Death Gets Back To Work

The next few days in Toronto will be an outpouring of grief and a celebration of a man who stood up for what he believed in, a rare thing in modern politics. Mr. Layton was the kind of man who gave people keys to his home so they could hold meetings whenever they wanted, and it was not unusual for Mr. Layton to come home to find twenty people sitting in his living room, many of whom he didn't know.

Whether you agree with Mr. Laytons' politics or not, surely some admiration is due simply for his well documented passion and commitment. I am grateful that a man of his character and stature was my representative in the riding of Toronto-Danforth, and like many, I was deeply saddened by his passing.

His cancer touched my life, but it was not the only cancer story that touched my life this week. A world away, in Ghana, I was privy to another cancer based Shakespearean drama.

About a month ago , Toufic, my friend from Larabanga sent me an email. I could hear the desperation in his words. His lovely young sister, who graciously made me a meal during my visit had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

And it was then presented to me: the stark reality that most of humanity lives in places where free clinics might provide basic medicine or help heal basic injuries or provide vaccines, but if you have a cancer and little money, you are in big trouble.

In my travel experience, I have found that the truly poor on this planet are not given to whining. They are given to surviving, and I am sure that Miss Kamera ignored the pain for has long as she possibly could, not wishing to be an economic burden to her family, she probably said nothing until the day the pain became fully incapacitating.

The email from Toufic, was frantic and clear, and I sent what I could, giving naive encouragement, as if Miss Kamera had the same access to a  sophisticated medical system that I do. I asked to keep in touch. He did.

 Toufic also got a grant from The Ghana Welfare Agency, and a Muslim organisation made a contribution and he had finally secured enough funds to begin treatment. My hope was that the worst case scenario would be a mastectomy, but it was not to be.

Toufic has already lost his mother and father, and now he has lost his only sibling at her ripe old age of twenty-eight.  I cannot help but think that her death is as equally attributable to poverty as it is to cancer. He was kind enough to send me an email, which I received, the day after Mr. Layton passed.

Same disease, same outcome, but a very different ceremony.

So for me, this somber weekend will be a dual ceremony, one involving the grief of a nation, and the other involving a lone young man staring at a grave in a far off place that I shall not see again.

Goodbye, Miss Kamera and Mr. Layton. This weekend I honour you both together and equally, and I suspect neither of you would have any objection.

http://goyestoeverything.com

Layton Legacy

As many Canadians from sea to sea to sea express their grief and condolences, it is important to reflect on the meaning of Jack Layton and his legacy.

Mr. Layton evolved as a politician, arriving at a point where he intrinsically understood that there is no "THEM", there is only us, and I commend him for it.

Make no mistake, I am not commenting about ideology, I am commenting about ethics. The level of political discourse in this country is following the American lead and becoming driven by ideology rather than pragmatism which is increasingly being reflected by our major media outlets and our politicians, and the acrimony that it foments infests our dinner tables, our coffee shops, and our corner bars.

We seem to be living in an age where the cheap marginalization of others is meekly accepted by a public keen to find  blame others for their own shortcomings, reducing our perceived enemies from our fellow human beings to objects, thereby removing their humanity and making it easier to be angry at "them" .

Mike Harris did it by attacking teachers and the poor, and he won.

Right wing "pundits" do it every day as they hammer away at "immigrants", propelling some myth that people who immigrate to this country take more than they give, and if you peel away at this polite onion you find an ugly centre of using government policy to promote hatred against people who are not like "US".

Stephen Harper uses the same tactic, when he refers to "The Sepratists", an attempt to dehumanize people who have a different view of federalism.

Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak is running on a platform of ridiculing the environmental agenda of the McGuinty government, saying "The premier wants to protect us from the plastic bag", while his real goal is to repeal environmental protection laws to make it easier for big polluters to rape the land.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford rode the same gravy train to victory, duping the stupid into thinking that all could be fixed by union busting with his bloated finger guiding the helm.

And on the left, we find the same intractable stupid greedheads running their various fifedoms. Union leaders who refuse to budge, unaware that their dug in heels will eventually be standing in line at an EI office. Politicians who care not about the constituency  they were elected to serve, but who prioritize their reelection above all reason, while blindly towing the party line.

Mr. Layton was a gentleman who grew to understand that the most important quality any politician could have was the ability to listen to the community, not the tribes. He was a man of the people, and we are all diminished by his passing.

My faint hope is that we remember Mr. Layton not for his ideology, but his inherent sense of community and his ability to bring people together.

His greatest legacy should be his unrelenting quest to find common ground, and we can best strive to remember him by making our own day to day conduct reflect that value.

Thank you, Mr. Layton, you embodied the very essence of the term "public service", and I am going to miss you deeply.

http://www.goyestoeverything.com

Muslim Country? Muslim People? Seriously?

I'll admit that when one travels to any locale and has a positive experience, one tends to adopt an attitude of support, and I am no exception. So I'm just going to make a statement based on my travels, mostly because I see a rising tide of anti-immigration sentiment in this country ,that , frankly, scares me to death

Each and every person I met in Ghana treated me  with the utmost kindness, hospitality and respect. The country is mostly comprised of Christians, but there is a significant Muslim population in the north, but that didn't matter, the level of welcome was equally gracious throughout.

Next up, I went to the Buddhism countries, and ya know what? It turns out that I'm starting to suspect that the planet might be filled with very kind people. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam. Nice, Nice,Nice

Surely, it can't be possible that most people are decent?

The news tells us to be afraid and angry.

But I refuse to buy that, given that I have glimpsed Africa and Asia., and all I found there were people who had far more difficult lives filled with far more joy and happiness.

