way to garner cheap political capital without having to address the mistakes we have made recently and are still making now. We in the present love to inform the past, but how often does the past inform the present?

Have we truly done away with the mindset that caused us to unlawfully sell off millions of dollars of personal property to balance a budget?

Do we still favor solutions that are more convenient than effective?

Instead of trying to distance ourselves from history, we should be trying to find similarities with it. If you think about it, all people in history are just like us. They have a lot of bad past decisions weighing them down, ideals that are impractical, and an uncertain future that’s hurtling at them at the speed of time. At so many points in history you will see people who’ve learned from the mistakes of the past, lived up to the ideals and accepted a future that will outlive them. It shouldn’t be hard for us to be like those people. They often have a lot books written about them.

This week I’ll be in Nelson BC for a little R&R. I’ll try to keep the updates coming, but until then here’s a great essay on the responsibility of corporations to shareholders from Crooked Timber via BoingBoing.

Working in computers almost requiresyou to be paranoid for a living. We spend so much time trying to get at all kinds data that we know for a fact that someone out there is drooling at the prospect of being able to rifle through our iTunes folders. Whenever the idea of any large entity having access to our “data” whether it’s facebook, comcast, or the City of Seattle. We go on multi-minute tirades on the right to privacy and the dangers of identity theft all the while thumping a copy of “1984″ like some kind of nerd war drum.

It’s always interesting to me how we’re quick to discuss the cons of living in a post-privacy society while ignoring all of the pros. Not that I’d really want a post-privacy society. I’ve read my share of dystopian cyber-punk stories. While they were awesome, living in one would be a complete pain in the ass. The reason we should be discussing the pros of living in a world without privacy is that the advantages are what make such bad ideas reach into reality.

Take slavery, for example. It treats people like animals, sure, but free labor kept it going for so many years. Pollution is merely a side effect of accessing the energy necessary to make modern society possible. Speaking of post-privacy societies, Facism and Communism got their run because the effect they had on crime and class warfare.

The erosion of privacy in western society may be something different from the totalitarian governments of the past. Sure, anyone can see your information, but what if you could see everyone else’s? If your movements could be all tracked, they could become the perfect alibi if you are accused of a crime. If everyone just starts producing all this data, wouldn’t it hamper government efforts to spy on people by producing a lot of dummy data to sift through? You wouldn’t have to lock your doors or your car anymore, those things just won’t open or start for people who don’t have rightful access.

These advantages are what would make a “Big Brother” society possible in the 21st century. What sort of advantages can you think of?