So I went to the heart of the hatred. Syria. You know , one of those countries where all those bastards live, where each and every citizen is working diligently around the clock to specifically destroy your existence.

But what I found in all of these places was something quite different.

What I found was a level of grace, dignity, respect, and welcome that most Canadians should aspire to.

Sadly, we don't.

http://goyestoeverything.com

Losing Face

Losing face is an Asian concept that is widely misunderstood in The West. Most western societies construe it with being shamed by others, but the concept is much more literal.

"Losing face" quite literally means that your face is no longer smiling and pure and pleasant, but that your expression has become angry, causing your demeanor to change, your brow to furrow, and your eyes to narrow. Some people live their whole lives in this state, and in old age this expression of constant anger verified by the years becomes as indelible as a tattoo.

Conversely, I have seen many elderly people whose faces exude the beauty of a life lived in peace, committed to the promotion of harmony, the kind of people who savoured the moments.

But some other people have chosen a different path, whereby they seek out anger at every turn, are constantly annoyed by others and the entire universe exists solely to annoy them. As time goes by these faces filled with rage become a reality, a legacy of a society so utterly spoiled that it fails to comprehend the inconsequence of its own grief and its belligerent response to our collective sense of entitlement.

And as for that furrowed brow, I'm sure a plastic surgeon can fix it.

As for the anger that led to that condition, there ain't a surgeon in the world.

And if you are reading this, I know you have a beautiful face.

Strive to keep it.



http://www.goyestoeverything.com

Thank You, Rogers Cable

From a "wired" perspective it has been an interesting few weeks, but I am coming to the conclusion that the gods are trying to tell me something.

One day my laptop fails, the next day a wireless device goes down. As soon as my laptop is repaired and I am back online, my neighbour convinces a representative of Rogers Cable to cut off my service because the wiring for my entire building is wired to a hub on an adjoining property.

What transpired from that point can only be described as a failure of epic proportions by what Rogers has the audacity to call customer service. I won't bore you with the details, but through this outlandish ordeal, I began to question whether or not I needed to have a T.V. that I wasn't paying attention to droning on in the background constantly.

As for internet access at home, that too became an expendable notion. I began to realise that the quality of my existence would probably be enhanced without constant access to these services.

Make no mistake, I am not repudiating the internet, nor am I suggesting the internet is superfluous. During my little "blackout" I came to the conclusion that I have two portable devices that can access the internet on the go, and that given that I live in an urban environment, WiFi is ubiquitous.

My employer, my local, and my favourite eatery all offer free internet access  and I can get a few TV channels via antennae.

However, the fact that it took Rogers Cable cutting my feed to make me realise that I could exist without giving Rogers Cable $130 per month is delicious.

Ironyman strikes again!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some books to read and some phone messages from Rogers to ignore.

http://goyestoeverything.com

Dear Rogers Cable,

I wish to cancel my account. While I enjoy paying ever more money for increasingly banal content, I am even more impressed that some of the content that I used to get for the $128 I have faithfully given you each month for over a decade has been moved to yet another new channel, none other than a channel owned by yourselves.

But that is just greed, and I can understand greed and your appalling and naked greed alone is not enough  to get me off my ass to cancel your service.However, when predatorial greed is combined with breathtaking incompetence and appalling apathy sandwhiched between concentric circles of outright bullshit it gives me pause to consider whether it is wise for me to do business with an organisation that embodies a depth of contempt for its clients that dwells as deep as your own.

I submit to this kangaroo court the following.

To wit, Rogers Cable corporation has treated this loyal customer in an incompetent and egregious manner.

On Friday, July 29th,2011 I awoke to find myself without cable

On Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 a gentleman came to repair the cable. At that time another gentleman emerged from the apartment building next door. He is a representative of the owner of said building.. I am a tenant in the next building.

To my utter shock, he tells me that he had my legal and fully paid connection arbitrarily cut by one of your representatives because my television and internet is connected to a hub on his property, which it is.

I repeat to the court A representative of Rogers Cable came and cut my account with full intent to do so.


Now, I'm just a simple bartender who don't know much about your legalities and stuff, all I know is that I pay my bill and I expect service, and I don't give a rats ass about where Rogers chooses to locate its infrastructure.

After much drama between the neighbour and myself, the cable was reconnected, with a one week deadline to move the hub, or be disconnected again.

So I called Rogers and we booked an appointment for August 6th forgetting that the street would be closed due to The Taste Of The Danforth. Now I'll freely admit to being an idiot and forgetting the date, but it is a tad frightening to realise that the people who book service calls at Rogers are as stupid as I am.

So we rescheduled, and I had an opportunity to speak frankly with a dispatcher who had the unfortunate ability to making me believe he really, really cared. I explained the scope of the problem, the concept of property rights, and the fact that I don't own either of these properties, anymore than I own The Rogers equipment installed on the building next to me and that I do have a landlord next door that is maliciously using your minions to destroy your equipment.

I was reassured that a top level person who could take action would be dispatched to help me avoid playing a starring role in a b level version of Pacific Heights. The dispatcher sounded so committed that I half expected James Bond in a tuxedo to be lowered by chopper into the courtyard.

But it was not to be. It was just another failed ESL student who had the temerity to answer a cell phone call in the middle of our "exchange" (excuse me, I don't understand) while reaffirming Rogers commitment to doing nothing

In summation, I must give some credit to your employee who wrongly cut my cable. Clearly, he is the only person on the payroll who is willing to take any action, and I'm sure that he will be fastracked to the VP level any day now.

And to the good folks who call the shots at Rogers, if you have a moment to spare, why don't you go fuck yourselves? Surely it will be cheaper than providing customer service.

The Plaintiff rests.

http://www.goyestoeverything.com